Santana in commanding position

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 | Feedback | Print Entry

I would love to be the agent for Johan Santana today. I would love to ever possess the kind of leverage that Peter Greenberg, Santana's longtime representative, possesses today. He can sit across the table from the Mets and say: We'd like an extension please, of six years and $150 million. On top of the $13.25 million owed for this year.

The Mets will blanch. They will grimace. They will groan. And Greenberg, whose office is in New York and is well aware of the public pressure on the Mets to finish this deal, will know exactly how boxed in they are right now.

They're coming off the worse late-season collapse in baseball history.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

    Ask Buster a question: Buster's Mailbag

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