Rosenthal's Latest: Washburn, Teixeira, Griffey

Teixeira wants a 10-year deal or Scott Boras wants a 10-year deal?

Would any team want him until he's 39 years old?

There's no way Teixiera gets a 10-year deal - perhaps something more along the lines of Manny Ramirez's deal with team options in the last couple of years. Tex and Boras are also going to want an opt-out after a few seasons, like A-Rod had in the Texas contract, so Tex can test the market before he hits his decline phase. Those two things may make a reasonable tradeoff - team options kick in after the opt-out passes.

If Boras cuts any teams a break, it is the L.A. teams because of proximity and a good working relationship (Andruw Jones notwithstanding). If Tex stays where he is, I see him getting a 7-8 year deal with options.

Why would the Mets give him a 10 year contract when A) they just gave Santana a massively stupid deal one year ago, and B) they have a whole bunch of other crap to deal with. I am sure the Mets will atleast make some calls, but if they make an offer (which hopefully they won't), it will be around 6/100. Even that would be a very questionable contract to give out to an overated Teixeira.

Why in the holy hell would Griffey want to go back to Seattle? Are you high? He wants a ring and Seattle is roughly the absolute last place you would go to do that.

hmm... i think Tex will come back to the Angels.
A) He wants to be on a contender, B) he's already stated how exciting the Angels are and how he loves the team, and C) Boras, Moreno, and Reagins have a "great" relationship.
I say he gets an 8 year, $160 million year deal from the Halos, with 2 option years.

riconelly,

Griffey said he'd like to go back to Seattle a couple of days ago. When asked why he approved the trade to the White Sox, Griffey said:

"In search of winning a World Series title, that was important. My kids are getting older and it wasn't the situation in Seattle where I wanted to get closer to home. It was a chance for me winning a title, I think that was the biggest draw."

If Seattle's shopping for a DH type, Griff's going back there to finish his career. He'd put butts in the seats, and might flourish with less mileage on his legs DHing full or part-time. And he'd be happy playing 81 games close to his family.

Tex in Anaheim at 8yr/$160M sounds about right.

No way Tex gets 8 years AND 20MM a season...

100MM/5 years 20/yr
114MM/6 years 19/yr
126MM/7 years 18/yr
136MM/8 years 17/yr
144MM/9 years 16/yr
150MM/10 years 15/yr

He won't get both, so figure that's about right, not that 8 years for 160MM... The fact is that not one deal for 18MM/yr has been beneficial to a club and has almost always been the biggest regret of their tenure... There's just too many players to put on a team to afford that luxury... Boras has no more pull with his shenanigans anymore... 17MM a year sounds about right for a Teixeira type player (All-Star, good on both sides of the ball). A guy that's also marketable like A-Rod, and puts up monster stats is only a 20MM per year value, anything more than that is over paying...

Andruw Jones should've never made more than 12MM even with his defense, based on last year. This offseason, I wouldn't give him 5MM next season based on what I've seen and the Dodgers are into him for about 24MM more, from today until the end of 2009. It's just too many of these big dollar deals are ugly, anything around 10MM a year or more, can cripple a team for years, if the player fails to meet expectations.

Here's a list of current bad contracts, and every team but the Marlins, Rays, Nationals, Rockies, Phillies, and Royals have these guys...

B. Zito, J. Schmidt, An. Jones, J. Pierre, R. Furcal, M. Ramirez, R. Sexson, K. Milwood, K. Johjima (honorable mentions), C. Silva, T. Hafner, Mi. Cabrera, G. Sheffield, P. Konerko, G. Matthews Jr., T. Hunter, Ga. Anderson, K. Escobar, E. Chavez, M. Young (13MM/yr starting next year), J. Damon, J. Giambi, D. Jeter, J. Posada, A. Rodriguez, I. Rodriguez, M. Mora, BJ Ryan, AJ Burnett, S. Rolen, F. Thomas, V. Wells, A. Rios, C. Delgado, P. Martinez, J. Santana, Castillo (honorable mentions), J. Smoltz, E. Gagne, J. Isringhausen, B. Hall, C. Carpenter, M. Morris, K. Griffey, A. Dunn, B. Arroyo, R. Oswalt, R. Johnson, E. Byrnes, R. Durham, B. Giles, J. Peavy, Ch. Young, etc.

I wouldn't necessarily classify Jeter and A-Rods deals as bad. At the rate contracts inflate in baseball I think that A-Rod might be losing money by the end of this. Derek Jeter has more than given the Yanks what they paid for year in and out. Only players like Jeter really live up to their contracts because they are consistent, leaders, and the face of their respective organizations.

A 10yr deal is a pipe dream for Tex/Boras, it simply isn't going to happen. Every season Boras rumors fly about what he alleges he will get his clients, and usually he doesn't succeed. Sure Boras rings up the price but organizations have got smarter about holding out. ONe good example is last season when Kyle Lohse was supposedly going to get a 5 yr deal through Boras. Every team held out and Lohse signed for 1 yr.

Griffey as a DH in Seattle wouldn't be the worst thing, but it would be for simply attendance purposes.

Colonel Tom

"And he'd be happy playing 81 games close to his family."

