Chass-tastic

Nothing like an article based entirely on unattributed quotes. But, if the quotes are accurate, there sure are some stupid, stupid people working in baseball these days. I like this one:

“I don’t think he’s the kind of player who would walk away from $33 million without some idea of what was out there,” a baseball official said.

Dude, his agent was Scott-effin'-Boras. Of course he had "some idea of what was out there". Let's see: Juan Pierre got $9M/year, Gary Matthews Jr. $10M/year, Vincenet Padilla $11M/year. Unless you think Drew is a Pierre/Matthews/Padilla-caliber player, obviously he'd walk away from a contract worth $11M/year! If the Dodgers wanted him to stay, why not up his contract $1-2M? Now they're stuck with Pierre, who costs them practically the same amount that Drew did, while bringing far less to the table.

The main person baseball people should be complaining about here is Paul DePodesta, and his terrible contract-writing skills. If you give players an "out clause", you've just short-circuited the entire point of negotiations. GM's try to undervalue players; players try to overvalue themselves. If the GM was right, and the contract was lower than market value, the player loses a lot of money, and the team gets a great deal...

...unless, of course, the player is allowed to simply walk away from the contract.