Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Weaver stays with the Angels

As the football transfer deadline approaches on Wednesday evening, there will be a surge in rumours of high-priced deals and scarcely believable contract offers.  The stories will inevitably lead to debates on the wages that sportsmen earn and the role played by their agents.

We’ll see greedy stars accompanied by even greedier agents pushing deals through to boost wages and commissioning fees.  Maybe even demanding a ‘loyalty bonus’ from the clubs they are forcing their way out of, just to rub it in that little bit more to the fans working hard to afford the ever-increasing ticket prices.

Jered Weaver’s recent decision to spurn free agency and sign a contract extension with the Los Angeles Angels could be seen as a welcome contrast to this trend.  He signed a five-year/$85m contract extension knowing that he could have received more money had he tested the market after his existing deal expired at the end of the 2012 season.

His press conference comments in particular would have struck a chord with many fans that have sat bemused in a pub pondering why someone on £80k per week is so unhappy with his lot that he needs to jump ship for even more money.

As Weaver put it, “If $85 (million) is not enough to take care of my family and other generations of families then I’m pretty stupid, but how much money do you really need in life?”

The answer normally lies with the agent saying ‘as much money as you can get from whichever team is prepared to pay it’.  From a cynical point of view, the agent will say that because their commission will be higher depending on the overall value of the contract.  From a more realistic point of view, the agent will say that because they know teams will try and get away with paying as little as possible.

A sportsman, like any worker, is entitled to seek the best pay he can receive for doing his job and typically that aim is one of the primary reasons why a player will employ an agent in the first place. 

The most recent edition of the ‘Secret Footballer’ column in Saturday’s Guardian offered a good example of why players need representatives looking out for their best interests.  In this story, a team is trying to push through a deal for the player in the hours leading up to the transfer window slamming shut:

“My new employers tried on the age-old tactic of unnecessarily leaving things until the last possible moment, meaning that the final contract was faxed over with roughly half an hour to spare in the hope that I would sign it hurriedly and fax it back.

The contract was missing all of the previously agreed bonuses and, if I had put pen to paper, I would have been worse off than when I started. This is such a common practice when time is short that I am almost embarrassed to mention it, yet a few players have had their fingers burned over the years because their agents missed a trick”.

That type of situation is perhaps more applicable to amateur draftees in baseball rather than Major Leaguers due to the way their existing contracts generally transfer to the new team.  However, if an MLB team can get away with a similar type of trick then you can bet they’ll try it.

So an agent is there to look out for his client and to negotiate hard to get the best deal because – alongside the public talk of loyalty – he knows the club will be doing all they can to keep the cost down.  We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the agent is employed by the player and, perhaps with a few dishonourable exceptions over the years, the idea of an agent pushing his player into leaving a team or heading to free agency against his wishes is rarely accurate.

The tone of one article on ESPNLosAngeles.com about the Weaver contract makes it sound like this result is one in the eye for Boras, pointedly noting that “no one from Boras’ office attended Tuesday’s media availability”.

“‘Obviously, he [Boras] wants to give you the best options and free agency can give you the best options,’ Weaver said. ‘He would have liked to have seen me gone, but I told him I wanted to get something done and he was more than willing to work with me about it that way’”.

While it’s not picked up on in the article, those final words are the most telling for me.  Boras’s advice was to go to free agency, but after Weaver considered his options and decided he wanted to stay in L.A., his agent went ahead and worked out the best deal he could get to fulfil his client’s wishes. 

Weaver could have earned more, but he’s set himself up for life and gets to stay in the area he grew up in to play for a team that figures to be competitive throughout the life of the contract.  It looks to me like a deal in which everyone involved wins, including the agent who has achieved exactly what his client wanted.

Seeing-eye singles

It’s great to see Jim Thome back in an Indians uniform. He went hit-less in his first game back against the Royals on Friday, but Cleveland wouldn’t have minded much because Ubaldo Jimenez pitched brilliantly.  They have taken a relatively large gamble on Jimenez coming back to form, so that would have been a welcome boost even if it did come against one of the lesser batting lineups in the league at present.

As the AL East looks like being a phoney war between the top two sides again – the ‘loser’ will make the playoffs regardless to no great detriment – the prospect of a single game Wild Card playoff may be a welcome addition for spicing up the end of the regular season.  However, the immensely important game could be a complete lottery.  The Yankees absolutely pummelled the A’s on Thursday 22-9.  The next day, the Yankees were panned 12-5 by the Orioles, while the A’s roughed up the Red Sox 15-5.  One bad outing by a starter and your postseason will be over in nine innings.

The Yankees smacked three grand slams against the A’s in their 22-9 victory, which wasn’t much fun to listen to as an A’s fan.  Oakland’s newly-acquired first baseman Brandon Allen did provide one boost in the series with an absolute moonshot into the upper deck at Yankee Stadium.  The A’s are desperate for some power and trading the popular reliever Brad Ziegler for Allen may prove to be a good move by General Manager Billy Beane.