Head Shaking
Okay, I know that a lot of people consider Pat Gillick to be baseball royalty, but man, this is incomprehendable.
From today’s times.
Imagine if Gillick hadn’t acceded to Ken Griffey Jr.’s trade request after the 1999 season and made the epic deal that sent the franchise icon to Cincinnati. Imagine, instead, if Gillick had dealt the Mariners’ other superstar, Alex Rodriguez, who later walked away from Seattle after the 2000 season to sign a $252 million contract with Texas.
Gillick dropped that provocative bombshell earlier this week on Dave Mahler’s KJR radio show, and he elaborated on Wednesday.
“I possibly traded the wrong guy,” he said. “If I had to do it over again, I should maybe have traded Alex.”
…
“Even though he was only one year away from free agency, I probably could have gotten more for Alex than we could for Griffey,” Gillick said.
…
“So I think if I had to do it over, I probably would have told Kenny, ‘Yeah, we’ll respect the fact you want to be traded, but we’re going to keep you.’ We probably should have moved the other guy.”
Looking back in retrospect, Gillick wishes he would have traded Rodriguez and kept Griffey. Despite the fact that trading Griffey was the single best move he made as the GM of the Mariners. Do you have any idea how bad we’d have been with Junior limping around center field in Safeco the past few seasons, pulling in $15+ million per season?
I mean, holy crap. I have no idea how you retroactively look at the Griffey deal from the M’s perspective and say “yea, I wish we could undo that one.”
I think this could be Gillick more or less saying, “I wish I could have gotten something for Alex.” If hindsight is 20/20 then Gillick needs to get his eyes checked because with all the injuries that Griffey has had over the years (in contrast to the way Mike Cameron played center at Safeco) then the trade clearly favord the M’s.
Would it have been nice to have gotten something for A-Rod? Sure. But, then again its hard to argue with the results the year after he left.
If we want to play the hindsight game, then the real response should be “Man, I wish I would have resigned A-Rod.”
There’s no scenario where keeping Junior, rather than flipping him for Cameron and the prospect that turned into Randy Winn, would have been a good idea. If Gillick regrets letting Rodriguez walk, then they should have just bucked up and paid the man.
Not to mention Junior averaged 83 games a season the 4 years after the trade.
This baseball “royal” has no clothes.
I don’t like to speculate about people’s motives, but the charitable explanation here is that Gillick’s just bitter for some reason about Rodriguez not taking his joke of an offer, and he’s lashing out. That’s pretty insane, but much better than the alternative. Wow.
I agree with djw that Gillick is bitter at ARod. During the interveiw he rarely referred to him by name, and constantly called him the “other guy.”
I think the real joke offer, if you really look at it, was the contract that A-Rod signed with Texas. It was an albatross for them that left them very little room to sign quality players to surround him with and what they got for the trouble was a bunch of last place finishes and a lot of red ink. To me, if there are only a couple of teams you can trade a player to who can afford the contract, it doesn’t sound like much of a good deal to me. Anyone would love to have A-Rod, but only a couple of teams could afford him (NY and Boston). Anyone else would be in the same boat as Texas was.
#6:
That’s a big myth. The albatross contracts were Chan Ho Park and Todd van Poppell. The Rangers payroll at the time was more than ample to field a championship team with A-rod. They didn’t succeed because they spent the rest of the payroll stupidly.
The Rangers had a decent plan to get more value out of A-Rod than just A-Rod’s simple on field value – in somewhat the same way the Mariners get extra mileage out of Ichiro. They just bungled the rest of the plan. Had they succeeded, A-Rod would have easily been worh his contract – in fact his might have been one of the most lucrative contracts in baseball for both owner and player.
This was before Gillick’s watch, and I may be remembering it wrong, but wasn’t one key mistake bringing up Alex too early in 1994 and 1995 so that he burned up roster time while still not contributing to the team and ended up being a free agent a year earlier than he otherwise would have?
That and not tradiing him for something when he was obviously going to walk. It’s interesting, but I think justified, the way most fans respond to A Rod vs Griffey and Randy Johnson. We still bear huge anger at A Rod, because he intimated that he’d stick around if the Mariners were conpetitive, then chased the highest dollar and left us getting absolutely nothing in return, not even a top draft choice. Vs Randy and Griffey not only propelled the Mariners to the first winning season we ever had, but also were traded for prospects who then became a key part of subsequent teams.
Not even a top draft choice? What are you talking about? First, Alex doesn’t control how draft compensation works, but moreover the Mariners got two picks when Alex left: #36 (a supplemental first rounder) and #49. The M’s drafted the lesser Garciaparra and Rene Rivera.
This stuff isn’t that hard to check.
