Miguel Sano to Sign with Twins
by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 30, 2009 12:47 AM EDT
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PrintFor $3.15 million. If Sano is worth half the hype he's gotten, the Pirates should have been willing to top that, because (unlike a lot of major league free agents) he wanted to come to Pittsburgh. It sounds like the Pirates wanted the chance to outbid any offer another team might have made, but Sano's agent Rob Plummer sounds like he was sick of dealing with the Bucs and didn't bother:
"I think contracts are made entirely of relationships, that people should have a comfort level," Plummer said. "Things fell apart because Pittsburgh never believed I had other teams interested in Miguel. I gave Neal every opportunity to sign Miguel for a reasonable amount, but he was afraid he was bidding against himself. When he sees the signing, he'll see that."
Huntington and Plummer had agreed last month that the Pirates would get a chance to negotiate, but both sides acknowledged yesterday that Plummer never called them back.
Obviously, Sano isn't the only fish in the sea, but he might have been the biggest one, and for all the Bucs' attention to Latin America this year, they haven't inked a big prospect from there in this signing period. I'm not sure what else to say until I hear Neal Huntington's side of the story here, but if $3.15 million is the correct amount, it looks like either Plummer just really didn't want to deal with the Pirates, or his account of the Bucs' suspicion that they were bidding against themselves is accurate. I'd bet on the latter, which means the Pirates missed an important opportunity. No 16-year-old is a sure thing, but Sano would have immediately become the second-best prospect in the Pirates' system, behind Pedro Alvarez.
UPDATE: The P-G has since added this:
Plummer said earlier today that, even if the Pirates had come back with more money, he would not have signed with them because he appreciated how the Twins dealt with him.
That doesn't sound especially professional on Plummer's part. He's saying he would have left money for his client on the table just because the Twins made him (the agent, not the player he represents) feel all warm and cuddly.
UPDATE II: If you check out what ESPN's Jorge Arangure has written about this situation, it sounds like what the Post-Gazette is saying is right:
From my understanding, the Orioles were given a chance to match. The Pirates were not given that chance.
The Pirates were absolutely stunned by Sano's signing today. They had no clue this was coming.
My read of the situation is that the agent did not like the close relationship the Pirates had with Sano's family
Yes the Pirates would have offered more.
Basically, the Pirates didn't sign Sano because of the fractured relationship between the Pirates and Sano's agent
Realistically, it's hard to blame the Pirates when they weren't give a chance to match the offer.
So... that's it, then. Sano's agent took less money from the Pirates, despite... no, because of the fact that Sano had a good relationship with the team. It's pretty hard to pin this one on the Pirates, unless Neal Huntington set Plummer's house on fire or something.
Thanks to battlekow.
UPDATE: The P-G explains the whole situation in detail. What a mess. It sounds like Rene Gayo may have done his job a bit too well.
UPDATE: Plummer is posting as "baseballagentesq" in the PBC Blog comments section.
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Well that sucks
If it really was about money, I don’t get why the Bucs wouldn’t pony up the extra $500K or whatever was needed to get him. Disappointing.
Pirates Need to Spend Money Intelligently, Not Roll the Dice on Teenagers!
Is this really the best way for the Pirates to spend money—on an unproven 16-year-old? The Pirates need quality players they can count on immediately to pull them out of the cellar. Even if Sano is what he’s touted as, he’s five years at least away from Pittsburgh.
by The Last Hollywood Star on Sep 30, 2009 6:36 AM EDT up reply actions
I also don’t know why Plummer wouldn’t go back to the Pirates with a chance to beat the Twins’ offer. It looks like he was trying to prove a point, rather than looking for his client’s best interests.
I don’t understand why he would do that, though. Doesn’t being dishonest like that make him look bad, and cost him money?
by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 29, 2009 7:14 PM EDT up reply actions
+1
Sadly though, the main individual hurt by this is Plummer’s client, not Plummer.
It’s hard, even for a conspiracy theorist, to hang this one on NH, since he never even got a courtesy call.
If the reporting is accurate, I guess that’s true.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 29, 2009 7:28 PM EDT up reply actions
Short of...
NH doing something to piss off Plummer…that we aren’t likely to hear about…I’m not sure the problem is on this end. Unless the offer wasn’t high enough…which sounds to be the case. Maybe the offer deadlines?? Whatever it is…the relationship must have gone downhill several weeks ago.
When this all started…my feeling was that a reasonable signing would have fallen in the $3-4M range…and that if they lost out on Sano because they weren’t willing to go that far…I’d have a problem with it. If it was over $4M…I would understand.
This has seemed like the subtext to DK’s reporting on this for a month or two now. I don’t know wtf Plummer’s problem is, but the is a twofold disaster for the Bucs – miss out on a great player at a very reasonable price, plus I can’t help but think that this hurts him with people in the DR. Maybe they’ll view Plummer as the bad guy, but it seems to me that agents fuck over players all the time without consequences (frex PA seems perfectly content that Boras cost him a year’s development for little more than dick-swinging).
Jorge Arangure:
From my understanding, the Orioles were given a chance to match. The Pirates were not given that chance.
It was a great selection of awesome.
So...
can we assume that the chances of any future Plummer client signing with the Pirates is somewhere between slim and none??
More from Jorge Arangure’s Twitter:
My read of the situation is that the agent did not like the close relationship the Pirates had with Sano’s family
Sano’s agent is the real villain here for denying his client the chance of more $$$, but you have to think NH did something very stupid to provoke this type of reaction. Did it really break down because the agent hated Sano’s family and the relationship they had with the Pirates? That is bizarre to me.
While it would be easy to bash the Pirates on this one, I don’t think it’s Pittsburgh’s fault. They were the most interested team all along. At times it looked like we were the only team with serious interest. All along Plummer kept holding out longer and longer. I think Neal probably was bidding against himself at times. Finally Minnesota and Baltimore decided to make an offer to see if they could get a bite. That’s all Plummer was looking for. I’m sure he’s going to make it out that every major league team was beating down the door for this kid, but the reality is if that were the case he would be signing with a team in New York, LA, Chicago or Boston. I say just put it behind us and move on.
I’m disappointed but I’m going to withhold any criticism until we learn more about the situation.
It all sounds rather strange to me.
I made most of my life decisions at a Foghat concert... I stand by them.
by Chester J Lampwick on Sep 29, 2009 8:11 PM EDT reply actions
Sounds like what we need here . . .
. . . is a Code of Ethics for player representatives.
(Somewhere, Scott Boras just kicked off a search for my IP address.)
Boras is a snake . . .
But at least he’s an equal opportunity snake, who’s only goal is to squeeze every last penny out of teams. Plummer, on the other hand, appears to be a huge douchebag.
Why is everyone blaming Plummer?
He is his agent, he is suppose to lead him to the best opportunity. I am sorry but that isn’t here.
I also got to put more blame in this front office on this.. Fans got the wool pulled over their eyes again, but Nutting who is taking his revenue to the bank..
Whatever dude, the agent’s job is to get the best deal not get the best warm fuzzy for his client. Obviously Sano and the parents were comfortable with the Pirates it was the agent who did not want him here so thats why he gets the blame.
by eyeofhorus777 on Sep 29, 2009 9:33 PM EDT up reply actions
Apparently, Sano wasn’t as warm and fuzzy for the Pirates as many think. He signed his name to a deal with the Twins and said he is happy to be a Twin..
We hear how great NH is, but some have called him an ass. I don’t trust Nutting at all.
Well...
Dejan just said Sano called Plummer at one point in tears asking why he wasn’t a Pirate yet. I’d say he’d rather be a Pirate.
by northsidenotch on Sep 30, 2009 1:02 AM EDT up reply actions
Well, apparently he had a turn cause he signed with Minnesota.
If Pirates offered 4 million and Sano signed with the Twins for what he did, everyone has a reason to cry. Signing on a team that competes for 500k more isn’t a reason to blame the agent. Plummer, Sano owed the NH, BN, and the Pirates nothing.
Yeah cause a poor 16 year old kid from latin america would be impervious to manipulation from an agent.
After reading DK’s details on PBC what I see is this: Sano wanted to sign with the Pirates quite some time ago. Plummer in an initial effort to maximize the return for his client would not consumate a deal. Plummer than made it about him and not his client.
As much as I dislike how Boras does business, I dont for a minute think that he would go against the wishes of any of his clients. He might advise against it, but ultimately the client is the boss. But when the client is a poor Latin American teenager he is going to get run over roughshod by an unscrupulous agent.
