SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
Revisiting Lester's Spring Training contract negotiations
|
Post by soxfan06 on Dec 5, 2014 22:10:10 GMT -5
At the time, before his statistically best season a $17.5M per year offer was hardly "ridiculous." Yes, it was low, but let's be serious here, it was a bonafide offer that his agents used as a tool to get him to free agency. I am being serious. The Sox offered Beckett that kind of deal like 4 years ago, when that was an acceptable market price for somebody who wasn't as reliable as Lester has been. Prices go up. Lester and his agent had to know that on the open market at worst he could get $20 million per year for a heckuva lot more than 4 years. So you're talking at least $50 million less and he hadn't even had his best statistical season yet. Now that he has, you're talking about $80 to $100 million less. When Lester talked about hometown discount he wasn't talking THAT big a discount. It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't ticked and disappointed. I believe that he wants to be in Boston, but if the Sox don't think he's worth anywhere near the going market rate, then I don't blame him for saying the heck with the Sox, I'm going elsewhere. This is something the Sox FO does. They want a big-time bargain. They might have had one if they were smart about it. Perhaps they thought his 2nd half 2013 was a fluke and that he'd already seen his best days. Who knows? Or maybe they think that if a guy likes Boston they can get away with always offering less money. Pedroia took a ridiculous discount. Ortiz could have gotten more, I believe, with another AL team. Napoli came back for less. Lowell in the past did, too, so maybe they believe they can always offer a lot less and get good results. It's kind of arrogant if they think that's always going to work and that you can get this big a discount. Yes, thats the whole point, you don't come out and give them your best offer. An offer of $17.5M per year was absolutely a reasonable starting point to negotiations, especially after the player said he would take less money to stay. If they were actually serious about negotiating (they weren't), they would have countered with 6 years, $150M then the Red Sox would have come back with a 5 year, $100 million deal. That's how negotiating works. The fact that some people have actually bought into the media bullcrap about this whole scenario proves that people will believe anything if you suggest it enough times. That theory really is talk radio BS.
|
|
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 5, 2014 22:14:54 GMT -5
I am being serious. The Sox offered Beckett that kind of deal like 4 years ago, when that was an acceptable market price for somebody who wasn't as reliable as Lester has been. Prices go up. Lester and his agent had to know that on the open market at worst he could get $20 million per year for a heckuva lot more than 4 years. So you're talking at least $50 million less and he hadn't even had his best statistical season yet. Now that he has, you're talking about $80 to $100 million less. When Lester talked about hometown discount he wasn't talking THAT big a discount. It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't ticked and disappointed. I believe that he wants to be in Boston, but if the Sox don't think he's worth anywhere near the going market rate, then I don't blame him for saying the heck with the Sox, I'm going elsewhere. This is something the Sox FO does. They want a big-time bargain. They might have had one if they were smart about it. Perhaps they thought his 2nd half 2013 was a fluke and that he'd already seen his best days. Who knows? Or maybe they think that if a guy likes Boston they can get away with always offering less money. Pedroia took a ridiculous discount. Ortiz could have gotten more, I believe, with another AL team. Napoli came back for less. Lowell in the past did, too, so maybe they believe they can always offer a lot less and get good results. It's kind of arrogant if they think that's always going to work and that you can get this big a discount. Yes, thats the whole point, you don't come out and give them your best offer. An offer of $17.5M per year was absolutely a reasonable starting point to negotiations, especially after the player said he would take less money to stay. If they were actually serious about negotiating (they weren't), they would have countered with 6 years, $150M then the Red Sox would have come back with a 5 year, $100 million deal. That's how negotiating works. The fact that some people have actually bought into the media bullcrap about this whole scenario proves that people will believe anything if you suggest it enough times. That theory really is talk radio BS. Or it's really possible that Lester was ticked off that the initial offer was that low and said screw them. And you don't know that it's talk radio BS - it's easy to blame the media, but sometimes the Red Sox FO doesn't wrap itself in glory. There's no logical reason I can see why Lester shouldn't be a Red Sox, but when all is said and done, he'll wind up elsewhere because the Sox, flush with a ton of cash, don't want to spend the money on their own guy. It's an old story.