I meant that because he signed with Texas and they finished near the bottom, we didn’t get a prime first round compensation pick, as we would have if he’d signed, say with the Yankees, but instead the lower supplemental choice. And that this was magnified by wasting it on Garciapara. It’s true A Rod had the right to sign whatever contract he chose, and that the prime mistake was our management’s not trading him when they could. (In contrast with the Griffey trade, which did work out well).
But after talking about wanting to play for a winner, and then going for the money instead, it made the loss all the more bitter
The KJR interview is available here– FWIW, he only referred to Alex as ‘the other guy’ the one time, and it sounded more that he was being colloquial. As to the ‘joke of an offer’, let us remember that in ’99 they offered Alex 8 yrs/$117.5M with $16M signing bonus, and in ’00 their offer was 5 years/$95M, which would have made him then the highest paid player in baseball, so not really a ‘joke’ unless you put it up against 10 years/$252M….
It would be one thing if he said all that and then left for a million or two more per year. Yeah, then you can be bitter. But holy crap people, did you see what he signed for? Did you see what we offered him? Who, in their right minds, can be upset that he took that offer?
“There’s no scenario where keeping Junior, rather than flipping him for Cameron and the prospect that turned into Randy Winn, would have been a good idea.”
Dave – can you please explain what you mean by this? Who is the prospect that turned into Randy Winn?
For Griffey, we got Cameron, Tomko, Antonio Perez and Jake Meyer.
Antonio Perez was dealt to Tampa Bay along with Lou.
#13. Pretty sure Perez got traded to Tampa Bay on some conditional thing for them getting Piniella.
And yeah, while you look back knowing what we know Gillick’s an idiot here. I mean, if we know that Griffey’s going to become damaged goods and Mike Cameron is going to turn out pretty nicely, plus we get some other stuff in the deal, then yeah.
On the other side of the coin, if you had traded Rodriguez instead, you probably wouldn’t have had such a “Who are these guys?” reaction at the time of the trade, and you also wouldn’t have the annual “let’s find a way to bring back Griffey!” articles.
It was a joke of an offer. I’m sure they would have been happy if he signed it, but they knew he wouldn’t. This is obviously the case for two primary reasons:
1) It was nowhere near what everyone knew his market value was.
2) It didn’t meet the basic length parameters he was perfectly clear about demanding.
If Gillick didn’t think ARod’s demands were reasonable, that’s an understandable position to take (I disagree, but I can see his point). But other than PR for the fans, the difference between Gillick’s offer on the table that offseason and no offer was absolutely non-existent, and Gillick surely knew it.
#6. The Rangers’ payroll without A-Rod was roughly equal to the total payroll for the Oakland A’s.
So, what you’re saying is that A-Rod taking up 1/3 of the money somehow makes the rest of the money useless. Because there’s no way Oakland would have suddenly been crappy if they’d been the team they were in 2001-3 plus had A-Rod.
I don’t know, $20+M a year to me is an albatross. $13-15M for Chan Ho is painful but not on the same level (the Rangers have a good chance of reliving that nightmare with Millwood’s contract). Van Poppel’s couple mil is a nit. $252M is just utterly ridiculous but I don’t blame A-rod one bit for taking it. You’d be crazy not to. But at least fess up and look right at the camera (or reporter or whoever) and tell the truth. All he had to do is ask everyone “Would you pass up $252M?”. I know I wouldn’t.
Maybe this wasn’t clear from the article, but maybe what Gillick’s saying is that he would have traded A-Rod in 1999 for more in terms of prospects, and let Griffey walk in 2000 without compensation. That’s not insane at all (and note that Griffey had a nearly complete 2000 season, only coming up lame in the last few weeks of September).
That’s not illogical, really.
What Gillick really needs to be panned for is the dearth of talent the farm system produced…and guess what? Frank Mattox actually predates Gillick, and you can see that Roger Jongewaard being replaced by Mattox is precisely when the farm system went south- Joel Piñeiro in Jongewaard’s last draft represents the last time we got a fairly decent player out of the draft.
I don’t know, $20+M a year to me is an albatross. $13-15M for Chan Ho is painful but not on the same level
You’re willing to spend $15 million on a TERRIBLE pitcher, a guy who is no better than replacement level, but you’re not willing to spend $20 million on the best shortstop in the history of baseball?
The mind boggles.
No, I never said I was willing to pay $15M for a TERRIBLE pitcher, I’m saying $20+M a year for a player on a team with ZERO supporting cast is a terrible decision.
The Rangers were going out and signing players to give Alex a supporting cast. But as Steve pointed out, Alex was the only good signing they made.
In 2002, the Rangers spent $22m on Alex Rodriguez, arguably the most valuable player in baseball.
That same year, the Rangers spent $46m on Juan Gonzalez, Carl Everett, Chan Ho Park, Rusty Greer, John Rocker, Jay Powell, Dave Burba, Todd Van Poppel, Dan Miceli, Gabe Kapler, and Rudy Seanez, for a combined VORP of 27.