There is a reason why BOS and NYY werent even in the conversation and it likely had nothing to do with Sano’s talent and everything to do with Plummer.
by Mick Kraut on Sep 30, 2009 8:05 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I don't know where you're
Getting this 4 mill figure. We weren’t given the opp. to match the offer. You keep repeating the same tired line about Sano owing the Pirates nothing. No one is saying that. What most are saying is that Plummer is a tool who clearly didn’t have his client’s best FINANCIAL interests in mind because he had a team willing to spend money, yet he gave them no chance to offer more.
You and Mick Kraut
are spitting into the wind trying to reason with this guy.
Don’t spit into the wind.
Oh, and don’t mess around with Jim. (a-dab-a-doo-da-da-dee-dee-n-dee-dee-dee.)
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Sep 30, 2009 11:32 AM EDT up reply actions
Why is is unreasonable to blame the FO.. They suck and have sucked for 17 years no matter who is in there. Like I said, NH should have offered 3 million first offer if they were so serious in getting Sano, to offer what they did and say hey call me, after they go behind the agents back would leave a sour taste in anybody’s mouth.
Since you have ABSOLUTELY no idea
about what was offer by whom, when or where, and you continue to link this FO with the previous 15 years’ FO’s, you are talking out your rear end.
“Should have?” How do you know what NH did? You don’t,
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Sep 30, 2009 1:25 PM EDT up reply actions
I have an idea...
That is the Pirates were so interested and was so cerrtain of his age, why didn’t they throw more money at him in July? They basically gave him an offer and was like hey whatever just give me a call. After the age thing was investugated, I read daily that teams were interested, why did the Pirates stay at 2.6 million, especially when it was revealed Twine, Orioles, Angels, and others were intertested.
NHL can’t communicate with Agents, its clear as day, 0-2 in that regard.
bidding against yourself = bad idea
It goes back to the fact that NH did not want to bid against himself. The Twins had the benefit of a starting point from which to negotiate, i.e. the Pirates $2.6 million offer. They knew that offer existed, Plummer told them if they went over $3 million he wouldn’t shop it, so they offered $3.15 million.
NH did not have the benefit of competing offers, so it would be nonsensical for him to continually up his offer. What would be the motivation for Plummer to tell him to stop? If the Bucs offered $3.15 million would he have signed, or would Plummer just use that as a new starting point to negotiate with other interested teams?
Until
you go in front of the news cameras saying, “I just came out of a meeting with NH,” everything you post is conjecture.
Your “idea” of what happened may be spot on, or it may be 180 degrees from correct.
Vlad posted below where you “read daily” the goings on, and it seems that you have no more clue than anyone else as to what happened. That’s okay, but just say so. It is okay to say “This is what i think may have happened.”
Just don’t go off like you have inside info on how the team is run, or how it conducts business. Your claim that NH “can’t communicate with agents” has no basis in fact, except in your mind.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Sep 30, 2009 7:45 PM EDT up reply actions
Why is it unreasonable to blame the President?
They suck and have sucked for 200+ years no matter who is in there. Abu Ghraib, the Red Scare, the Spanish-American War, the Trail of Tears, the rebellion against our just and reasonable British overlords… curse that Obama!
Leaving troops in Iraq, not prosecuting Bush, healthcare, closing Gitmo, Patriot Act, gay marriage, and like everything else, etc…(sorry I had to).
Really, the only very negative things Huntington has done is this years 1st draft pick, and this botched attempt to get Sano because NH and Gayo presumably were too obnoxious. As people have said already, the agent could be a jerk buy you’ve got to deal with it. They’re supposed to be professionals. This is a results-driven sport whether that’s fair or not.
by Adam Reynolds on Sep 30, 2009 4:16 PM EDT up reply actions
Way too early to say that he botched the first round pick yet especially with Sanchez’s excellent play so far but I understand what you’re getting at.
I made most of my life decisions at a Foghat concert... I stand by them.
by Chester J Lampwick on Sep 30, 2009 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions
You Know
I do wonder a little bit that if Sano is so hot…Where are the Bosox and Yankees with their offers? not Braves ves at least? Not even the A’s??
Hmmph…maybe Sano sucks just a little, why of all 30 teams only 3 are players in the bidding? Either their is a bit of “colusion”, or he’s not really that good.
I’d say I was happy to be a Twin too if they just gave me $3M. Wouldn’t mean they were my first choice.
by gorillagogo on Sep 30, 2009 11:21 AM EDT up reply actions
without talking to Sano, we don’t know what happened.. He signed with thr Twins withouta hint from him or his parents mentioning the Pirates, we have to go on in the long run, something went wrong.
You seem to think that if Sano preferred to sign with the Pirates he would have mentioned something when he was accepting a multi-million dollar deal with another team.
Back here on earth, people usually realize that when someone is signing a multi-million dollar deal, the things they say publicly are colored by that fact. More to the point, the statements “Sano would have preferred signing with the Pirates” and “Sano signed with the Twins” are not mutually exclusive.
Then..
Why didn’t the Pirates up their offer when other teams were said to be interested.. Seems like they sat around and wiated for a phone call instead of being down there talking to Sano, Plummer, and his family.
Apparently the issue is actually the opposite. Plummer thinks the Pirates spent too much time talking to Sano and his family and not enough time just sitting around waiting for him to say he’s ready. That’s part of the reason he said he signed with the Twins without looking for other offers. They were “patient”.
There were no indications that other teams WERE interested...
…right up until Plummer announced the signing.
No indication??
MLB trade Rumors posted daily that teams were interested, I hope NH knew more then a internet baseball rumor site.
Let's check the tape, shall we?
Here’s every MLBTR post tagged with “Sano” from before yesterday (i.e. the day he unexpectedly signed with the Twins), along with a date and quick capsule summary:
Sept. 23 – Sano on back burner w/ Orioles.
Sept. 18 – Sano not near a deal with any club.
Sept. 4 – Sano (and another player) stuck in age investigation limbo.
Aug. 31 – Pirates increase offer to Sano.
Aug. 26 – Pirates talks w/ Sano have stalled.
Aug. 10 – Padres exec says team not interested in Sano.
Aug. 10 – Angels not close to offering Sano a deal.
Aug. 5 – Background on the age investigation, Pirates only team mentioned.
And that’s the first page of results.
Spooky, isn’t it, how much warning there was? How could Neil have not seen it coming?
Most of the interest came before the MLB investigation.
I do agree that things were quiet after the investigation began. That may be due in part to other teams respecting Plummer’s request to not engage in negotiations unitl the age issue was cleared up. Obviously the Bucs were unaware of serious dialogue going on with the Twins. It was difficult for Hunitington to truly know if he was bidding against himself. He played a game of poker thinking Plummer was bluffing and in the end he was wrong.
Or if you don't trust me...
…take it from Plummer. In the comments to the P-G story, he says: “I just felt like nobody was going to step forward b/c nobody believed a team like the Twins were going to step forward so that really slowed negotiations.”
But when he says that nobody knew the Twins were going to make an offer, and that no other teams were ready to make the first move either, he’s probably lying, right?
Didn't catch that comment by Plummer...
that does tend to clear things up a bit in regards to the market activity.
At this point
I have a hard time thinking that the Pirates front office is way smarter than 27 other Major League teams. Perhaps the pirates lost nothing.
Not talking to NH
after the Minn. offer to see if there is more money to be had is not serving his client’s best interests (money wise anyway)
Is there a huge proof the Pirate were going to go over 3 million? I mean lets not forget the owner of this team and the current payroll. I honestly find it hard to think Nutting was gloing to give Sano more then Minnesota gave him.
So you’re going to ignore all the people who actually know what’s going who’re saying otherwise and just assume the Pirates were being cheap for no reason other than you believe it? Smart
Until I hear Sano’s side yes.. Why would I believe the Pirates front office? They have pulled us before.
It mentions stuff in the PG artice of shadey stuff by the Pirates like going behind a agent’s back and talking directly to the family. Big No-No.
So you think...
…that a team should never talk to a player’s family before scouting and signing him?
That’s… an interesting position.
There is a difference between talking to a family...
and using the family as leverage against the agent that represents them. It’s possible Gayo crossed the line. Maybe not, but from what’s been printed it is possible.
Sure, it's possible...
…but we know that at least part of the contact was Sano and his family calling Gayo and the Pirates. Was Gayo supposed to just hang up the phone?
