Hal’s Got This Locked
November 20, 2008, 9:45 pmFrom ESPN:
NEW YORK — CC Sabathia will have a deadline to accept the New York Yankees’ contract proposal.
“We’ve made him an offer. It’s not going to be there forever,” Hal Steinbrenner said Thursday after he was approved as the team’s new controlling owner during a meeting at Major League Baseball headquarters.
Well, look at that. Not only is Hal the new controlling owner, but he apparently misses his brother Hank, as this semi-ultimatum is right up his alley. It’s good to see Hal being assertive in a vocal sense. He’s usually in the background and this move sets him up as the new face of the franchise.
Now let’s hope this doesn’t backfire like the Johan deadline did. But it shouldn’t as CC’s agent isn’t going to want the Yankees falling out of this bidding war. This SHOULD just speed things up.
Sorry, I disagree. I think it’s absurd to foist an arbitrary deadline on the guy you are pining for. Here’s what I wrote over at my place:
[quote]Lemme get this straight: If you set a deadline of –just for the sake of an example– December 1st and Sabathia takes his time and ultimately decides that he wants to take the offer… but waits until December 5th… you wouldn’t welcome him with all the fanfare you could muster*? Hal, don’t you realize that you are giving him the out he might be looking for to take a lesser offer? Do you really think he gives a rat’s backside whether you set an arbitrary deadline or not? He, and everyone else who cares about baseball, knows that the Yanks would be ga-ga to have Sabathia. You don’t bully the guy you are begging to save your franchise and shower with enough cash to put his great great grandchildren on Easy Street. Something like attracting more bees with honey instead of vinegar?
Instead of an idle threat, go the other way: make him feel comfortable taking all the time he needs to make what is a major life decision. Don’t put a date stamp on an offer like a carton of milk. Don’t give him the excuse to take less money from the Dodgers (“Well, the Yanks pulled their offer, so this was the best available to me and where I wanted to be all along…”)
* Doesn’t this have the same look and feel of Hank telling ARod that if he opts out of his contract after the 2007 season, there would be no way he’d be back as a Yankee… except he then signed ARod to a 10 year behemoth of a contract that broke ARod’s own record contract? [/quote]
I don’t see it as a threat, necessarily. I thought it was just a somewhat blustery statement regarding the proposal, as they’ll have to move on at some point and add an impact bat and a solid second tier pitcher or 2 if cc doesn’t make a move, soon. granted, the yankees would welcome sabathia with open arms, but when you’re offering a deal of this magnitude, it does have a shelf life because it can effect other moves being made or moves that could be made. I do think, though, that Hal should have avoided this completely and probably should have notified CC’s agent about the “deadline” instead of telling that to reporters. At the end of the day, I’m still somewhat pleased by Hal’s comment. It wasn’t dumb, but it was Hank-lite, and he’ll need to position himself in an assertive manner as the team’s new controlling owner.