It wasn’t A-Rod.
Except you incorrectly believe that A-Rod’s contract caused Texas to lose, you’re apparently under some assumption that he knew they’d be terrible when he signed there (they’d won the division two of the previous three years, after all), and you explicitly stated that while Park’s contract was bad, it wasn’t “on the same level”.
I’d have given A-Rod $30 million a year to have kept him here and still realized I was getting a bargain.
#18: An alabatross would be a contract that drags down the team. How, exactly, did A-Rod’s contract drag down the team? I don’t recall Texas dropping out of the free agent market because of A-Rod’s contract. I don’t recall Texas being forced to scrounge the fringes of the minor leagues and waiver wires to find talent for the roster.
Further, if you subtracted A-Rod from the payroll and tried to replace his value on the free agent market, Texas would have wound up paying just as much or more to replace his production. That’s not an albatross contract – that’s value. The only way that is an albatross is if you’re goal is to not compete – that you would rather get rid of him and not replace his production.
Further, even after giving A-Rod his $25 million, there was more than enough money left over to fill out a roster around him. In 2002 and 2003, the Rangers payroll was over $100 million. That means that they had $80 million left over after paying A-Rod. For comaprison, the Mariners total payroll in 2002 was $80 million. $22 million going to A-Rod simply – when it would have cost $22 million or more to replace him – is simply not an albtroos contract. (Payroll data cited above from USA Today salary database).
I’m sorry – I just don’t see how Alex’s conract dragged down the Rangers when they had as much payroll left after paying A-Rod as did the Mariners. The Rangers payroll sans A-Rod would have placed them about 7th in baseball in total salary.
A-Rod’s contract did not become a limitation until Hicks abandoned his plan to ramp up his franchise value and decided the Rangers were a small- to mid-market team. Hicks then cut the Rangers payroll by about $50 million. At that point, A-Rod was close to 50% of the payroll, and the remaining payroll made the Rangers a small market teams.
The notion that A-Rod was preventing the Rangers from being successful is simply a canard spun by Hicks and the Rangers to divert attention from their own ineptitude. The myth was then picked up and repeated by a bunch of baseball “experts” who didn’t like A-Rod’s contract and who thought Hicks needed to be taken down a couple of notches and saw A-Rod’s contrac as a good opportunity to do so.
Paying superstars lots of money doesn’t kill you- you can’t find them under a rock. Overpaying for mediocrity does, because you can find cheap mediocrity under a rock.
Case in point: the 2004-2005 Seattle Mariners.
And on my previous point that letting Griffey walk after 2000 and trading A-Rod might have worked out better, this does beg one LARGE point- the M’s tendency to overvalue certain “hometown heroes”. It would have been hard not to shovel money at Griffey, and he might have taken it.
Near as I can tell from Cot’s contracts, Rodriguez has been paid $121M or so thus far during his contract. Over those 5 years, he’s played all but 8 games out of a possible 810 games, and he’s been about 59 wins above replacement level.
Any time you can get $2M/win for the best player in the league, that’s a contract you want to have.
#21:
I agree that paying $22 million for a player with a team with zero supporting cast is a terrible decision.
But the Rangers spent $80 million on that supporting cast. Don’t you think that spending $80 million to assemble that supporting cast is a bigger issue than the $22 million spent on A-Rod?
Why don’t you think the real albatross was the Rangers front office that spent $80 million on that supporting cast?
The point though is somewhat valid. Ignoring what the Rangers did, if this contract is such a good deal, how come more people weren’t trying to get A-Rod from Texas?
#20 is absolutely correct.
The Rangers magnified their stupidity by trading him for Soriano *and* picking up part of the tab. Imagine this year’s Ranger team with A-Rod @ SS, and Mike Young @ 2B, they’d make a push for a win total in the high 80s– that’s with shady rotation.
What saddens me as a fan is 1) the ridiculous double standard that M’s fans hold A-Rod to, with 2) their childish booing, 3) and that he has to play second fiddle an inferior player in NY.
We’re never going to be truly able to see how great Alex could have been. The next conceivable opporutunity he’ll have to start at SS position will be when he’s no longer able to play there.
Not many teams are in a position to absorb a $22 million/year contract. What team has that sort of payroll space available? Toronto did this year, but that’s exceedinly rare.
The point though is somewhat valid. Ignoring what the Rangers did, if this contract is such a good deal, how come more people weren’t trying to get A-Rod from Texas?
Because baseball GM’s dont understand the talent pyramid nearly as well as they should.
There was also a really aggravating quote from Armstrong after the trade that the M’s would have been interested in reacquiring him if they knew that Texas was going to pick up that big a portion of the tab. So, some teams, including ours, apparently, just didn’t do their homework.