Not at all...
but we should have been able to recognize that this relationship was causing problems with Plummer and Huntington should have reigned Gayo in until the negotiation was over. The relationship was already established which gave the Pirates a competitive advantage. Continuing contact did nothing to strenghten the relationship and it actually hurt it in the end. Sano calls you crying you pick up the phone and say don’t worry kid, were gonna get this done. We are talking to your agent and we’ll get it done as soon as we can. What you don’t do is : 1) make the agent out to be the bad guy 2) make Sano think we are the only ones interested 3) tell him no one will make a better offer than us…and on and on. I truly believe we tried to exploit our advantage and it backfired. It was a gamble and if it worked I’d probably be singing NH’s praises right now. But….
It should be pointed out that Gayo had to talk to atleast Sano, as he was coach of the Dominican teens in some tourney earlier this year.
by lighthouse913 on Oct 1, 2009 1:09 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Nope.. Apparently it didn’t work here, like I said, if Sano was so for going to the Pirates, why didn’t he have a set and tell his agent, no I wanna go to Pittsburgh instead of signing with the Twins? He sounded like he was happy with thw Minny deal and good for him.
Because he's a marginally-educated 16-year-old kid...
…with limited English skills and no experience in contract law or international business, and therefore heavily dependent on advice from outside parties (such as his coach and agent)?
But he understood enough to call his agent in the middele of the night, crying that he wanted to go to the Pirates? That explains him signing the deal with Minny..
How hard is it to dial a phone?
The numbers look the same in Spanish.
Right now, we have no idea what the agent may have said to Sano. Maybe he said that the Pirates weren’t really interested, or that their offer was lower than it really was, or that NH called Sano a dumb buck n-word behind his back. Who knows? [And if you think sports agents are above misrepresentations of that kind, they aren’t.]
Actually...
I think that Plummer must have done one hell of job convincing Sano that the Pirates were not to be trusted. I’ll be he called NH and crew every name in the book. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that he was able to convince Sano that the Pirates were not everyting Gayo made them out to be.
Well...
Plummer is definitely part of the problem but let’s not let NH and crew off the hook here. NH completely misread the situation and if he lowballed Plummer early on thinking he was bidding against himself he obviously got off on the wrong foot. As much as we may not like it developing relationships with agents is part of the game. Huntington’s failure to seal this deal is completely his fault. Plummer had what we wanted and we some how pissed him off and he was most likely able to convince Sano and his family that the Pirates cannot be trusted. I fully believe the Alvarez contract situation was used against us as well.
I like a lot of what Neil has done but he has not excelled at establishing good relationships with power agents. That is important since international signings and the draft are the way we are goint to acquire impact talent. So I ask, if NH is not to blame than who is? How come the Twins weren’t shut out and we were? We basically whiffed this year in the draft and international signings. Hingsight being 20-20 we now could have taken a higher upside player, paid him above slot and still accomplished what we did in the later rounds. This is truly disappinting to say the least. Well, at least Kerrigan is returning next season.
No way
Baseball is a business, period. Even if NH (allegedly) “lowballed” Plummer, that is nothing personal but simply trying to make a good and informed baseball decision, which is NH’s job. Plummer on the other hand put his own personal pride in front of his job, which was to work for his client (Sano in this case) and get him the best possible deal (money being a big part of this).
Now about the money. Sano and his family seemingly had a good relationship with the Pirates organization, so when it comes to signing with the Pirates money should and would have been the only factor. It seems unlikely that Sano choose to ignore the Pirates and see if their FO would offer more than 3.15 mil. That only leaves Plummer, the agent, who is supposed to be OBJECTIVE and UNBIASED, at fault. He obviously put his own vendetta ahead of his clients best interests. That makes him a bad agent, and as far as baseball business decisions go, we would be best to not deal with him.
Don’t give me any bullshit about organization-agent relationships. There shouldn’t be any. Baseball isn’t a tea party, its a business.
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Sep 29, 2009 8:59 PM EDT up reply actions
"Don’t give me any bullshit about organization-agent relationships. There shouldn’t be any. "
You’re right, there shouldn’t be any but unfortunately there is. The rules of the game a re what they are. You can deal with it and play the game our you can whine about how unfair it is and lose out one top prospect after another. Plummer laid down the rules of the negotiations pretty early on. He didn’t want to negotiate with anyone until the age issue had been resolved. We ignored that fact and in addition to making offers Plummer wasn’t ready to here we reportedly kept in constant contact with the family. That could be construed by agents as not acting in good faith. In the end, Plummer was able to convince Sano and his family to leave money on the table to sign with the Twins. Ask yourself, how was he able to do that when Sano and his family reportedly wanted to be part of the Pirates organization?
How do you explain that to your client?
I understand that a good agent can probably talk his/her way out of anything, but how do you explain eliminating a strongly interested team from the bidding just because they made an offer before you wanted one. This seems a bit bizarre. Part of the reason an agent is hired is that they can be in impersonal negotiator on their client’s behalf. They don’t take things personally, they just try to get the best deal possible for their client.
Even if he favored his client signing with the Twins, Plummer could have solicited a counter offer from the Bucs that he could take back to the Twins to see if he could squeeze a little more out of them. Not hearing offers from all interested parties just b/c you (the agent) don’t like some of said parties seems callow and puerile, and the anitithesis of what a good agent should be doing for their client.
I don't dispute what you said at all.
I think we were probably trying to use the family to get Sano to sign which pissed off Plummer and he was able to take that, along with the Alvarez situation, and use it to convince the family the Pirates cannot be trusted. NH tried to use Gayo’s relationship to his advantage and it backfired. I truly believe if he would have played by Plummer’s rules Sano would be a Priate today.
Well my point is
I think the Pirates are better off not “playing the game.” It’s unprofessional and (imo) bad business, and thus, baseball sense.
But that’s just my opinion and I am well aware there are always two sides to a coin.
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Sep 30, 2009 12:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Plummer’s rule should be the same as any normal good agent “How can I get the most money for my client”. If Plummer weren’t such a pain in the ass to work with the big market teams would actually deal with him and he could actually get more money for his clients. Or he could actually allow counteroffers he could make more money for his clients. He’s a lousy agent and it makes me wonder how bad the other Latin American agents are that they can’t convince prospects the guy doesn’t know how to do what’s best for them.
Also, judging from this and other comments, you seem to be living in some alternate universe where the Pirates somehow came off badly with the Alvarez situation.
I would have to question what universe you live in...
if you don’t think the Pirates came off badly. They immediately made Boras out to be the bad guy. Coonelly sent out a scathing email blasting Boras for being deceiptful neglecting to mention that we in turn did not follow the rules. It is widely believed that we did not make the deadline as had been reported. Now whether this is common practice or not is a moot point. The fact is we did not follow the same rules we were accusing Boras of not following. Secondly, we drug another prospect who had nothing to do with our situation into the mix to try and strongarm Boras into submission. This whole event planted the seed of mistrust in regards to the FC/NH regime. Don’t think amateurs were not listening when that all hapened. We may have some trouble with the premium prospects in the future because of this.
On top of the PR hit, more than one publication did not let the Pirates off the hook for having some responsibility for the disaster, Alvarez was not able to get to the playing field last year. Hell we couldn’t even get him in shape in time to play winter ball. So we lost out on development time as well. Explain to me how that situation did not come off badly please.
Replyin':
a) It was extremely common practice prior to the draft to use extensions, with several documented examples (including the Royals, Nats, and Rangers) in the last two years alone. As such, there’s no stigma whatsoever attached to it.
b) You miss the point of our objection. We claimed that Boras went back on a verbal agreement, which is an extremely damaging accusation to him and his rep. Boras’s claim was of a technical/process violation, rather than a material/moral one, and as such much less damaging perceptually. It was also an obvious pretext, in that Boras had participated in negotiations under the same post-deadline conditions in the past without complaint (with Hosmer and Borbon and who knows how many other players) because in those cases the deals ended up more to his liking.
c) Boras is the one who dragged Hosmer and Crow into the situation. When he challenged our right to sign Alvarez on the particular technical grounds that he used, the timeline of the evening’s signings was inevitably going to come out, as a matter of simple discovery. He just didn’t think through the consequences of his own actions before taking them.
I'm not missing the point...
I just didn’t elaborate the Boras side because I think it was pretty much common knowledge that Boras is a snake who was more than content to let the rules be broken when it worked out to his benefit. I’m just saying that the Pirates did not come out of that situation squeaky clean. That’s why I focussed on the negative PR from the Pirates standpoint and not Boras’. You are probably right that the Hosmer inclusion was more Boras than Coonely. I guess I will have to take back what I said earlier and agree with TravisDW assertion that my calling the Alvarez situation a PR disaster an overstatement. Disaster was too strong but it was still negative PR.
