I haven’t had the opportunity to say much about the past week or so worth of “developments” in the ongoing saga of Derek Jeter‘s free agency, so I’m going to say my peace now, and then I’m going to do my best to ignore it until there’s some actual news. Maybe watch some football. Ohio State and Michigan are playing after all. But I digress. These will probably be a little disjointed, forgive me, they’re basically just a series of observations built up over the past week or so.
First of all, while I an appreciate some of the frustration with the public nature of the dispute, I feel compelled to point out that there was really never any alternative to a public war of words between the two sides. As much as anything else, this is a P.R. battle between Jeter and the Yankees, and was always destined to be. Jeter’s camp is trying to sow the impression in the minds of Yankees’ fans that he’s The Captain, face of the franchise, Hall of Famer, yada yada yada and he deserves to be compensated for past performance (2010 excluded, naurally). The Yankees want to make it clear that they are, in fact, paying him for that, and that their offer is well above what anyone else is willing to pay Jeter. Ultimately the outcome of the P.R. fight isn’t likely to matter much, but for now it is what it is.
Secondly, messy or not, I don’t think there’s anything particularly worrisome about the state of the negotiations thus far. Jeter asked for a lot of money, the Yankees offered him much less than he wants, but probably about what they want to pay him. This is just business. I’m not upset by what either side is doing, nor am I surprised things have gotten a little bit hairy. This is a business negotiation with a lot of money at stake, and those sorts of things will get a bit messy from time to time. Ultimately things will get sorted out, everyone will move on, and in a couple of years (or months) it will be a complete non-issue.
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It is day 16 of Derek Jeter’s free agency. It only seems longer than 16 days. Jeter and the Yankees continue to negotiate their deal in public. The latest contributor to this public negotiation is Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman. Cashman said this afternoon that the Yankees’ offer to Jeter (reportedly three years at $15 million per season) is “fair and appropriate”, and that Jeter should shop himself around if he thinks otherwise.
Worse: Cashman also said that the Yankees have “concerns” with both Jeter’s age and his recent on-field performance, and that both needed to be factored into any new multiyear contract. Ouch!
(By “recent”, Cashman must be referring to Jeter’s most recent performance in 2010. Cashman is probably not referring to Jeter’s next-to-most recent performance, from 2009, when Jeter finished in third place in the voting for American League Most Valuable Player.)
The common wisdom (see for example here) is that Jeter will not get a better offer than the one the Yanks have put forward, and that Jeter will eventually sign the deal proposed by the Yankees. Dave Cameron on FanGraphs went so far as to compare Jeter’s situation to the one Manny Ramirez faced in the 2008-09 off-season: the Dodgers made Manny an opening offer of $45 million over two years, and never budged from that offer. After realizing that this was the best offer he could get, Manny signed it. There was no haggling, no compromise: the Dodgers said “take it or leave it” and eventually Manny took it.
Cameron’s point is a good one. Manny had no other suitors two years ago. At the moment, there are also no suitors for Jeter (other than the Yankees, of course). In his article, Cameron looks (and dismisses) all of the usual candidates for a player like Jeter: the Red Sox have two shortstops, the Angels are committed to Erick Aybar, the Phillies have Jimmy Rollins, the Mets have Jose Reyes and the Tigers just signed Jhonny Peralta. Seemingly, there’s no one left to sign Jeter away from the Yanks.
No one? I think Cameron missed a possible candidate team, maybe because it would be crazy to think that the team in question would be a candidate for Jeter’s services. When I say crazy, I mean it. The idea is so crazy, I’m convinced that Jason and Brien and Tamar and the others here at IIATMS will pull this post from cyberspace once they’ve read it (so if you’re reading this now, read quickly, because this piece may disappear without warning). My only defense is that I write so many rational pieces, I’m entitled to a crazy piece ever now and then. So I’ve warned you. The following idea is a crazy thought.
The crazy thought is: Jeter might sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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I can’t say I have been counting on this, but this does not shock me (Davidoff Twitter) at all:
Andy Pettitte is leaning toward a 2011 return to the #Yankees, according to an industry source.