They absolutely should have traded A-Rod and kept Griffey….There is a great chance that Griff’s injuries would not have happened at all or at least much lower if he had stayed with the M’s…most of them happened on freak plays (great diving catches) and they pilled on each other…Plus he could have DH’d here after Edgar moved on…Saying that Gillicks best move was trading for Mike Cameron is a ridiculous statement…They certainly could have gotten more for A-Rod…and kept the greatest M ever
Well yeah, the Rangers made a horrid deal getting rid of A-Rod, but it seems weird that they couldn’t trade the best player in baseball away to a team that doesn’t seem to care much about payroll without taking quite a bit of money back.
“Not many teams are in a position to absorb a $22 million/year contract. What team has that sort of payroll space available? Toronto did this year, but that’s exceedinly rare.”
Minnesota and Oakland have shown that you can build pretty good teams with a payroll around $55M. There were about 11 teams last year that had total payrolls over $80M. Saying they don’t have the payroll space is just an indication of how they weren’t able to spend that first $55M very well, not that it’s impossible for them to build a good team around A-Rod.
Wow. Cameron sucked, Griffey would have remained healthy… did Japan conquer the US in this crazy alternate earth?
I don’t see what’s so “incomprehendable†about Gillick’s hindsight. He did not say of the Griffey trade “yea, I wish we could undo that one.†He simply said “I probably could have gotten more for Alex than we could for Griffey.â€Â
Comparing the two players, I think it makes perfect sense to expect a FAR better trade haul with any team in the running for a healthy 25-year-old with a great attitude, than with a single team in the running for a sullen 30-year-old with bad knees. How Junior’s career would have played out in Seattle is unknowable, but I really don’t think Gillick would have signed a hobbled 31-year-old CF to an untradeable contract (the worst-case scenario). It’s likely a decent trade could have been made once Griffey realized his limitations, and realized a DH role would allow him to climb high on the all-time HR list.
Ultimately, it’s all a big game of “what if,†totally unprovable one way or the other, but IMO Gillick’s point of view is perfectly reasonable.
I’m not saying it was A-Rod’s fault that the Rangers were so horrible. I’m saying that his contract limited the Rangers in the players that they could go get. Isn’t the fact that they spent their money on Juan Gonzalez, Carl Everett, Chan Ho Park, Rusty Greer, John Rocker, Jay Powell, Dave Burba, Todd Van Poppel, Dan Miceli, Gabe Kapler, and Rudy Seanez prove the fact that they probably could have spent the combined $66M on a better mix of higher quality players? You look at the wins and losses of the whole team and the fact they were horrible with A-Rod and only got better after A-Rod left and you say that it wasn’t at least partially because of his contract? If the contract is such a bargain, how come only two teams were ever really in the running to make the deal? If it’s such a great deal, how come the other GM’s in the league weren’t beating down the Rangers door and willing to give their 1st born daughter to get him?
So say you have a salary limit of $100M. You pay $20M to one guy. Can you pay $80M for the rest of the team and get a solid supporting cast? A-Rod averaged about 12 wins above replacement per year. Can the $80M give you the other 80 wins that you need to put you in contention? I’m not saying that it can’t be done, I’m asking if it can and, if so, does it happen very often (maybe I have the concept of VORP all wrong)? $80M dollars for all but one player on your roster isn’t a whole lot. If the M’s came out and said they have $80M to spend on payroll, people would be throwing fits but that’s practically what the Rangers had with A-Rod.
#36 No Japan didnt conquer the US but they are invading our national pastime. Clearly, its the Chinese that have conquered the US.
You look at the wins and losses of the whole team and the fact they were horrible with A-Rod and only got better after A-Rod left and you say that it wasn’t at least partially because of his contract?
Exactly. Correlation is not causation. You simply cannot argue that Alex Rodriguez was the problem in Texas and be correct. You can’t. It’s impossible.
So say you have a salary limit of $100M. You pay $20M to one guy. Can you pay $80M for the rest of the team and get a solid supporting cast? A-Rod averaged about 12 wins above replacement per year. Can the $80M give you the other 80 wins that you need to put you in contention?
The Angels won 95 games last year with a $95 million payroll. Vlad Guerrero was making $12.5 million. So, they spent $82.5 million on the rest of their team.
Oakland won 88 games with a $55 million payroll. No math needed here.
Chicago won 99 games and the World Series with a $75 million payroll. Again, no math needed.
Cleveland won 93 games with a $41 million payroll. That’s impressive.
St. Louis won 100 games with a $93 million payroll. $12.5 million went to Larry Walker. They spent $81 million on the rest of their roster.
Houston won 89 games on a $76 million payroll. Yet again, no math needed.
Atlanta won 90 games on an $85 million payroll. Chipper Jones made $16.5 million, so they spent $69 million on the rest of their roster.
Philadelphia won 88 games on a $95 million payroll. Jim Thome got $13 million, so they spent $82 million on the rest of their payroll.
