Dec
08
28 teams offer Cliff Lee 7 years
ByI honestly hope you had something better to do than follow the Cliff Lee saga today. Because unless you favor the theater of the absurd, you likely got nowhere but frustrated. Here’s what happened, in essence.
- The Nats are “very much” in on Cliff Lee, to the point that they’d offer seven years.
- Two hours later: oops, the Nats aren’t in on Lee.
- A team not named the Nats has offered Lee seven years.
- Wait, now there are two teams who have offered seven years. It’s a double mystery!
- Right on cue, the Angels are mentioned as suitors. Not only that, they could trade a pitcher to make room for him.
- Of course, amid all of these rumors, we hear that the two presumed suitors, the Yankees and the Rangers, not only won’t go to seven years, but also haven’t been allowed to make an offer. So random mystery teams can offer seven years when seven years is insane, but the Yankees can’t make their own offer.
It adds up to nothing but a mockery. Given the way this week has unfolded, there’s absolutely no reason to pay attention to anything said about Lee until he’s on the verge of signing a deal. It’s pretty clear that Lee’s agent, Darek Braunecker, is trying to play everyone. I don’t blame him. But he can’t blame me for tuning out.
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The Tyler Austin Watch
I cannot stop laughing at this post. Mostly because it’s so true.
It’s pretty clear that Lee’s agent, Darek Braunecker, is trying to play everyone.
He’s not doing a very good job.
you got to hand it to Braunecker, he has a lot of people fooled. Idk if he has the Yankees or Rangers fooled, but this is some Scott Boras shit.
Who’s fooled?
jon heyman and co. (all the media rumor whores)
They’re doing their jobs. Reporting what they hear. It doesn’t mean they’re fooled.
Heyman reminds me of that annoying kid in high school who would eavesdrop on peoples conversation and tell the whole school.
Carlosologist doesn’t know about that guy yet.
He’s got Jeff Passan fooled:
“Giving Cliff Lee seven years is precisely the right thing to do…”
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/ne.....ears120710
I’m just waiting to hear what Lance Berkman has to say. Then I’ll form my opinion.
Tomorrow’s Headline:
Lee to Seattle 7/175.
BOOM!
The way I see it it’s between the Mariners, Pirates and ‘Spos.
by spos you mean….? nationals? (expos)
I meant the Expos. And by Seattle, I meant the Pilots.
well I could only agree if you tell me that Omar Minaya is GM of the expos
http://twitter.com/JackCurryYE.....4968290304
Quick – analyze the various movements of his facial muscles!!!!
Dimples are 7 years, no dimples are 6.
so vague… was there a chuckle with the smile?! maybe if we know what color he wore tonight we can make more educated guesses
has someone been watching too much Lie to Me?
I’m not believing anything until incarcerated bob tweets it.
(he did break Pena to cubs an hour before heyman tonight)
Not sure if serious but he also said the Yankees had reached a deal with Cliff Lee last night.
Tonight he said the mets are the 3rd team involved.
He also had it an hour after Carrie Muskat had it.
Remember ‘bobcat’ on the Lohud boards during the Santanapalooza?
Yeah, he ended up knowing nothing.
He had Greinke to Toronto a few days ago too. When’s that press conference?
+200 on the “Ludicrous Speed” tag
I believe it’s more of a travishamockery. This kind of reporting is fun. Let’s all try:
A Japanese team (presumably the Hiroshima Carp) are reportedly offering Lee 7 years, 1 billion yen and your mom is willing to go and your mom is willing to add an eighth year.
If you’re going for Japanese teams, use the Nippon Ham Fighters. Much funnier sounding.
Also, 1 billion yen is a shade under $12 million. That won’t get it done.
You can’t just throw out the names of Japanese teams willy-nilly…that wouldn’t be real journalism!
I could see Cliff Lee doing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
(safe)
That’s probably more A-Rod’s thing…
#obligatorybadjoke
Or maybe Kazuhito Tadano.
Eh, that wasn’t what I was trying to imply, just that A-Rod used to be very purple-lipped.
Ah, in that case, maybe white Sammy Sosa would do it.
I think I know where the two 7 year deals came from:
1. Dodgers half-owner Frank McCourt offered Cliff Lee 7 years/ 160 million to do his wife.
2. Then Jaime McCourt, the Dodgers other half-owner, turned around and offered Lee 7 years / 170 million to turn around and do her husband.
And Cliff Lee was all like “You want me to do a guy?”
/Beavis and Butthead’d
I know this sounds crazy but I could see a scenario where Lee’s agent overplays his hand and screws Lee out of a few million by trying to fool everyone. Although this is highly unlikely, its not impossible.
Only way that happens is if agent-supplied rumors of a 7 year deal makes the Rangers or Yankees act quick and make a deal for Greinke.
Lee just got an offer of 10/250 from Hanks Yanks
I just got an offer of 10/$500M from Hank. Better step it up!
to sing the National Anthem 81 times?
