More than 3,700 words from Jim Bowden on Aaron Crow

看板Nationals作者VaROne時間17年前 (2008/08/19 23:49)推噓1(1推 0噓 0→)

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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal/2008/08/more_than_3700_words_from_jim.html Let the insight roll... BOWDEN QUOTES ON CROW Q: Randy Hendricks says the final offer was not a major league contract? That is correct. This is what we did. We had a major league contract on the table the entire time. We had Ben Shaffer on call. We asked Ben Shaffer what time the player had to land to do the MRI on the shoulder and on the elbow. We could not do a major-league contract, obviously, unless we could get an MRI on both the shoulder and the elbow. We invited Aaron and his advisors up here right after the draft, like we did with all our top picks, so we could meet them, talk to them. They would not let us do that. They would not let us go to the house and talk to the family. And when we did move and offer a major-league contract, when we finally did that, that was on the table up until the time we could no longer do an MRI. In case we couldn't fly him in, we had Ben Shaffer call to get an MRI available near him, so maybe we could rush him in and get an MRI and send it. We were trying to prepare for all of that. When it got to the point where we could not do an MRI, we explained to them that no longer we could do a major-league contract. The same reason why Hosmer didn't get one, the same reason why Pedro Alvarez didn't get one. You just can't do it at the end. So at the end, there was not a major-league contract on the table for us. And in fact, their final offer to us was not a major-league contract, either. We never got a number from them until August 12 at 6 p.m. And when we finally got a number from them, it was $9 million. That $9 million never changed - I went and checked the e-mail this morning - it never changed until 11:44 p.m. And their number went from $9 million to $4.4 million at 11:44. There was never an offer between $9 million and $4.4 million, ever. It went from $9 million to $4.4 million, and that happened at 11:44 p.m. last night. We tried to get them to engage and talk, and we tried to explain to them where our offer was. Our offer on draft day was $2.1 million. We moved to $2.2 million. We moved to $2.25 million. We stayed at $2.25 million. We did not change off of that until Brian Matusz signed with Baltimore. The minute Brian Matusz signed with Baltimore, I called Randy Hendricks and said Brian Matusz, the fourth player taken in the country, the first [pitcher] taken in the country, just signed with Baltimore. We are prepared to do a deal within that framework if you want to talk about a Matusz deal. He responded via e-mail that he had no interest in the Matusz deal and he had no interest in a deal below Matusz. So we then moved our position, we gave them a final offer at 10:30 p.m. last night, we said here's a final take-it-or-leave-it offer of $3 million, which we later moved to $3.3 million. And then verbally at the last minute, we went to $3.5 million. Which was our final offer, by phone, at 11:59 at the buzzer. The last email offer we sent them was $3.3 million. We kept telling them where our number came from. Because he kept saying you're in a slotting system. You're trying to slot the player. We said, wait a minute. Since I've been in D.C, we've never slotted a player. Jack McGeary was not slotted. (Destin) Hood was not slotted. Steven King was not slotted. Adrian Nieto wasn't slotted. Graham Hicks wasn't. We've never slotted a player. We value players, and we negotiate based on value. We know that we paid [Ross] Detwiler $2.1 million, first round pick, sixth player taken in the country a year ago. Jack McGeary, we paid $1.8 million. We took him in the sixth round, but he was a first-round talent, he was 12th on our board. We valued the player at $1.8 million and we paid $1.8 million. It wasn't a slot deal. We never slotted Crow. In fact, we offered Crow more than any other pitcher got in this draft. We ended up offering him, whether you want to call it $3.3 million or $3.5 million (it was $3.5 million at the buzzer). That's more than Matusz got. That's how we valued the player. We've never offered a major-league contract to a first-round pick. We offered a major-league contract to this player. That's how we valued the player. And when Matusz signed, there was a value. Gordon Beckham signed with the White Sox, right above Crow. College player of the year who we loved. He got $2.6 million. Matusz got $3.2 million. We knew what we valued Detwiler. We felt that we had a reason why we had our number. We asked them where $9 million came from. Where'd it come from? Where's your number from? Can you justify the number? No. ... Q: So you kept e-mailing and asking where they got their $9 million from? (They) would not engage. Would not do it through e-mail. Would not do it verbally. Then it went from $9 million