That’s every team that finished in contention in the majors, besides Boston and New York, who are complete outliers.
Not only can you build a great supporting cast for $80 million, every team in baseball (minus Boston and New York) that was a contender last year spent that much or less.
If you can’t spend $80 million on 24 players and assemble a good group of talent, you should be fired.
I guess that’s why the GM for Texas was fired and I’m not the General Manager of a MLB team.
#39–
yah, buncha johnny-come-latelys, only playing the game since 1873
The upshot of the ARod Affair — leaving the Mariners holding the bag with little compensation, practically having to blackmail the Rangers to get rid of him in a package that they’re still paying for, and playing in NYC out of position — is that ARod has dragging around an awful lot of bad karma these past 5 years. As far as I’m concerned, he brought it on himself.
Sure, it may have been a great plan that Boras and he came up with, to demand with that 50 page prospectus that he get paid an eye-bulging amount of cash more than any other Superstar was getting at the time, but it turned out to be an offensive difference between him and every other guy who purports to be playing “a kid’s game” because they “love to play”.
Whatever happened to the deals that landed a self-styled Superstar a couple million bucks, for ego’s sake, more than the next guy? Fans, other GMs, some of ARod’s peers (granted, not that many thought his contract was a “bad” thing) would have embraced ARod wholeheartedly in every ballpark, had he been a little more humble and accepted, say, a tiny bit more than Manny Ramirez ($13 to $22 mil in past 5 years), or his old “buddy” Derek Jeter ($12 to $19 mil in past 5 years).
Nah, ARod had to START OUT those same 5 years at $22 mil and now he’s up to $26 mil. Geez, while he was at it why didn’t he ask for $30 mil in the 5th year of his contract….stay $9 mil ahead of Ramirez and Jeter?
Sure, ARod’s the best, but he ain’t THAT much better than some of these other guys. People who watch him on a day to day basis admit that he isn’t $7-8-9 millions better either defensively or offensively.
Thus, the bad karma, the negative press, other players criticizing some really stupid things he does, the apparent backstaging by his agent arranging press conferences which are so badly written they sound like “pity me” whining from The ARod Camp…
Yeah, that $252 mil contract bought ARod a lot…of grief.
ahh, speaking of KJR, I just put the earphones back in time to hear Softy responding to a caller: “…he may have left the cupboard bare for Bill Bavasi, but his job the four years he was here was to win games”
BTW, Amazon got around to delivering my copy of ‘Baseball by the Numbers” yesterday. There’s an interesting chapter in there called ‘Is Alex Rodriguez overpaid?’. I won’t give away their answer here out of respect for the sheer amount of work they seemed to put into calculating it. But it’s nice to see a quantifiable way of looking at baseball contracts like A-Rod’s that are very easy to judge on pure emotion.
“Sure, ARod’s the best, but he ain’t THAT much better than some of these other guys. People who watch him on a day to day basis admit that he isn’t $7-8-9 millions better either defensively or offensively.”
So, what you’re saying is that those other guys should be paid more? That seems like just as reasonable conclusion to me as the conclusion A-Rod should be paid less.
I think Mat has a future as a MLB player agent.
I think the lesson that teams should ahve learned from the Rangers is that it is nearly impossible to build through free agency.
Sure with a 100 mil payroll and A-Rod making 25 mil there is plenty left over to assemble a good supporting cast. But it isn’t like going to Costco and sayings “OK I’ll take a staring pitcher with a 3.0 ERA for 15 mil and a LF who slugs .550 for 8 mil” You are limited to who is available on the market and any given year good SP especially are few and far between. I think Hicks painted himself into a corner and created a situation where he had to vastly over pay the likes of Chan-Ho Park to meet the inflated expectations he created in the fans. He would have been better served to hire a good GM and lived with losing for a couple or more years while signing stop gap FAs on short contracts. As others have pointed out A-Rod surrounded by the young talent they now have without the albatross contracts would be a darn good team and one with the money to have been big players for the top FA pitchers who were available the last couple years. Take their lineup with A-Rod and add Beckett, now your talking world series contender.
#38:
Why do you think the Rangers were limited in the players they could get? As many of us have pointed out, the Rangers had $80 million in payroll after paying A-Rod. How could they be hamstrung in filling out the reoster, when that $80 million by itself would have been in the upper 25% of teams?
eam.
If that information is not persuasive, then I figure that you must be aware of something about the Rangers that makes it difficult for them to find an additional 24 players to get a championship for $80 million. I don’t have any idea what that limitation or hindrance might be. Could you help us out?
Now imagine the ’01 M’s w/ A-Rod at SS. Wow! We’d had a really really good change to win the world series if everything else had fallen into place.
#49, I think Dave, in post #40, shed the appropriate light on my question. If you had read further down in my post, you would see that I asked that very question, can you get good players to round out your roster for $80M. In Dave’s post, he showed that, by golly, yes you can. Thanks for playing.