Qualifies as news, I guess. It’d be great to have Andy back for a final go-round. Although his leverage would be infinitely higher if the Yanks didn’t land Cliff Lee.
Oh, maybe you heard this today, too:
An industry source said Monday the Yankees have offered Cliff Lee nearly $140 million over six years, but Lee continues to hold out for a seventh year. Neither Lee’s camp nor the Yankees would confirm those numbers. The Boston Globe has reported the Yankees offered as much as $120 million over five years.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Six years is a lot; seven is crazy for a 32 year old. At some point, this deck of high priced cards is going to collapse, or someone’s going to be eating a ton of dead cash.
The presses are amping up in advance of Thanksgiving. Grab your plate, have a seat at the big table and help yourself to these heaping portions of posturing, scuttlebutt, jousting, positioning, ego and disdain (emphasis on all below is mine).
First course:
Yankees General Manager Speaks Bluntly on Jeter
According to a lawyer in baseball briefed on the negotiations, the Yankees have made Jeter a three-year, $45 million offer that was arrived at in part by comparing him with other middle infielders and with players close to his age.
The lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his access to sensitive information, said that the Yankees and Jeter were “not even in the same ballpark” in terms of a new deal.
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So it looks as though the addition of a second wild card team in both leagues is probably going to happen as early as 2012 and, predictably, the reaction to the Commissioner’s proposal has been overwhelmingly negative, at least on the internet. And I confess, my initial reaction was to hate the idea as well. But the more I think about it, the more I’m not sure it’s such a terrible idea after all.
First of all, let’s get one thing out of the way. There’s no such thing as a “fair” playoff system. Any sort of playoff structure beyond having every team play each other an equal number of times split evenly between home and away games with uniform DH rules between the leagues and simply giving the trophy to the team with th best record at the end of things is going to involve some level of arbitrariness. I blame the incessant arguing over college football for this, but we need to get over the idea that the “champion” is, or should be, the best team every time. There’s just no way to insure that that happens when you introduce a playoff system. The league that probably comes the closest is the NBA, and no one is going to propose baseball adopting anything like what they do. SO let’s just stipulate that there’s going to be a certain amount of unfairness in the system no matter what we do.
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Little surprise here:
Hamilton, 29, won the batting title with a .359 average and also finished first in the league in slugging percentage (.633), on-base percentage plus slugging (1.044) and batting with runners in scoring position (.369). Despite missing 29 games in September due to a bruised ribcage, Hamilton had 32 home runs and 100 runs batted in and also put together the longest hitting streak in the majors of 23 games from June 6-30.
Yanks’ own Robinson Cano finished third, which seems about right. There was a good deal of respect for Cano from the voters, too:
…Robinson Cano [...] placed second on the most ballots (12) and totaled 229 points.
(click “view full post” to view the voting totals)
No major surprise here as Jeter is not offered arbitration (Marc Carig via Twitter):
Cashman says via email that the Yankees will not offer Derek Jeter arbitration.
While offering Jeter arbitration would, at least for 2011, take the Yanks off the hook on a multi-year commitment, it would likely result in a higher 2011 cost (assuming Jeter accepts). I think it would further antagonize Jeter and Close and I’m glad that the Yanks aren’t doing this. Enough of this dance has been public already.
I was beginning to get into this a bit but Buster Olney just weighed in (Insider required) and he captures it well here:
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Seems that Mo Rivera wants two more years (Heyman twitter link):
the imcomparable mo rivera has told friends hed like 2-yr deal from #yankees. team says they haven’t talked terms. now they know.
No brainer. Give him the deal and we can be done in 45 minutes. “Mo, how’s $15 more million each of the next two years?” Good? Done. Where’s my “there, that was easy” button?
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UPDATE (11/23/10): A bit of “news” as the Yanks appear to only want to give Mo one year. Of course they do. It’s the team’s stance to pay less and for fewer years than the player wants. This is normal can be found on your Page 1 of Negotiations 101 text book. Note to everyone: Don’t panic; this will get done.
