Ichiro! and Sasaki in the news
From the Japan Times, “Sasaki’s deal with BayStars is the richest ever in NPB” 650m 円, unless I miss my guess, is a shade over $6 million.
And check out this interview with Ichiro! That’s right, it’s an interview with Ichiro!
“It’s important to flex your body muscles, but more important to flex your brain muscles. Veterans have a tendency to be stubborn because they want to believe what they’ve been doing for years is right, but if you do that you can’t move on,” Ichiro said.
“Once you stop looking you stop discovering. I used to think there was nothing new for me to learn, but I didn’t stop searching. And look what happened,” he said.
Man, Ichiro! is cool. Thanks to several readers for the heads-up.
Olney owes Fehr an apology
Buster Olney, of productive out fame, argues at ESPN that the MLBPA owes its players an apology for ignoring their pleas for steroid testing, which would have prevented the BALCO problems.
Ignore, for a second, the emotional side of the steroid issue. This article is so wrong it makes me angry. His thesis is that the two big men in the union, Fehr and Orza, by failing to agree to testing, led to players being “smeared, by association”.
THG was undetectable. Baseball could have agreed to Olympic-style drug-testing, no notice anytime testing, no matter if you were on a date or at the beach, and they wouldn’t have prvented the BALCO scandal. Baseball, as the Olympics have been when drug scandals have hit, would have been just as tainted.
Further, Olney argues that because a USA Today survey indicated that 79% of players said they’d agree to steroid testing, the union betrayed their desire.
First, there’s a huge difference between saying “I support testing” and “I support having to stand in a room naked with two dudes staring at me while I urinate into a cup repeatedly during a season” much less the kind of full-press testing operation that’s required to make a serious impact on abuse.
Second, the difference between surveys and the union is obvious. Just as a player can go out and say “I’d love to take a huge salary cut to come to your city name here” in front of the microphones and then let the union protect their contract, so it is with steroids.
Or just as a player can come out and say “I’d do anything to avoid a strike” to a rotton-vegetable-armed populace, so they are likely to answer a survey. What major league baseball player, knowing the feelings of the public, is going to turn in a survey that says “I don’t support drug testing”? They’ve seen off-the-record stuff come back to bite people before — even Bonds knew when they labeled his sample that the chances were good that someone, eventually, would be testing it for purposes besides baseball’s anonymous group-level survey.
It is true that some players have said their union meetings didn’t discuss the issue in detail. It’s also true that union representatives are not always chosen for the best available candidates, and some haven’t taken their duties seriously enough. And that may be part of the problem… but the players pick those dudes. If they thought these issues were serious enough to warrant the best of their number, they’d pick the best people that would open discussion and solicit opinions.
The union represents the compromise wishes of the players, and always has. If you want to argue that Fehr and Orza weren’t forward-thinking-enough, or should have set a moral example and dragged their constituents kicking and screaming towards testing that still wouldn’t have prevented this, you’re welcome to do so. But that argument concedes that you understand that that’s not what they are, and yet they were chosen to lead the players union.
They were chosen to consistently represent the wishes of members in negotiations. Long-term, short-term: they are the instrument of player desires. They’re tools. You don’t blame the tools for the job of the craftsman.
Fehr and Orza are convenient targets, but to blame them for something they couldn’t have prevented, even if they had acted on the behalf of a supposed majority of players Olney wants to believe exist, for purposes of writing this easy column, is ridiculous.
There is more than enough shame and disgust to go around, but to say that Fehr and Orza bear any kind of responsibility for this latest public scandal that they should be apologizing for is absurd.
Updates
Some updates from the now booming free agent market.
Everyone else is contradicting what I was told about Clement and Philadelphia last night. Not sure what happened there, honestly. Most reports have the Phillies on the verge of signing Jon Lieber to a 3 year deal. They could theoretically afford Clement and Lieber, though that may not be in the plans.
Al Leiter went to Florida.
Richard Hidalgo looks like he’s going to be the bargain of the offseason so far. Texas is the frontrunner for his services, and he’s going to take a 1 year deal to reestablish market value. He’ll be a nice pickup for whoever snags him, and the M’s really would do well to get in on him now.
The White Sox signed Dustin Hermanson to a two year contract. Just Kenny Williams being Kenny Williams.
Magglio Ordonez is so healthy that Scott Boras is canceling his workout. Now you just get to take his word for it. Yay!
Jeff Sullivan goes all graphic on the market so far.