#48:
Actually, Hicks had a good GM in Doug Melvin. Melvin had he franchise doing quite nicely until Hicks made the corporate decision to become a big market team.
Hicks didn’t paint himself into a corner with Park – rather, Park was part of Hick’s plan.
Hicks is a cable guy, and he had two grand purposes with the Rangers. First, he wanted to control some of the programming. Second, and most significantly, Hicks believed the Rangers had significant unlocked financial potential. When Hicks considered the size of the Rangers market and the value of the Rangers franchise, he concluded the Rangers were undervalued for the size of their market. He saw an opportunity to make a huge gain if he could bring the value of the franchise into alignment with the size of the market. The concept is similar to what Moreno is trying to do (and apparrently succeeding in doing) with the Angels.
To do that, Hicks decided to make a big push into the upper tier of teams. His idea was to enhance the image and branding of the Rangers, to make the team a bigger part of the fabric of life in central and west Texas. Hicks also felt he needed a marquee player with a good image to be the face of that effort. A-Rod fit the bill perfectly, and that was why Hicks made a blow-everyone-else-away offer. He continued the free agent splurge, leading to the contracts cited above – to advance the team up the ramp he had in mind.
His plan failed for several reasons – but the money spent on Alex was not the reason. If Hicks was in a croner, it was a corner of his own making, and it wasn’t created by a bad contract given to A-Rod, It was by bad contracts he gave to a bunch of other guys – where he spent like a pennant contender but didn’t get pennant players for his money.
Well, unless I’m mistaken (or someone already mentioned this, I unfortunately don’t currently have time to read all the posts) Griffey did have one more very good year after going to the Reds. So instead of having Cameron that first year we would have had another good year of Griffey, plus whatever Gillick got for A-Rod, which he intimates would actually have been much more than Cameron, Tomko, et al. In theory, the reason he didn’t trade Alex is because he thought he had a chance at resigning him, which in hindsight didn’t work. So I guess I understand where Gillick is going with the whole thing.
Wait, I misread that. Rodriguez was one year from being an FA, not Griffey. I dunno how I missed/forgot that. Ignore my last post entirely.
#35 – I was responding to the question as to why other teams weren’t interested in the contract. I asserted that many of them simply couldn’t affford it given the construction of their teams. The trade would have had to come up right when they had a much of FA leaving, or when their ownership group jacked up their payroll.
Again, I agree that Texas wasted the rest of the money (basically everything they spent on players who weren’t A-Rod). I’m just saying that if you’re a team with a firm payroll limit, and A-Rod comes on the market, you’re not necessarily going to be able to sing him, even if you’re valuing him propoerly and think he’s worth more than anyone else is willing to pay, simply because you don’t have the money.
Mat said: March 2nd, 2006 at 12:43 pm (first, a short quote from what I typed in #43) So, what you’re saying is that those other guys should be paid more? That seems like just as reasonable conclusion to me as the conclusion A-Rod should be paid less.
Mat, let me apologize first for what I’m about to say. I really HATE it when someone says, “So, what you’re saying…”, especially the conclusion you came to. No, that’s what YOU’RE saying I’m saying. Not me, you.
No, ANOTHER INTERPRETATION of what I’ve already said would be, “the range of salaries COULD have been compressed a bit without certain Superstars losing out on perceived worth; Ramirez signed for the above 2 months before ARod’s Big Deal, Jeter avoided arbitration with a large contract 1 month before the Big Deal…so he knew there were 2 obvious benchmarks for 2 franchise players with 2 other very wealthy organizations. How hard would it have been for ARod to “humbly” accept a contract bigger than theirs, just a LITTLE bigger? …especially earlier in the 2000 offseason, not waiting until Valentine’s Day to get signed?”
Those contracts were out there, offered by the Mariners as well as the Mets (so the reports said). Only Scott Boras knows how many other teams sent out feelers, and were rebuffed. They aren’t saying, either (probably because the offers were close to Ramirez or Jeter money, which is the crux of the point I’m making).
Others have approached the question from the POV of the Rangers (Hicks, really) making the blow-everyone-away offer…but yeah, when did that happen? Not until Boras and ARod danced around nearly the entire 2000 offseason waiting…for…BIGGER…offers… (until GMs of the other offering teams, including the M’s, were about to SCREAM with frustration).
#52,
You and I are basically saying the same thing in a different way. We aren’t in disagreement at all. What I probably should have said was “Hire a good GM and let him build the team” You are right the bad signings were on Hicks not Melvin.
Karen,
Not that I totally disagree with you, but Manny and Jeter aren’t in A-Rod’s class as a player. They’re both good players, all-stars even, but they aren’t historically unique players who are the best of all time at their position before they turn 30. They also weren’t free agents at 25, so they were signing contracts for less premium years than what Alex was signing up for.