The Yankees want to re-sign Mariano Rivera to a one-year deal, but the closer wants a two-year contract worth about $18MM per season, according to Yahoo’s Jeff Passan (onTwitter). Jon Heyman of SI.com reported on Friday that Rivera was looking for a two-year deal and it now appears that the 40-year-old wants a raise from his 2010 salary of $15MM.
(click “view full post” for more, plus my favorite Mariano ad, too)
The final award is probably the one with the most candidates (close to ten players have various cases for the award), but Josh Hamilton seems to be the favorite due to his sparkling performance (and, let’s face it, he’s still getting bonus points for turning his life around, which is extremely impressive but irrelevant to this discussion). Your own Robinson Cano has been awesome this season stabilizing the Yankee lineup, but he’s pretty far back when the wins above replacement numbers do all the number-crunching. Unfortunately, his great season hasn’t been one of the top 5 AL performances of the season, and while you can make an argument to get in the top 5, there aren’t too many to get him into the top spot. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, especially because I think there’s a half-way decent chance he walks away with the award, but he isn’t the AL MVP. Let’s look at the rest of the arguments.
Let’s start with the favorite, again. FanGraphs has him blowing away the competition with 8.0 fWAR, 0.9 above anyone else, but Baseball-Reference has him 6th, actually right behind Cano. Hamilton’s offensive numbers are staggering—.359/.411/.633 for a wOBA of .447(!)—and his defense (+8 UZR) has been an additional positive and another point of contention. The offense has been legitimately outstanding, and there’s no debate about that (though, there are serious questions about his ability to repeat it, but that’s for another day). B-Ref hates his defense by valuing it 6 runs below average, and if you adjusted it closer to +8 (like UZR), Hamilton’s bWAR of 6.0 would be much closer to Longoria’s 7.7. So who do you believe? I went on record yesterday saying I don’t like B-Ref’s way of doing it because it hated on Zimmerman, but let’s take a look. UZR has seen him as a slightly above-average defender 3 of the past 4 seasons, and while the +8 seems a bit too optimistic, it seems only slightly off. B-Ref’s defensive metric bounces around on Hamilton from 5 to -3 to 8 to -6 this season. UZR seems more consistent, and I’ll take its word for it with less skepticism. We’ll give his B-Ref a win boost.
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I pay very, very, little attention to Murray Chass. I’m assured by many that he was once a serious baseball writer who thought deep thoughts and so on and so forth, but in any event those days are long passed. Today he’s a curmudgeon, or at least he plays one on the internet, who more or less comes off as though he’s doing it just for the sake of being a curmudgeon. In fact, Chass doesn’t even inspire me to insult his thought process, writing style, or anything really because I honestly can’t tell if he believes what he writes or if he’s just carved out a particular niche in the internet market. I mean, the guy’s main schtick at this point is operating a blog he insists isn’t actually a blog, referring to his posts as columns as if to pretend he’s still writing for the New York Times, and getting red faced outraged anytime someone calls him a blogger. Even though he publishes on a blog. So yeah, that says everything you need to know about Murray Chass.
But every now and then he is good for a laugh, and today is one of those times:
So Felix Hernandez, as expected, won the American League Cy Young award, and he won it handily. I don’t have a problem with Hernandez. I think he is the best pitcher in the league, and I think he should have won the award last year.
My problem is with Hernandez winning the award with 13 wins. I am not alone in that view. Four writers voted for David Price (19 wins) and three voted for CC Sabathia (21).
Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune voted for Price because, he said, Hernandez’s 13 wins didn’t merit the award and Price was a dominant pitcher in his own right.
Speaking of the one-sided outcome of the vote, Rogers added, “I wonder how much of it was bullying on the Internet. There were a lot of columns written in September saying no one should be stupid enough not to vote for Felix. Maybe that’s what happened, but I hope not.”
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The Reds’ Joey Votto won the 2010 NL MVP, nearly unanimously:
Of the 32 ballots submitted by two writers from each league city, Votto was listed first on 31 and second on the other to score 443 points, based on the tabulation system that rewards 14 points for first place, nine for second, eight for third and on down to one for 10th.
