|
|
|
Last Friday, former-Braves GM and current team president John 
Schuerholz appeared as a guest on Colin Cowherd’s ESPN radio show.
Schuerholz, on super-agent Scott Boras, and his suggestion that Alex Rodriguez could be worth $30 million per season, while speaking to Cowherd…
“I think it’s obnoxious…for someone to suggest that this is a valid salary level for a professional athlete, no matter what kind of voodoo economics they can do in analyzing the books of MLB, it’s absolutely asinine…
“When he presented us with that kind of offer with Andruw Jones, we found it so ridiculous and obnoxious we didn’t even respond. It didn’t even rise to the level of requiring a response. It’s just idiotic.”
…well, i guess it’s safe to say that a-rod will not be playing for the Braves any time soon…
For other highlights in written form, check out Neil Best’s outstanding blog for Newsday.
Meanwhile, at his blog for the Daily News, Adam Rubin provides a very, very candid, 250–word quote by former-Mets GM and current ESPN personality Steve Phillips on how ‘negotiations’ with Rodriguez went handled with the Mets seven years ago under his watch.
Phillips tells Rubin of Boras’s demands back in 2000 for Rodriguez, which included, among other things, opt outs after three, five and seven years and meetings with ownership to discuss scouting reports of the team’s minor-league talent.
Phillips, among other interesting comments, as quoted by Rubin…
“He gave me this book they had put together for everybody. He went through his rundown…He said, ‘All these things have to be part of the deal or there’s not a deal.’…I just wrote everything down and digested it all and told ownership about it…they said, ‘Okay, just tell them were out.’ We told him we were out…It wasn’t any sort of a setup that the Mets had interest in before…I will say this, and I think Fred Wilpon has said this: There’s no way the Mets would pay $25 million a year at the time…The dollars were never negotiated. It’s structure was beyond what was appropriate at the time.”
…you have to go to adam’s blog and read the full quote…it’s amazing what boras had been asking for…the thing is, in hindsight, it appears he didn’t get half of what he was looking for…the thing is, even the half that he did get would probably have still been unacceptable to the Mets, which can only make me think he is unacceptable to the Mets today, as well…
 |
 |
 |
RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
As much as it pains me to say it, Bravo, John Schuerholz!
Scott Boras is a disgusting human being.
Ditto. I hope every GM has the same reaction. Stop the insanity!
Not really. A-Rod would’ve been very valuable to the Braves. And he would’ve make them more than 30million a year, easy. I’m glad he feels this way, because he’s worth it economically, and he’s worth it on the field, as he’s the best player on the field. It doesn’t matter how much you pay him, because he’ll earn it back for you, and he’s the best option. Just because you pay the next best guy half the money, doesn’t mean it’s going to help you win as much. And winning equates to even more money.
I disagree.
Most teams could never just add $30mil/year to their budget, whether it was a longterm moneymaker or not. Contrary to the Book of Boras, signing ARod isn’t a neverending list of positives. There is an Opportunity Cost, as well. If they sign him, that money is now unavailable to be spent on the rest of the team. So you have ARod, but you lose the opportunity to add/retain the other key pieces to the puzzle. That’s exactly what happened in Texas.
How many World Series Titles did you say A Rod had????
LOL, A-Rod has zero rings. He’s never even played in a world series. That’s how valuable he is to his teams!
This idea that A-Rod rakes in the money for owners is bunk. The Yankees were making bucketloads of money before A-Rod was a Yankee. And they were drawing droves of fans and winning too before he came aboard.
In Texas, attendance never rose when A-Rod was a Ranger.
If Boras is a disgusting human being, then what do you think of the “small market” baseball owners who intentionally keep their payroll down so that they can maximize profits and receive extraordinary handouts from revenue sharing at the end of the year?
Boras asks for, and gets, big dollars because the owners have big dollars to spend. He gets the owners to part with their profits. It’s part of the process of capitalism. That makes him disgusting?
yes
no
yes
“then what do you think of the ’small market’ baseball owners?”
they’re disgusting human beings too. :-)
“It’s part of the process of capitalism.”
That doesn’t make it right.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Answer this: Has Scott Boras made MLB better or worse?
