Revisiting Lester's Spring Training contract negotiations

Quite possibly I'm biased in my reading, but Sean McAdam grilled Cherington on this very topic, and Ben's replies all but scream "they simply did not want to negotiate, and we respected that."

Since the text is a photo attached to a tweet, I can't cut and paste excerpts, so read the whole thing.

Let me see if I can end this nonsense once and for all.

1) Even if your first priority is choosing a team where you and your family are comfortable, getting the most possible money while you do so is a very common and reasonable second priority.

2) Even if your walk-year performance is as expected, and even if you re-sign with your old team, you will get more money by going to free agency.

3) Jon Lester had reason to believe that his walk year performance would exceed expectations, thus resulting in an even larger windfall. The Red Sox were not in a position to trust Lester even if they had been told of his confidence (most players would tell you that they're going to exceed expectations; Lester happened to be right).

Therefore, Jon Lester had compelling reasons to go to free agency and not negotiate a new contract. Does anyone dispute this?

Now, let's look at the idea that he actually ended negotiations because he was offended by the Sox opening offer.

1) Announcing that you are not interested in an extension and want to go to free agency is perceived by fans as greedy. That's a perception you would want to avoid.

2) As others have noted, the Sox opening offer simply was not insulting. It was a low opening bid. It may have been a bit lower than some of us would have offered, but it's just a starting point.

3) If you actually want to negotiate, you don't walk away from a negotiation because the opening offer is surprisingly low. You don't assume anything from the opening bid about what the final bid may be. You negotiate.

4) Lester's public statements about wanting to return to the Sox would inevitably diminish interest in him by other teams. His agent needed a narrative to counter-act this and help drive the bidding up. That Lester was upset at the Sox would fit that narrative perfectly, and would furthermore put fans on Lester's side rather than the team's, very much a good thing if he does return.

5) Jon Lester never said he was insulted. I'm not sure his agent ever said point-blank he was insulted. Someone told Peter Gammons that Lester's teammates told him that Lester told them he felt insulted. That's third-hand. That wouldn't stand up in a kangaroo court.

So, which narrative is more credible?

A) Lester and his agent have a compelling reason to go to free agency and not negotiate (which, BTW, is proving to be a brilliant move). They want, however, to avoid the perception that he's greedy. So they never make a counter-offer when the Sox open the negotiations. (All three of those things, BTW, are facts.) And they start a third-hand rumor that Lester felt the initial offer was insulting, which both solves the greed-perception problem, and gives opposing teams a much better hope of signing Lester, which has a decent or even good shot of raising the value of their bids.

B) Lester and his agent actually wanted to negotiate an extension, even though they knew it was against their best interests. They found the Sox initial offer insultingly low, even though it really wasn't. And even though they wanted to negotiate, they ended negotiations over the insult, which would be considered a terrible idea by negotiation experts. Furthermore, for some strange reason, the best reports of Lester being insulted are third-hand! And despite all of that incompetence, they lucked out into a windfall.

People, this is not a tough question to answer.

Note that I'm not saying that Lester's initial reaction probably wasn't "gee, that's kind of low." I'm sure it was.  I'm saying that the next words in the conversation with his agent were not "In fact, I'm so insulted by it that I've changed my mind about negotiating!" I'm saying that they were his agent saying "Well, that's great, it gives us the excuse we've been looking for to not negotiate, because we can spin it as you being insulted." (And Lester probably saying "I'm not going to say that. Don't say I said that.")

You are correct in saying that there should have been a counter offer by Leter and his reps if that indeed was the difference, and the fact that they decided not too makes it appear that Lester was actually looking for Hamels-type money all along. If this is accurate, then Lester should never have been saying that he would be willing to give Boston a hometown discount. What would be gaining from such talk? Boston has certainly made him a solid enouhg offer this go around, which wouldn't be much of a hometown discount. 

By the way, I don't mean to deny the fact that the front office made significant mistakes in handling the situation. They underestimated Lester's willingness to go to free agency this spring, assuming that he had a significant preference for security and a risk aversion that, in retrospect, may not have been the case. They also obviously did not forecast him having the best season of his career in 2014.

The difference is that while I think these were obviously mistakes, I think they deserve much less scorn than many of you are espousing. I wouldn't have led off with an opening offer that was so low, and I think if you asked the front office now, even they would say that they wish they'd done things differently. But their actions were reasonable at the time, and it's hard for me to get too upset about reasonable mistakes of the sort that every front office makes dozens of times each offseason.

I wish they would made better offer other than 4/70 for Jon Lester from last Spring. Like 5/100 to 6/120 range instead of 4/70 (low-ball) offer. Who knows if he takes it or not. It's now at least 6/150. Both BC & JH really screw up by negotiation tactics as the market drive up the cost for signing him. As a fan, I wanted no part of Justin Masterson as #1 or #2 starter (as plan B, C, etc) if they lose out Jon to other team.

It's pretty dumber for them to trade away 3 good pitchers (Lester, Lackey & Miller) and possible fail to sign JL. We don't have good rotation to carry all way for 2015 season. Masterson isn't the answer if they get him.

Whoa chicken little... Can we wait a while before reacting to this one way or another. Other than stating he'd take a home town discount. Jon Lester has done nothing to back that up. It's much more believable that he always intended to gob this route than sign early. Giving Lester 6/120 before last season would've been seen as foolish because it would have been. The 2013 stretch run and 2014 seasons are fooling people. He was not that pitcher previous to that.

David Robertson and Robinson Cano say hi.

The Yankees could have signed Cano (or Robertson) easily; they just elected to call his bluff -- and lost?

There are a few exceptions to my assertion; sometimes a player would just greatly prefer another situation.

Or sometimes the contract goes over what the team feels comfortable signing him for.  Which is probably the case every time it happens.  If some other team wants to be stupid and give Lester eleventy billion dollars, they should let him walk no matter how big their budget is.

It seems pretty clear that people are mostly forgetting a basic and very important fact.

It was, and is not, imperative to sign Jon Lester per se, it is simply imperative to rebuild the rotation for success in 2015 and beyond.

I think people are stuck on Lester, and not seeing him as the front office has to see him: a part of the puzzle, but not an irreplaceable part, just a part.

It might be hard or expensive to replace Lester's role and contribution, but losing Lester would not be like losing peak Papi, or Mike Trout (especially if Lester is going to cost 6/150: if Lester was going to be a bargain, it would be almost impossible to replace him). Lester is way more than JAG, but he is not THE GUY.

If we bring in a quality pitcher, at or around Lester's projected performance, or otherwise make a strong rotation with several pitchers of lesser talent, then BC will have done his job.

And I say this as someone who wanted Lester back.

I want to point out something important and so subtle that it escaped Dan Shaugnessy's attention.

The CHB compared the 4/$70 offer to the reported $144M offer that Scherzer turned down. Anyone see why that's laughably and patently bogus?

That's right: the 4/$70 was an initial offer, and those rarely if ever get reported. What tends to get reported is the final offer, the one in place when both sides would not budge and negotiations break down. Which is what the Scherzer number represents.

When, in fact, there is no counter-offer made by the other side, that does not even qualify as a negotiation. And we have no idea whether negotiations routinely start with a number so low that we all would consider it surprisingly so.

That the CHB totally buys the "Lester was offended" story is not quite the best reason to disbelieve it, but it's certainly a good one.