Albert Pujols finished second, followed by Carlos Gonzalez. Mark had this one right on:
Though Pujols is awesome, Votto has been just as awesome and maybe better. Votto’s .324/.424/.600 line is ever-so-slightly better than Pujols’ (just better is still better), and it gives him a .439 wOBA that is quite a bit better than Pujols’ .420.
Even though Mark’s Zimmerman-love was noted, Zimm finished a distant 16th:
His .307/.388/.510 line converts to a .389 wOBA, and while that isn’t nearly as good as Pujols or Votto’s, the position adjustment and Zimmerman’s ungodly good defense make up the difference, giving him 7.2 fWAR. B-Ref says Zimmerman is only a tick above average on defense, and if I hadn’t given up on that metric already, I would now. But even if you give him a win’s worth of defense, he’s still a win behind Pujols and Votto’s adjusted value according to B-Ref, and he played in only 142 games. Zimmerman should get more attention for what he’s done, but in the end I think he’s somewhere in between FanGraphs and B-Ref, which makes him just a little worse (but still worse) than Pujols and Votto. Sorry Ryan, but you’re playing Pujols to Pujols’ Bonds this time.
(click “view full post” for full voting results in table form)
Disclaimer #1: I’m really getting sick of this. I know this elaborate, frustating mating ritual is necessary, but for Pete’s sake, let’s get on with it already.
Disclaimer #2: I want Derek Jeter back in pinstripes.
Derek Jeter’s agent, Casey Close, is a smart guy and from all accounts an excellent agent. However, Derek Sanderson Jeter does not hold the leverage in this negotiation. At least, not if Jeter wants the most amount of money possible. So when I read these quotes by Close, I have to shake my head:
“There’s a reason the Yankees themselves have stated Derek Jeter is their modern-day Babe Ruth. Derek’s significance to the team is much more than just stats. And yet, the Yankees’ negotiating strategy remains baffling. They continue to argue their points in the press and refuse to acknowledge Derek’s total contribution to their franchise.”
Let’s dissect these comments…
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For the past year or so, I’ve been trying to figure out this disconnect between sabermetrics and traditionalists, between newer stats and traditional stats, and between perception and reality in the battle over baseball analysis. I’ve written several posts trying to explain what sabermetrics is (the questioning of previously held truths), the newer advanced stats, and other social phenomena that cause problems in the baseball world. But I’ve always felt like I was swimming upstream, and it didn’t have anything to do with the audience. When discussing these issues, I try to be as patient as possible, and when a significant group of people still don’t come around, I hesitate to blame everything on them. Usually in those situations, there is something structural going on that we’re unaware of which causes problems in communication and understanding, and I have been continually frustrated as to what it is. Now, I don’t expect this to change the world, but I hope it helps if you’re one of the people frustrated because they like the traditional statistics and don’t understand why we need new ones.
The problem (at least partially; there are other reasons—reactionaries, bad explanations, name-calling—but I feel those have been explained in several places) lies in the names we attribute to statistics. People say, “Numbers don’t lie. People do”. Sounds good enough, but it’s not really accurate. The implication, in the baseball sense, is that our forefathers (the game’s creators) have been lying to us for the past century, and that there was some devious plan to mislead the public. It also implies that our forefathers were dumb and unable to come up with good statistics. Both of these notions are incorrect.
With the invention of the box score, statistics became a part of the game, but it wasn’t really a profession in the way it is now. People wanted to count up the statistics and figure out who was better than who, but there really wasn’t too much of an investigation into them. For one, it was a piece of trivia, and second, the technology wasn’t really good enough until the last 40 years or so to really delve into their effectiveness. So, our forefathers allowed, even constructed, traditional statistics based on easy available numbers. Counting stats (hits, home runs, strikeouts) were easy, but someone realized that rate stats (ERA, batting average) would also help because counting stats didn’t tell the whole story. Here’s the problem—numbers can’t just sit there.
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