Here we go. The baseball free agency season is now underway. With that comes a lot of rhetoric, hype and just plain foolishness.
The Cardinals will be in the fray this fall and winter, and they have a plan. A simple plan that I like. Matt Holliday is a player they would like to have back. He had a terrific season with the exception of the playoffs, where things did not go as well as one would have hoped. Despite the run he had and the love that was shown by Cardinal fans, it now has become a business.
Holliday has the best agent in the business when it comes to getting the most money for his clients in Scott Boras. “By any means necessary” is his method, which normally leaves all but his client and the team that signs him grousing about his tactics. He is so good that he is despised by many to the point that they would prefer not to deal with him. Seeming as though he represents a larger majority of the game’s best players, it is hard not to do business with him.
Also, you would have his number on speed dial if it came down to representing their kid.
Now that teams have become payroll-conscious, fewer teams want to dive into the free agent market. Instead they would prefer to develop their farm system, sign the second-tier free agent and hope to find lightning in a bottle – which is fine and has proven to work compared to just throwing money at the situation and coming back in July, only to learn that your team is a failure and you will be eliminated from post-season contention by the All Star Game.
The problem for Boras is there are not as many willing participants for the highly-touted free agents as there once were. With that, Boras has to stir it up, hence let’s get the rumor mill started.
Lets go back to last off-season and Manny Ramirez, a player Boras engineered getting traded out of Boston to the Dodgers. He had a great run during his time in LA. He was also about to be a free agent at season’s end. There were few takers for Ramirez who was considered to be an excellent hitter. He also is a poor defensive player, not a good teammate and just a plain flake, which caused a number of teams to take a pass on his services. The rumors about his performance-enhancing drug use also were a red flag to many.
Now Boras had to get some spin going. He shunned the Dodgers’ offer, saying he had several teams that were willing to bid on his client’s services. There were no takers. Boras and Ramirez ended up taking the deal the Dodgers offered them. Twenty-plus million, I might add, so Boras still won.
This year the Cardinals are in a similar position. Mind you, the Cardinals are not a large-market team and will not be in a position to pay Holliday the Mark Texeria money that Scott Boras got for him last off season and feels that Holliday is on that same plan. Same plan on another planet.
Holliday is a good player who can certainly help the Cardinals at the right price, and that price will not be the Boras price. Matt Holiday is not a $20 million a year player. He may be worth it to some team, but not the Cardinals.
What’s fair to me? Somewhere around $15-17 million a year for five years for starters. I reserve the right to make some adjustments though. If I were the Cardinals I would have the initial offer printed in The American and anywhere else that covers baseball. I would also have it printed in the newspaper where Holliday makes his home so there will be no misunderstanding that the Cardinals mean business and he would hear it first-hand. Too many time the last to get the facts are the player and the fans.
Then Cardinal fans won’t be misled by an agent spin machine or erroneous media reports on what was actually offered. In this case the offer stands for a certain period of time and after that you move on to try and fix your team in another manner. Too long have teams and fans have been held up in these situation for all the wrong reasons.
This also would help keep the Cardinals from negotiating against themselves. If another team makes a better offer that you choose not to match, then so be it, as long as the Cardinals and their fans can sleep at night knowing that they were legit about this.
It’s a better approach than being led down a dark alley with no idea who is going to hit you in the head because you were under the impression that you were dealing with someone who was fair and honorable. Remember, this is the business of baseball.
Take nothing for granted. Not even Scott Boras.