|
|
|
Post by soxfan06 on Dec 5, 2014 22:17:43 GMT -5
Yes, thats the whole point, you don't come out and give them your best offer. An offer of $17.5M per year was absolutely a reasonable starting point to negotiations, especially after the player said he would take less money to stay. If they were actually serious about negotiating (they weren't), they would have countered with 6 years, $150M then the Red Sox would have come back with a 5 year, $100 million deal. That's how negotiating works. The fact that some people have actually bought into the media bullcrap about this whole scenario proves that people will believe anything if you suggest it enough times. That theory really is talk radio BS. Or it's really possible that Lester was ticked off that the initial offer was that low and said screw them. And you don't know that it's talk radio BS - it's easy to blame the media, but sometimes the Red Sox FO doesn't wrap itself in glory. There's no logical reason I can see why Lester shouldn't be a Red Sox, but when all is said and done, he'll wind up elsewhere because the Sox, flush with a ton of cash, don't want to spend the money on their own guy. It's an old story. lol
|
|
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 5, 2014 22:31:17 GMT -5
Or it's really possible that Lester was ticked off that the initial offer was that low and said screw them. And you don't know that it's talk radio BS - it's easy to blame the media, but sometimes the Red Sox FO doesn't wrap itself in glory. There's no logical reason I can see why Lester shouldn't be a Red Sox, but when all is said and done, he'll wind up elsewhere because the Sox, flush with a ton of cash, don't want to spend the money on their own guy. It's an old story. lol Fine have it your way. The Sox played this to absolute perfection. You made me see the light. Yay Red Sox, well done (waving my pom-poms).
|
|
|
Post by grandsalami on Dec 5, 2014 23:43:51 GMT -5
Personally, I think ownership doesn't really even want to sign Lester at this point. If they did somehow manage to sign him, every dollar in excess of $105 million would be like another needle in John Henry's buttocks. An infantile mindset on his part really, since he not only offended the player but also woefully misjudged the market. fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2014/07/21/peter-gammons-on-dc-potential-trade-partners-show-most-interest-in-red-sox-reliever-andrew-miller/"Gammons said that the Red Sox could have avoided the entire drama surrounding contract negotiations with Lester if they offered him a much more reasonable offer than the initial four-year, $70 million proposal this spring. ‘I was told that Lester told teammates that when they met in March, if they offered him one dollar more than the six-year, $105 million that Homer Bailey got, he would take it,' Gammons said. But they didn’t. The Red Sox maintain that what they started at — the four-year, $70 million [offer] — was a starting point." I call bullshat on that
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,931
|
Post by ericmvan on Dec 6, 2014 0:33:32 GMT -5
Notice he didn't say "Lester's teammates told me." It's second-hand. So I wonder who told it to Gammons ... hmm, wouldn't be his agent, would it? Bailey's deal included his last year before free agency, at a price just above what the Reds had offered in arbitration ($9M verus $8.7; Bailey had asked for $11.6M). So it was really a 5/$96 extension given for ages 29-33. Two questions: 1) Does Jon Lester really believe that the Sox' failure to offer him a 6-year extension for ages 31-36 at a slightly lower AAV was insulting, because it suggests that they thought he wasn't even as good as Bailey? Was there some college class in comparing apples to oranges that Lester took but we all missed? 2) In which "How to Negotiate" book does it say that if you would really like to come to mutually agreeable terms, but the other side's initial offer is surprisingly low, it's a good idea to consider it an insult and walk away? I mean, other than the one from the planet Bizarro? The Sox made a reasonable low initial offer, and the Lester camp decided they could spin it as an insult that ended the negotiations. I actually think that Lester is absolutely sincere about wanting to come back here, but that his agent is savvy enough to realize that there needs to be an opposing narrative, or other teams will not bid aggressively enough. Yes, if they were bidding rationally, neither narrative would matter, but this is Earth, not Vulcan. Emotions rule. "I understand that Lester really wants to come back to Boston, but he's still has mixed feelings about the insulting earlier negotiations, so this is doable! Let's up our bid!" The end result, I hope, is that Lester comes back here for just a bit more than we would have liked to pay.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,931
