Free-agent catcher Ivan Rodriguez is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He filed for free agency the year that baseball finally decided to display some fiscal responsibility, and now he has to decide if his pride really will goeth before the fall.
The bidding has been so light that agent Jeff Moorad is hinting that the 10-time Gold Glove Award winner may give up on major-league baseball and try to sign with a Japanese team.
The Orioles had been the most interested party, but Rodriguez and Moorad were so insulted by the club's recent multi-year offer that they backed away from further negotiations. I-Rod wants an average salary of more than $10 million a year. The Orioles were offering something closer to $6 million a season. End of conversation.
For now, at least.
Rodriguez and Moorad are understandably frustrated. This is a player who, just a couple of years ago, seemed destined to sign one of those jumbo long-term contracts worth $100 million or more. Now, he's having trouble getting David Segui money.
What's a proud superstar to do? The answer should be obvious: Take what's out there and get on with his Hall of Fame career.
If $6 million or $7 million a year is the highest bid, then that's what the market will bear. How many years have we listened to agents and union leaders defend baseball's ridiculous salary spiral on free-market grounds? Did they think that those market principles only applied to the updrafts?
The owners finally figured out how to make the law of supply and demand work for them. It was only a matter of time before enough of them reached the same conclusion about the economic direction of the industry. It may smell like collusion, but that odor isn't enough evidence to do anything but make the best deal you can under these difficult circumstances.
Four-time Cy Young winner Greg Maddux came to that conclusion and accepted the offer of salary arbitration from the Atlanta Braves. He apparently felt it was better to take the one-year deal and wait to see what the market might look like a year from now.
Rodriguez didn't have the same option. The Texas Rangers didn't offer him arbitration, so his only choice was to seek employment elsewhere, but he could offer to sign a one- or two-year deal and wait for the financial fog to clear.
If he is disappointed that the Orioles don't agree that he's worth $10 million a year, he needs to realize that the free-agent market is - and has always been - an auction. The Orioles apparently are the only serious bidder, so the only way the price is going to go up substantially is if they make the mistake of bidding against themselves.
Moorad obviously hit a wall, which explains the threat to contact some Japanese teams, but shipping Rodriguez overseas would serve only to take some of the luster off a great career.
I-Rod needs to look objectively at his situation. He has made a lot of money playing baseball. He can still make a lot more if he doesn't let his pride tempt him to do something out of spite that he's almost certain to regret.
He can go to Japan for a few million more than the Orioles offered, or he can take advantage of the friendly dimensions of Camden Yards to make sure that he goes to the Hall of Fame.
Doesn't seem like such a tough choice.
Collusion revisited
More and more agents are becoming convinced that baseball owners are illegally conspiring to hold down salaries, but it's hard to get anyone to come right out and say it. Most are concerned that public comments alleging collusion will make it even harder to elicit bids for their clients in the dormant free-agent market.
What's going on? The owners appear to be walking a fine line between logical industrywide economic restraint and illegal collusion, but it seems unlikely that they'll be called to account the way they were in the late 1980s.
The new labor agreement includes a revenue-sharing and luxury tax structure that is meant to act as a soft salary cap, and - at the moment - it is working much more effectively than anyone expected.
Kent makes sense
There was some head-scratching over the announcement that Houston had signed free agent Jeff Kent to a two-year contract, since the Astros apparently will move popular second baseman Craig Biggio to the outfield to make room for Kent at second base.
No great mystery. The Astros finished 13 games behind a St. Louis club that isn't exactly in decline. The Cardinals scored 38 more runs than the Astros last year, and St. Louis' pitching staff gave up 47 fewer runs than Houston's. That's 85 runs, a deficit that likely will disappear with Kent joining Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman and Biggio in the lineup.
Matsui accepts challenge
Japanese outfielder Hideki Matsui chose the New York Yankees, even though the pressure to excel in his first year in the major leagues will be much greater in the Bronx than it would have been in Baltimore or some other less-intense market.
The Orioles made a play for Matsui on the off chance that he might be wary of playing in New York, where Japanese pitcher Hideki Irabu was treated roughly for failing to match the expectations of the club and its fans.
Matsui has been one of Japan's top sluggers, but he could be in for a difficult adjustment period. Yankees fans will be looking for him to duplicate the MVP performance that Ichiro Suzuki produced in his first major-league season, but Suzuki was less vulnerable to unfamiliar pitching because of his quick bat and terrific foot speed.