It is the offseason in baseball, but baseball doesn’t really have an offseason. Sure, the NBA and NFL draft create some offseason buzz. Yes, there is more player movement in those leagues than there used to be. But baseball is the only sport in which trades happen frequently enough to matter. And right now there is only one (prospective) trade worth talking about: Alex Rodriguez from Texas to Boston for Manny Ramirez. (By the time I post this, the trade may actually be dead. But even if it is “officially dead,” things like this have a way of being reincarnated.) Sportswriters are a lucky bunch. They were sports fans first, devoted to the games they now cover. How come, then, that on the most important story in baseball right now, 99% of them get it wrong?
What is most appalling is that they get it wrong in at least four ways (let the record show that I keep retyping this number as the list grows longer). First, they misanalyze Rodriguez’s worth. Second, they misanalyze the effect Rodriguez’s contract has had on his current team. Third, they misanalyze the merits of the trade. Fourth, they misanalyze the good and bad guys as it now appears that the trade is going to fall apart.
Almost all of these errors can be found in a single article: the ESPN.com’s Writers Bloc on the trade, a roundtable discussion in which not an iota of non-cliched thought is brought to bear until the very end. David Schoenfeld excepted, nearly everything that is wrong with sportswriting (there is no overwrought hero worship) can be found in this one column. Reading it just gives me that Nate McCall feeling, and so holler I will.
Most of what I have to say has been said better, and with better support at Baseball Prospectus. First, A-Rod, while overpaid, is certainly no more overpaid than half of the league is overpaid. Yes, he signed a ten year, $252,000,000 deal, but it is worth remembering that, with the exception of the ageless Barry Bonds, he is the best player in baseball. And Rodriguez is more than 10 years younger than Bonds, so if you are going to make a ten year investment, A-Rod is a better bet than Bonds. This dovetails nicely into the next issue that everyone in the mainstream sports press gets wrong. The Rangers’ problem isn’t that ARod was overpaid, even if he is. Rodriguez performed as well as anyone expected that he would perform. He did exactly what the Rangers expected when they signed him to the monster contract. The problem lies with the rest of the Rangers were are not only grossly overpaid, but have not done (and will not do) anything to earn the money they have signed for.
Third, the trade, from a purely baseball standpoint, is much better for the Red Sox than the Rangers. ARod is younger and better than Ramirez. He is also much better than the player he would replace at shortstop in Boston, Nomar Garciaparra. He is a better hitter, a better fielder, younger and more durable. Rodriguez would be an upgrade in 2004, and a far more significant improvement for 2005 and beyond. Garciaparra is (or once was) reportedly going to be traded to the White Sox for Magglio Ordonez. Ordonez isn’t the hitter that Ramirez is, but he is closer to Ramirez than Nomar is to ARod, two years younger than Manny, a not-horrible fielder or base runner and, unlike Manny, actually wants to play in Boston. The deal makes sense for the Red Sox. Nobody who isn’t responsible for paying the players’ salaries should see this deal for what it is: Boston is robbing Texas blind.
Finally, and most galling, the union is being criticized for failing to let the owners wriggle out of their contractual obligations. ARod, because he wants to play for a winning team, was willing to give up some salary to make the deal work. This is noble. The Rangers and Red Sox want to use Rodriguez’s good will as a PR cudgel against the union. This is deplorable. Rodriguez signed his contract in good faith. One would think that the Rangers did also. A long time ago, baseball players got the owners to agree that all contracts are guaranteed. This is a significant improvement over the NFL, in which a four year contract is, in fact four one-year contracts in which only the signing bonus and first year (at most) are guaranteed. Every off-season is a charade in which the owners put their collective foot on the collective throat of half the players in order to force them to take less than they signed for. If A-Rod agrees to just give up some money, he becomes an example for the rest of the league and a standard for future behavior. This can only hurt the players, not the owners, and there is no reason that the union should let it happen.
I would love, as a baseball fan, to see this trade go through (I would like it less as a New Yorker), but if the cost of this trade is a weaker union I thank the MLBPA for actually looking out for the non-superstars and ARod for respecting his colleagues enough that he agreed to abide by the union’s decision.
Thanks to Dave Pappas at BP for the link with all of the Rangers’ signing blunders. I’d give you a direct link, but the article is part of the Premium service. Subscribe. It is worth it.
Read Less...
They do this for a living?
