Without fail, every offseason, we find ourselves dumbfounded by the apparent lack of foresight and understanding shown by the majority of general managers in our major sports. There are always exceptions, but we're so delusionally sure we could do a better job, we're almost tempted to go ahead and declare our candidacy for any open general manager position but that's already been done and, though we want to be him, we can't do copy everything the Sports Guy does. Instead, we'll continue to hide behind our keyboard and dramatically denounce any ridiculous deal that might be made.
Thus far, this baseball offseason has been a bit of a mixed bag. Some deals like the one for V-Mart are good but others, as you'll see below, leaving us wondering: Why do continue to they do this?
If we're going to ask rhetorical questions to ourselves, we might as well try to answer them.
1. Because They Had To.
Derek Jeter, New York Yankees, 3 years, $51m (player option for 4th year,$56-68 million total max value with incentives based award voting point system);
We have our winner for 2010 Non-Surprise of the Year: The Yankees overpaid someone. But, did they really have a choice? Were they going to let their most popular player since Mattingly walk because the Yankees, a team that has a patent pending before the USPTO for overspending techniques, suddenly decided it was time to be fiscally responsible? No, they weren't. The only issue was by how much he would be overpaid. After a career-worst offensive display in 2010, he would probably have been worth somewhere between $9-$10m n the open market (a drastic pay cut from his $21m salary from last season) but the Yanks were never going to get him for that much, they had to pay the premium on his iconic status, his 3,000th hit and pride. So, with all those factors and after some sniping in which they insisted Jeter take a dose of reality potion (sold exclusively at Caldor), getting him int he fold for $17m and, more importantly, only 3 years, seems like a bargain.
Still, despite the necessity of the move and baring a dramatic bounce back season in 2011 (we think he’ll settle in somewhere between his 2009 and 2010 numbers), the Yanks will once again be paying premium dollars to a guy who doesn't produce at that level. And, once again, it won't matter one damn bit. Guess it's all relative when you're the Yanks.
You can add Mariano Rivera’s deal – 2 years, $30m – to this category as well. Only difference is that they didn't overpay.
2. Because It's the Right Move.
Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox for 3 Guys We Read Could be Good Someday.
By embracing the new paradigm of baseball, hoarding pitching, early, the Sox positioned themselves as the team that could most afford the semi-exorbitant price (we’re not going to try to pretend like we know all the scouting insights on the guys they moved but we’ll trust the reports that Casey Kelly (a guy who became a full-time pitcher only 2 years ago but is already the Sox’s top pitching prospect); Anthony Rizzo (a power hitting prospect) and Reymond Fuentes are a good return for San Diego) to acquire the biggest impact hitter available this off-season, the guy who’s so unknown that everyone knows who he is, Adrian Gonzalez. Even without being able to come to terms on an extension (Gonzalez is in the last year of his contract), it’s still the right move at the right time for a team that missed the playoffs and is trying to keep-up with the Yankees while retooling their team. Not an easy feat.
Even if they add a huge extension (something in the neighborhood of 7 years, $154m) its still the right move. 28-year old guys are the ones you are supposed to pay the big money to. Gonzalez figures to produce even better outside of the cavernous Petco and if he improves on his average of .280, 32 hrs and 99 RBIs while continuing to provide gold-glove defense, they should get their money’s worth (whatever that means in the skewed world of sports).
3. Because They Were Light-Headed From the Thin Air.
Troy Tulowitzki, 10 years, $158m, Colorado Rockies
Yeah, we hear all the great things being said about Tulo. He’s a great player, probably the best at his position in the game, coming off two excellent two-way season. The Rockies have found their Cal Ripken, an accessible superstar who plays with one team his whole career. He’s the next Jeter. He’s only 26 years old. They’re going to lose their other young stud Carlos Gonzalez (a Boras client) in the next few years. We get all that. It’s well and good but, seriously, are we still doing this 10-year contract thing? That didn’t go out the window with A-Rod and Jeter? It should have.