Don’t think amateurs were not listening when that all hapened. We may have some trouble with the premium prospects in the future because of this.
Agree 100%. The Bucs will never be able to sign top shelf prospects like Cain, ZVR or Dodson.
but the agent all but made the desision from what I've heard
"Polamalu’s lineage can be traced through several roots. Chuck Norris mated with an Amazon Queen, and on the other side, Tony Hawk mated with Mother Nature.
The two children of these spawned and fused in a tantric love session to create Troy Polamalu. The mother however died as he tore through the birth canal with a spin move."
Mechem on the roots of Troy Polamalu
by WVPiratesfan on Oct 1, 2009 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions
I don't consider any of those guys top shelf talent.
None of the players you mentioned were projected to go in the top 5. Sanchez doesn’t count either.
So? What does being projected to go in the top 5 have to do with anything? They were all considered good prospects whose value slid because teams were scared off by their college commitments.
I think you’re overanalyzing things if you actually believe the Bucs could have difficulty signing prospects to million dollar contracts in the future because of the way they handled the Alvarez negotiations.
I don't...
I think a player may be tempted to go back into the draft, assuming they have eligiblility remaining, rather than play for a cheap, dishonest organization…if that’s how the image continues to get painted. Every time a situation like this happens it is fuel for another agent to use in later negotiations. Granted, I don’t think this will be an issue most of the time but I would hate to see us draft a Harper only to have him go back to school because he doesn’t want to play for the Pirates.
Top 5 means bigger signing bonus and “usually” elite level talent. With that comes increased likelihood to hold out or return to school if demands aren’t met. Bigger signing bonus means more risk on the part of the organization. Nothing more than that.
Top 5 means bigger signing bonus and "usually" elite level talent. With that comes increased likelihood to hold out or return to school if demands aren’t met.
Yes, but that’s something else entirely from your earlier assertion that I took issue with. I don’t think future prospects — top 5 or otherwise — would be more likely to sit out on the basis of how the Bucs handled negotiations with some other prospect years earlier. If the Bucs are willing to pay them their asking price — in your scenario that would be millions of dollars — they’ll sign.
Sitting out for a year...
…means giving up a year of FA earnings, insofar as you’ll enter pro ball later and be promoted later. In the case of a top-level talent, that lost FA year is probably worth $10M+. As such, there’s a powerful financial incentive for a player to not act as you suggest.
He might, just barely, be willing to give up that money if a team were cheap and deceitful with him, but it seems very unlikely that he’d do so simply because they were alleged to have done so with a complete stranger. If reputation worked that way, why would anyone ever sign with the Royals (who, during the Baird era, once offered a take-it-or-leave-it signing bonus of $5k to every pick after the first few rounds)?
ZVR was projected as a first-rounder.
And he got first-round money. That is, if not top shelf, no more than one shelf below it.
They were all nice talents...
with ZVR being the best. In fact I look at this draft like we traded our 1st rounder for two late 1st rounders as they would in football. ZVR was a projected late 1st rounder or sandwich pick, I agree, but I guess I was thinking along the lines of “elite” talent – Ackley, Strasburg, Alvarez, etc… Our above slot guys are not in this category.
We were supposedly willing to take and sign Ackley...
…if he fell to our slot.
Since we didn’t have a chance at any elite-level talents in last year’s draft (with the possible exception of Matzek), I’m not sure how useful this speculation is.
How did he "lowball" him...
When he had the highest offer on the table for months?
by northsidenotch on Sep 29, 2009 9:01 PM EDT up reply actions
To play devil's advocate...
although, as I said above, I think Plummer’s the dick here:
NH loves to talk about how they place “value” on players, and that they’re not willing to budge from that – whether for FAs or draft picks or whoever. But of course, that’s inherently BS – he’s happy to pay less, but won’t go above. Let’s assume that NH would have beaten the MN offer – say, $3.25M. If NH is honest, then that means that he thinks Sano’s “value” is that (or more). Yet, back in July, he was offering $2M, lest he “bid against himself.” Now, again, because Plummer’s a dick, he may not have accepted $3.25M back in July either, but the bottom line is that, if NH truly believed in his evaluation, he would have locked down Sano with his best offer back in July (for a marginal cost difference of a bench player’s salary). I realize that you can’t go into every negotiation that way, but I think that we all – including NH – agree that Sano was in a different category.
Anyway, to put it simply: it’s a lowball offer if it’s only 2/3 of what you think the player’s really worth. All that said, I don’t actually blame NH at all. I just think this situation highlights the bogosity of his “value” mantra.
That's not bullshit.
That’s standard scouting practice, and it has been for decades. Go read “Dollar Sign on the Muscle” some time, particularly the draft room chapter.
The initial $2M offer came before MLB had attempted to verify Sano’s age or identity. Confirmation that he was who he said he was, and that he was likely no older than 17 at worst, increased his value, so Neil increased the team’s offer. Duh.
by Vlad on Sep 29, 2009 9:48 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
What I mean by “bullshit” is the way NH uses it rhetorically – as if this “value” were a hard number, calculated strictly and scientifically, that ties his hands. If he can get a player for less than that value, then it’s a win for the Pirates through negotiation, but if a player wishes to negotiate a higher price, well, that violates the sacrosanct “value,” and NH simply can’t do anything about it. Meanwhile, we all know that he will, in fact, go above the value at times.
I think there’s a certain amount of BS in application (in that he’s happy to get a player for less than the value but loathe to go over it*), but mostly it’s the rhetoric that I find BS. Every time I hear it, I think, “Oh, fuck you.”
- there are two kinds of employers in the world: those who recognize that “everyone needs to get paid,” and those who feel that it’s their job to squeeze every penny out of their employees. NH is being the latter, and I don’t admire it in him any more than I do in Carnegie and Frick
No doubt that on a certain level there’s always going to be an element of BS in anything NH states publicly — that’s not an indictment of him more than an acknowledgment that any MLB GM is going to make statements in the press that put the best spin possible on any bit of news.
That said, I don’t see why the internal value should be all that offensive. I think it’s a sound business policy to implement this type of system and have the discipline to stick to it. Granted, I’m sure there’s times when they have or will bend it a bit, but in general sticking to that type of system just makes good fiscal sense.
Of course you need to establish a price level before the negotiation begins – that’s true in any circumstance. What bugs me is the way NH treats it (or claims to) as something outside his control. If I decide that I’m only buying salmon at Wholey’s if it’s under $7, that doesn’t say anything about the salmon itself or Wholey’s prices; it’s about what I’m willing to spend. NH acts as if Wholey’s is insulting him by selling its salmon for $8, because he has “valued” it at $7 (or less, of course).
And of course ballplayers aren’t fish. Each player, negotiation, and contract is unique, and so it’s absurd to set a hard number in the abstract. Look at Tony Sanchez – his bonus was well below slot, but well above what most teams thought he was worth. It’s silly to pretend that there’s some platonic “value” attached to him; $2.4M happened to be the number that worked for both sides.
As I said, I wouldn’t care if NH didn’t talk about it the way he does; that’s what annoys me, the disjunction between speech and action*. And, the whole reason I brought this up, if NH were consistent and honest about his valuations, Sano would be a Pirate right now for somewhere north of $3M. But NH refused to “negotiate against himself,” even though he had attached a value, surely higher than $2.6M, to Sano.
- And no, I’m not naive, and I get the GM’s job and negotiations in general. This specific verbal tic of NH’s has bugged me for awhile now, even as I glide past him talking up fringe prospects and all the other bogus things GMs say as a matter of course.
It sounds to me like you’re reading a bit too much into the comment. I’ve never gotten the impression that NH was acting like he was insulted that players or agents wanted X amt of money when he was only willing to offer Y. Rather, to use your analogy, I look at it more as if the Pirates are perfectly willing to walk away if Wholey’s is selling salmon for $8 and the Bucs only want to pay $7.
Similarly, I think the Bucs internally valued Sanchez higher than most other teams did, hence they selected him with the #4 pick and paid him $2.4M when other teams might not have gone that high.
As for the whole “refuse to bid against himself” argument, I think there’s some merit to the Pirates apparent refusal to allow that to happen, but that doesn’t entirely absolve them from blame.
Your analogy is flawed.
Maybe Neil would be willing to pay $8 for the salmon if it had a different sell-by date, or if it were wild instead of farmed, or if it were a whole fillet instead of cut up into little bits.
He’s saying that he won’t pay $8 for that particular salmon, because it’s not fair value for that particular salmon, regardless of what other salmons in other stores might be worth.
