The other day, a general manager chatted about Arizona's signing of veteran second baseman Felipe Lopez for $3.5 million. When I referred to it as a low-budget signing, the GM laughed.
"Low-budget?" he scoffed. "Are you kidding? I wish I had $3.5 million to spend."
| Olney's news and notes |
• Angels appear set on Teixeira offer
• Crosby goes unclaimed on waivers
• Howard says no to WBC
• Furcal denies any wrongdoing
• Orioles, Ponson settle their case
Around the majors with Buster Olney 
|
Throughout baseball, budgets are being downsized from week to week to reflect the latest read on the economy, and what you are about to see -- once the smoke clears from the
Sabathia and
Burnett and
Teixeira news conferences -- is a stunning drop in salaries for the free agents, a time when solid veteran players might be fortunate to get one-year offers for $5 million to $8 million. General managers throughout the game are reporting, on background, that their payrolls are being locked down, cut down, slashed.
One executive tells the story of three different rounds of downsizing, as his team gathers information about how the economic downturn will affect his team's sponsorships and season-ticket returns.
It's not that Major League Baseball is on the verge of bankruptcy; the sport is healthy. But teams -- like the average consumers in the U.S. -- are simply hanging on to their money, out of concern for what is to come in the months and years ahead.
This shift seems to be having an impact on a lot of free agents. For example:
1. When the offseason began, the agent for
Derek Lowe was asking teams for five years and $90 million, baseball executives say. Now that asking price is down by almost a third, and some general managers speculate that if the Yankees retain
Andy Pettitte on a one-year deal, Lowe's price will inevitably drop -- and significantly.
The Yankees have been patiently waiting for Pettitte to make his decision, and as one official notes, one possible reason they have allowed him to take his time -- rather than give him a deadline -- is because the longer they wait, the more likely it is Lowe will be offered to them at a much more acceptable wage than what he was asking for at the outset of the offseason.
2. All but two of the free agents who were offered arbitration turned it down in the hopes of landing multiyear deals elsewhere. But increasingly, it appears that the
Jason Variteks and
Orlando Cabreras are going to have a difficult time landing deals that match what they might have made in arbitration. "With everything that's going on, and the way the prices are dropping, there's no way I'd give Orlando Cabrera a two-year deal for big money -- not when I have to give up a draft pick," a club official said. "Not a chance."
3. Set aside, for a moment, the impact of
Manny Ramirez's ugly exit from Boston in how he is perceived. Ramirez's asking price of $20 million to $25 million a year is being chopped at the knees by the rest of the corner outfield market. As prices for players like
Bobby Abreu and
Pat Burrell and
Jason Giambi and the rest of the corner outfielder/DH types drop, Ramirez increasingly looks like the Hummer left standing in the middle of the showroom floor. In other words: Rather than pay 2007 prices on the big shiny item, the more modest and practical play might be in that vastly cheaper Abreu or Burrell or Giambi models in the corner. For example: The
Angels' cost-efficient signing of
Juan Rivera now takes the Angels out of the Ramirez market, Jerry Crasnick reports.
All that said, Ramirez's effort to force his way out of Boston -- his lack of competitive integrity -- seems to be having a devastating effect on his market. At a time when teams are carefully doling out money, there seems to be a great reluctance to invest multiple years in a player who has a history of quitting. If and when the Dodgers re-engage with Ramirez's representative in serious talks about a two-year deal, L.A. would consider a downward adjustment from their original offer of $45 million, because that shift would represent a truer reflection of the current market.
An $18 million salary for 2009, in baseball's current climate, is extraordinary, because maybe one or two or three teams are willing to dole out anything close to that these days. And it may be that his eventual landing place will be the Yankees, on a one-year deal with vesting options -- controlled by the team -- that essentially keeps a perpetual carrot dangled in front of Ramirez, to ensure that he plays hard.
4. The Mets need a starting pitcher, but, increasingly, their position is a lot like Tampa Bay's position in the corner outfield market: The buyer, and not the seller, is in command, because the Mets are one of the few teams willing to spend a decent amount of money at a time when there are a lot of bodies clamoring for high-paying jobs. If Lowe is too pricey, well, they'll just wait for
Oliver Perez's asking price to drop, and if they can't get Lowe or Perez for what they want, well, they could get
Randy Wolf, who pitched effectively after being dealt to Houston. They'll get somebody good, at their price.
5. Give the representatives for
Francisco Rodriguez some credit, because they jumped at the three-year, $37 million deal at the right time -- partly out of concern that the market for closers was about to plummet for anybody who didn't act right away. Now
Brian Fuentes, a Type A free agent, is struggling to find suitable bidders, his market hurt by the fact that any team that signs him will lose draft picks. Wrote here weeks ago that the Rockies had a fleeting hope of eventually re-signing Fuentes for a three-year deal, if his market dragged down his asking price in their range.
That seems possible now;
whether the Rockies still have the flexibility to spend on Fuentes or any other player is another question entirely, at a time when so many teams seem to be hanging on to their cash. The best bet here is that you are about to see a rash of signings like this one, with veteran players taking $1 million or less to ensure that they have a place to go.
Around the majors with Buster Olney
Buster Olney
