Jul
06
Yankees almost acquired Franklin Morales last May
ByVia Joel Sherman, the Yankees had a deal in place to acquire Franklin Morales from the Rockies for cash last May. Colorado apparently shopped the offer to the Red Sox though, who offered more money. Sherman says the Yankees refused to up their bid due to what they felt was unethical behavior.
Morales, 26, will start one game of tomorrow’s doubleheader. The left-hander as finally started to cash in on the ability that once earned him a top-ten spot in Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects List, pitching to a 2.51 ERA (2.59 FIP) in 43 innings across three starts and 23 relief appearances. Sucks they were unable to get him, but that was a dick move on the part of the Rockies.
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Well I suppose they got what was coming to them and then some.
Let me guess: Cashman failed.
No, A-Rod should have chipped in. It’s his fault.
It’s OK to screw the Yankees, we’re EVIIIIL
Does this happen to the Yankees more often than other teams? I don’t track this sort of stuff league wide.
first Jack Z and now Dan O’Dowd. other GMs love to pull this move on Cashman, huh?
Two moves in fourteen years? Not sure if it means anything, especially without understanding exactly what happened from Cashman’s POV. Who knows, maybe Cash screwed over the Rockies in some prior move.
Bottom line, if a GM does it to Cashman, he now has full clearance to do the same back. Doesn’t really serve any one.
2 that we know of…it took 1 year for this news to come out, who knows how many other almost deals we don’t know about because they weren’t reported.
Just saying – not really any point to it…but it might have happened other times that we don’t know about.
I completely blame Cashman. I mean, how could he not get Morales? Instead of doing his job, he’s given us this 1st place team that pitches well. I hate when GM’s do that!
Ha, the Rox are mad because the Yanks have all this money and won’t needlessly spend it? Sorry, not every team gives out Tulo and CarGo deals like they do.
yeah, since the Yankees dont give them enough cash via revenue sharing…
yep… The Yankees are evil and bad for baseball, unless you are talking about shady dealings from other teams’ GMs, in which case its totally cool to screw us.
Sounds like a stupid reason to me on Cashman’s part not to make the trade unless the difference in money was just ridiculous.
Why wouldn’t a team shop someone’s offer in an attempt to get the best deal possible?
Cashman took the high moral ground and it cost him a valuable pitcher that would have cost the Yankees nothing but money.
I guess, but Morales was pretty bad (in the majors) in the NL for a few years. Looks bad in hindsight, but it’s not like a proven Hamels type of pitcher fell through because of this. I’d imagine GMs want to send a message when they get dicked over.
All of this.
And the high moral ground is important, considering how much we hear about tacit deals between teams and all of the dealings that are supposedly on the honor system between teams.
When two sides agree to a deal, they’ve agreed to a deal “pending paperwork.” They haven’t agreed to a deal “unless we can find a better one before I sign the paperwork.”
If you want to do open bidding for a player, do it. Don’t do private dealings with teams and then try to transform that into open bidding.
Listen, the guy obviously has a big arm and he’s lefty which makes him just the kind of player you want to take a chance with.
If he turns out to be a solid pitcher, who the hell cares if the Yankees got a few hundred thousand or so milked out of them. This is a team that flushes millions down the drain on used up middle relievers like Chan Ho Park, Feliciano, Marte, and guys like like Igawa, etc. so the amount of money here was just a formality.
They money isn’t the issue, I’m sure.
It’s not that big of a deal, we’re not talking about Randy Johnson here but my original point was that it seems silly to pull the plug on a deal for a player you’re interested in over what probably was an insignificant amount of money in Yankeeland.
As for shopping a deal around, it seems to me it would be bad business if the Rox GM didn’t shop Morales around for the best deal.
He did nothing different than what Scott Boras and every other GM in the league has tried to do for the last 10+ years in getting the Yankees and Sux in a bidding war for a player.
Right, but it sounds like he was shopped to the Sox AFTER a deal was in place with the Yankees, then tried to get Cashman to up the original deal. And that’s not cool.
You are missing the point completely.
Besides, the article says the Yankees thought they had a deal in place and that the Rockies felt that they did not have a deal in place.
Why do you automatically assume Cashman was in the right in this case?
Right, and that’s fine from the POV of who is “right” and “wrong”. But the point is that the Yankees didn’t walk over the money. They FELT they had a deal in place (and you are right, maybe they are mistaken), but that’s the reason, not a small amount of money.
The point is the Rockies had already agreed to the deal and then shopped it elsewhere.
“deal in place” – seems pretty obvious why the yanks walked away.
Has nothing to do with “taking the high ground”, it is simply asking your business partners to deal with you honestly.
This is the third time I can remember this has happened (Lee and Ynoa) and all three times, the Yankees have walked away.
With this crap on top of the Ubaldo Jimenez shenanigans, I think it’s fair to ask whether you can trust any deal with this organization.
But ultimately, I think the pro scouting team has its own set of metrics and evaluations, and they establish a value for a given player, and they don’t go above that price, whether it’s in trades or in non-tendering guys like Aceves. Just because Joel Sherman is spreading a juicy morality tale doesn’t make it so.
Gosh, it would be a crying shame if he took a line drive off his ankle and fractures something.
Well, it’s not HIS fault….
Is next year his last year before free agency? He’s been pitching in the majors since 2007 (though it was only parts of 2007 and 2008).
The irony here is that the Sox famously screwed the Rockies in 2005. They agreed to trade Shoppach to Colorado if the Rockies got Larry Bigbie from Baltimore. Colorado traded for Bigbie, and the Sox backed out.
Maybe the two organizations became buddies after that, newfound respect for each other’s shadiness
The money quote from Rockies ownership following that episode:
“I will talk with the commissioner, believe me. World Champions? If that’s what it takes to be a World Champion, then people are right, we may never be one, because we don’t operate and treat other organizations like that.”
Lol
It’s a dick move on Colorado’s part for sure, but I’m not too upset about failing to land Morales. He’s always been a guy whose raw stuff far exceeded his results, and he had plenty of ten- or fifteen-game stretches in Colorado where he finally looked like he was putting everything together, only to completely fall off the cliff again. Sure, he may end up being an excellent pitcher for Boston, but if he does, only a heavy dose of hindsight would make me feel like we’d missed out on a good trade. I’m glad Cash dug his heels in on this one rather than bend over backwards to pick up what still feels to me like a very flawed, if promising, player.
But we DID have Quintana. He pitched a helluva game against the Rangers this week.
keep in mind that this is only our view of the facts, not theirs.
I’m not sure about the ethical action of the move. The Rockies played the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry against each other to get money.
It doesn’t seem as douchy as what Seattle did with Cliff Lee.
Joba was ranked #3 on that list. Holy shit now I feel awful
In Moneyball, Billy Beane offers “exclusive” deals to trade Mike Venafro to both the Giants and Mets.
Doesn’t this type of double dealing happen all the time?
duhhhhhhhhhhhh they would shop offers. “offended” rofl come on guys run the team