And yeah, market conditions matter. If the salmon is one day from expiring, and there’s fifty pounds of it in the cooler, and nobody else is buying salmon, there’s nothing wrong with trying to haggle and talk the price down a bit. It’s just standard business practice, across all industries.
I guarantee you that the team had a maximum value placed on Tony Sanchez, along with every other player they drafted last year, and that if Sanchez was firm about not signing unless he got a number higher than their valuation of him, he wouldn’t have signed (or more likely under the circumstances, have been drafted by the Pirates).
“Look at Tony Sanchez – his bonus was well below slot”
actually his bonus was above slot
by reverse apache master on Sep 30, 2009 10:23 PM EDT up reply actions
When scouts determine a value for a player...
…they generally DO pick a hard-and-fast number that’s the max they’d pay to sign him. That’s the “dollar sign on the muscle” to which the title of the book in my last post is referring. The area scout will say, “I like Joe Schmoe up to $80,000,” and then if the other scouts in the chain of command agree, the team will use $80,000 as their ceiling in negotiations, because they player isn’t worth any more than that to them. These numbers will vary from club to club for any specific player, since player evaluation is an inherently subjective process, but every club has a number that they won’t cross for each player that interests them.
If you thought that something was only worth $80,000, and someone offered you that thing for $90,000, why would you buy it? You’d be paying more than it’s worth. The principle holds true for a player or an eggplant or a plasma TV. If you don’t know how much a commodity on the market is worth to you, then you’ll overspend, and a fool and his money are soon parted.
I said this in another post, and you ignored it, but the team’s initial offer was only $2M because at the time of that offer Sano had not had his age or identity investigated by MLB. Therefore, there was more uncertainty as to his provenance, which lowered his market value, and thus the team’s offer. After he cleared identity verification, that dispelled some of the uncertainty, correspondingly increasing his value on the market, so the team raised their offer. Static commodities have relatively static values, dynamic commodities have relatively dynamic values.
We didn't get close...
to what Plummer and Sano felt was market value. And we were the only offer on the table because every other team involved respected Plummers wishes not to make any offers until the age situation was cleared up. NH is not completely at fault here but in the end we missed out on an impact prospect so he definitely has to accept some responsibility for this failure.
how do we know what Sano felt was market value
how do we know the agent in question just doesn’t like the Pirates. So far all I have seen in that Sano wanted to be a Pirate and thats were he wanted to be so I chalk it up to an agent with a ego larger that either boras or rosenhouse and that takes alot
"Polamalu’s lineage can be traced through several roots. Chuck Norris mated with an Amazon Queen, and on the other side, Tony Hawk mated with Mother Nature.
The two children of these spawned and fused in a tantric love session to create Troy Polamalu. The mother however died as he tore through the birth canal with a spin move."
Mechem on the roots of Troy Polamalu
by WVPiratesfan on Oct 1, 2009 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions
Plummer made it pretty clear what he (and therefor Sano) felt was his market valure.
And it was right around what Mateo originally signed for. They wanted over 3 million dollars.
I see where you are coming from
"Polamalu’s lineage can be traced through several roots. Chuck Norris mated with an Amazon Queen, and on the other side, Tony Hawk mated with Mother Nature.
The two children of these spawned and fused in a tantric love session to create Troy Polamalu. The mother however died as he tore through the birth canal with a spin move."
Mechem on the roots of Troy Polamalu
by WVPiratesfan on Oct 1, 2009 11:50 PM EDT up reply actions
From everything that I've read...
One can assume:
1) Sano and his family preferred the pirates.
2) The pirates would have met and exceeded the 3.15 given the chance.
Now from that it sounds like Plummer either had the final say or failed to accurately represent the situation to Sano.
by i hit straight ball very much on Sep 29, 2009 8:52 PM EDT reply actions
The big question
From what I understand, Plummer is the King Maker in Latin America. Unless someone knocks him off…as the biggest agent, this is a bad bad sign for any future top flight signings in the area. Wow, now what? Do the Bucs put the focus on other realms? Maybe the time is right to fight the Yankees for that Cuban defector! He seems to be a bit more of a talent at least.
Screw Plummer, throw the whole Latin America budget at the Cuban Kid!
Chapman is going to sign for probably a factor of ten more than Sano did. Imagine if Stephen Strasburg was left-handed and a free agent and you’ve got Aroldis Chapman. The bidding for him is already narrowed down to two teams.
http://www.whygavs.com
http://mlb.fanhouse.com
Yankees and Red Sox
"Polamalu’s lineage can be traced through several roots. Chuck Norris mated with an Amazon Queen, and on the other side, Tony Hawk mated with Mother Nature.
The two children of these spawned and fused in a tantric love session to create Troy Polamalu. The mother however died as he tore through the birth canal with a spin move."
Mechem on the roots of Troy Polamalu
by WVPiratesfan on Oct 1, 2009 10:48 AM EDT up reply actions
Hell with it
Let’s be team 3! Imagine the press. Let’s be realistic, of all the signings, draft, international, etc each year, how many actually make a differance? Lets blow the budget on Red on the big wheel. By the way, I actually like Strasburg(h) a little more. Saw him throw last spring against UNM , he is the BOMB.
Honestly,
By the way
It’s a better bet to say F Sano. The odds of him being a true differance maker as a middle infielder ar truely slim. Likely he’s the next Bixler or Cruz. You know, it really makes you appreciate the true superstars. It also makes it easy to downplay any acquisition loss. All in all though, we gotta sign someone!
Sano
Best Management Team in Baseball- Nutting
Best Management Team in Baseball – My ass
The failure to sign Sano is nothing but incompetence and arrogance on the side of the Pirates management team. Of course the bottom line didn’t feel a pinch. To let an excellent infield prospect slip away is very discouraging. Even if Sano didn’t project at short we have even less in the way of prospects at 2nd. I wonder if Bryce Harper is available at # 2 next year if we’ll sign him or go for more organizational depth.
Pathetic
what bothers me a little is that NH seems to have “miscommunications” or other problems when it comes to signing players a little too often… the late contract offer to pedro alvarez, the apparent confusion about the role eric hinske was to play on this year’s team, the freddy sanchez extension offer which may or may not have been open to negotiation and regardless, appeared to be a pretty meager offer… and now this situation with sano…
when plummer said he wasn’t taking offers until the age investigation was settled and the pirates went ahead and made an offer anyway, I can’t imagine that went over well… to me, the whole pursuit of sano reeked of desperation on the pirates’ part… as if the pirates would do anything, up to and including trying to go around the agent to get sano in the fold…
now the agent is going to have a certain amount of sway over his client and it’s not hard to imagine plummer saying to sano: “hey… your family may be tight with rene gayo, but after you sign, he’s going to be down here looking for more players and you’ll be up in the states dealing with those guys… those same guys who were trying to rush you into signing for over a million less than this deal here…”
of course, that last bit is entirely speculative… but NH’s negotiation skills definitely seem below par…
by Captain Easychord on Sep 29, 2009 11:04 PM EDT reply actions
and even as a moderate cynic regarding the pirates’ finances, I’m all but certain that the failure to sign sano had nothing to do with money
by Captain Easychord on Sep 29, 2009 11:05 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree completely
This wasn’t cheapness on the part of the Pirates, but it was still a huge missed opportunity. Huntington needs to improve his negotiation skills with agents big time. It is unacceptable for us to miss out on talent like Sano because of crap like this. If somebody else paid $7M for him I wouldn’t be so upset. We would have paid $3.15M for Sano. Plummer left money out there for his client just so he could stick it to the Pirates. What on Earth did we do to piss him off so much? I mean this is money we are talking about here. Agents do NOT turn down money, EVER!!! Agents are guys that would sell their mothers’ souls for a few extra dollars.
by houksyndrome on Sep 30, 2009 12:46 AM EDT up reply actions
Some agents are, and some aren't.
I brought up Tommy Tanzer earlier – he let Matt Harrington walk away from a $4.9M offer in a fit of pique, and when he re-entered the draft next year, his offer was a flat million bucks.
Salary Cap
Instead of a salary cap maybe MLB could institute a per game payroll cap. For example the Pirates and their 20 million dollar lineup next years faces the Yankees. The Yankees could only put 20 million of payroll on the field when they face the PBC. If they want to play Teixera, they have to give up their outfield. If they pitch Burnett they only have a pitcher and maybe a catcher. We’d be sure to have a winning season. Although better managed small market teams like the Brewers and Twins would still kick our ass.
Thats idiotic.