to $4.4 million. That's where it was. At the last minute, he went to $4 million. And we went to $3.5 million. Q: Between August 12 and last night, what was the dialogue? He wouldn't return our phone calls. We talked a couple times. We kept calling. Mike [Rizzo] had a couple calls with Alan [Hendricks]. It ended up being all e-mails. We kept trying to engage in discussion. We wanted to know where the $9 million came from. We never had a number until Aug. 12. And all of a sudden, the number is $9 million. Well, no one's gotten $9 million ever. Where did it come from? Beckham signed at $4 million. He was the first player taken in the country. Crow didn't go in the first $8 million. Crow went $9 million. Anyone could have taken Crow ahead of us. They didn't. We were the first ones to take Crow. We just wanted to know where the $9 million came from. We wanted to negotiate a deal. We wanted to sign the player. That's the point. We wanted the player. Q: Why did they wait until Aug. 12 to give you a dollar figure? That's a question for them. That's not for us. We gave them a number on day one. The only thing we were told on the day of the draft was that they wanted a major-league contract and they wanted a "out-of-the-box" deal. Later, they used the word "premium." We want a major-league contract and a premium deal. Well, you can define premium deal. I don't know how you define it. They never put a number to premium. The way he kept wording slotting, maybe it's above slotting. Whatever the slot numbers were, obviously we dwarfed that. Q: Any discussions before Aug. 12? All of the conversations prior to that time all were between Alan and myself. And I would just continue to call and say, this is where we define the player, let's look at Detwiler. Sixth player in the country. We paid him $2.15 million. This player was taken ninth. We think they're similar players. This is how we see the market. [His reponse]: "Jim, it's going to take a major-league contract, out of the box." We did not give into a major league contract for most of the summer until this week. We went this week, but most of the dialogue was we were asking them to engage, asking them for a number. They would not give us a number. Let's negotiate. This is why we want to sign him. If you sign him, he'll be in the big leagues in September. He's in our rotation next year. He's a year closer to arbitration, and a year closer to free agency. Let's get him out there. Let's do a deal. We did it with Zimmerman. We did it with Detwiler. Let's get his clock going. Let's go. We want quick signings. We don't like sitting out all summer. At the end of the day, I read (Hendricks') quote, which said ... tell me what his quote was. How much did he say we were apart? 700 [thousand]? 500 [thousand] ? Ok, so in his opinion we were $700,000 apart and the club walked away. Is that what he said? We were the only club to walk away? Well he's the only agent that didn't sign his player either, and he didn't sign his player over $700,000 if that's the number. I'm not agreeing with that, but if that's the number, let's just say that he's right for the sake of the conversation, which he's not, he walked away from $700,000. He's the only agent that didn't do a deal. And the player now has already missed this year. Now the player has got to miss next year. He goes into the draft next June. Hopefully he negotiates faster than this year and doesn't go until August 15. But now he has missed two years. Whereas, if he's with us, he's pitching in the big leagues in August and September, all next year and he's that much closer to arbitration and free agency. Q: The fact that this organization has so emphasized it's ability to scout and sign players, do you think they tried to use that as leverage? You'll have to ask them that question. The one thing we did have is we had the ability to value the player and we negotiated beyond what we thought was fair and reasonable based on the market shift. We went with the market. When Castro signed at $2.075, we reacted and we moved. When Matusz signed, we reacted and we moved. When Gordon Beckham signed, we reacted and we moved. We did not stick with, 'Well, that's the way it was coming in.' Because last year all those guys got $1.8 to $2.1. When Beckham got $2.6 and Matusz got $3.2, we went right with whatever the market was. Q: If a player signs a major league contract, is it part of the CBA that he has to have an MRI or physical? No, no, no. What if he has an ulnar collateral ligament strain? I give him a major league deal, a four-year deal with a net present value of (trails off). Our major league deal on the table had $400 [thousand], $400 [thousand], $500 [thousand], $600 [thousand] a year with minor league splits on it. That's all guaranteed. I can't do that deal and then find out he's got a bad elbow. With a minor league contract I can void the contract if he's not healthy. That's why we had Ben Shaffer prepared. Q: What was your reaction