In other words, he may have been an arrogant prick for demanding to be paid like the greatest free agent in the history of sports, but in the end, he was the greatest free agent in the history of sports.
If you can’t spend $80 million on 24 players and assemble a good group of talent, you should be fired.
Hmmm, what’s the Mariner payroll for 2004-2005 without their highest paid player?
I don’t think Bill Bavasi wants an answer to that question.
I’m really mean, though- I also think if you can’t consistently win 90 games with a roster that includes a HOF CF, SS, LH SP, and DH (the first 3 of those being first ballot, slam dunk HOF players producing at MVP levels on your team), as well as All-Stars at C, 1B, RF and LH SP at various times, you should be fired- because finding .500 talent to go along with three superstars and a couple of supporting All-Stars isn’t rocket science (as Pat Gillick proved later).
You went unnecessarily rabid there, DMZ. The original post didn’t say anything about Cameron sucking, just said that it wasn’t Gillick’s best move (IE, F-ROD believes Gillick made better moves, he’s wrong but it wasn’t a derragatory insult against Cameron). I happen to agree with the other part of F-Rod’s statements.
Since we’re talking about hindsight and we’re talking about “what ifs”, the notion that the same results of Griffey’s years since not being in Seattle would happen if he was in Seattle are ridiculous. The world is linear, baseball is linear, and so each event directly influences the sequence of events that follow. Because Griffey was traded, he went to Cincinatti, which inevitably led to him getting hurt.
Could Griffey have been hurt if he stayed here? Yes. But it is not assured. Hindsight does allow us to create high probabilities, especially considering Griffey’s overall reoccuring leg problems, but even high probabilities have a chance of being wrong.
But we cannot say for certain what would have happened if any past event had changed. Even if you can take a sure fire result change, such as the results of the Seahawks / Redskins game this last season (If Josh Brown makes the kick, there is no possibility the results are different then a Seahawks victory, as there was no time left on the clock, the game would have been over, period), you can’t predict what that change of event would have had on the remainder of the Seahawks’ season. Would they have gotten over confident and lost more games? Would they have never lost and rode momentum and this time won the Super bowl?
The point is, trying to determine the future of an alternate possibility reality using the facts of the present in our possibility reality is a very irresponsible thing to do. That’s all.
The point is, trying to determine the future of an alternate possibility reality using the facts of the present in our possibility reality is a very irresponsible thing to do. That’s all.
And to further point: Gillick is doing it and it’s wrong, so anybody else here doing it is also wrong. That’s all I’m trying to say. Just listen to the wisdom of the Beattles and let it be, man.
(this is delivered to Dave entirely tongue in cheek, so bear with me
)
Hey, Dave, the Greatest Free Agent In The History of Sports went 0-for-3 with 2 groundouts, with either Jeter or Damon on base ahead of him each time, in the Yanks’ 6-3 loss to the Phillies in today’s 1st ST exhibition game…
re: 62- Here’s another amusing and Gillick-related anecdote from today’s PHI-NYY tilt:
IP H R ER BB SO HR
PHILADELPHIA
R Franklin 2 5 2 2 0 1 0
Right where he left off. Many happy returns, Pat!
I’d give that honor to Shaquille O’Neal, unless he was traded from the Magic and my memory is faulty.
Again perhaps a faulty memory, but I think it was Boras who demanded to be paid such a huge contract. My beef with A-Rod was the way he said it wasn’t about the money when clearly it was.
Incomprehensible, please, Dave. Not incomprehendable.
w/r/t “clearly about the money”… unless you were in Alex’s head at the time, you don’t know that. Texas made a massive PR effort to convince him of the franchise’s sunny future as well as the best offer.
Picture it: massive PR efforts head to head…what with that famous 50 page prospectus by Boras/Rodriguez, and Tom Hicks et al wooing them with the “sunny future” (=$$$$$$$)…
How in the world was the griffey trade Gillicks best move? Trade a certain hall of famer for a 1 good fielder and 2 failed prospects….I rate it as one of his worst moves… Here are some better moves…Arthur Rhodes signing…Mrk McLemore signing….Ichiro signing….and Kaz signing…..
The only worse moves that he made were his non-trades during the pennant drives…especailly not getting a big stick in 2001
Does anybody actually know what we offered Arod? I’ve always heard of this “joke offer” but then I’ve heard he got offered nearly what he got from Texas. Does anybody know the real story with a real number?
F-Rod, Griffey was walking a few months later. Getting anything for him was pretty good, especially when KG hamstrung the process by specifying the team he was willing to go to.
How in the world was the griffey trade Gillicks best move? Trade a certain hall of famer for a 1 good fielder and 2 failed prospects….I rate it as one of his worst moves
Except you forget that the money saved in salary arguably brought in guys like Mac/Sele/Kaz/Rhodes/Olerud as free agents, Cameron was actually a good hitter, and Griffey’s health went south after that point.