Answer this: Has Scott Boras made MLB better or worse?
Is it his role to do either? His job is to extract the best situation possible for his client. And in most cases, the best situation = as much money as possible.
But to answer your question, I don’t know that he’s made baseball better or worse. He’s certainly had a more positive impact than, say, Bud Selig.
yes. captilalism is 40% good.
the other 60% is deforestation and melting ice caps.
global warming is A-Rod’s fault.
My memory, faded as it is, remembers a few short years back when Boras wanted 5 & 50 for Millwood. No one bit, and he was forced to play for a one year contract.
It may be time to call Boras bluff and not give Rodriguez more than 6 years. I know it sounds like collusion, but someone has to say no.
It would be funny if he was offered less per year than he gave up bu opting out. Probably won’t happen, buy it would be funny.
There’s no way it would happen. What’s amazing is that right now, Alex Rodriguez is probably as valuable as any player has been in the free agency era during their free agency. Now that there are specific numbers that can be put around a home run chase, Boras can even quantify out what that would be when Rodriguez gets to that level.
Pretty crazy, but maybe the Mets pull off the Yankee cycle and sign:
ARod- have him play first, like his idol, Mex
Posada- give Alou someone to high five
Rivera- Enter Sandman comes on, are they going lefty or righty
Pettite- ok, maybe not Pettite
as ridiculous as the demands will be it only takes one stupid owner and im sure boras will find him and take advantage. pass on posada and pettite but ill take arod and rivera.
haha I like the Enter Sandman lefty/righty idea. Tony LaRussa would be crapping his pants wondering who to pinch hit
Collusion should be perfectly acceptable in MLB as they are exempt from anti-trust laws.
yes but not according to the general operating agreement between the league and the union. the league gets whacked pretty hard when they get caught.
meh - you gotta figure there are maybe 10 teams with the financial means to go after A-Rod. I don’t think it would be too hard for the owners or GMs of those teams to meet discretely and have a talk.
In fact, they don’t even have to meet. They could just state their opinions out loud as Cashman and now Schuerholz have done. It would be nice if something similar came from Omar and Theo as well.
thats what the plan would be in theory, but it only takes one person saying one thing and then doing another to ruin it. its like OPEC, they all say they are going to stick to quotas but every single one of those countries not at capacity is selling oil on the black market.
any effective form of colluding would probably be too obvious not to get caught. best thing to do is let the market correct itself, ie watch as stupid contracts like zito’s blow up in stupid owner’s and GM’s faces. boras’ reputation has already done damage to his negotiating leverage, as seen by the statements of phillips, schuerholz etc.
Ask Kirk Gibson and Dave Kingman about collusion.
I’m sure some economics guy will point out the flaws of this argument (and Im sure there are laws in place to prevent it from happening), but shouldn’t a free market allow for both inflation and deflation? What I mean is, over the past 15 years, salaries in baseball have skyrocketed out of control, and at the same time ticket prices, concession prices, etc., have also skyrocketed. Now, obviously, there are people (we, the fans) willing to pay these high ticket prices, therefore the owners are willing to pay the high salary prices, which is why this will never happen, but why wouldn’t it be ok for the owners to get together and say “hey, this is getting out of control. Why don’t we all agree to scale back the salaries of the players, and in addition either stop raising prices at the parks” (or if they’re feeling really generous, even lower prices). If the ballplayers don’t want to play for less than $15 mil a season, well, they can go find other employment, and the owners I’m sure won’t have much problem finding someone to play for less money than that.
I know the Players Union is ridiculously powerful, but what never gets talked about is that the players need the league just as much as the league needs the players. Most of these Major Leaguers never went to college, and a lot of those that did probably knew their future lied in baseball, and therefore weren’t exactly Dean’s List type students. I’m sure, if push came to shove, they’d be willing to play baseball for merely $5 million a year instead of $10 mil.
The players these days, when they’re any good, get signing bonuses right out of the minors, and if they are at all careful about how they spend their money, they have more than enough leverage, should they ever want to strike.
There is simply nothing that can replace the brand value of the players and both the union and management knows it. So long as there is money to be made in baseball, the players will get paid what they are perceived to be worth.
