Stephen Strasburg Update

The Nationals are acting like the 5 year old in kindergarten that peed his pants. He doesn't wanna tell anyone since he doesn't want to be embarrassed but he needs to tell someone so he doesn't reek of urine. Pathetic.

God! Please Nats, I want a 5 team race in the East in the future. Don't let Stras bail to Japan!

Offer $20m and get the ball rolling. Good faith offer by the club. Then when nothing happens until the 11th hour the club can point to Boras and Strasburg as the ones who held everything up.

"Offer $20m and get the ball rolling. Good faith offer by the club. Then when nothing happens until the 11th hour the club can point to Boras and Strasburg as the ones who held everything up."

Let me guess. You think he should get a $30 million dollar contract?

Seems to me that if they're afraid of offending Boras and/or Strasburg with their initial offer what they should do is call Boras and ASK what they want. That would form the basis of the start of negotiations at least. The problem is that if they're afraid to make an offer then they have NO idea of what to actually offer and they want to go cheap. They need to make a good, substantial offer in good faith and have some conviction about what they're doing or Boras will eat their lunch. Or, they can do what they're doing and end up losing a good pitcher two years in a row. If the Nat's don't get this done it's all on them since they knew who the agent was going in.

if the Nats somehow mess this up can they be contracted already? And while we are at it how about we get rid of the Pirates too and even up the leagues. Teams should at least attempt to put a winning product on the field if they are competing in the greatest baseball league in the world.

"Let me guess. You think he should get a $30 million dollar contract?" - tuna411

Not at all. I think $20m is very fair.

If you call up Boras and ask what his demands are you will get a figure around $40-50m. No way would I offer anything close to that.

If you go off what someone earned last year and end up with $10m I bet Strasburg sits out. All he has to do is take it easy and re-enter the draft next year. Assuming his arm doesn't blow out he can certainly earn $20m or more next year. That much disparity would justify waiting for the '10 draft.

$20m is a terribly high price to pay. However, he is an exceptional amateur talent. It's not that he is better from a "stuff" perspective than previous top picks. He's better by a considerable factor.

$20m placates the fans by making a very good faith offer. $20m is roughly double the last top amateur signing. Puts pressure on Strasburg to get a deal done or look like a greedy bastard.

They should take a page from the Dodgers playbook and publicly, i mean very publicly, extend a 20 million dollar offer. The Dodgers put out big money for Manny right away and eventually Boras realized it was the best he could get so he took it. Stress that it's twice as much as anybody else has gotten and play the good guy role, making boras the villain if a deal isn't reached.

"They should take a page from the Dodgers playbook and publicly, i mean very publicly, extend a 20 million dollar offer. The Dodgers put out big money for Manny right away and eventually Boras realized it was the best he could get so he took it. . . ."

Interesting angle, bravesfan22193. One difference is that the Dodgers were competing with other teams (in a competition they expected to win, as they did), while the Nationals are not.

Another is that Boras is threatening to pistol-whip the Nats by taking Strasburg to Japan. For the Nats to speak publicly after that risks getting into a pissing match.