when you saw $9 million? You know, I've done this long enough. I've watched the process. I get the process. It didn't faze me as much as, you know, let's just negotiate. Let's get on the table. Let's talk. Let's try to work it out. Why are you at $9 million? We'll tell you where we're at and let's see if we can work out the details? We wanted to engage. We wanted to negotiate." Q: Do you feel like part of this is a product of miscommunication? Absolutely not. The communication is all documented. It was endless communication. They clearly know our position and we clearly know what they did. It is clear. It's not a he-said, she-said. He's got the emails. We've got the emails. We might not have all the phone calls that were done with Alan and I and some that were done with Randy and I in the middle, but there's enough dialogue to know that both sides are very clear on what took place. There will be no dispute over when they went from 9 to 4.4. It was all in text. We offered more than [Mastusz]. We dwarfed what Gordon Beckham got from the White Sox. That pick went before us. They wanted a major league contract. We did not want to do it. We gave in. We gave them that. They wanted an out of the box deal. We gave them an out of the box deal. We tried to understand where they were coming from. We tried to value the player properly and we tried to negotiate a contract to sign the player. But that being said, we're not going to be bullied into just giving a number just because someone says, 'You've got to pay 'X.'' We have to negotiate a contract that is consistent with the value of the player and consistent with what the marketplace is paying at the time we negotiate the deal. We sit here today, and it would be a lot different conversation if we didn't have 9B. That's a little bit easier to swallow because what we have is we've lost one really good player, but 10 months from now we can get the exact same talented player back. There's a lot of pitching in next year's draft, and we feel confident that with our 10th pick next year there will be a Crow or similar talented player sitting there for us. We've just got to wait 10 months. Q: Do you think Crow ever really wanted to be part of this organization? They wouldn't come up here, but I had one conversation with the dad prior to last night and one conversation with him last night. In my conversation with him, he said he and his son were 'tickled pink' that the Nationals drafted him. That was his exact words. Tickled pink. Yeah, so I think this was strictly a negotiation. I did call the father last night after our $3.5 [million] was rejected. We sent an email to Aaron and I made a phone call to the dad prior to 12 just to say, 'I just want to make sure that you're aware that you all rejected $3.5 [million] and we hope you reconsider because we really want you a National. And the dad said, 'Look, I'm tired. My adviser, Randy and Alan Hendricks, are handling negotiations and they're making the decisions.' I said, 'OK. Well I just want you to know that we really wanted your son to sign. If you change your mind between now and midnight give us a call because we'd like to sign him.' So we did have that phone call with the dad, we did send one of the e-mails to the son just so he was aware what had taken place. We also had a conversation -- and it did get them upset -- but we wanted to make sure that when we did get the $9 million offer, one of our scouts did contact the dad just to let him know: You're really at $9 million here with a day to go. Q: August 15, does it work? The system doesn't work. And, you know, I think it would be in the best interest of the players and the clubs and the fans if there was a hard slotting system, whatever the numbers end up being -- let's take the numbers out. The player has to sign into the draft. They have to say they're going to sign, and sign into the draft. The clubs then are allowed to take the best player, and wherever you're drafted, the slotting system will pay you whatever that value is. ... It should be a system where you don't have small markets trying to do pre-cut deals or small markets not taking the best player because they can't afford him. It should be a system where everybody gets to take the best player when it's their turn to draft, and the player should sign and go. We shouldn't sit all summer. Aaron Crow shouldn't have to go home right now and play for the Fort Worth Cats and sit out and wait 'til next year's June draft and then maybe until August 14 before he signs again. I don't think that's fair to him, I don't think it's good for baseball, it's not good for the club, it's not good for anybody. I just think a hard slotting system would be the long-term solution for our sport. To sit there and have the negotiations that took place with several clubs between 11:30 and 12 where you're talking about huge movements with lots of players where some teams didn't even have conversations with the agent until quarter to 