Mark Teixeira: In His Own Words

It's also difficult to believe that a player who hires scott boras has a philosophical objection to negotiating through the media.

Horseface Tex is a big liar. In his introduction he said that he made up his mind couple weeks before Christmas and now he is saying that the Red Sox announcing the trip worked against them? He is another Arod that lies in your face and has the most innocent look. It wouldnt surprise me if he was doing steroids when he was with Texas. Bold face liar!

YankFan,

I think we can agree that his best bet to be on a winner would have been Anaheim with its payroll and talent edge in the AL West. And believe me, I don't think it was 'all' about the money, but you don't hire Scott Boras to handle the paperwork. Plus, I personally can't find a reliable link to the $200M offer. I can find $184M from the Nats and I think it's safe to say we'd all sacrifice $4M not to go to the Nats. Nonetheless, I don't blame Texiera for anything. I think very few of us would sacrifice tens of millions in that scenario.

"Nonetheless, I don't blame Texiera for anything."

I don't blame him for anything except yapping his gums about the teams that showed interest in him, and that he turned down. Would be nice if he'd just say, "I appreciated the interest shown by other teams, but felt the Yankees were my best option."

Simple as that.

I'm not a Yankees fan at all, but it was Mark's choice to be a Yankees no matter what the contract might had been. I wish him the best of luck and success with the Yankees, and I will cheer for him EXCEPT when he plays against the Braves.

Hey, he seems legit happy to be a Yankee, and that's all I care about. It's a refreshing change of pace from other free agents they've signed this decade, giving their cookie cutter "I've wanted to be a Yankee all my life" sentences.

Texiera has become one of baseballs biggest douchebags. Obviously he chose money and hes not admitting it= douchebag.

As noted above; the only reason Tex would be offended by teams sharing any info with the press would be it prevented him from getting an even bigger contract. He is creating slights where there were none to rationalize his petty choices. He, Boras, NY, and third place deserve each other

Enjoy the next eight years of NY media...

Hard to pass up dollars. Don't fault any player for taking the Yankees money. Like AtlantaMike I only get pissed when he makes it sound like it wasn't about the money.

All you have to do is come out and say it, "I signed with the Yankees because they offered me the best combination of a chance to win and top compensation". That's it. Hard to fault a player for that.

It's the other crap he says that gets him in trouble with fans outside of NY. Like A-Rod everything he says is carefully scripted with a purpose behind it.

I don't really see why people are calling him a lier and saying that he chose money. He got money and a winning team. As I seem to recall the Yanks surprised everyone when they signed him. That fits with what he says. They were the only team to keep it quiet. From what I have read about Tex he is a very smart man. I don't think that Boras could push him around like some of his other high profile clients. What's with this NY media thing anyway. He has always been a performer. I don't think that he will drop off anytime soon. He will say the right things and preform on the field. He won't cause a scandal. NY will love him. Just because your team didn't get him doesn't mean you should bash him. I'm a Cards fan by the way.

He sounds like a great human being.

Tex made his choice on the team he wanted to play for, fine and dandy and it was for $$$ that Boras was playing up in the media all winter long, just like he does publicly for all his clients and no problems with that. But when tex comes up with all this BS about it being Yankee history and other garbage that swayed him, he is a flat out liar and 99% of the people know it, except for maybe him and the diehard Yanke fans that fall for those weak lines of puke.

lol, Tex is such a D-bag. His wife has him by the nuts.

"You guys would worship him as a god if he had chosen Boston. Admit it."

Not this Sox fan. I was publicly posting against signing hime here and everywhere else before the past season ended because knew the cost would be extensive. The Boras and these Tex speach theatrics are the so called "Cherry on the top" excuses now for his new found loyalty.

I do wish him well with his new team, he really is a good guy and plays hard, but he does not need to phony up a past allegiance to make it so.

I dont think it's 100% about the money, and it may not be.

But like Manny's opt out year...special NTC, loopholes, he writes contracts so well that it benefits the players, and helps them feel more comfortable.