Even as a Pirates fan, thats the dumbest thing I’ve heard in the while. So because your not playing a team equal to you in finances, you can’t play your best line up? As if other teams and the media would look at us differently because we got a winning season out of charity
Steelers - Immaculate Reception. Penguins - Immaculate Rejection. Pirates......Immaculate Resurrection???
thank god if he is.
if not, well enough said
Steelers - Immaculate Reception. Penguins - Immaculate Rejection. Pirates......Immaculate Resurrection???
Plummer apparently is commenting on the PBC Blog.......
Read his comments they are grade A gold, or BS. Who knows, this whole situation is crazy.
DK
mentions in his latest post that the guy posting as Plummer in the morning links was, in fact, Plummer.
by northsidenotch on Sep 30, 2009 11:29 AM EDT up reply actions
So really, who’s surprised by this? Pirates miss out on big time prospect because the kid’s agent’s a dick with a vendetta.
But let’s not forget, unless I’m completely missing something, Sano could have said to Plummer “Hey, I want to be a Pirate, get over your hurt feelings and make it happen”. Plummer’s supposed to be working for him, not the other way around. Sano’s not blameless in this, 16 years old or not
According to the P-G's account...
…he did. He called him up in the middle of the night crying because the Pirates hadn’t signed him yet. And the deal still didn’t get done.
Yeah, I did read that. Are they stuck with these agents after they sign with them no matter what? Because if not and he didn’t can Plummer after he went against his wishes Sano’s as culpable as anyone here.
And if they are stuck with the agents, that’s really crappy on alot of levels.
And thinking about it more, if he really wanted to play for the Pirates so bad he could have just not signed with the Twins regardless of what his agent wanted. Or at least I think he could do that, I obviously only know a little about how these things work. But I really see no way Sano’s not part of the problem here.
Sano has some fault
but its a minuscule nearly non-exist amount of fault.
Simply put yourself in Sano’s shoes. You are a sixteen year old kid with, until the last few years, no concept of the whole negotiation-bidding wars-contract situation. All of the sudden, due to your baseball talent, you are thrown into what Sano was thrown in.
Can you honestly tell me that you are just gonna give the middle finger to a guy who has went through this negotiation-bidding wars-contract mess hundreds times as his job when he is giving you advice that seems contrary to what you “want”. I think almost any of us would be so overwhelmed we would defer to the expert and listen to almost everything he said.
Plummer is that expert and he’s is acting like an unprofessional bigot. Unfortunately, it would be nearly impossible for Sano to realize this to a degree in which he would act rashly and dismiss Plummer and his advice.
I don’t blame Sano or NH at all.
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Sep 30, 2009 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions
My thoughts exactly, if Sano wanted to be piarte so bad, why did he say in his interview, he is soo happy to be a Twin.. Seems like someone is blowing Pirate writers some smoke.
Probably because he just signed for over 3 million dollars and is now playing for a major league baseball team. I’d be happy too regardless of which team was my first choice.
I made most of my life decisions at a Foghat concert... I stand by them.
by Chester J Lampwick on Sep 30, 2009 3:59 PM EDT up reply actions
Then why do people throw batteries at me whenever I got to Philly?
I made most of my life decisions at a Foghat concert... I stand by them.
by Chester J Lampwick on Sep 30, 2009 4:54 PM EDT up reply actions
its called a script
that the tool agent wrote
"Polamalu’s lineage can be traced through several roots. Chuck Norris mated with an Amazon Queen, and on the other side, Tony Hawk mated with Mother Nature.
The two children of these spawned and fused in a tantric love session to create Troy Polamalu. The mother however died as he tore through the birth canal with a spin move."
Mechem on the roots of Troy Polamalu
by WVPiratesfan on Oct 1, 2009 10:51 AM EDT up reply actions
By the way
It’s pretty hard to pin this one on the Pirates
Really? This is a fanbase that will blame the FO for a rain delay. I doubt there’ll be much difficulty in blaming this mess on them. In fact…. did you know that it’s Neal’s fault because he didn’t kiss the guy’s butt all the time?
In fact, with his (supposed) blog comments and all, it seems that Plummer may just be using the Pirate fanbase’s own vitriol against the team. Basically doing a “Hey, they messed up like they always do” line and knowing no matter who’s at fault the fanbase will eat it his BS and ask for more.
I Like
That the ones who always blame the FO are saying that the Pirates should have just offered the record-setting deal from the get go (in other words top the offer that was offered to Inoa — you know the kid who hasn’t really even pitched yet still). Then none of this would have happened.
BTW, I’m not saying Inoa is a bust or anything already, just that it’s risky business giving that amount to money to someone who is 16/17 — all the while bidding against yourself.
Also, for whatever it’s worth, Jorge Arangure says that the Twins were given exclusivity because they offered over 3 million first.
Jorge:
Part of reason deal got done was because #Twins were told that if they met demands (offer of over 3 million), then their offer wouldn’t be shopped around
Weird weird situation. Oh well
This doesn't even make sense
Since the offer was taken back to the Orioles, but not the Pirates.
by northsidenotch on Sep 30, 2009 11:21 AM EDT up reply actions
Actually...
what it sounds like…is that Plummer was more interested in helping his friend with the Twins than he was about getting the best deal possible for his client. That’s the type of conflict of interest that can’t be proved…but sure sticks out. He said he had a working relationship with the Twins guy for 14 years and could trust him.
Frankly…we see too often where the agent/advisor does what’s best for the agent/advisor…and not what’s best for the young player.
But usually doing what’s best for the agent/adviser means trying to get the most money for one’s client. This is the first instance I’ve ever seen where an agent’s actually turned down the opportunity to squeeze as much money as possible from teams. Not saying it’s never happened, it’s just the first time I can remember seeing it.
And of course, the first time I ever see something adversely effects the Pirates. Again, who didn’t see that coming really?
The Twins keep making big splashes
with international signings. In addition to this one, I saw in The Wall Street Journal several weeks ago that they’d signed a German teenager for a reported $800,000.
Hopefully some of our cheaper signings from Latin America will develop in the coming years.
And I still have high hopes for our 2009 draft with all the good HS arms we took.
I guess we’ll start to get answers in about 5 years.
Cost-Benefit
People,
I haven’t read all of the comments yet, so apologies if this has already been said…
I agree that losing Sano appears to be more an issue of Plummer than the Bucs. However, I’m bothered that the team was apparently overly worried about bidding against itself. Obviously, nobody wants to bid against themselves, but there are situations in which one needs to be willing to do that. At some point it should have been clear that the process was dragging on and the relationship with the agent was strained; at that point I hope the Bucs seriously considered making an offer that was close or equal to their best offer. My guess is that the Bucs were willing to go to $3.5m. If that is true, I really hope that an attempt to save a portion of the $900k difference was not central to the decision making.
This is the second high profile situation in which the Bucs have butted heads with a key agent. I hope that the problem was with the agent, but it has now happened twice with the Bucs being the common denominator. Don’t get me wrong, I loathe Boras and have significantly lessened respect for Pedro for what happened with his situation, and it sounds as if Plummer reneged on a promise to allow last minute negotiations with the Bucs. But still, it is reasoanble to wonder if the negotiation stylings of NH & FC might be problematic.
So now we have spent about $3m less than expected in the international FA market and about $2.5m less than expected on the draft. What of that money?
I wonder if the Bucs might not now start talking to Wagner Mateo.
Good day.
So in other words, the Pirates should have bid against themselves because they should have seen into the future and known that Plummer would screw them otherwise. Got it
Also, problematic negotiations or not, the Pirates ultimately dealt with Boras in a manner that a deal got done. There’s a reason alot of teams won’t deal with this Plummer character, even though he represents a lot of top Latin talent. He’s a pain in the ass, and he seems like he’s a terrible agent who somehow got a foothold in Latin America.
That isn't what I said, but, sarcasm aside, yes.
I expect a GM to be able to “read between the lines”. Do you consider it “seeing into the future” when a road sign tells you that the bridge ahead is out? Let me guess: you ignore the sign, crash your car and then shrug it off as unavoidable as it was beyond your control.
I’m not suggesting that the signs with Sano and the Bucs were that obvious, just that there were signs and your statement was moronic.
Likewise, I expect the GM of my favorite team to approach the draft attempting to predict which players will be good and to select players accordingly. The potential analogies are endless, so I will stop at this point.
Your suggestion that there is never a justification for bidding against oneself is ignorant and the sort of inexperienced, immature approach that I hope the team did not take.
A refusal to bid against oneself serves two purposes: saving face (a.k.a. “pride”) and saving money. Both certainly have their place, but I’m not sure why saving face should have mattered in this case. The money at issue is the difference between the current offer and what the team was willing to pay. So, if the primary goal was to sign Sano, if possible, for what the team was willing to pay, then serious consideration should have been given to making a best or near best offer when there were clear suggestions that things were not going well.
