Oh, Manny
Things are finally beginning to shape out. After Raul Ibanez signed a somewhat ludicrous contract well before the glut of corner outfielders felt the constraints of the current economy, first hand, some of these cards have been drawn. Bobby Abreu signed for 1-yr/$5 mil with the Angels. Adam Dunn signed for 2-yr/$20 mil with the Nationals. Compared to the 3-yr/$31.5 mil contract handed to Ibanez, and, in a vacuum, the former two signings are relative steals.
As Dave pointed out yesterday, however, both create issues for their respective teams and lineups. One aspect of their signings not yet touched on is what it means for the remaining corner outfielders on the market, primarily Manny Ramirez. Manny has already turned down deals worth 2-yr/$45 mil and 1-yr/$25 mil, both offered from the Dodgers, who seem to be his only suitor.
The Giants reportedly had interest in the services of ManRam, but their 4-yr/$100 mil rumored deal proved fictitious or exaggerated at best. And the Giants may spend a good portion of what they have left on Joe Crede. The Mets are out. The Angels, another potential suitor, filled a void that probably didn’t exist by signing Abreu. The Nats, who had plenty to spend, inked Dunn. Realistically, Manny has one team really interested in what he brings to the table, a team that has to date offered him two contracts defying what we have generally seen in the market, in Manny’s favor.
For a while, plenty of analysts suggested that Manny would dictate what happened to Dunn, Abreu, Griffey and Garret. Realistically, the deals inked by both Abreu and Dunn not only lower the bar even further for Griffey and Garret, but hurt Manny’s leverage. With potentially interested teams filling needs elsewhere, Ramirez will have to sign with the Dodgers if he wants to play baseball next year, unless some other team swoops in out of nowhere and snatches him up.
Either way, this has certainly been the craziest free agent market I can remember in my years of baseball fandom. We have a player seeking an extremely lucrative deal in a depressed market from a team that has no competition for his services. Then again, Scott Boras, the best agent of all time, represents Manny, so don’t be surprised if he actually does coax the Dodgers for a surplus of funds.
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I must say I’ve been relishing this situation quite a bit. Partially because of all the crap Manny has pulled, but mostly because Boras is a douche.
Either that, or the opposite.
It has been a very interesting offseason. Not only has the economy played tricks on teams, but teams have clearly played tricks on players, pretending that their value is much lower than it is due to the economy and ending up underpaying them. I mean, Bobby Abreu may not be worth as much in a bad economy, but the recession is maybe something like a 2% decrease in average income or so, right? Not 50% or whatever teams are paying them. It’s a bad recession, but let’s not pretend it’s a depression and there’s no reason baseball salaries should decrease 25x as much as the average salary. Marginal revenue for win for baseball teams is still probably worth $4-5MM and Bobby Abreu is not a win one player and Adam Dunn is not a two win player. These guys were underpaid. Some of it is excess supply at a position where many teams do not have openings– after all, you do not see pitchers being underpaid, which is not a coincidence, as you can’t really ever have an excess of pitchers since everyone has an opening for a good starter.
I actually disagree with the common belief that Scott Boras is a good agent. I think he is an agent for himself. He’s very tough in negotiations. Sometimes this leads him to come out ahead, squeezing every last dollar from a team, and sometimes it leads him to come out behind after the market has pretty much cleared, and a guy like Kyle Lohse ends up with a 1-year $4MM contract with St. Louis instead of a deal that he could have gotten had Boras not tried to play hardball. If you play hardball the way that Boras does, you’ll probably come out ahead more than half of the time, making it worthwhile for him. But for his players, I don’t think they necessarily realize the chance he takes with their salaries and they might not find it worthwhile to take that risk if they understood it. Take J.D. Drew for example. J.D. Drew was drafted by the Phillies, major league ready, but Boras and Drew refused to sign with the Phillies, leading him to be drafted by the Cardinals the following year. He only got a million or so more than he would have as a Phillie, but his service clock started ticking one year later and he undoubtedly would have made more than a million extra had he been on the free agent market during his 6th year of service time instead of still not a free agent. That hardball negotiating landed Boras a lot of clients and forced a lot of money out of team’s pockets come draft time in subsequent years. It doesn’t really count as being an agent for Drew though– it’s being an agent for himself. Boras may find it worthwhile to suffer a loss in the present to make a killing in the future, but for the player who suffers that loss with him, it’s not worthwhile. And that’s not really being an agent, by the definition of the word.
I don’t think Boras is wrong to ask teams to pay the players the dollar value of the revenue they generate. I think he’s wrong to not act in the best interest of the individual player in each negotiation he takes part in.
Very nice LA Dodgers information. I hope to be in LA for a game this summer.