The pendulum should swing the other way with the ludicrous Zito signing and the success of smaller salary teams like the Rockies, D-Backs, and Indians and the failure of the Mariners, Yankees, and Mets. The fact is that when opportunity cost is taken into account, star players are not worth what they have been getting lately.
I believe there was a deflation, for a year or so. I distinctly remember Richard Hidalgo getting an insane, $13M per year deal from the Astros — around the same time of Mike Hampton’s dumb deal with Colorado — and then the owners seeing their stupidity for a little while.
But the winter of 2006/2007, which showed us the dollars given to Gil Meche, Jason Marquis, Chad Bradford, Zito, Suppan has really thrown things off kilter. Kind of like real estate about two years ago.
He’s the enemy, and a cause for much of my pain over the last 15 years. But you know what?…..good for Schuerholz.. I seriously appreciate his comments and the hard line he just drew.
So many of these GMs line up to kiss the ring of Boras, thinking they may be able to edge out a deal and eventually come out on top in negotiations. They’re kidding themselves…and Minaya is not innocent, either. What happens is that they all line up and raise the bid, and the winning bid ends up bending over and overpaying. This causes a saturation of over-payed players in the league. Those costs eventually trickle down to the fan who pays 250 bones to take his 3 kids to the ballgame.
If more larger-market GM’s took this stance, it would make a much more financially efficient market for talent.
He always kep his pitching strong, while his position players played their part. Not a bad strategy.
I think he ends up in Anaheim. Bonds too.
Bonds, Vlad, ARod batting 2-3-4. That would be sick.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in STL. No one is even considering this as an option. Where, in fact, STL is likely the most ideal place for this putz.
For one…STL, in all it’s cowtown insecurity, does indeed have piles of money to spend. They like to play the ‘poor us’ role of a small market team, but they really aren’t. Their new ballpark sells out every night, they have an outrageous amount of local corporate support, and the once run-down area surrounding the ballpark is now newly developed with high priced condos and shops/restaurants. So there is alot of investment going on. When considering the outrageous lengths that city went through to lure the Rams from LA (won’t get into the details, but let’s just say Tagliabu had to revamp the NFL re-location guidelines based on how mind-boggling one-sided that deal was), I can see how that team, the fans, and the local media would roll out the red carpet for AROD and be completely over-the-top about it. It’s in their nature.
Second…AROD gets to play SS.
Third….AROD gets constant coddling from blind adoring fans 24/7.
Four…AROD is protected by Pujols or vice versa. That is Gehrig/Ruth-esque.
Five…he will hit 50 HR’s per year in that band-box and break Bond’s record within his contract term. As an extra incentive to STL…What else can help downplay the McGwire disgrace?
Sixth.. There’s 5 very good strip clubs just right across the river in Illinois.
STL is perfect for AROD. He can live out the prime of his career in a virtual heaven for ego-sensitive ball players who need unconditioinal love from an adoring fan-base. The team has the money and the need for his services. He’ll get the key to the city, which Boras will likley have as a contract condition. Make that a gold-plated key.
Your 6th point makes ME want to live in St. Loo… ;)
But seriously, this is overall a really good point you make.
Danny - I think you remember that I live in St Louis, as I know you have. All your points are valid, until you remember that the STL owners do not spend money. They won the world series last year and their biggest offseason move was Adam Kennedy. They didn’t resign Marquis, Weaver, or Suppan. Their biggest free agent signing (no tier 1s since izzy) over the last five years or so is Encarnacion. Their is NO way ARod is a Cardinal.
Also, their lineup, although not the 27 Yankees, wasn’t / isn’t the problem. The fact that their rotation is Wainwright, Looper, Piniero, one-armed Mulder, and a bag of poop is the problem. If I were the Cardinals, any money I spend is on the pitching, not hitting. Need I remind anyone why the Mets collapsed?
STL also needs a CF more (with Duncan and ankiel murdering the corner spots) so I bet any money on offense goes to guys named Cameron or Hunter.
I am not disagreeing with the LOGIC you present, but I’m merely saying that a) the Cards don’ t use logic and b) the Cards have one good pitcher.