December 12th, 2006 → 10:48 am @ Seth Mnookin
It was an interesting night. There are plenty of news articles, plenty of columns, and plenty of commentary. Think of this as one-stop shopping. (I do love one-stop shopping.)
* Scott Boras is insisting that he did not say that Matsuzaka should receive $100 million; he merely said that’s what pitchers in today’s market are receiving. (Pretty much everyone who saw the press conference thought he said that’s what Matsuzaka should get.) Boras also stressed that Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman.
* After the Red Sox made their initial offer, Boras has not made a single counteroffer. Or, apparently, even spoken to the Sox. He has, of course, been speaking to the rest of the country, and will hold a series of town meetings later this week.
* John Henry provided his plane to whisk Theo and Larry out to California for a face-to-face with Boras, adding another $10,000 or so to the price of the negotiations. In the baseball world, this is also known as “a candy bar.”
* Henry is pissed. Gordon Edes details a late-night conference call Henry had with reporters: “‘We’re on Scott Boras’s doorstep because he hasn’t negotiated with us so far,’ Henry said, frustration registering in his voice during a post-midnight conference call with reporters. ‘We’re taking the fight directly to him to try to have a negotiation here.'” Later, Henry told Edes in a private call, “You make your best offer and just hope the player receives it.” And yes, Henry meant what you thought he meant there.
* Nevertheless, the Sox will make another offer “of considerable magnitude” today, according to Theo. “It’s highly unusual,” Epstein said, referring to the fact that the Sox were essentially bidding against themselves, “but it’s showing that Matsuzaka is extremely important to the Boston Red Sox. It’s normally not a good ploy, but we want to demonstrate to Matsuzaka, and the fans of Japanese baseball, just how important he is to us.”
* Boras finally seems to have stepped over the line, with the Boston media, the national media, and his great-aunt all turning against him. Matsuzaka can’t pitch for anyone else in MLB this year; he’ll make $3 or $4 million a year if he stays in Japan; both the Yankees and the Mets apparently agreed that Daisuke was worth somewhere in the $8 to $10 million range (which, as people are now increasingly pointing out, is a lot of money for someone who’s never thrown a major league pitch). The result is a drastic swing of public opinion, with more and more folks now siding with the Sox.
I’m about 94 percent sure this won’t happen, but it seems to me there’s an outside possibility (very outside, granted) that Boras will end up screwing himself not only in what will likely be a very lucrative Japanese market but could also hurt himself with MLB teams. (There is, after all, some precedence for collusion among the owners vis a vis salaries.) Obviously, we’re living in a whole different world today, but at some point you’d figure owners might get sick of negotiating with Boras, who’s establishied an impressive track record of obstinancy and lying and looks more and more like he’s preparing to waterski right over that great white. (Like I said, there’s a very small chance of this happening…but hey, I got to U-Tube Henry Winkler.)
Post Categories: 2006 Playoffs & Arthur Fonzarelli & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Red Sox front office & Scott Boras
December 12th, 2006 → 12:10 am @ Seth Mnookin
Well, what did we learn from Scott Boras’s non-newsy news conference and the attendant coverage?
* Boras has threatened to take Daisuke Matsuzaka home to Japan if the Sox don’t budge in their negotiations, effectively ending any chance at a deal even if Thursday’s deadline hasn’t passed. (DK would presumably need to take a physical for any deal to go through.)
* Boras also referred to Daisuke as “Fort Knox” and said he’s worth in excess of $100 million. Shoot, who does he think he is: Carlos Lee?
* Lou Melendez, MLB’s VP of international relations, nixed any of the other scenarios by which Dice could pitch in the majors this year — by Boras buying out the Lions; by divine intervention, by Nippon Professional Baseball spontaneously combusting.
* There seems to be a growing consensus — raised on ESPN.com by Jim Allen, who covers baseball for Japan’s The Daily Yomiuri and echoed by Jack Curry in the Times article above — that it would incredibly difficult for Matsuzaka to return to Japan if he was rejecting, say, a $10 million-a-year deal. “If the sheer embarrassment of the nation’s hero being thrown back like an undersized trout is not enough to spark a showdown between Red Sox Nation and Japan,” Allen writes, “the fact that Japan’s loss of tax revenue would be 2.4 billion yen ($20.65 million), just might do it. Although Boras might think nothing of causing an international incident of these proportions, Matsuzaka is unlikely to be a party to it.”
Yup…it’s gonna be a fun couple of days. If this all feels familiar…well, that’s because it is. Somehow, the buttoned-down, press-shy Red Sox have found themselves smack dab in the middle of more imbroglios than any other team over the last several years. Way back in ’03, there was the Kevin Millar incident, making Millar surely the least consequential person ever to threaten relations between two superpowers. That same offseason brought the minute-by-minute machinations of the A-Rod to Boston, Manny to Texas, Nomar to Chicago, Magglio to Boston, etc., etc., deal. That had to be the most covered non-event in baseball history; a couple of months later, Brian Cashman somehow managed to orchestrate a trade for A-Rod to play for the world’s best known baseball team — you know, the one that plays in the country’s biggest media market — with nary a leak.
There’ve been the semi-annual Manny trade talks. (Manny’s not the only $20-million-plus superstar who was thought to be on the block…but we haven’t heard much about A-Rod, have we?) There was last year’s exceedingly public Theo-Larry blow-up/blow-out. (Cashman, to be sure, hasn’t had an easy time dealing with the Boss…but we haven’t heard much about that, either.) And now there’s Dice-K.
