December 2008 - Posts
The New Year approaches and I can't help but think that Randy Johnson has been the best free agent signing of this winter.
How can a 45-year-old pitcher earn that distinction?
Johnson signed a one-year, $8 million deal with the Giants. His fastball remains in the low-90-mph range and he pitched well in the quality categories over the second half of 2008, both indicators that he still has productive innings to offer.
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The Yankees' pre-Christmas strike to land Mark Teixeira impacts teams, players (especially someone named Manny) and fans. Let’s take a look:
THE FANS: If you are a fan of the Yankees how can you be upset with the trio of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira wearing pinstripes? Wednesday’s New York Times outlined the ticket prices for the new Yankee Stadium. The cheapest seat in the second deck is $40. That’s the left-field foul pole against Kansas City on a Monday night in May at $40 per ticket.
How do the Yankees make sure those seats stay filled? How do the Yankees make sure telecasts of their games on the regional sports network they own deliver strong ratings which lead to top-dollar ad buys despite the serious downturn economically? The answer: provide value.
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Reading newspapers (I know that’s near foreign to the 25-and-under demo, my son, 22, declared upon seeing me with the Sunday sports section and Cheerios, “Still reading the paper, huh?”) these days is fascinating.
This morning, I spent most of a 90-minute flight devouring stories about our economic plight, the criminal behavior of a wealthy New York investor, the plight of unemployed families in Florida dancing around creditors and foreclosures, the accountability of the auto industry demanded by the President-elect and the concern that taxpayer money is being used by troubled banks to pay year-end bonuses.
Yeah, real uplifting stuff.
Then, I unfolded the sports section and couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity that is baseball free agency in this offseason. It’s a big money, high-stakes farce. And the tour de farce is engineered by agent Scott Boras, trying to justify his positioning of Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez amidst a less-than-robust market.
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Amidst this winter's pursuit of free agents, which remains active for the elite players on the open market and dormant for the delusional ones, baseball has a grim story unfolding in San Diego.
The Padres are for sale after 14 years of solid growth under John Moores. This is the franchise that has long been described as bordered by an ocean to the west, Mexico to the south and the Dodgers to the north. That's sports business shorthand for "Good luck making this work."
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Both New York teams have received the top gift on their holiday wish list: CC Sabathia to the Yankees and Francisco Rodriguez to the Mets. And both teams came away from the winter meetings with another item on their offseason wish list crossed off, shopped for and secured, as into the Yankees’ fold came A.J. Burnett and into the Mets’ fold fell J.J. Putz.
Yet as of today neither team is a division favorite. What the Yankees and Mets do from here until the start of the season to address their other needs will determine whether they leap their foes and capture their respective divisions.
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What the blogosphere allows us to do is freely speculate and predict (all in the form of educated guesses and with full knowledge that we are wrong far more often than we are right). Without a personal knowledge of Mark Teixeira but with some insight into the involved parties pursuing him in free agency, here is my ranking of chances of the team’s involved at signing Teixeira.
RED SOX: Reports are they have made an eight-year offer, matching those offers put forth by the Nationals and Angels. Interesting take in the Boston Herald on the Red Sox studies of player productivity -- they have signed no position player beyond age 36, the age Teixeira would reach in the eighth year of these deals. Teixeira’s agent Scott Boras has talked 10 years but can he budge the Red Sox off of eight years?
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Unfinished business after the winter meetings:
THE MANNY RAMIREZ SHOW. With CC Sabathia having said yes to the Yankees, Ramirez is now the premier unsigned free agent, yet the market for his services bears no resemblance to that experienced by Sabathia.
That being the case, Ramirez’s agent, Scott Boras, is starting to sound a bit desperate, telling Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti the five-year deal Barry Bonds signed with the Giants in the winter of 2002 is a template for a Ramirez-Dodgers deal. Colletti was the Giants assistant general manager at the time of that Bonds deal. He knows that contract was about a player and a team who needed each other. But he also knows that deal was about Boras saving face after the Giants extended a four-year offer into a five-year deal (what Boras was seeking) but they did so with a club option to void the fifth year if Bonds failed to meet certain performance standards. And Colletti told the Los Angeles Times that while the Dodgers want Ramirez back and are willing to pay him big bucks they are not willing to commit to four or five years.
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The answers from the winter meetings are coming -- faster than we imagined.
DANCING WITH THE STAR…The New York Post reports today that CC Sabathia and the Yankees have a preliminary agreement on a seven-year, $160 million deal. And, for a day, it looked like Sabathia wanted to prolong his dance. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman admitted that Sabathia "controlled the pace."
Sabathia reportedly told Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti that he "wanted to be a Dodger." Today’s San Francisco Chronicle was agog over one conversation between Sabathia's agent and a Giants’ staffer. But buried in the same report was the nugget that Cashman flew to the Bay Area yesterday for a third consecutive day of meetings with Sabathia, this time at the pitcher's home and with his wife present. And by the time that meeting was over, Sabathia had made his decision to go with the Yankees.
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Baseball’s winter meetings are underway in Las Vegas so perhaps this week will bring at least some answers to the hot stove questions below:
1. IS THERE A MARKET FOR MANNY RAMIREZ? Can his agent Scott Boras generate/create any demand that surpasses the Dodgers’ initial and since withdrawn offer?
Ramirez rejected the Dodgers offer to go to arbitration. Boras maintained in comments printed in Sunday’s New York Times that the economic downturn doesn’t yet affect baseball. Boras says the “hay is already in the barn,” referencing MLB’s long-term broadcast and sponsorship deals. I guess Boras hasn’t spoken to a team president who told me three weeks ago that “General Motors is done with sports.”
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The first dominoes are falling in this winter’s free agent market and they are shortstops. If not careful, Rafael Furcal’s agents may be left without a chair when the music stops.
No signs are apparent that the economic malaise has reached the minds of baseball agents. Witness Furcal whose balky back limited him to 36 games last season yet his agent, pointing to Furcal’s prior durability, wants a four-year deal.
Agents are supposed to ask for all they can but every player should hope his hired hand also operates with sense. The agents saw a market that seemed to have a small supply and large demand for shortstops and leadoff hitters. But Arn Tellem and the Wasserman Group, which represents Furcal, should have noticed some interesting developments concerning shortstops over the last 24 hours.
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White Sox general manager Ken Williams is fearless. That’s a good trait for a GM if his owner is supportive and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is known within the sports world for his unending loyalty. Remember that Williams took on Frank Thomas – in the process defending Reinsdorf -- when the longtime White Sox player had an acrimonious split with the franchise.
Williams appears to hold no grudges. He made a trade with Billy Beane last winter, something that may have caught those who read the book “Moneyball” by surprise. But Williams and Beane seem to share a willingness to improve their teams by whatever means necessary. Is it because they are the rare GMs who once played in the big leagues?
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It's the first of December and the free agent dam has yet to break. Neither CC Sabathia nor Manny Ramirez, the lead cars in the race for big bucks, has signed and everyone else in the derby for dollars seems to be waiting for the two big dogs to cut their deals and set the market.
Of course, the economy worsens daily, bankers tell MLB owners to be wary and how much longer before some frustrated agent screams collusion?
The McCourts, who own the Dodgers, likely had self-interest at heart but they had a point in their comments last week when they wondered out loud how the team’s fans would accept a mega deal given a player in this economic climate. Now no fan will empathize with an owner -- that's against the American DNA -- but will they embrace the player who gets the loot? I have never wondered about that until now when so much of America is wary, uncertain and concerned.
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