Just so you know, it is possible that a player:

a) hires Scott Boras as his agent

b) decides he doesn't want the media to play a major part in negotiations

c) rather than go through the trouble of finding a new agent because of this one issue, when he is otherwise happy with Boras, etc. isn't worth it, so he simply tells his agent and teams that.

In his case, he was getting his money anyway, so it's not even a big issue. In other cases, the media certainly plays a bigger part.

Also, let's just say that he knew, 100%, that he would sign with the Yankees no matter what. Say their top offer was $1 million a year (and somehow he knew that for certain, they would not raise this offer), and he would have taken it.

No harm in having Boras as your agent to get the most money from the team you want to sign with, right?

YAP, YAP, YAP...
SCREW Mark Teixeira...
Baltimore get your BOOOOSSS ready for opening day...

>>"The Yankees had a leg up all along"

It sounds like he used the other teams to set his market valve and then went to the Yanks and said I'll sign for this much. <<

My thought as well.

"So in truth no one (Yanks, Boras or Tex) ever spoke about any of the talks that existed"

Come on YFS78, how do you think figures for Boras clients ALWAYS get leaked to the media before a contract is signed when often times other FA's do not?

This is classic Boras negotiation tactics, just like ghost teams bargaining with his client.

LIES, LIES LIES.......

As I recall, we never knew exactly what the Sox had offered him.....There was an estimateed range. So that is a flat out BS line. Just be honest and say, "It's all about the money and the Yankees offered more." If you do that Mark, you'll get booed less probably and be respected more.

So in truth no one (Yanks, Boras or Tex) ever spoke about any of the talks that existed"

Come on YFS78, how do you think figures for Boras clients ALWAYS get leaked to the media before a contract is signed when often times other FA's do not?

This is classic Boras negotiation tactics, just like ghost teams bargaining with his client.
_______________________

Ok let's think about this logically. And let me say that I don't defend Boras' tactics and neither should he. I am no fan of Boras myself.

a) Everyone on the world thought the Yanks were the logical team to sign Tex.

b) No one had the scoop that the Yanks were in on Boras other than the initial offer they made in late November that was then taken off the table.

c) Boras absolutely negotiates thru the media but in THIS negotiation process did you hear ANY rumors regarding the Yanks other than quotes from Cashman where he said he met with them during the winter meetings in November and that he was checking in with them to stay aware of things.

d) Let's assume Tex really didn't ask teams or Boras to not negotiate thru the media. Why wouldn't Boras use the Yanks to try and get the other teams in on the proceedings? Who better to use to get Boston and others to up their bids than the Yanks.

So in actuality maybe Tex and Boras weren't the one's yapping about what teams offered, if so then why not spill the beans about the Yanks? ANd keep in mind that at the end the Yanks were asked to make a final bid. They did for $180 mil, Boras countered asking for what I think was $200 plus opt out clauses and the Yanks held firm on their offer and it was accepted, all in 6 hour period.

Not sure how you can say that when the Nats obviously seemed ready and willing to throw more money at him. Also, Boston drew the line in the sand and never HAD the option of making an offer greater than the Yanks. It's not like we blew away all other offers by a signifigant margin.

"In fact it's in the Yanks best interest to NOT discuss their offer publicly"

Since when do the Yankees not discuss publicly how much they are going to offer a player? they had leaked out after the FA's were allowed to negotiate with other teams that they were wiling to give CC 125M and made it public every offer that they made, or somebody did, either CC's agent or the Yankees. Hank Steinbrenner was certainly making comments about the $$$ amounts of the various offers in the media.

I understand that they wanted him and that is fine, but to say that they play negotiations quite (where they did 1, Tex) and negotiated with both Burnett and CC open in the media is not true. Granted, neither CC, nor Burnett were represented by Boras, but somebody had to be constantly leaking those $$$ amounts out, especially so in the case of Sabathia where 2-3 times a week updates were pretty much dead on available.

