WEDNESDAY, 9:45am: The Yankees "never made an offer" to Chapman, GM Brian Cashman tells ESPN's Buster Olney (Twitter link).
TUESDAY, 10:01pm: The Yankees really liked Aroldis Chapman. A Florida lawsuit against the left-hander's representatives claims that the Yankees made an “offer to Chapman valued at more than $54MM," according to Melissa Segura of SI.com (on Twitter, hat tip to River Ave. Blues).
Chapman, who accepted a six-year, $30.25MM deal from Cincinnati must have really liked the Reds to accept $24MM less from them. The 23-year-old Cuban struck out 19 of the 51 batters he faced in his cameo for the NL Central Champions last year. He posted a 3.57 ERA with 11.8 K/9 and 4.9 BB/9 in 95 2/3 innings at Triple-A before his callup.
The Yankees have a history of bidding on and signing top Cuban pitchers. They signed Orlando Hernandez in 1998 and pried Jose Contreras away from the Red Sox and others in 2003.
I have a hard time believing this. Why would he turn down that much money?
I don’t believe this.
That doesn’t make any sense. Why would his representatives purposely screw themselves out of several million in commission?
If they are being sued, then maybe they didn’t screw themselves out of such commission. Its probable that the sue is about them not informing him about the best possible deal and instead only informing about Cincinnati, maybe because of another factor that favored them.
no freaking way.
Doesn’t make since. Why would his reps screw themselves out of a million or so in commission?
Note to Yankees: Bidding ended a year ago. You can’t just bid 50 million now!
This is stupid & doesn’t make any sense, which means its probably true.
Is it April Fools already?
Maybe it was like a 15 year deal, or something…
Wow, Misclicked…
Haha no pitcher wants to go to the yanks anymore. He was smart like Cliff Lee.
Yeah turning down almost twice as much money is real smart and Cliff Lee isn’t every pitcher. We got Prior, Garcia and Colon what that’s right sarcasm.
Some pitchers care about winning more than money. The Yankees arent winning anything anytime soon.
lol your funny.
Its true. Their pitching staff is awful outside of CC. Anytime you have AJ Burnett you will suck. Sox own their staff by a mile.
So did 2009 count as “anytime”? I mean a staff with AJ did win the WS. A staff with AJ came w/in 6 wins of another one as well. You are sooooooooo smart.
I think you Yankee fans need to realize just how bad he was last season. Hes going downhill just like the yanks. Can you please admit how bad your starting 5 is outside CC. Its god awful. Heck the other new york team has a better starting 5 sadly.
You can entertain whatever thoughts you want to sir. CC, Hughes and AJ are far from the worst threesome in baseball and we won 95 games last year with them AND we had a horrible season from both AJ and Vazquez. If you wish to think the Mets have a better rotation than the Yanks then feel free. You would be wrong but if Sara Pailin can have a platform to voice her opinion then why not you?
‘Sox own their staff by a mile’… yeah, that’s what kept the Sox from finishing a mile behind in the final standings these recent years.
More yank fans living in the past. By the way who won the AL east last season? Ill give you a hint it wasn’t a New York or Boston team. Face the facts the yanks are awful this year with that starting 5. I hate the Sox just as much as the yanks but unless something drastic happens they have the AL east on lock.
Dude, you’re letting your hatred cloud any logical thinking.Talk about living in the past. Burnett has one disastrous year and he becomes the world’s worst pitcher, which makes the entire staff and team terrible. Find a recipe book on how to cook crow, you’re going need it a few times over.
What are you smoking? The guy has been going downhill since the 07 season since then hes had 3 seasons with an era of 4.07, 4.04 and last season a 5.26. He did have 18 wins in 08 but thats the only season hes ever been over 13 wins. Lets face it this guy has never really been “that” great. Hes a 4th or 5th starter on most staffs. Hes not even a 5th starter on the Sox, Phillies, Giants, etc.
Says the A’s fan
Yeah Lee cares about winning more then money please the Yankees offer wasn’t the highest so that makes no sense and the Yankees still got a pretty good team playoff caliber team. Theres also a thing called the trade deadline Liriano may not be available now but if he stays healthy the first half the Yankees will try to trade for him if their starters aren’t cutting it or try and acquire another quality pitcher. They’re in better shape now then they were 5 years ago they went from having one of the worst farm systems to I think they’re in the top 5 now. Its not easy having a very good team with a great farm system as well.
It wasn’t that. He heard raving reviews about the original Skyline’s chilli. Who could compete with that?
I live in Cincy, Skyline is terrible.
And Sabathia was stupid right?