|
Post by ericmvan on Dec 6, 2014 3:57:29 GMT -5
2) In which "How to Negotiate" book does it say that if you would really like to come to mutually agreeable terms, but the other side's initial offer is surprisingly low, it's a good idea to consider it an insult and walk away? I mean, other than the one from the planet Bizarro Major League Baseball? Fixed. Maybe I didn't make the point clear enough. MLB is unique in that when you're negotiating for a contract extension, you can decide to cease negotiating and return later as a free agent and negotiate under circumstances that are likely (but not guaranteed) to be more favorable to you. But Lester's agent is spinning the ending of the initial negotiation not as "we ultimately decided we wanted to take it to free agency, so we didn't even make the Sox a counter-offer," but as "Jon was so insulted he decided not to negotiate." My point is that ceasing negotiations because you felt an initial offer was insultingly low is total bs; it's not just a terrible negotiating strategy, it's a nonexistent one. If you want to negotiate, you negotiate. You don't change your mind because your feelings were hurt. We're trying to figure out here why the negotiations went no further than the initial offer, and the Lester camp version is laughable. If they really wanted to work out an extension, they roll their eyes and figure the Sox like to waste time by starting with a low figure, and then they make a counter-offer, and the negotiations proceed until they either reach a mutually acceptable figure or fail to do so. That they walked away meant they had decided they would take it to free agency. In MLB, that is a perfectly fine and acceptable reason to end negotiations for an extension. Because your wittle feelings got a boo-boo is not.
|
|
jimoh
Veteran
Posts: 3,981
|
Post by jimoh on Dec 6, 2014 8:12:20 GMT -5
Maybe I didn't make the point clear enough. MLB is unique in that when you're negotiating for a contract extension, you can decide to cease negotiating and return later as a free agent and negotiate under circumstances that are likely (but not guaranteed) to be more favorable to you. But Lester's agent is spinning the ending of the initial negotiation not as "we ultimately decided we wanted to take it to free agency, so we didn't even make the Sox a counter-offer," but as "Jon was so insulted he decided not to negotiate." My point is that ceasing negotiations because you felt an initial offer was insultingly low is total bs; it's not just a terrible negotiating strategy, it's a nonexistent one. If you want to negotiate, you negotiate. You don't change your mind because your feelings were hurt. We're trying to figure out here why the negotiations went no further than the initial offer, and the Lester camp version is laughable. If they really wanted to work out an extension, they roll their eyes and figure the Sox like to waste time by starting with a low figure, and then they make a counter-offer, and the negotiations proceed until they either reach a mutually acceptable figure or fail to do so. That they walked away meant they had decided they would take it to free agency. In MLB, that is a perfectly fine and acceptable reason to end negotiations for an extension. Because your wittle feelings got a boo-boo is not. Aren't there two ways to interpret a claim that an offer was insulting? One is that "your wittle feelings got a boo-boo." The other is that you feel the offer is so low that the people making it have an opinion of your worth that you find insulting, and leads you to think that they will not in the near future come close to making an acceptable offer. Which one makes more sense as a conjecture about Jon Lester?