I enjoyed it and most everyone else probably did as well, but to say that negotiations were kept closed is not true, except for tex which Boras was quite obviously having to go to NY with Boston telling him that they were NOT going to go past (guessing) 170m range and Anaheim, Washington and Baltimore 160-170m range, so if he wanted more, naturally he had to go to the one team that was able to pay, nobody else was going to cough it up.

johns: Maybe you didn't read what I said. I said that in the case of Tex they DID NOT leak or make any public statements regarding offers for his services other than saying that they DID provide an offer (didn't state the amount) early in the process and then took it off the table. Other than that there was nothing said by any exec or any "source" other than the Yanks were checking in with Boras from time to time. It seemed they were just going thru the motions to maybe nudge things a little higher, the same way the Sox were "kicking the tires" and inquiring about CC.

Now with CC, the Yanks made it clear, directly or thru "sources" that they were going to blow Milwaukee's offer out the water.

So two different players and two completely different strategies regarding how they handled negotiations.

And how they played each made since strategically. They let the world know that if you want CC you better come hard or stay home. They sent a message to CC that they wanted him. They sent a message to Milwaukee that they were willing to push them way past their limits. They sent a message to the Angels, Giants and Dodgers, who had other more important Fa's on their collective minds that, that they should choose wisely and quickly where they allocated their resources. That not-so-secret offer immediately seperated the contenders from the pretenders for CC's services.

Tex was different becuase there were clearly more serious bidders AND thos that were more desperate for Tex's service. In Tex's case the Yanks refused to have their offer shopped publicly. Who wasn't shocked when that deal went from talks to signing all in the matter of 6 hours?

"johns: You really don't think Boston woul've offered slightly more than the rumored 170 mil if they knew the Yanks were serious contenders? C'mon..."

No I don't. The Sox FO has set examples and deadlines before with players, take Dice-K for example. They were leaving and had set the same exact deadline, left the airport with Boras and Dice-K on the same kind of "take it or leave it" offer that tex supposedly had we later found out about.

From what we have found out regarding the Sox FO since henry took over is that they set a max value on players and do not cross it, look at Martinez and Damon as examples when they both left. They were both offered the max Boston was willing to pay, then chose to leave.

And as for Damon and Martinez, they were obviously aging players that they were only midly interested in retaining. Tex was a player they pursued and coveted.

I understand what you are saying YFS78. The main reason the Yankees even bid on tex was to keep him away from Boston and yeah, I think Boston really did want him to kind of replace Ramirez.

I still do not think that Henry and Epstein were going to offer any more than they did, they do not operate like that and since 2003 have yet to do that yet in a single case, so what would they start now? Sure, tex would have looked nice in a Sox uniform is a good example for a plus to changing tactics, but there is still no hole at 1st or 3rd for them and then they have the other public policies as well in play, such as no LT contracts to pitchers over 30 that could be next to go, just many others that could fall afterwards if one is broken.

I think that was one reason why henry publicly berated Boras and made those comments regarding the negotiating tactics after henry had made his final offer, as well as why Henry was attending the FINAL meeting between them all.. It was the Sox final offer and nothing else was going to come from them and Boras new it.

I understand what you are saying YFS78. The main reason the Yankees even bid on tex was to keep him away from Boston and yeah, I think Boston really did want him to kind of replace Ramirez.
____________________________

I think the Yankees definetly held great desire to acquire Tex but read the circumstances and choose not to actively bid for his services. They made an offer in the 160 mil range early in the winter and then pulled it off the table. I think they acquired Swisher as insurance in case the bidding for Tex went to obscene levels and were shocked when they were told they had a shot to get Tex late in December.

Tex played all the right cards and the Yankees had what he wanted, $$$$. Let's just hope that the A-Rod curse is passed from 3rd to 1st and he lets NY bring him down. Cashman has created a new improved Yankee team to root against.

Something tells me if this was any other team or any other agent being involved, half of you people wouldn't care to come on here saying such insightful things like "Douchebag" and "lol, Tex is such a D-bag. His wife has him by the nuts."