two-twenty

boring baseball post, sorry | alex

The NY Times leads today's Sports section with a quote from Sox owner Larry Lucchino calling the A-Rod deal "dead". The Boston Globe decides to temper a similar headline with "shortstop and his agent remain hopeful of a deal". I guess it's all a matter of perspective. I personally think that the deal will still happen, if only because so much bad blood has been spilled and so many wounds left gaping. The latest "deal is dead" pronouncements could just be an attempt by the Sox to shift the appearance of 'needing the deal' away from them and towards Texas. As with so many things, if it works I think it is a good ploy.

Right now though, the whole story is about cash money and greed. A-Rod was too greedy three years ago and is now saddled with a contract that prevents him from leaving a team he is not happy with. The players union is too greedy in enforcing their change-in-contract rules, and do not want to set a precedent whereby owners might seek to reduce player's contracts to current market levels during any trade. By which I mean that although the union is right in principle, in practice A-Rod has so much to gain by moving to Boston that the argument is not true in his case. Nomar may look good, but let us not forget that he and his agent have been whining about getting no respect when in fact none of this would be happening if Nomar had agreed to the 4-year $60M contract he was offered last year. Why didn't he take it? He wanted to wait and see if the market would improve.

Oddly, the only player who is smelling rosy right now is the often controversial Manny Ramirez. I would guess that this is the case only because his agent has told him to keep his trap shut until things settle down. Good advice.

Rodriguez Negotiation "Is Dead" Red Sox Say | NY Times
Trade embargo | Boston.com
Player not an innocent victim | Boston.com