Gagne Goes Down, Bill Smith and I Breathe Sigh of Relief
When Eric Gagne signed with the Brewers for up to $1.5M with incentives after receiving a guaranteed offer of $3M from the Twins, I have to admit I was pretty incensed. Which you probably noticed if you read that article.
Well, it turns out that the Twins were almost certainly right to pull that offer and lucky that Gagne didn’t eagerly jump on it. (Boras’ genius is waiting for better offers and pushing up the price. His failing is that he needs to realize when he’s selling a lemon and as soon as an offer comes in that he knows is well above what his product is worth, and immediately take the offer, get it signed, and laugh.)
It turns out that Gagne has The Jesse Crain Special, a torn labrum and rotator cuff, and will probably need season-ending shoulder surgery. He was released by the Brewers on Sunday and won’t be getting that $1.5M he would have gotten had he made the team.
Is this the end for Gagne? Maybe. He’ll probably try to go somewhere next year, and some GM that’s been asleep at the wheel for the last five years will probably sign him. Thankfully, that almost certainly won’t be the Twins.
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I was glad the Twins passed then and I’m glad now. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the pitchers so far. I wonder if the bullpen will actually step up and be a strength this year (much to our shock).
Also, Team Reyes got severely outplayed by Team Hughes during the WBC yesterday. That was astonishing to watch.
I think when your team comes within 4 outs and 3 outs of no-hitters within 4 games of each other, then there’s nothing you can do but be pretty damn pleased with the pitching.
(Or you could, like me, be pissed off that we didn’t finish off those no-hitters. Damn AA bullpen.)
Not sure if this was discussed here, but does anyone think if Boaras and Crede had turned down the Twins and waited a few weeks, the Yankees would have paid big money for Crede as A-Rod insurance?
It had not been discussed, and I hadn’t thought about it.
They definitely would have offered him more than $2.5M to caddie for A-Rod until he came back.
Boras is probably kicking himself for not taking this holdout into spring training.
and considering A-Rod is also a Boras client, you’d think if Boras heard any rumblings of pain, he would advise Crede to hold out until someone’s starting third baseman got hurt.
That’s a nice bright spot coming out of this offseason- Boras’ magical power to negotiate ridiculous contracts is waning.
I think its more this new wave of smart, responsible GMs. They are not susceptible to Boras’ trickery.
Most of the GMs are the same. It’s the underlings that are being replaced. Teams are upgrading from the “my wife’s nephew who really loves baseball but spends all his time playing XBox in the office and photocopying his butt and would LOVE to have Jose Guillen batting 3rd and damn the price!” to a more “statistically minded nerd who will point out what a player is worth and that you absolutely should not spend more than this on him.”
I don’t know if the nephews are actually being fired (I doubt it), but it sure seems like the guys in charge have started listening to the nerds instead.
And it’s really hurting Boras.