|
|
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 6, 2014 8:40:53 GMT -5
Maybe I didn't make the point clear enough. MLB is unique in that when you're negotiating for a contract extension, you can decide to cease negotiating and return later as a free agent and negotiate under circumstances that are likely (but not guaranteed) to be more favorable to you. But Lester's agent is spinning the ending of the initial negotiation not as "we ultimately decided we wanted to take it to free agency, so we didn't even make the Sox a counter-offer," but as "Jon was so insulted he decided not to negotiate." My point is that ceasing negotiations because you felt an initial offer was insultingly low is total bs; it's not just a terrible negotiating strategy, it's a nonexistent one. If you want to negotiate, you negotiate. You don't change your mind because your feelings were hurt. We're trying to figure out here why the negotiations went no further than the initial offer, and the Lester camp version is laughable. If they really wanted to work out an extension, they roll their eyes and figure the Sox like to waste time by starting with a low figure, and then they make a counter-offer, and the negotiations proceed until they either reach a mutually acceptable figure or fail to do so. That they walked away meant they had decided they would take it to free agency. In MLB, that is a perfectly fine and acceptable reason to end negotiations for an extension. Because your wittle feelings got a boo-boo is not. Aren't there two ways to interpret a claim that an offer was insulting? One is that "your wittle feelings got a boo-boo." The other is that you feel the offer is so low that the people making it have an opinion of your worth that you find insulting, and leads you to think that they will not in the near future come close to making an acceptable offer. Which one makes more sense as a conjecture about Jon Lester? Well said. I mean you can play the game of the Red Sox offer Lester a $1 contract, his agents say OK, we counter with one for a million billion dollars (complete with the Dr. Evil look), and they try to meet in the middle. Or it's like you said, Lester thinks if that initial offer is an indication that the team has no real desire to fork over a considerable amount of money, then why play out the charade. And it is playing out that way. I think David Ortiz made some interesting comments. He, unlike us, played with Lester and I'm sure they had conversations about how Lester is really feeling about things. I believe Ortiz is telling the truth that Lester really wants to be in Boston, but he was hurt/disappointed/insulted by the way the Sox approached the idea of extending him. I believe Ortiz said that Lester was not happy to be traded (which seems believable - he never did seem happy about going to Oakland) and that the Sox had some mending to do with Lester and need to step up. All this seems very plausible and believable to me. It's a different mindset for somebody who lives paycheck to paycheck (most of us), which is why I think it is so hard to understand or relate to what Lester is probably thinking or feeling or what sentiments Ortiz is expressing. The negotiations remind me a bit of Nomar (who I believe loved being a Red Sox, too), with one big exception being that Nomar was hitting the downside of his career, while Lester has actually been improving his performance. It's not that hard to get a sense that a team really, REALLY, doesn't want you THAT bad and won't go the extra mile for you. And it's playing out. If the Sox offer 6 years $150 million for Lester's services, which is in the ballpark for his market value, I think the Sox have a legit shot at coming away with Lester. He already said as much. But if the Sox are going to make a well-below market offer, and in this case Lester will probably will have a market that might hit 7 years $175 million or 6 years $156 million or thereabouts, the Sox are obviously lagging behind by at least a good $30 million, just good enough to say Shucks we tried, oh well. I believe that approach will put them in a scenario where they will never sign a top of the rotation starter - those guys are available. I mean look at Scherzer. If the Sox aren't giving Lester $150 million, they're sure not going to give Scherzer the $175 - $200 million he requires, and they're not going to do it for Cueto, Zimmerman, or Price down the road either. That puts them in the market for John Lackey types who are good, but not quite as consistently good as the guys mentioned above. If they want guys like those listed above, then they have to deal good prospects to rent them for a year before their contracts expire. You can only do that so often before you deplete your minor league talent because every year you're looking to compete, you'll need to rent one, because if you want to win, you need a guy who's going to have the capability of winning those big games in October. It's not like the Sox have young Roger Clemens in the farm system, ready to be an ace for six years either. I think Owens, Rodriguez, and Barnes could eventually make for a strong #2, #3, #4 combo in the rotation, but they need somebody who can lead the staff.
|
|
|
Post by Smittyw on Dec 6, 2014 8:43:12 GMT -5
I am being serious. The Sox offered Beckett that kind of deal like 4 years ago, when that was an acceptable market price for somebody who wasn't as reliable as Lester has been. Prices go up. Lester and his agent had to know that on the open market at worst he could get $20 million per year for a heckuva lot more than 4 years. So you're talking at least $50 million less and he hadn't even had his best statistical season yet. Now that he has, you're talking about $80 to $100 million less. When Lester talked about hometown discount he wasn't talking THAT big a discount. It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't ticked and disappointed. I believe that he wants to be in Boston, but if the Sox don't think he's worth anywhere near the going market rate, then I don't blame him for saying the heck with the Sox, I'm going elsewhere. This is something the Sox FO does. They want a big-time bargain. They might have had one if they were smart about it. Perhaps they thought his 2nd half 2013 was a fluke and that he'd already seen his best days. Who knows? Or maybe they think that if a guy likes Boston they can get away with always offering less money. Pedroia took a ridiculous discount. Ortiz could have gotten more, I believe, with another AL team. Napoli came back for less. Lowell in the past did, too, so maybe they believe they can always offer a lot less and get good results. It's kind of arrogant if they think that's always going to work and that you can get this big a discount. Exactly. Even as a starting point, the 4/70 was absurdly low, even before Lester's career year.
|
|
|
Post by Guidas on Dec 6, 2014 8:58:55 GMT -5
FWIW Sandoval said one of the reasons he came to Boston, even though SF had a similar offer, was because he felt disrespected by The Giants by their initial offer to him in the spring.
