MLB 2008-09 Hot Stove League

[bobbob1313]

Gotta agree on this. If you're a player you want Boras doing your bargaining. He still comes off as a douche bag, though.

 

His is one of those professions where it's almost impossible to not come off as a douchebag.

[bjorn_skurj]

And it ain't like baseball team owners are repositories of humility and self-sacrifice either.

[Lammycat]

Apparently, BOS offered Teixeira 8 YR/$184 MM ($23 MM per year) and Boras countered with 8 YR/$200 MM, which pissed BOS off. Nats and O's are still high in the running (he's a Baltimore native/would like to play on east coast, and interest from both of them) but I would not be surprised to see NYY swoop in at the last minute, either.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/sports/18311921/detail.html

[jenbobblehead]

His is one of those professions where it's almost impossible to not come off as a douchebag.

But how come we never hear about any of the other douchebags?

[Lammycat]

Scott Boras MLB and minor league clients (rough draft):

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/10/scott-boras-cli.html

[tongue-tied lightning]

very sad

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3782859

[Sir Stewart]

And it ain't like baseball team owners are repositories of humility and self-sacrifice either.

 

This is one of the reasons I'm OK with the likes of Scott Boras.

[MattZ]

Let's see what happens with Texeira. It is clear that Boras is great at his job, but I still think he bungled the A-Rod thing last year (even though A-Rod did come out better). Now that ANA has pulled their offer, and BOS is playing hard to get, let's see if Texeira gets an offer even approaching the ANA offer.

[Leo]

How do you say "no" to what, 23M for 8 years? He's good, but c'mon!

 

I love baseball. I have since 1967 when, at 9 years old, I was heartbroken on the last day of the season, in the last at bat, as Dick McAuliffe ground into a double play to end the Tigers' hope of forcing a 1-game playoff with the Red Sox for the pennant. I was hooked.

 

It is the most dramatic and sublime of all sports. It's poetry. It's blood. But the money in which the owners, players and agents now deal is fucking grotesque. I know that it is an inevitable, economic reality; but it directly cheapens the game and makes me weary.

 

I want to look away and move on and search out another activity that has a smell, a color, a sound and a memory as organic and enchanted as baseball. But I can't. It's too much a part of me. Of where I've been and where I want to go.

 

So, I ignore my own best interests, and continue to feed the monster. I have renewed my season tickets again, and eagerly await spring training.

 

I'll always scuffle and sniffle for baseball.

[Sir Stewart]

I want to look away and move on and search out another activity that has a smell, a color, a sound and a memory as organic and enchanted as baseball. But I can't. It's too much a part of me. Of where I've been and where I want to go.

 

Also: you can't, because there is nothing like it.

[MattZ]

Also, Leo, I have a lot of the same feelings that you have, but I think many of those feelings relate to my youth. The game has always been about money. True, maybe to a lesser degree than today, but it's always been a business. I wonder how much of my nostalgia for the old days is really a nostalgia for my own naivete. There's plenty of amazing baseball being played today -- just as good as ever. Maybe it's me that has changed the most? Lots of people hated Joe D for being the first player to make 100k. (if I remember that story correctly).

 

I am hooked, too.

[bobbob1313]

Lots of people hated Joe D for being the first player to make 100k.

 

Hank Greenberg was the first player in MLB history to make 100,000 in a season.

 

How does money cheapen the game? If anything, guys are going to play harder (and subsequently, better) if they have more at stake. I don't buy that the game has gotten anything by better as time has gone on, and there's very little doubt in my mind that the best baseball players ever are playing right now.

[bjorn_skurj]

If there was no or not as much money in baseball as there is and always has been, we would have to nostalgicize over games we see in fields behind gas stations starring local dudes. Which may not be such a bad thing, come to think of it. Believe me, though, the way owners fucked over players in the days of the reserve clause, they are getting their karmic payback by having to deal with the likes of Boras.

[Lammycat]

The pay scale is relative to the amount of money that MLB, as a whole, continues to generate. The figure is on a steady incline and the average pay is actually a little below what it should be in regard to the money generated. It is still an enormous amount of money for the average player but there can be arguments made that MLB players, as a whole, are actually underpaid. I realize that sounds absurd but it is what it is....

[Sir Stewart]

I think a factor that's easily overlooked is these guys are getting millions of dollars a year for a limited number of years. It's not like they're continuing to get an MLB salary once they're finished.

[MattZ]

Hank Greenberg was the first player in MLB history to make 100,000 in a season.

 

In 1949 [Joe DiMaggio] became the American League's first player to earn $100,000.

 

Source: http://www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Dimaggio-Joe.html

 

2bobs?

[Oil Can Boyd]

The game has always been about money. True, maybe to a lesser degree than today, but it's always been a business.

That was certainly a central theme of Ken Burns' series on baseball.

[PigSooie]

Is that a cock and balls on the knob of his bat? Some say yes.

 

 

[Lammycat]

I don't know but I do know that the logo was designed by a VMI grad and the stitching near the head of the tomahawk has "VMI" worked into it.....

[Oil Can Boyd]

Is that a cock and balls on the knob of his bat? Some say yes.

Reminds me of that famous Billy Ripken baseball card:

 

[PigSooie]

Reminds me of that famous Billy Ripken baseball card:

 

 

 

Indeed. I have a few of the "fuck face" cards. They aren't worth shit.

[bobbob1313]

In 1949 [Joe DiMaggio] became the American League's first player to earn $100,000.

 

Source: http://www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Dimaggio-Joe.html

 

2bobs?

 

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/first9.shtml

 

To persuade him not to retire' date=' Pittsburgh made Greenberg the first baseball player to earn over $80,000 in a season as pure salary (though the exact amount is a matter of some dispute).[/quote']'

 

Conflicting reports.

[caliber66]

There's no conflict, since nobody claimed Joe DiMaggio was the first major league player to earn $100,000.

[Leo]

How does money cheapen the game? If anything, guys are going to play harder (and subsequently, better) if they have more at stake. I don't buy that the game has gotten anything by better as time has gone on, and there's very little doubt in my mind that the best baseball players ever are playing right now.

When the "more at stake" is money as opposed to pride, competition and teamwork, the game is significantly cheapened.

 

So your argument is that when a player is not in a contract year, it's acceptable for him to not play "harder" because there is less at stake?

 

Maybe it's a generational (ouch!) thing; but the 50s, 60s, 70s stars WAY outshine those playing today. I don't think today's all-stars could come close to this:

 

Koufax

Gibson

Bench

McCovey

Rose

Banks

Schmidt

Aaron

Mays

Clemente

 

And that's only one league.

[MrRain422]

There are a handful of players today who are as great as the stars of the past. But sure, those 10 guys were great. There were also a lot of guys who played in those eras who sucked.