And the Pedro/Boras situation was a just a tad different in as much as Pedro had to either sign with the Bucs or not sign with anybody. Sano could sign with any team.
Get it now?
Good day.
I expect a GM to be able to "read between the lines". Do you consider it "seeing into the future" when a road sign tells you that the bridge ahead is out?
Well, in this case it was more like there not being a “Bridge Out” sign and there suddenly being no bridge. But your rage against people who can’t see the future is a noble pursuit, I foresee big things in your future. Or at least I’ll pretend to see big things so as not to incur your wrath.
A refusal to bid against oneself serves two purposes: saving face (a.k.a. "pride") and saving money. Both certainly have their place, but I’m not sure why saving face should have mattered in this case. The money at issue is the difference between the current offer and what the team was willing to pay. So, if the primary goal was to sign Sano, if possible, for what the team was willing to pay, then serious consideration should have been given to making a best or near best offer when there were clear suggestions that things were not going well.
You must be great to negotiate against
“Okay, here’s the most possible money I can offer right off the bat!!”
Once again, you’re seeking to place blame for the Pirates not seeing into the future that Plummer would go back on his word and screw them for (apparently) no good reason. It’s really kind of weird
And the Pedro/Boras situation was a just a tad different in as much as Pedro had to either sign with the Bucs or not sign with anybody. Sano could sign with any team.
No crap. My point was only that the Pirates have dealt with hard-ass agents before to good results. This Plummer guy is an idiot who tries too hard to be a hard-ass and ends up costing his clients money.
What hard ass agents and good results are you referring too?
The Alvarez situation was a disaster and embarassment for all involved including the Pirates.
Alvarez was signed and all indications are the Pirates won’t hesitate to draft someone who’s repped by Boras in the future. So I fail to see how it was a “disaster” more than just an “annoying, but ultimately forgettable ploy by Boras”
It was a PR disaster and that is not an understatement.
What kind of impact it will have on players signing with us will never be known but I’m quite sure Boras will bring it up. You’re right, we got the player signed, but we didn’t get him in camp and we let him get severly out of shape. Had he played last year who knows where he would have been this year. I agree with you that it won’t stop us from dealing with Boras in the future but I do believe more than one agent will believe that we were not correct with the way we handled the whole thing.
So basically you’ve named two power agents and thinks turned out less than ideal in both circumstances.
You’re acting like Boras clients aren’t routinely held till the last minute and don’t play till the next season. It happens with his guys all the time.
Alvarez signed, there’s no bad blood between him and the Pirates, at least not enough to keep them from dealing with each other. You’re overstating the “problem” greatly.
Almost all of his top prospects hold out...
but they sign at the deadline and they play off season ball. Alvarez did not do that. You’re right there’s no bad blood with Alvarez but I never implied that there was. I just think that Boras was able to present enough of a case that the Pirates were not innocent little victims and I think amateurs and FA’s probably took notice of that. What will the impact be, hard to know. I guess we’ll find out if we ever draft another top prospect; particularly a Boras client. But to say that that situation was a PR disaster is not an overstatement. Try to remember back to when it happened and remember how you felt.
To some extent it was a PR disaster due to the fact that the two national baseball publications—BA and BP—were heavily biased against the Pirates. They eagerly adopted and trumpeted the union’s line that the case against the Pirates was overwhelming and that the Pirates had somehow “taken advantage” of Alvarez due to having superior bargaining leverage because they supposedly knew they could get an extension and Boras didn’t.
This turned out to be completely untrue. In the end, BOTH the union and MLB pressured the Pirates and Boras to settle. The union wouldn’t have done that if its case had been overwhelming and the settlement wouldn’t have involved just a slightly larger amount of money for Alvarez. (As its part of the settlement, the union just got assurances that MLB would be more careful next time.)
It also came out that the Royals and Eric Hosmer had in fact agreed after the deadline, which shows: (1) that Boras was cherry-picking which contract to claim wasn’t valid, which is probably why the union pressured him to settle (that sort of hypocrisy would NOT go over well with an arbitrator) and (2) that Boras knew damn well that MLB would approve an agreement a little after midnight. In fact, it’s quite likely Boras knew BETTER than the Pirates what they could get away with, because there were also allegations that he agreed with the Rangers on a deal for Julio Borbon after the deadline in 2007.
The fact is, the coverage was extremely unfair to the Pirates so, in that sense, yeah, it was a PR disaster.
That's all I meant...
Thank you for writing much more eloquently than me. I never meant to imply that the situation was entirely the Pirates fault. I only meant that they did not come out of it looking squeaky clean.
I hold my own in negotiations
but my credentials aside, thank your for not reading the post closely enough to understand what I said.
To simplify, I’m not suggesting that Plummer isn’t an ass. I am, however, wondering aloud if the Pirates employed an intelligently flexible strategy.
Good day.
Bad news for Bucs?
I think more than anything the Pirates losing out on Sano, a player they were very public about wanting and at some point expecting to sign, is another blow to the credibility of the franchise. Pirates management has to rebuild not only the product on the field but also the franchise’s image and credibility; a daunting task when one considers the Bucs have been accused over the years of penny-pinching and not willing to seriously invest in building a winner. There is no doubt this episode will turn into a "he said, she said" as all parties will go into damage control mode. Will Sano turn out to be a perennial All-Star type talent?? Maybe, but that won’t be known for years. What will be discussed up to that point, and certainly beyond if Sano becomes a star, is how and why the Pirates didn’t get him……..
by Marooned Pirate on Sep 30, 2009 10:38 AM EDT reply actions
Meh.
Nothing rebuilds credibility like winning some games. If they’re winning in 2012 or 2013, the problem goes away by itself.
Worrying about “credibility” instead of production is what brought us stuff like the Herrera signing and the Morris trade under DL.
Let's use the money we have to make a big splash
in acquiring talent from Japan.
There’s a highly regarded HS lefty, Yusei Kikuchi, who is considering bypassing the amateur draft in Japan, as Boston RedSox righty Junichi Tazawa did last year.
There are other places in the world to acquire top-notch talent. The Pittsburgh Pirates would do well to get more serious about finding some in Asia.
baseballagentesq
In the P-G story post thread, it appears- appears because on the interent no one knows you’re a dog- that Plummer wades into story as baseballagentesq
If it is him, his posting offers another insight into this process.
Shame, losing Sano feels like the 100th loss.
don't worry
you’ll have the actual 100th loss to go along with it soon enough.
Anyone else
holding onto a wild irrational hope that
1. This is a really nasty curveball from Plummer looking for more money
2. Sano is convinced from other sources to ditch Plummer?
While unlikely, I see either having an actual chance (albeit, small chance) of happening.
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Sep 30, 2009 12:44 PM EDT reply actions
it would be nice but unlikely since he’s already signed the deal. i think the best case at this point is that plummer’s reputation gets sullied.
I hadn't see anything
in which he had actually signed the deal.
Guess its a moot point.
Just like speculating, so lets move on.. just like I’m sure NH will.
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Sep 30, 2009 5:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Practical Approaches
Huntington has taken a very practical approach to all of his moves to date and from that perspective you cannot fault him. He does not want to waste money as we have done in the past and he seems to have a strategy in mind. The problem that I see is that his strategy has netted us only an average farm system and mostly average or below average MLB filler players. His strategy is likely to extend the losing by another couple of years unless he can find some better talent over the next year or so.
Specifically, I am underwhelmed by the return on the trades from this season and in some cases question the rationale behind them. Gorkys Hernandez, for example, seems somewhat useless to the Pirates under the assumption that McCutchen is the real deal and that Tabata is next in line. Argenis Diaz might actually be a worse hitter than Jack Wilson, which makes me question his value. There are others that are explained better by the Baseball Prospectus folks on ESPN’s website, but the conclusion I have reached is that the Pirates have purged salary through trading overpriced, under-controlled vets for mostly middle of the road prospects. The draft this year was focused on high ceiling high school pitchers, so the quality of this one is in doubt. Long term, I think a lot is going to have to go right for this pile of players to be any good in 2012 or 2013.
An infusion of higher end prospects through the next draft and international signings is necessary. From my POV, that is why missing Sano is a problem. Its not that I am confident he will be good, just that we put all of our international eggs in his basket and we are left with underwhelming fresh talent this year.
by wietersforpresident on Sep 30, 2009 1:21 PM EDT reply actions
If McCutchen and Tabata both succeed...