I've read it often that many (though not all) these guys are influenced by respect, and just as often their sense of "respect" equals dollars. Or as Pedro was quoted as saying, "All I want is one dollar more a year than Schilling."
Lester seems like a different cat but now he has significant leverage in the marketplace given the dollars being reported. Or as the players might say, he's got a lot of respect.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Dec 6, 2014 9:08:47 GMT -5
Yes, thats the whole point, you don't come out and give them your best offer. An offer of $17.5M per year was absolutely a reasonable starting point to negotiations, especially after the player said he would take less money to stay. If they were actually serious about negotiating (they weren't), they would have countered with 6 years, $150M then the Red Sox would have come back with a 5 year, $100 million deal. That's how negotiating works. The fact that some people have actually bought into the media bullcrap about this whole scenario proves that people will believe anything if you suggest it enough times. That theory really is talk radio BS. Or it's really possible that Lester was ticked off that the initial offer was that low and said screw them. And you don't know that it's talk radio BS - it's easy to blame the media, but sometimes the Red Sox FO doesn't wrap itself in glory. There's no logical reason I can see why Lester shouldn't be a Red Sox, but when all is said and done, he'll wind up elsewhere because the Sox, flush with a ton of cash, don't want to spend the money on their own guy. It's an old story. The only things we really know is what Lester said himself. Trying to argue that he was thinking something different than what he has said over and over again is an exercise in futility. I'm really tired of it. If Lester had a 2014 like his 2012, 4/$70 would have been too much.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Dec 6, 2014 9:14:34 GMT -5
Can we move the "What is Jon Lester thinking while saying something else?" discussion to off-topic? And then when we get to the state income tax discussion, just put that over there too.
|
|
|
Post by bluechip on Dec 6, 2014 9:33:33 GMT -5
Maybe I didn't make the point clear enough. MLB is unique in that when you're negotiating for a contract extension, you can decide to cease negotiating and return later as a free agent and negotiate under circumstances that are likely (but not guaranteed) to be more favorable to you. But Lester's agent is spinning the ending of the initial negotiation not as "we ultimately decided we wanted to take it to free agency, so we didn't even make the Sox a counter-offer," but as "Jon was so insulted he decided not to negotiate." My point is that ceasing negotiations because you felt an initial offer was insultingly low is total bs; it's not just a terrible negotiating strategy, it's a nonexistent one. If you want to negotiate, you negotiate. You don't change your mind because your feelings were hurt. We're trying to figure out here why the negotiations went no further than the initial offer, and the Lester camp version is laughable. If they really wanted to work out an extension, they roll their eyes and figure the Sox like to waste time by starting with a low figure, and then they make a counter-offer, and the negotiations proceed until they either reach a mutually acceptable figure or fail to do so. That they walked away meant they had decided they would take it to free agency. In MLB, that is a perfectly fine and acceptable reason to end negotiations for an extension. Because your wittle feelings got a boo-boo is not. You are absolutely correct. The initial offer is NEVER a final offer, and no serious negotiator would ever treat it like it was a final offer.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on Dec 6, 2014 9:50:40 GMT -5
Let's examine the narrative that the Red Sox initial offer was "lowball" and unreasonable. It wasn't.
Lester had a dominant 2nd half and playoff run in 2013. But before that his ERA was in the high 4s for a season and a half. Before that, he had back to back seasons with an ERA in the mid 3's. Remember all of the talk about Lester's changed arm slot, decreased velocity, and how Beckett had made him too reliant on his cutter?
Given his history at the time 4/75 seems perfectly reasonable. Lester took a bet on himself that his 2nd half performance in 2013 was real and he won that bet. Justin Masterson took a similar bet and lost.