This doesn’t make sense. I mean on the yankees’ part, after the whole contreras thing, would they really throw $50+ mil at an unproven guy again?
haha, yes.
Yankees did the same with throwing money at Kei Igawa
They made it rain on Igawa. He returned the favor by making it rain on the fans in the left field bleachers.
It means the Reds slipped the agents more money than what they would have gotten from the Yankee deal.
So the Yankees can now sue people for not taking their money? What a world we live in…
No where in the article did it say the Yanks were suing anyone.
Jose Carlos Thompson is a close friend of Chapman’s, a cuban born player, a employee of the sports agents Hendricks Bros…….and oh……a 2B prospect that just signed with the Houston Astros.
My guess is that he somehow played a role in either hooking Chapman up with the Hendricks Brothers and was promised something by them if they got Chapman to sign with them or maybe was a go between the Yanks and Champman when the Yanks were schmoozing him when he visited NY back in 09. And remember, there was a lawsuite from Athletes Premier Intl, the original agents Chapman had, that claimed the Hendricks Sports Mngmnt stole Chapman from them and made promises while he was being repped by HSM. Thompson being CHapman’s close friend and an employee of Hendricks Sports Mngmnt obviously indicates he was instrumental in getting Chapman to switch agents.
“The lawsuit accuses Hendricks of tortious interference and unjust enrichment, claiming that Athletes Premier “invested substantial time and hundreds of thousands of dollars” on Chapman’s behalf to help him defect, establish residency in Andorra and begin negotiating with major league teams.
The suit claims that “Hendricks and its employees made material false and disparaging statements to Chapman concerning Athletes Premier and Mejia as well as provided improper enticements to Chapman in order to cause Chapman to terminate his contract with Athletes Premier and sign a contract with Hendricks.”
That lawsuit got settled though.
I know. Just making the connection between Thompson (Chapman’s good friend) and fellow Cuban, who despite being a minor lge baseball player (recently signed by the Astros) was also a Hendricks Sprts Mngmt “employee” who is now suing Hendricks, with the Yankees offer of $54 mil obviously playing some role in the suit. My guess is, if you read between the lines, Thompson was instrumental in getting Chapman to leave Athletes Intl and moving to Hendricks. My guess is that he was employed to lure Chapman to Hendricks and didn’t get paid what he was promised or something like that.
They are going to sue the fans that angered lee’s wife.
There was an article, sorry link misplaced, that Chapmans representatives screwed up the tax consequences of his signing bonus. Something about the money should have been received prior to Jan 1 to avoid non resident taxes.
There was also another issue – I recall him changing representatives. So maybe the whole affair was “Amateur Hour”.
When Chapmans arm explodes and sprays bits of Cuban shrapnel all over Great American Ballpark, the Yankees will be happy they dont have all that money guaranteed to him.
Just b/c the Yankees deal is valued at 54 million doesn’t mean that that was the contract price.
Right now, Aroldis is due to receive at least 35 million. That’s not counting 3 arb years. If he is arb eligible after 2013, he receives at least 38 million, plus three arb years. I’m sure in this lawsuit the lawyers maxed out the arb payments, something like 5 milllion, 8 million, 11 million.
That kind of “fuzzy” math gets the Reds offer up to 62 million in “value”.
I could careless if he didn’t sign but I don’t follow you. The arb years can’t be pre-determined or else it would be guaranteed years.
could care less implies you care more then minimum because you have room to not care…
In a lawsuit “value” is just going to be some pie in the sky, semi exaggerated #, especially when variables come into play. Since Chapman’s initial contract includes 3 arb years, the lawyers will include the anticipated figures for those 3 years in the lawsuit when determining the “value” of the offer.
couldnt careless 😉
Good… Now the Yankees won’t have a guy throwing some freaking heat… Helps AL league a lot… No one like the Yankees unless they live in new York or bandwagon fans… And there is a alot over here in California…
“No one like the Yankees unless they live in new York or bandwagon fans”
—-
That could be said about any franchise. No one likes the Royals unless they live in KC. No one likes the Padres unelss they live in SD. No one likes the Brewers unless they live in Milwaukee.
So what you are saying is that no one like(not likes) the yankees except new yorkers and people who cheer for them when they are in the postseason(so quite frequently).
In other words, no one likes them except for their fans….ummm ok?
So, what’s going to happen now? Are the Stankees gonna whine, the Reds deal becomes nullified that they have to turn Chapman over to them, and he’s awarded 54 million?! I can see it now. MLB atop a hog pen, throwing pacifiers down to them.
nope
Didn’t Chapman switch representatives at some point before he signed? Perhaps his old agents were working on the Yankee deal before hand…
Doesn’t make any sense to leave that much money on the table, not before you throw an MLB pitch.
can someone explain to me what the lawsuit is all about? I can’t find it anywhere. I find it hard to believe that a lawsuit would be brought up just because he didn’t sign for more money.