In fact, you can argue that Cameron has contributed more to his teams the last 6 years than Griffey has- simply because of the massive amount of time Griffey’s spent on the DL. You can’t contribute on the DL.
Karen,
Okay, let me apologize first. My response to your comment was a bit snide, that’s my bad. Let me give it another try: You made the point that Rodriguez isn’t worth $7-9M more than Jeter, Ramirez, etc. I would argue that while that may be true, you haven’t said anything yet about whether or not Jeter, Ramirez, etc. are being paid what they are worth. If those guys are being underpaid, then Rodriguez’ true worth might be around $24-25M/year, even if he isn’t worth $7-9M more than those guys.
At the end of the day, I just think it’s unfair to try to characterize Alex Rodriguez as being too greedy, when he’s been worth about $2M/win, a value that a lot of players with big contracts won’t reach. So, no, I don’t think he deserves negative press for having an agent willing to go the extra mile to get him as much money as he can get.
How it was Gillick’s best move:
Gillick, joining the franchise, has Griffey demand a trade. Some bad stuff happens pretty quickly, but it’s pretty clear that Griffey now had to be traded, and traded to only one team. Griffey insists that he will refuse any trade in which that other team gives up too much talent: he wants his new team to be competitive.
And yet for that last chunk of Griffey’s contract — after which he was absolutely at that point going to leave for Cincy — Gillick got a stud center fielder who was a huge part of the team’s success for years and some other parts.
If he’d only received Cameron, it would have worked out.
Mat…and Dave, too, for that matter…one last word on Sir ARod.
When ARod can start out a season without tripping over his shoelaces and booting 2-3 grounders in a row (his first season as a Ranger) or end a season without slapping the ball out of a pitcher’s hand then claiming he was safe when he reached the base (2004, when the Yanks choked to the Red Sox in the ALCS), I’ll admit to respect for his accomplishments.
For such a fine athlete, he has a knack for playing like the coach/manager is his father (expecting to get a pass for poor sportsmanship or lackadaisical fielding).
#69: Art Thiel, in “Out of Left Field” (p. 203):
Gillick says it was 5 years guaranteed, totaling $95M
So how does ARod call an offer like that a joke?
How is getting an average hitting good fielding cf for Griffey a better deal than Ichiro…Ichiro was clearly his best move and to suggest anything else is ridiculous
You’re missing the point.
Further, if you’ve read “Out of Left Field” you’ll know that Gillick’s role in signing Ichiro was not so great as you seem to think.
“When ARod can start out a season without tripping over his shoelaces and booting 2-3 grounders in a row (his first season as a Ranger) or end a season without slapping the ball out of a pitcher’s hand then claiming he was safe when he reached the base (2004, when the Yanks choked to the Red Sox in the ALCS), I’ll admit to respect for his accomplishments.”
Alex Rodriguez has 6,000+ at-bats of hitting a translated .306/.389/.596 and average to above-average defense at premium defensive positions. Four plays that happen to stick out in your mind are but pebbles in the raging floodwaters of evidence that tell us that Alex Rodriguez is an exceptionally valuable player.
#80, true, and I know the record of even judging something like playoff choking or whatever is pretty mixed. But I couldn’t stop laughing at how horrible he was against the Angels. I’m definitely not sure how well he handles playoff pressure, though I freely admit I could be proved wrong at some point in the near future.
I defended A-Rod when he left for Texas and I waxed nostalgic when he said if he’d stuck around, we definitely would have won the WS in 01 (though I don’t know about that rotation, not really built for the playoffs, if there is such a thing). But something happened. It could be run-of-the-mill Yankee-hate, but I don’t think so. He has a knack for making people hate him. There’s the publicity stunts. I didn’t mind “his best karate,” though I thought it a little unbefitting of a player of his stature, whatever.
But he lost me forever in that postgame interview during that 2004 series when he said “I told (ump name here), I told him I didn’t want to see any more conferences, all those calls seem to go against the Yankees.” It was just so smug, refusing to take any responsibility for the loss, blaming the umps for getting together and getting the call that. That and the the fact that every baseball player seems to hate him…I’m unconvinced it’s jealousy.
Gillick’s comment is silly, and who knows, if he’d never become a Yankee, we might never have realized what a schmuck he is. But even so, somethin’ ain’t right with that one, and I’m glad it’s Yankee fans and not Seattle fans that have to deal with all of the hate he pulls in with that smarmy tractor beam of his.
well, and it continues the Gillick trend of expressing Griffey’s feelings about things, without actually having really talked to Griffey….
#80…I think A-Rod handles the playoff pressure OK. His career playoff numbers look alright to me: BA: .305 OBP: .393 SLG: .534 (118ABs)