It is a natural human error to overweight events that came most recently.
|
|
TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,835
|
Post by TearsIn04 on Dec 6, 2014 10:04:13 GMT -5
2) In which "How to Negotiate" book does it say that if you would really like to come to mutually agreeable terms, but the other side's initial offer is surprisingly low, it's a good idea to consider it an insult and walk away? I mean, other than the one from the planet Bizarro Major League Baseball? Fixed. The How to Negotiate Book doesn't say anything about throwing a hissy fit and walking away. But I know the book quite well and it does say that if the other side makes an opening offer that is way out of whack, it's best to politely decline and see if they'll come back with something more reasonable. Otherwise, that ridiculously high or low (in this case, low) opening offer becomes the entire basis of future offers. If, for instance, Lester's side thought 5 years/$110 million was reasonable, they would have had to counter with something like 6 years/$150 million to make 5/$110 million the mid-point. At that point back in the spring, a demand of 6 years/$150 million would have seemed way high. Once the RS leaked it, message boards like this one and talk radio would have blown up with howls from the hoi polloi (commoners like us) that Lester was a greedy pig. The Lev brothers aren't stupid. They have plenty of experience negotiating contracts and are, it seems, pretty well respected for their reasonableness and willingness/ability to close a deal. The RS wanted to win the negotiations. All they ended up winning was the fix they're in now if they want a legit No. 1. They can pay a ton more for Lester than they could have in the spring, go to the trade market where teams are sure to ask for their top prospects, pay ~$200 million for Scherzer, or overpay for Shields.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Dec 6, 2014 10:07:17 GMT -5
Let's examine the narrative that the Red Sox initial offer was "lowball" and unreasonable. It wasn't. Lester had a dominant 2nd half and playoff run in 2013. But before that his ERA was in the high 4s for a season and a half. Before that, he had back to back seasons with an ERA in the mid 3's. Remember all of the talk about Lester's changed arm slot, decreased velocity, and how Beckett had made him too reliant on his cutter? Given his history at the time 4/75 seems perfectly reasonable. Lester took a bet on himself that his 2nd half performance in 2013 was real and he won that bet. Justin Masterson took a similar bet and lost. It is a natural human error to overweight events that came most recently. I agree with this. As I've discussed before, 4/$70m is basically the extension that the Red Sox gave to Josh Beckett in 2010, when Beckett was 30 and entering his last year before free agency. If anything, Beckett circa 2010 was a much better bet than Lester circa early 2014, as Beckett was coming off three straight five fWAR seasons, while Lester was in the three/four fWAR range in the three years prior. The offer was based off a reasonable comp at the time. What subsequently happened was that Lester bet on himself and had the best season of his career. Now, that initial offer looks silly in retrospect. But at the time, I don't think it was low enough that, if his agents were serious about negotiating, they would have dismissed it out of hand and decided that it was an indication that the front office didn't want to negotiate in good faith.
|
|
|
Post by dcsoxfan on Dec 6, 2014 11:03:59 GMT -5
Three things:
1. Lester has an agent. Even if he were willing to sign for one dollar above what Bailey got, his agent has a professional obligation to make sure he gets the best deal possible. There is no reason to believe re-signing Lester prior to this season would have been anywhere near as simple as Gammons and company are suggesting.
2. Lester's value went up dramatically and unexpectedly this year. The Red Sox bet wrong, but so would most people. Signing Lester for $100 million last off-season wasn't a slam dunk.
3. I tend to think all this talk of disrespect by players is more rationalization than real. It's a way for them to be mercenary without feeling mercenary. I see no reason to believe the Red Sox are ham-handed or disrespectful.
Lester wasn't going to sign for well below market value last year, just as he isn't going to this year. His market value just rose with his rising peripherals. No one could be faulted for not anticipating how much he improved last year.
|
|
|
Post by brianthetaoist on Dec 6, 2014 11:39:01 GMT -5
You don't need to get into this psychological level of disrespect and feelings ... the Sox weren't comfortable offering a huge contract at the time, Lester's camp thought that initial offer was a good indicator of the Sox outlook and bet that he'd prove his worth this year and get more money later, and Lester's folks were right. Bully for him!