…then we can re-flip Gorkys to someone else once that becomes apparent. That’s the nice thing about depth. Conversely, if one or both of them don’t pan out, we’ll have another quality option.
Like you, I think that Diaz is probably useless going forward, but it doesn’t seem like there was a significant amount of interest in LaRoche at the deadline, so a probably-useless player and a lottery ticket may have been the best offer on the board.
diaz
might still be a good trade complement, as well as having some value for a team that needs a SS, and doesnt have a real blow-me-away option in trade or as a prospect. Wont get much for him… i agree…
even a good defensive backup ability might be useful…. never know…
I think his value...
…is maybe comparable to that of Robert Andino, another good-glove, less-than-no-bat SS who was out of options in ST last year.
Andino got traded to the Orioles for Hayden Penn, who is not in my eyes a hugely valuable commodity himself, but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
different kinds of value
a player can be of value to an organization in different ways. Lets assume Cutch is the real deal, and Hernandez becomes a good to above-league-average CF and is pushing his case in AAA. And the Bucs are in a pennant race, when Cutch is unavailable for 10 games (For whatever reason). Who do we put in CF? Milledge? Tabata? Moss?
Second, if he does become a player with solid minor league credentials, and Cutch has CF nailed down, he is solid trade bait to fill a position of need.
A team in the Pirates positions with many gaping holes needs to stockpile talent, if only so they can flip them over to fill a position of need, if the team is in contention.
What are the chances of 6th-10th round position players becoming stars? Probably higher than 6th-10th round pitchers. But they probably have more exciting potential at this point, and with pitchers being more valuable etc etc., probably a chance that I feel is justified. I expect we might see a more spread draft next year…
Best example here might be the way the Rays loaded up on outfielders years back. At one point they had Josh Hamilton, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, Elijah Dukes, Delmon Young, etc., all highly regarded players, and all center field-types. Hamilton flamed out, Young was used to land Bartlett and Garza, Dukes was flipped for a young pitcher who hasn’t done so well with TB, and somehow the center field job was won by their big time shortstop prospect BJ Upton. You never know what’s going to happen with some of these players.
I am underwhelmed by the return on the trades from this season and in some cases question the rationale behind them. Gorkys Hernandez, for example, seems somewhat useless to the Pirates under the assumption that McCutchen is the real deal and that Tabata is next in line.
That sounds a lot like the logic DL used when he supposedly turned down a Kip Wells for Ryan Howard trade, on the basis that we already had Brad Eldred.
Not that it necessarily matters...
but on the Twins web page…the GM says they have an agreement…but nothing signed as of last night. So…I guess…there would be a remote chance that Sano could change his mind.
If the signing stands…as I expect it to…Plummer’s antics may eventually cost him a few clients. If you have teams unwilling to deal with him…Yankees…Red Sox…for 2…and now…evidently the Pirates…that will turn some prospective players off…knowing that they can’t get top dollar…because the big spenders won’t play with Plummer.
But this isn’t a new thing. The top prospect sign with this guy for whatever reason even though he’s obviously not competent enough to get them the best deals possible. Maybe the other agents who work exclusively down there are worse? Who knows.
So in other words, it’d be nice but I doubt this’ll have any effect on Plummer.
Plummer posted on the PBC blog...
…that he hoped this transaction wouldn’t affect things with the Pirates in the future.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Disappointing, but ...
I’m probably one of the biggest skeptics of Nutting on here. But I don’t really see anything he did wrong. I do think the front office made mistakes in dealing with Plummer.
If I were his agent, I would have been ticked that the team was talking to my client when I wasn’t there. Also, I think the Pirates should have respected his wishes and not made an offer until his age was established.
That being said, I think Plummer acted unethically by not giving all teams a chance to beat the offer. Also, as said above, Boras may be a jerk, but he doesn’t hurt his client by taking less money to prove a point.
It’s nice to see the Pirates being more aggressive internationally, I suspect they’ll learn from this experience. I think they will sign a top international player over the next few years.
Moreover, I’m not sure Sano had the Bucs at the top of his list. Playing up the Pirates’ interest helped Plummer create a market. As for the Pirates’ offers, do you really think the team was leaking the amounts? And couldn’t Sano and his family told Plummer to talk to the Pirates or he was fired?
I think the Pirates were a stalking horse from the start and that Neal was right to be concerned about bidding against himself.
It said in the P-G writeup...
…that some of the contact behind Plummer’s back was from Sano and his family contacting the team. What are they supposed to do, shout “Prank call! Prank call!” and hang up the phone?
Vlad
Let’s assume Sano and his family contacted the team. Remember that’s the Pirates’ version, not Plummer’s.
Regardless, the Pirates had to know that by talking to the family the only thing that could happen was that they would threaten the agent.
Gayo should have said: We really want you in the organization. We think you are a great player. But this is a business decision, and I have to work through your agent. That’s just the process. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t want to help you and your family."
Again, I think the agent is far more responsible for this mess than the Pirates are. But that part could have been handled better, I think.
People who want to criticize NH for the way he handled this...
…may want to note this comment by Plummer in the P-G’s thread: “I regret how it ended and I owe Neal a big apology b/c he’s doing a good job.”
So… yeah.
Forget it...
I was looking for an update in one of the posts. DIdn’t realize you meant he was actually posting in the comments section.
Vlad
You notice, though, that there was no apology for Gayo.
Also, don’t you think that is a self-serving comment because some teams have decided not to deal with him? He may need the Pirates in a year or two.
If he thinks he needs the Pirates in a year or two...
…he probably should’ve thought about that before he screwed us on Sano.
The comment is probably self-serving, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t true as well.
I think you’re reading a bit much into it that he didn’t specifically mention Gayo in that statement. Within context, he was responding to other posters who were criticizing Huntington, so a defense of Gayo would have been out of place (whether he’d be willing to offer one or not).
Another take on the Sano negotiations.
I want to repeat what I said above that I don’t believe the Pirates are completely at fault in this deal but I do believe they have to take some responsibility. Here are some quotes from Jorge Arangure Jr from an article on ESPN Insider.
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=arangure_jorge_jr
“But the Pirates’ biggest miscalculation occurred when they thought their relationship with the Sano family was stronger than the family’s relationship with Plummer and trainer Moreno Tejeda. Frustrated at the pace of the negotiations, the Pirates tried to bypass Plummer and Tejeda completely by negotiating with the family directly — a gamble that clearly backfired. The family, likely uncomfortable with Pittsburgh’s move, told Plummer of the Pirates’ tactics, which created animosity between the agent, the family and the team.”
And one more.
“Finally, when Plummer told Pittsburgh almost a month ago that it would take $3.1 million to sign Sano, the Pirates balked and instead offered $2.6 million, thinking no other team would meet Plummer’s demands. At that point, Plummer said he would no longer take offers from the team and continued shopping Sano around.”
Maybe Plummer did not negotiate in good faith but it is clear that the Pirates overestimated their adavantage. I don’t believe Huntington should completely be left off the hook here. He clearly, IMO, made some mistakes. He still relatively new to the job so hopefully he can use this as a learning experience.
Agree
Bottom line is that they wanted to sign this guy but couldn’t get it done, so the whole episode has to be viewed as a failure. Whether the agent is a flake or not is immaterial, he’s one of the people you have to do business with in order to do business in the DR. Not the end of the world, but obviously the team has a way to go before they’re serious players in Latin America.
agree completely
I felt exactly that way about the Alvarez situation. I think NH clearly bears some responsibility for how that went, Boras notwithstanding. But, I haven’t made it into a hobbyhorse because I figured it was a rookie mistake and he’d learn from it.
Overall, I’ve been happy with NH’s draft MO; I expect I’ll be happy with his LA approach as well. As WHYGAVS pointed out on his blog, this is all potentially a tempest in a teapot anyway. A 16-YO is lightyears from the majors. Especially one who just became very rich.
If that was truly Plummer
on the pg blog, there is something I don’t get. He stated some BS about how if he doesn’t agree to not shop the offer, no one would make an opening offer. But… the Pirates had already made two so his logic is completely off.
That can't be Plummer
His grammar, spelling and syntax are horrible. That reads more like a teenager trying to pull a joke.
Plummer has a history of commenting on blogs.
That’s his usual style, the username is one that he’s used in the past (it’s part of one of his standard e-mail addresses), and Dejan allegedly confirmed that it was Plummer.
Let's just hope...
… that’s the last we hear about Sano. If he never makes it to the bigs, we saved 3.5 mil. He should do just fine on that.
Amen.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Oct 1, 2009 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions
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