So I probably don't need to tell you that the Dodgers didn't offer a single departing player arbitration.
While folks around the 'net are most upset about the non-offers to Will Ohman,
Ronnie Belliard, and Guillermo Mota, I'd like to discussed the oft-overlooked
cases of Orlando Hudson and Randy Wolf.
What's that you say? Oh, you've heard of them. So we don't need to
talk about the four draft picks which would have come
back. Or the fact that even if the players had accepted the
offers, they would be terrific values in 2010 (Wolf in particular). Or
just how gosh-darned valuable those four draft picks are.
No, I suppose I don't need to go over all that. Not when you have
Jon Weisman calling the day "discouraging"
and "depressing." Any
of you who read Jon know that's about as gloomy as he gets over baseball. Phil
Gurnee says that while we should be disappointed, we shouldn't exactly be shocked.
MSTI envies Royals fans. And
let me tell you, having spent over four years in and around Kansas City, that's
quite a statement.
But it's Eric Stephen who addresses the most ominous aspect of
this development. After being rendered temporarily speechless, Eric notes:
Could it be that the Dodgers are so strapped for cash that they can't accept even the slightest risk of paying two talented players for one season?
Or is it worse than that? Do the Dodgers not want the burden of having four extra draft picks in 2010, the burden of four extra signing bonuses, possibly totaling somewhere in the $4 million range?
Yeah. To me, that’s simply terrifying. From my angle, there
are really only three-and-a-half possible explanations for this debacle.
1. It was a baseball decision.
This is almost unfathomable. I mean, we all are relatively
hip to the arbitration offer and compensatory draft pick system now, right? And
we’re not the ones paid to know these things. Purely on a baseball level, what
could Colletti be afraid of? I don’t know about you, but I’d love to have Randy Wolf and Orlando
Hudson back on one-year deals. And heck, they’d probably be Type A’s next
winter as well.
I don’t need to go further. You go elsewhere for your
hardcore analysis, and that’s not my aim here. I’ll leave it at this: if this
was a baseball decision, I’d be more confident in a squadron of
12-year-olds who have simmed through multiple seasons in baseball video games
than I am in the current leadership.
2. The Dodgers couldn’t afford the risk of either player
accepting.
We’re getting closer to reasonability here, especially in
Hudson’s case. But come on…he left on bad terms and will probably get a nice
deal somewhere. And Wolf was no
threat whatsoever to accept
the offer. At least with this reason, I could understand the decision, even
though I would still condemn it.
3. The Dodgers can afford neither the one-year deals (in the
case of acceptances) nor the draft picks.
This is almost unspeakably awful. $4 million spent on early
round draft picks is a better investment than $4 million in player payroll
many, many times over. I promise you that this will be brought up when the
Dodgers spend $4 million this winter on a nondescript reliever and a Juan
Castro replacement. The failure to invest in young talent is the dead canary in
the coal mine. This is horrible.
---
Okay, so I just crushed the Dodgers for not offering Hudson
and Wolf arbitration. Me and everyone else (and rightfully so). But while I
can’t claim to have Weisman-like levels of optimism, I will at least allow for
the possibility of a mitigating circumstance:
3.5. Wolf and Hudson had handshake agreements that the
Dodgers would not offer arbitration if they were Type A’s.
Last winter, in the midst of Hurricane Dow, the Elias
rankings and draft pick compensation structure cannibalized itself. Instead of
benefitting small-market teams losing pricy talent to big-market clubs, the
system drove the marginal cost of Type A free agents so high that only the premium
players were attractive. Remember that, generally speaking, free agency dollars
are inefficient to begin with. Add the cost of draft picks (and the growing
understanding of their true value), and the Type A label was a scarlet letter
on all but its best wearers. Hudson, you might recall, had been seeking a
multi-year deal with an average annual value in the $10 million range. Because of
the declining economy and that scarlet A on his chest, he got a one-year deal
worth just $3.38 million in guarantees.
Both Wolf and Hudson signed with the Dodgers in February,
well after the system imploded. By that time, agents and team executives had
seen how damaging the Type A label was to good-but-not-great players on the
open market. In fact, just two weeks after Hudson signed, Orlando Cabrera inked
a deal with the A’s which prohibited them from offering him arbitration—thus
sparing O-Cab the dreaded Type A designation. Indeed, Cabrera achieved Type A
designation this season but hits the market unencumbered by the added cost of
two draft picks.
Is it possible that the concerns which motivated Cabrera’s
agent, Dan Lozano, to get that agreement in writing also affected Wolf and
Hudson’s negotiations with the Dodgers?
It’s a long shot, but I have to hope so.
It’s clear that Colletti’s hands were tied with respect to
arb offers. The question is: by what? The answer is probably finances. But the
implications of such a conclusion are so distressing as a fan that I’m going
to hold out just a little bit of hope that there’s more going on here than we
know.
---
Also, for those of you subscribed to the feed, sorry for the double post. Formatting disasters.
Josh - First off, love the site. Keep up the good work. I can't wait for you coverage starting on the 15th.
ReplyDeleteI proposed the idea of some sort of agreement made with these players to not offer arb on Dodger Thoughts and was met with a high level of doubt, more than likely justified. I had originally thought that MLB would not allow for such a clause to be written into a contract because it seemingly circumvents the rule. However, I was directed to the contracts of Cabrera and Drew as evidence that this can, and in fact was, being done. So why would Coletti (and even more so the players agent) accept an unwritten agreement instead of having it written into the contract? Unless the Cabrera contract set a precedent that they did not think was a possibility it just doesn't add up. Like you, I hold on to that possibilty because it is easier to accept that the probable reality of such a dire situation.
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