However, I do think the "disrespect" thing is real. These guys are professional athletes; they are scorekeepers to their core. Some of them want TOP dollar to feel like they won, some of them want $1 more than X ... whatever. It's not that different from a lot of negotiations I've seen. I've seen plenty of management/labor negotiations that were completely irrational in actual economic terms just because the two sides wanted to "win" (along with a general "crush the union" ideology pervasive in these negotiations, but that's another story).
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on Dec 6, 2014 11:44:40 GMT -5
I have to agree with Eric that Gammons assertion is misleading because Homer Bailey was an unsigned player at the time he signed while Lester was not.
Lester wasn't asking for a dollar more than the 6/100 that Bailey got. He was asking for 7/114. Signing a pitcher in his late 20s for seven years with his track record at the time is risky.
That makes the 5/88 that the Red Sox offered seem more reasonable. It's more than Jon Lackey got
|
|
|
Post by sdiaz1 on Dec 6, 2014 11:56:00 GMT -5
Clicked this thread thinking that maybe there were reports of Lester's agents meeting with the Sox FO in a new round of negotiations. Instead I got this.... Awesome.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on Dec 6, 2014 12:33:46 GMT -5
FWIW Sandoval said one of the reasons he came to Boston, even though SF had a similar offer, was because he felt disrespected by The Giants by their initial offer to him in the spring. I've read it often that many (though not all) these guys are influenced by respect, and just as often their sense of "respect" equals dollars. Or as Pedro was quoted as saying, "All I want is one dollar more a year than Schilling." Lester seems like a different cat but now he has significant leverage in the marketplace given the dollars being reported. Or as the players might say, he's got a lot of respect. Players say a lot of things....and believe it or not some of them are actually not true.
|
|
|
Post by ray88h66 on Dec 6, 2014 16:27:49 GMT -5
Clicked this thread thinking that maybe there were reports of Lester's agents meeting with the Sox FO in a new round of negotiations. Instead I got this.... Awesome. Rats, same here. I was hoping to say I was wrong saying he was gone after the 4/ 70 joke. Still hope to. The mind readers can carry on. My bad, the title thread is not what I read the other day.
|
|
|
Post by Gwell55 on Dec 6, 2014 16:39:25 GMT -5
Yes, thats the whole point, you don't come out and give them your best offer. An offer of $17.5M per year was absolutely a reasonable starting point to negotiations, especially after the player said he would take less money to stay. If they were actually serious about negotiating (they weren't), they would have countered with 6 years, $150M then the Red Sox would have come back with a 5 year, $100 million deal. That's how negotiating works. The fact that some people have actually bought into the media bullcrap about this whole scenario proves that people will believe anything if you suggest it enough times. That theory really is talk radio BS. Or it's really possible that Lester was ticked off that the initial offer was that low and said screw them. And you don't know that it's talk radio BS - it's easy to blame the media, but sometimes the Red Sox FO doesn't wrap itself in glory. There's no logical reason I can see why Lester shouldn't be a Red Sox, but when all is said and done, he'll wind up elsewhere because the Sox, flush with a ton of cash, don't want to spend the money on their own guy. It's an old story. Or you know it is really possible that the media and their chicken and beer garbage attacks totally ticked off Lester, then the media supposing it had to be a low ball offer as they didn't immediately up it wasn't quite correct... then the "in the know" media reports that are bad mouthing the front office (who really knows the motive behind them other then selling news)... So what we are getting now isn't so good on what he really feels towards the front office. Hey just saying...
|
|
|
Post by mredsox89 on Dec 6, 2014 16:42:41 GMT -5
If he hadn't made comments about wanting to come back and signing for less than top dollar after he had been traded, then sure, I could buy the "disrespect" card. But now, I don't. If he signs somewhere for 30-40 million more than the Sox offer, again, that's fine. But if it's barely above whatever the Sox offer, it comes off as a slap in the face, given what he said within the last few months about Boston. I don't think he'd ever intend it to come off like that, but when you make such blatant statements about wanting to come back, it's what you set yourself up for
|
|
|