For all the warm and fuzzy feelings associated with locking up a fan favorite long term, the point is to win right? It seems like these deals rarely result in wins. There’s a reason the Yanks have the market pretty much cornered on this type of thing – they can afford the mistake (they can also afford other teams mistakes as evidenced by their trade for A-Rod) and can spend over it. The Rockies can’t. So, even accepting all the great things being said about him, at $15m on a mid-market team, Tulowitzki can’t just be the next Jeter. He’s got to be A-Rod, circa Texas, or Ripken in his MVP years. If he’s not, he’ll just be another really good player on a mediocre team for his entire career. And we’re not even talking about the threat of injury or that his last two years could be his career years. The length is just too excessive.
What makes it even worse is, who were they negotiating against? Nobody. The deal is really a 7-year extension to the 3 years he still had left on his prior deal. So they had plenty of time to lock him up or they could have just kept him for the next 3 years and saw how things worked out. If he had two more years like last season, couldn’t they just extend him then? The Rockies have put the fate of their entire franchise in the hands of one guy when they didn’t have to. It’s kind of absurd.
4. Because The Devil Made Them.
Jayson Werth, Washington Fucking Nationals, 7 years, $126 million
From kinda absurd to completely and utterly batshit insane, we present the Washington Nationals. Buster Olney summed it up perfectly in his blog post about the Werth signing: “To put this in perspective: The Nationals spent more money on Werth than all the free agents the franchise had signed in the previous 20 years combined.”
Yeah, after years and years of being a small market team named the Expos, the Nats have decided to jump into the deep end of the pool but they forgot their swimmies and in a panic grabbed Jayson Werth. Why? Most likely because Scott Boras, the aforementioned devil, convinced them that they’d have to pay to get a
guy to come to a bottom-dwelling Washington team and his man was just the one to overpay. He might be evil, but he’s damn effective and he’s probably right but, what about, continuing to build until your team is good enough to attract free agents WITHOUT having to overpay. You already have two potential superstars in your system (Strasburg and Harper) and another perennial All-Star in Ryan Zimmerman. How bout you make them the centerpieces instead of a 32-year old with a history of injuries and bad facial hair? Quite a novel idea, and as we know novel thinking is now exactly prevalent in our nation’s capital (Waka-Waka!).
It’s not about Werth being a bad player, he led the NL in doubles and was Top 10 in a bunch of important offensive categories, including the vaunted OPS and OPB and he’s got legit power that shouldn’t be swallowed up by the move away from Citizen’s Bank. Nor is it about need, the Washington outfield hits like a lawyer league softball team without the mail room guys. It’s about two overwhelming problems: (1) at $18m a year you’re paying for a superstar and Werth is not one - he’s never hit over .300, never driven in over 100 runs and only once hit over 30 HRs (despite playing in the Bank with guys like Howard and Utley in his line-up); and (2) he’ll be 32 next year and has a history of injuries so its not like your getting some young guy anticipating a breakout. He’s in the decline phase of his career.
Add in the fact that they’ll will be paying $17m to a 39 year old guy. And you have maybe a top 5 worst contract ever (A-Rod, Kevin Brown, Alfonso Soriano, etc.) Do teams not think about this kind of thing when they sign these deals? It’s just unconscionable.
As a bonus, let’s take a quick look at some quotes from the Nats soon to be unemployed GM:
"It kind of exemplifies phase two of the Washington Nationals' process," general manager Mike Rizzo said. "Phase one was scouting and player development, building the farm system. ... Now it's the time to go to the second phase and really compete for division titles and championships."
We disagree with that assessment, Phase 2 is clearly hamstringing your franchise for the better part of the next decade through the use of crippling contracts.
"We got the inside scoop on who the man is and who the person is," Rizzo said. "Jim is a great judge of character and clubhouse presence. He was very flowery in his praise in Jayson on and off the field. He feels, like I feel, Jayson's best days haven't been had yet."
Well shit, we didn't know the praise was flowery. We take it all back. Can’t wait for the 39-year old Jayson Werth to lead the Nats to a title and win the MVP.
Werth is the grandson of Ducky Schofield and nephew of Dick Schofield, a minor league teammate of Rizzo. In addition, Rizzo has scouted Werth since he played high-school ball. "I've been a fan of his lineage and his family," Rizzo said.
Again, completely solid reasoning, why not focus on his uncle's minor league career.
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