Yeah, that does seem odd. Not really terms for legal action. I’m guessing that the lawsuit is against Chapman’s representatives who did not tell him of the Yanks’ offer? But even that doesn’t make sense. Why would they not want more money? I’m lost as well.
All of that money goes to Chapman less commission. Maybe his representatives worked out a side deal that got them more than the Yankees commission would have.
the Florida lawsuit against Hendricks was about Rodney Fernandez, an Agent working for the Hendricks allegedly stealing about $300k from Kendry Morales’ bank account.
So theres some shady stuff going on with the Hendricks.
Supposedly Fernandez says the Hendricks brothers knew about this and approved it and were supposed to reimburse the account but never did. And then it was discovered by Morales in December while Chapman was being shopped around. So when the news surfaced the Hendricks told Fernandez to keep quiet so it would not effect the Chapman sweepstakes.
I’m sure more news about it will surface soon
Maybe he signed with the Reds thinking it would be easier and faster to break into the rotation of a smaller market team like the Reds than trying to break into the Yankees rotation.
Oops.
Yeah dont let logic or the plain fact that maybe he didnt want to play on the east coast. I seem to remember it leaking out that it came down to him choosing between the Reds and the A’s, because he liked how both teams handled bringing up their pitchers. I maybe saw that in a tweet somewhere by I want to say Gammons or someone of that ilk.
If I remember correctly, the Hendricks brothers and the Yankees have had some issues in the past. Doesn’t surprise me.
it would make sense to me that the Yankees would have offerd that much come on they gave 20+million to Kei Igawa so why wouldn’t they give 54million to a guy who throws north of 100mph! He obviously didn’t take the highest offer because in my mind there is no way cincinatti would have the highest bid! Im guessing there were probably 2-3bigger offers from bigger clubs.
who wants to go to that “rat” infested team other than rats anyway.
and lemme guess the team you root for is a “master race” of players?
^^^ Awaits Hank Steinbrenner’s comments
First Yankee post in a while where I didn’t see trolls everywhere. Then again, a proposal could throw a conversation off track.
This just seems like someone who didn’t finalize a deal legally, so he is suing to see if the courts will award him a commission arising out of the deal that fell through.
“The Yankees “never made an offer” to Chapman, GM Brian Cashman tells ESPN’s Buster Olney (Twitter link).”
In other words, there was an offer, but they are saying there wasn’t perhaps because he didn’t go to NY?
Or, you know, they never made an offer.
I”ll lean towards my first instinct and go with what I said. If I’m wrong, yours is right.
Hahaha, fair enough.
If you believe a word out of Brian Cashman’s mouth then I have a bridge to sell you…
If you think for a single second that ANYONE is going to turn down an offer 24 million dollars higher than what they signed, then I think I should be the one showing you the many bridges that I can offer you.
You Yankee haters are really ridiculous. If there ever was an offer that exceeded 20 million than the offer he took, he would have taken it.
No one even knows what this lawsuit is about and who is suing who. From the snippets of these reports that the media are leaking you’d think it was the Yankees suing Chapman’s agents which I highly doubt is going on.
Again, pull your collective heads out of you know where and allow yourself to think as a rational human being for one second. Would Chapman, who was wearing bling the size of hubcaps in his ears when he hit the US shores, turn down 20 million more than the Cincy offer to live in Ohio?
Your fantasies that he didn’t want to be a Yankee and turned it down are just that. Fantasies. Carl Crawford would be a Yankee right now if they matched the Boston offer.
The only guys to ever turn down more from the Yankees were Maddux and Lee, although Lee ended up getting more per year from Philly than the Yankees were offering.
Chapman would have taken 50 something million from the Yankees and ran with it and gotten a suit of armor and a Porsche made out of bling if he had the chance.
“nice one, cash”
– a. moreno
Yankees fans really do have reason to worry now if Cashman is taking lessons from Moreno. Next thing you know they’ll be trading Montero for Zito and paying the whole contract…
Don’t pay attention to him he’s a bitter Angels fan. They had a worse offseason then the Yankees did lol. They did however sign Beltre, Soriano and Crawford though oh wait a minute…
Oops didn’t hit a reply button that was in response to LA Angels comment about the only Yankees fans are bandwagon or from NY blah blah blah. If that’s the case I’ve been a Yankee fan since I started watching baseball when I was 9 and Derek Jeter was just old enough to drink alcohol.
melissa segura for the fail
I love it