If anything, the market has gotten worse for him as teams don’t seem nearly as interested as he thought they would be.

How does that even make sense? On the one hand you’re saying the market has gotten worse for him and teams don’t seem interested — on the other you’re saying this because he seems to be talking to teams like the Giants.

To simplify — these are mutually exclusive points of view:

A) Other teams like SF are interested in CC — thus invalidating your point

B) Other teams aren’t interested as you say — so why are you worrying that he’s going to sign somewhere else? At the end of the day, he will have to take the only good offer out there.

CC is in a good wait-and-see position for at least two more weeks — and if Teixeira or Burnett or Lowe sign, it would be even better for him. He would be a fool to sign with anyone right now. Bluffing with a deadline would get called by any smart poker player.

It only looks outlandishly optimistic because it’s contrasted with outlandish pessimism and anti-Yankee vitriol and “CASHMAN YOU TEH SUX0R” idiocy.

It’s not that I think there’s no chance CC signs elsewhere. I just don’t want people to foolishly believe CC not coming here is somehow preordained and thus, remove him from our potential list of acquisitions needlessly.

It’s like the “Hughes lovers” v. “Hughes haters” debates… most Hughes defenders don’t even necessarily expect unbelievable greatness out of him, we just think the Hughes haters are irrationally shortsighted and lack historical perspective… and so our pleas for patience and faith may sometimes be misconstrued for doe-eyed platitudes.

This came out the giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly

Goddamn inflation.

“CC stands to gain NOTHING AT ALL from our offer”
Not true. He stansd to gain 140 million dollars (the highest pitcher contract in history) and a chance to play for the unquestioned premier franchise in sports who year in and year out give their players a shot at winning a World Series title. But apparently those 2 factors aren’t enough convincing for CC, which is my eyes is a GIANT red flag. In your’s and others’ eyes, however, it’s simply testing the market. If the Angles had shown ANY signs of life with CC, it would be different. They haven’t. Hell, the Red Sox have shown more. But when you say he has nothing to gain from accepting, that’s not true. I just told you 2 things he has to gain. It’s been a month since our offer, and nothing has changed. If anything, the market has gotten worse for him as teams don’t seem nearly as interested as he thought they would be.

Again, of course it’s still possible he signs with us. But the outlandish optimism I see daily on this site I think is just wishful thinking and self-denial of what I think is obvious: He has some interest in pitching here, but not that much.

“Right now, the highest contract for a pitcher in baseball history ((and the knowledge that nobody else has and most likely won’t come close)) isn’t enough to convince him to pitch for the Yankees.”

You know what? You’re right, it isn’t a good thing. Do you know what else it isn’t? It isn’t a bad thing, either. It’s just a thing. It’s just a thing. We all keep reading between the lines of nothings, as opposed to somethings.

CC stands to gain NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL by accepting our offer. He stands to gain more by either hoping we panic and increase our offer, or seeing if somebody else comes in to raise our offer.

Does CC not accepting our offer mean he hates NY and doesn’t want to be here? Sure, perhaps. Does CC not accepting our offer mean that he’s wants to come here and is willing to bide his time to see if he can get more money? Sure, perhaps. Both scenarios are possible. But here’s the problem with your statement, and other statements others make. I again return to your own words:

If he really wanted to be a yankee, the highest contract for a pitcher in baseball history would be accepted by now.

WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. You just flat out don’t know that. The fact that it’s December 9th and he hasn’t accepted is treated by you as the ONLY possible conclusion that can be drawn, and that’s just not true. Every winter, most marquee free agents don’t sign until the winter meetings (or after). This is how the market works. This year, the process may be MORE drawn out, as teams are reluctant to agree to contracts due to economic pressure.

If you were CC’s agent, and CC came to you and said that “Dude, this 6/140 is probably the best I’ll get, let’s just take it,” you would advise him to wait. Wait as long as you can to try and drive your price up.

The two possibilities here are either he flat out refuses to play in NYC no matter what the discrepancies in offers, or he’s doing smart negotiating. Which seems more likely? What evidence do you truly have that says it’s the former and can’t possibly be the latter?

Moreover, what do we really stand to gain by changing our posture? Tex? We’re already in on the Tex talks, and there’s ZERO and I mean ZERO chance that Tex signs somewhere without Boras coming to us first to see if we’ll match. So, until you hear that Tex has agreed to the framework of a deal with Boston, we aren’t even losing out on anybody by continuing our dance with CC.

So not only is the “CC will never come here” thought process probably wrong, but it’s counterproductive… all we’d be doing is pulling an offer off the table that potentially could be accepted in order to pursue someone else we could also have pursued without taking said offer off the table.

http://riveraveblues.com/2008/.....ent-223551

You are kidding, right? Please god tell me that was supposed to be a joke. You and I have never seen eye to eye on things but you can’t possibly say that with a straight face.

His era+ was 166, his whip was 1.14, he averaged almost a K per inning, if he had a better bullpen he would have won 22 games, and he damn near won the Cy Young.

Did you SEE that guy in the 2nd half last year? The last 2 months it seemed like he went 43-0 with an era of 0.23 and 800 Ks.

Other than maybe a tick or two on his fastball, nothing about that guy “seems to be declining” … Gimme a break