12 last night, and deals got done at 11:59 with literally, I understand, no conversations for long periods of time. I'm not sure that's the best way to do business for a sport. Q: You were criticized at some point - you should have known what this player was looking for. I made the point last night: We call them before the draft, and last year, we passed on (Rick) Porcello; we understood the price tag was $10 million and he wasn't on our signability sheet. We couldn't afford it. Had we known that Aaron Crow's number was $9 million, we would have passed on the player. We don't have it in the budget to pay that kind of money. But all the top picks, what are they going to say, what are their agents going to say? We want a major league contract and we want a premium-dollar deal. That's of course what you're going to say if you're an agent or a player. Q: If when you're gauging signability before the draft and everybody's total is inflated, how do you measure this? We want to take the best player; we owe that to our organization and our fans. But, there's a difference. You've got a value. There's a high risk with a high school pitcher. To put a $10 million value on a high school pitcher with a risk of being injured isn't something that, philosophically, we support. That doesn't mean there won't be an exception some day because two years from now, three years from now, maybe we take that player because there's an exception. But for us, it's gonna be very hard to ever price a high school pitcher at $10 million. You know, Pedro Alvarez signing with Pittsburgh I thought was a really good signing; he's a good player, he's gonna hit in the middle of their lineup really quick. It's all about valuing the player. What is the player worth? We just want to get the best players. When it was our turn to pick, it was clear that Aaron Crow was the player we wanted to take. We have no regrets over taking him. We only regret that we weren't able to sign him. We just wanted to sign him. Q: People see the money that was given this year to a Lo Duca or an Estrada and wonder, well, when you have a player you really do value, why can't you give him that $1 million? I get that argument, too. We've used it, too. We sit here and say, What if we trade this guy and that guy? Or, I can move this contract to make that work. But we have a system in place of valuing players in a marketplace. You can't just be writing blank checks because people want them. Q: What about when you're talking about the bonus money given to Crow and then Ramirez in the 15th round? He was done at one minute 'til midnight at the end. Here was a guy that, we were holding on to that because we didn't know if we had enough money in our budget to get Ramirez. We had enough money to get Ramirez because we didn't sign Crow. So that was done right there at the end. Because, OK, the money is sitting there and he's a first-round talent. We took him like McGeary late but we didn't think we could sign him. He wanted $1.6 million and we negotiated all summer with him, but at the end of the day, we didn't think there were enough dollars. We wanted to save our money in case we could save Crow. That was what we were trying to do. Our scouting budget that we had to sign players - we were saving it for Crow. When he fell apart, we picked up the deal and closed it at the last minute. Q: Ramirez? We really like J.P. We think he's got the potential to be a Brian Giles-in-his-prime caliber hitter, a left-hander that can really hit. We loved him, but he was an unsignable player. We took him off our board. We had him up high, but he wanted $1.6 million; we knew he wasn't No. 9 in the country where we picked, and we knew we couldn't afford him in the next spot. But we kept the conversations going, invited him up here with his mom, he came up here and hit, spent a lot of time with him... And we're very pleased. That's a first-round talent. Q: Marcus Jones? He got $150,000. Q: September call-up for Crow, just to be clear, which you'd mentioned at the beginning... that would have been this year? Oh sure. Sure. Yeah, through the process we offered him a major league deal. Through the process we offered a September call-up. We took our offer from $2 million to the end of the day $3.5 million. At times there was a major league contract offer in there, at times there wasn't. But we were very flexible. Q: At what point did the major league contract, just because of the time element, become unfeasible? Um, we were told that we had to have him in the tube at 6:30 p.m. yesterday in order to make sure we'd get the answers. Once it was determined we couldn't do 6:30, then our offer became a minor league contract, which was understood, and their counter-offers at the end were minor league contracts. Their offers were not major league contracts at the end. They understood that. Just like Hosmer's guys did and Alvarez's guys did. -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 122.116.126.101