Nick Evans cleared waivers and accepted his assignment

After being removed from the 40-man roster last Friday, Nick Evans has cleared waivers and accepted his outright assignment to Buffalo. Evans has the right to become a free agent at the end of the season if he is not back on the 40-man roster, although he would have been eligible for that anyway due to minor league service time (Rule 55).

Evans' decision to accept the assignment makes sense on a number of levels. He knows the Mets' system well, and is at least familiar, if not comfortable, with things in Buffalo. He knows that Scott Hairston is a free agent at the end of the season, so there is a potential opening he could fill on the Major League bench next spring. And, perhaps most importantly, he knows that he makes significantly more money playing in AAA for the Mets than he would elsewhere.

If Evans had refused this outright assignment and sought employment in another system, he would have been looking at a minor league minimum salary of around $67,000. Perhaps he could have done a little better, perhaps not. But with the Mets, he will make quite a bit more, with a minimum in the neighborhood of $110,000-$115,000 in the minors. Article VI (D) of the current CBA stipulates that a player under reserve to the club cannot be paid a minimum minor league salary below 60% of his total compensation from the prior year. Going back to the first time his contract was renewed, prior to the 2009 season, his minor league minimum salary would have been roughly $130,000, give or take. Prior to 2010 the minimum would have been slightly higher, closer to $135,000 (assuming he had been paid the minimum in the prior year). And then this year, it would have been in that $110,000-$115,000 range, again assuming that all along the Mets had offered him the minimum contract at both the Major and minor league levels.

All of that aside, though, his bat should at least help out a Bisons team that has won just just 3 of their past 14 games.