***
In a postscript to the paperback edition of Moneyball, Michael Lewis rails against the club of baseball insiders that set the games orthodoxy. At one point, Lewis writes, “It can never fully escape the larger culture that supports it.” He was talking about…well, never mind what he was talking about, but it strikes me that that’s a problem that’s going on with the Sox. To varying extents, the entire front office believes that it can succeed by both outworking and outsmarting the competition; no one thinks this is true as much as John Henry and Theo Epstein. In many, very creative ways, these guys are working to blow up accepted notions — not only of how to evaluate talent, but of how to do business, of how to construct a team, of how to relate to the entire game. That might work in the abstract, but sometimes I wonder if there’s not enough acceptance of the fact that the Red Sox are part of the larger baseball culture; that’s the world they’re trying to succeed in. Every trade doesn’t need to be the most clever; every negotiation doesn’t need to be won. Some, in fact, just need to be concluded.
In many ways, Scott Boras is an agent built from this same mold. He consistently gets much more money for his clients than anyone other team was willing to bid (see: Rodriguez, Alex…and maybe Drew, J.D.). He doesn’t have a lot of time for the accepted practices of the profession (he’s already making noises about suing to free Matsuzaka from the posting system, although it’s a bit unclear who’d be the subject of such a lawsuit).
In a worst case scenario, all of this means the two sides are on a mutually destructive collision course. Neither side compromises, Boras screws himself over by his failure to understand the intricate nuances of Japanese culture, and the lack of a top-of-the-rotation prize becomes the cherry on the top of a extremely unappetizing sundae for Red Sox Nation.
Of course, this probably will not be the case — as the above paragraph points out, both sides have too much to lose. But regardless of what happens, the distance between the Red Sox’s desire not to have their every move play out in the press and the reality of the amount of times they find themselves the focus of a national feeding frenzy deserves further discussion. (And, right on cue, the Sox announce they’ll have a press conference of their own. Sigh. I’m going to sleep.)
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Moneyball & Red Sox front office & Red Sox ownership
December 11th, 2006 → 4:39 pm @ Seth Mnookin
One week ago, I reminded everyone that there is no better gift for loved ones and relatives than a personalized, inscribed copy of Feeding the Monster; indeed, FTM has been known to save troubled marriages and bridge sibling rivalries. And lucky you…those personalized, inscribed copies (er, bookplates) are now available, free of cost (except for the cost of the book, which is only 17 bucks on Amazon!).
And, a reminder: I’ll be signing books this Thursday, December 14, from noon until 2 at the Prudential Center B&N. I promise I won’t wear the pink shirt.
Post Categories: this will be an ongoing series: two more weeks until Ch & Yes
December 11th, 2006 → 9:42 am @ Seth Mnookin
Buster Olney and Gordon Edes both raise the possibility that Scott Boras has no intention of letting Daisuke Matsuzaka sign with the Red Sox. Edes says sources close to the deal fear that Boras is simply “running out the clock,” while Olney wonders if Boras has told his client about the Red Sox’s offer. “The question I’d love to know the answer to — and never will know — is what is Matsuzaka’s understanding of what is taking place?” Olney writes. “[T]he Red Sox don’t know what is being said between the player and the agent, and so they don’t know if Boras is bluffing, or if he has convinced Matsuzaka to go back to Japan.” Boras has never been in a situation like this, although he’s been remarkably skilled in getting teams to up their bids even in the absence of any competing offers.
If this is what’s going on, it wouldn’t be the first time Boras seemed to be less than forthright with one of his clients. (There is always the possibility that these stories are being planted by the Red Sox’s side, but I’m not sure what that would accomplish: they’re not going to sway Boras, and they’re not going to help with public opinion if Boston doesn’t sign Matsuzaka.) After last year’s Damon fiasco, the Red Sox considered filing a formal complaint against Boras, but they were told by people in MLB’s central office that there was nothing that could be done except assume that everything Boras says is a lie.
Maybe Boras is bluffing, maybe not. What’s scary is that he’s shown he really doesn’t care…
Post Categories: 2006 Playoffs & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Scott Boras
December 11th, 2006 → 9:21 am @ Seth Mnookin
Remember that “Tumblin’ Dice” headline in yesterday’s Herald? Gordon Edes does, too.
Post Categories: Boston Globe & Boston Herald & Gordon Edes & Sports Reporters
December 10th, 2006 → 3:59 pm @ Seth Mnookin
I sure as hell hope it’s not true…but that doesn’t stop me from fully appreciating the Herald‘s headline on Michael Silverman’s story about the disintegrating negotiations between the Red Sox and Daisuke Matsuzaka: “Tumblin’ Dice.”
Even in light of Scott Boras’s well-publicized track record of shortening players’ careers in order to snare some extra dough, I think this deal will go down. Matsuzaka doesn’t want to return to Japan, the Seibu Lions don’t want him back, and there’s no other dog in this hunt. If it’s true that the Sox are at $8 mil a year and Boras is closer to $14 or $15 mil, I’d bet on Matsuzaka receiving an annual salary in the neighborhood of $10 or $11 million when the deal is done. Whatever the case, you can bet Boras’ll burn the candle right down.
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Explicit References to Rolling Stones Lyrics & Oblique references to Grateful Dead lyrics & Scott Boras
December 10th, 2006 → 10:24 am @ Seth Mnookin
In today’s edition of the Times‘s “Keeping Score” column, Alan Schwarz has this nugget:
“Major League Baseball has devoted resources to educating club officials on how to make better decisions on contracts. One step was emphasizing how most players in their early 30s, though known commodities, quickly lose their productivity and value. More subtle is the message that purchasing extra years to hedge against market inflation — particularly with pitchers — may be outweighed by added risk. The player can become injured or simply not be as good as expected, leaving the club saddled with a payroll-draining deal or the drag of paying another club millions to take the player off its hands.”
Bill Stoneman and Dayton Moore must have slept through that seminar.
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & general managers