In search of new hosting
As you may have noticed today, it hasn’t taken long for us to grow out of this hosting solution. I’m tired of the constant outages, so — we’re looking for new digs. If you think you can help us find a new home and want the specs for what we’re looking for, read on. Read more
Womack signs with Yankees
All I have to say about this is GO YANKEES GO!! YOUR SELF DESTRUCTION CAN NOT BE COMPLETE ENOUGH FOR ME!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
From NY Newsday:
He figures to slide into the leadoff spot in the Yankees’ lineup.
Tony Womack’s career OBP is .319. His career high was a league-average-ish .349 last year at 34. This cracks me up. The Yankees are crazy. And good for them! As long as we have salary capping, that’s more money for everyone else to spend.
2y at $4m is the word on the net.
More deals going down
Okay, most of this is about ninety percent done, so if not everything works out, don’t sue me. I’ve been given the okay to make it public, however.
Brad Radke’s staying in Minnesota. Two year contract. Update: This has hit the wire. Confirmation’s everywhere.
The Phillies think they’ve got Matt Clement locked up. The Indians were making a hard push, but it appears that they won’t match Philadelphia’s best offer, which is in the 3 year, $26 million range.
Matt Morris re-signed with St. Louis. Update: This too.
Worst Deal Yet
This is the deal I was referring to yesterday, and now that the Washington Post is reporting it, I’ll stick it on the blog. The Yankees are going to sign Jaret Wright to a 3 year contract that, with incentives, will be worth around $23 million. The guaranteed money is quite a bit lower, but this is still an insane amount of money to give a guy with his track record.
It appears that the winners of this offseason will be those who avoid the middle class entirely. It’s a great time to be a midly effective right-handed pitcher.
Wilson re-signs
The Mariners re-signed Dan Wilson today. One year contract, dollars not disclosed, but it is believed to be worth around $2 million. We’ll give an exact figure once we get our hands on one.
Update: 1 year, $1.75 million. Considering it was basically inevitable that he was coming back, this is really a best case scenario.
Rumblings
Looks like there are several non-Mariner related deals on the verge of going down. One may be announced tomorrow. The offseason should begin this week.
And, as I’ve repeatedly said, patience is the key for M’s fans. There may be some good news on the horizon.
Today’s giggle
MLB.com’s Mariners Mailbag includes this gem:
I ask myself this every year, but do you see the Mariners actually going out and spending some money to acquire a much-needed addition (or two)? It seems like we always make offers, but never get the job done. The Mariners have one of the highest revenues in baseball, and what about all that money they ended up not having to pay for Sasaki?
— Jason Y., Puyallup, Wash.You must have forgotten that last winter, the Mariners signed several free agents (Eddie Guardado, Raul Ibanez, Scott Spiezio, Rich Aurilia and Ron Villone) for more than $50 million and re-signed Ichiro for $44 million. That’s a lot of money to most of us. Some of that “Sasaki money” was used to pay off underachieving players (like John Olerud and Aurilia) after they were released during the season. The Yankees paid very little of Olerud’s $7 million salary, and the Padres paid about $175,000 of Aurilia’s $3 million contract. And just because a team makes an offer to a player (they offered Miguel Tejada $45 million over five years) doesn’t mean that the player will take it.
That Sasaki money wasn’t spent on anything. At the start of the year, they had $5-7m or so (depending on who’s talking) in money that they had said they were budged for, but had not spent on payroll including Olerud and Aurilia. Dropping those two didn’t do anything to the budget. If anything, it raises a larger point: if the Yankees paid Olerud something, and the Padres picked up any of Aurilia’s salary, then the total amount they were under their original budget was higher, not lower, than when they started the season with Sasaki money burning a hole in their pocket.
Or, if you prefer…
There hasn’t been much written or said about Matsuzaka, who pitches for the Japan Series-winning Seibu Lions, and held the touring U.S. All-Star team to five hits in a complete-game win in Sapporo last month. The reason for the lack of publicity is that the right-hander isn’t a free agent and therefore can’t sign with an MLB organization for several more years.
Except for, you know, here. And the reason for the lack of publicity? Before he re-signed there, he was going to be a free agent after this season and there was much speculation that he’d come over.
Also, uh… Dan Wilson’s been terrific for 11 years, which is greatly overstating his case. Even if the Mariners sign Delgado *and* Sexson, there would still be “plenty of at-bats” for Bucky to pick up. “Since Koskie is less expensive, his signing would allow the Mariners to fill other holes.” Like last year! We should spend tons of money on multi-year contracts for a new set of aging players every year, because then you’re filling more holes — and you guarantee you’ll have holes the next year! Yay!