Here we are in late December and there are three potential left fielders : Matt Holiday, Jason Bay and Johnny Damon still out on the free market. Holiday is a solid outfielder who you can pretty much be assured he’ll end up batting around .310 with 20-25 homeruns. Jason Bay may not be quite the fielder the Holiday is but you can pencil him in for 25-35 homeruns and at least 100 rbi. Johnny Damon is the oldest of the three and now probably the weakest fielder of the trio but he can still spark a team with his legs and his bat.
All three of these men were in the outfield for playoffs teams last year. Damon for the world champs. Yet, Christmas is right around the corner as so far these three left fielders are left out in the cold.
Why? All three drank their agents coolaid and have valued themselves above what the market wants to pay for them. Major league baseball teams may be rich but even they have limits and they aren’t run by business fools. (Even though sometimes it seems that way, you can’t make the money these owners make without having some business sense.)
Damon and Holiday both use Scott Boras as their agent. Mr. Boras has a way of over pricing the value of his players, sometimes he gets that over value (think A-Rod) sometimes, especially when times are tough he doesn’t. He insisted Damon needed 3 years at 13 million per from the Yankees. The Yankees were more interested in 2 years totally 18 million. Still a lot of money but Boras stuck to his guns. Hence it looks like Damon may be forced to try to play outfield for a national league team. Chances are he won’t be drinking champagne with a championship team again.
There seems to be only one team bidding for Holiday (the Cards at 5 years at 16 million a year which is reasonable and Holiday seems to fit well there) yet Boris is insisting his client is worth more. It’s just not going to happen unless somebody gets desperate (I’m looking at you Mets.)
Jayson Bay, different agent (Joe Urbon) but the same story. The Red Sox (a really good team) had a very reasonable 4 year, 16 million a year contract out there. Bay rejected it wanting more years and more money. Now it looks like Bay may go from the perennial contender to the Mets. I like the Mets but a lot would have to go right for them to get into the playoffs.
The moral of the story guys, money isn’t everything especially when you are going to make a lot of money wherever you go. I would hope sooner or later some player will say, “You know I’d rather make 8 million playing somewhere I love then make 12 million playing somewhere I don’t.” Maybe I’m just naïve.