What are you talking about? Griffey lives in Orlando? If you were referring to the statement that you provided, it says nothing about going back to Seattle. Junior has never said that he wants to play for the mariners again. He said that he would like to go back to the mariners like the guys do in the NFL (i.e. Jerry Rice's one day contract)

Point two, any interest he expressed was before they were a humiliation to themselves...griffey to seattle WILL NOT happen.

coltholt,

Actually Griffey did an interview last summer when he was in Seattle with the Reds. FSN Northwest interviewed him after a game and he said he would love to finish (still playing) his career, not retire a Mariner, FINISH his career in Seattle, not an NFL type deal AT ALL. Furthermore, it would not be to be close to his family as you stated correctly, his offseason home is in Orlando. However, at 38 years old, I'd be very surprised if he didn't come back to Seattle, especially at 5-7MM a year for two years. If Griffey signs with Seattle, expect to see Ichiro traded in the offseason. They don't want to trade Ichiro because he's the face of the organization, Griffey would be the one player that in their eyes would make Seattle forget about them dumping Ichiro's contract on some east coast or California team (NYY/NYM/BOS/LAD/SF/SD). The problem is that 90% of Seattle realizes how much we'll benefit with him gone, so they are chomping at the bit to get him traded before we have to eat $17MM x 4 yrs., which would make Sexson's deal look like a small financial miscalculation in comparison by the time this deal has run it's course.

Final thought, Chamberlain had shoulder issues tonight, Rasner pitched like crap in his last start, Ponson looks like crap and pitched worse. This leaves Mussina & Pettitte plus the young question marks Kennedy & Hughes, so I can't help but wonder how many in Yankeeland are wishing they had Washburn... Sure Joba could turn out fine, Wang could come back healthy, Mussina and Pettitte could be injury free the rest of the season, and the two young guns could pitch their donkeys off, but I wouldn't bank on it. I'd be astounded if Washburn didn't get brought up as a waiver option again, talks were dead before Joba got a shoulder tweak, I think they are back on... Shouldn't you Yankee fans be worried that the bottomless pit of money that Steinbrenner is digging into every day is all of a sudden not deep enough to handle Washburn's contract, which wouldn't even be half the price per year of the three most expensive contracts on the team and not even in the top 10 on the team in per year money. I mean, what's really comical about the whole thing is that the Yankees aren't even willing to part with a guy that will either be DFA'd in the next couple years, traded in another bad deadline deal next year, or left on the team as the ceremonial pinch runner for one of a half dozen 35+ year old veterans with bad knees... Sounds to me like Yankee fans need to prioritize better and start kicking down doors begging for the Yankees to get it done rather than talking about symantics and how Washburn isn't worth a prospect, how about you look at it from the reverse side of the deal, is your season worth a prospect?! Wshburn gave up a good number of runs recently, but if Corcoran gets one of the two batters he faces in the 6th inning, Washburn's line reads 5.2 IP, 3 ER. That's a flaw of the ERA system, not Washburn. Leaving 1st and 2nd with 2 outs should be butter for a reliever, but instead Mariners fans were sucking down Tums like Certs. Just a thought, but I'd pony up if I were you NY, Washburn's stats may look bad in his last start, but he looked 10 times better than those two you are running out and he stays healthier than Joba depending on the MRI.

manny24, look at what Jeter does for th Yankees, take away his leadership, which is a silly thing to bring up on a team that is held to some of the most stringent rules in sports, is predominantly all veterans who know how to handle themselves, and young players who are clearly not getting any leadership or they'd be performing better/more consistently. I'll say that's worth 3MM a year anyways, offensively Jeter's numbers are average at best for a SS/#1 or #2 hitter, so we'll say that's worth 5MM, defensively he can dive headfirst into a chair which has to be worth 1MM for entertainment value alone, but his range is suspect and he has a knack for making routine plays close and never quite getting the guy on the tough ones, sorry, but average doesn't even begin to describe his D, so we'll go with 3MM here. After further evaluation, he's worth about 12MM a year, this is a bad deal. Don't tell me about his abilities, this guy had at the All-Star break, 5 HR with a line of .284/.345/.395, by the way, he's been worse since the All-Star break... Maybe if he spent a little bit more time worrying about his performance than what he's going to steal from Yankee stadium, we wouldn't be having this conversation... Nevermind, he'd still not be worth 20MM a year! I'd take a healthy Rafael Furcal, back-up Willie Bloomquist, Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Renteria, Jeff Keppinger, Jhonny Peralta, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, Cristian Guzman, Yunel Escobar, Miguel Tejada, Stephen Drew, Troy Tulowitzki, Omar Vizquel, or Khalil Greene, for Jeter straight up in a deal. I'd much rather get any of these guys from a performance standpoint, but contract wise makes a 1-for-1 deal laughable for any of these guys. Jeter is just a horrible contract. He's on course for 48 XBH, 9 of which will be HRs and he's on course for 9 SB, Holy Mackeral, the production!! Oh and he hits in the most potent lineup in the league, let's see him do even that in Cleveland!! Rodriguez through the first 7 years of his contract made 5MM more than any other player in baseball, better yet for simple numbers, NOBODY made more than 80% of Alex's contract per season. Now nobody makes within 75% of his deal and you think that contracts are going up?! Nobody paid more than 12MM for a player in the offseason besides Tigers (Cabrera 168.3MM or something like that for 8 years, they're regretting it now, guaranteed), the Dodgers (An. Jones, DEFINITELY regreting it), Boston (Lowell, not exactly thrilled at this point, but not distraught either), and the Yankees (Rivera, Posada, Rodriguez, Mariano's deal was too much for a closer, ANY closer, but whatever, forgive that they are the Yankees, they know not what they do, Posada was blatant stupidity, Rodriguez will start hurting when they have to give him 27MM a year for 4 years of his 40s plus the 30MM bonus for a grand total of 138MM for an over the hill 40+ year old), and LA Angels (Hunter, sorry but this is like paying Beltre 18MM a year to be a worse power hitter and not play such excellent defense at a premium position, finding a slick CF is much easier than a sure handed 3B), sorry but bad money is a thing of the past, only stupid teams are paying more than 12MM a year for a good player and MAYBE 15MM for an exceptional talent, there has been a contract recession if anything and Rordiguez's deal will be HORRIBLE in 6 years!