You’ll have to cut the ponytail though.
Though I know some people won’t believe him, one piece of good news to come out of this is that CC said he still won’t opt out of his contract even if Cliff Lee gets crazy money this offseason.
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports.....um=twitter
Maybe he won’t use the optout per se, but if he doesn’t at least leverage it into a renegotiation of the end of his contract, then his agent isn’t doing his job.
If CC is comfortable in NY and content with the massive amounts of money he is bringing in, his agent has done his job. A normal player would wanna go for the extra years, but CC is a laid back guy with the biggest pitching contract in baseball and second biggest overall to Arod.
If he can renegotiate to get an extra year or a few million extra, why wouldn’t he?
If you had the chance to get a raise, would you pass it up?
Not if I was being paid $24+ million a year and had to move my family to do it. I think CC could pull off getting 2 more years out of his contract, but maybe he doesn’t plan on playing that long.
I don’t think that CC’s been so outstanding in the last 2 years that he is worth more now than he was when the contract got signed. Maybe he’ll get a year or more two but I doubt he’d get more money per year. His WAR was 4.3 and 5.4 and with $23m pa that is $4.7m/WAR. That sounds about fair – if you aim for 100 wins that wound cost you $244m before any relief from players under control.
Lee has had 5.0 and 4.3 WAR but has a fantastic post season record that more than compensate for the small difference in WAR compared to CC.
Bottom line I don’t think that CC is likely to improve that much on $23m even if Lee gets a $150/6 but he might get the Yankees to extend by a year or two
A scary thought – A-Rod is so far $7.3m/WAR under his new contract and those are the three first years of a 10 year contract…
No reasonable person should expect a man of A-Rod’s age – regardless of his talents as a baseball player – to live up to a contract that massive. It was a dumb contract. That’s why we put Hank inna box.
has a fantastic post season record
Don’t get me wrong, I think Lee is a terrific pitcher, but that fantastic post season record is, IMO, more a result of SSS than anything else.
Or did you forget his performance in this years WS?
And not that it was a terrible performance, but the 2nd game he started in the 09 series wasn’t “knock you on your ass” great either.
I think I read over twitter that The Rangers just offered Lee 15/400 MM to play nets… not sure what they are going to do with Lundqvist…
Now the Nats are using reverse psychology on Lee… they’re telling Lee that they do not want him to play for their team…
Really? I heard the Devils offered him 15/450, but he turned them down cause he wants to play with a winner.
zing.
I heard that Cliff Lee was ready to accept a 6 year/$6,000,000 deal with the Devils, but they didn’t have the cap room
Lee’s agent is a nerd, the Yankees are the hot chick, and he’s all excited because he has her attention. Meanwhile somebody better have a sweet insurance policy & a “no hunting” clause ready for that hillbilly. He gets on the wrong side of a razorback hog or some other inbred with a high powered rifle, it won’t even be a 7 minute contract.
It’s not haterade genius, it’s the fountain of knowledge.
Somebody call Dick Cheney
Cliff Lee’s agent is going to drum up so much interest and make his client sign the day before spring training. By then every team will have offered a 15 year contract!
You got it wrong – 7 teams are offering 28 years
I seriously hope the Yankees hold firm on their stance of not offering Lee seven years. Seven years for him is lunacy.
I think Boston is the mystery team involved in the Lee negotiations. If they somehow can unload Dice-K, they have na awful lot of payroll coming off the books after next year and could comfortably take on Lee’s salary. Hope I am wrong…
dice-k = full ntc to all 30 teams
Epstein says he’s not willing to trade Dice-BB. Reportedly he likes the depth.
5 aces
Likely if they unload Dice-BB would mean that they’re swapping big contracts (i.e. Beltran) or probably eating some of it
If they were to acquire Beltran, this would give them enormous leverage after 2011 as they would have not only Beltran, but Ortiz, Papelbon and Drew coming off their books. This gives them the ability to sign Lee now. The question is whether they want to pay a huge luxury tax in 2011 and go the distance of 7 years to get it done.
Don’t think for a minute Theo has forgotten losing out on Texieria and how signing Lee would be a HUGE blow to the Yanks in 2011, especially if Pettitte retires.
This would all be so much cheaper if we could just fix Joba’s mechanics, weight, and inability to throw a change or curve for a strike when behind in the count.
Ah-forget it. Give Lee 28 years.
haha
I tend to think that Lee’s agent intent was to just throw so much stuff out there that teams don’t know what to believe, keeping everyone in the dark. It probably won’t get Lee that 7th year, but the perception seems to be trending now that 6 years seems likely, which is one more year than most people thought he would get. The Werth deal had a lot to do with that as well I guess.
Or I could be wrong and Lee’s agent is just an idiot.
All this BS probably means the Lee camp doesn’t believe anyone will give them 7 years, and 6 might be a stretch. Again, I hope the Yanks start the bidding at 5 years.
Considering the years, AAV and Lee’s age, I think every team is scared of going 6 years.