Yankees GM Brian Cashman revealed that the team has made a “significant” offer to second baseman Robinson Cano to preclude his pending free agency. What “significant” entails is anyone’s guess, but we can easily surmise that it wasn’t enough because Cano didn’t agree to it.
The Yankees made a “significant” offer when what they really needed to do was make an offer Cano couldn’t refuse as the Mets did with David Wright. Agent Scott Boras takes his players to free agency if he can help it and Cano has indicated that he wants money, period. This won’t be a Jered Weaver situation where the player doesn’t care about topping the salary chart, wants to stay in his present locale and tells Boras that over the agent’s objections. Cano wants to get paid and while he’d definitely prefer to stay with the Yankees, he’d be perfectly content to go across the country to the Dodgers if it meant getting the contract he feels he deserves.
Why Cashman chose to disclose this information is the big question. The implication that it was a “slip up” is ludicrous. It was done intentionally. Cashman, while wanting credit for being an architect of the club rather than a checkbook GM whose success has hinged upon a $200 million payroll, has also shown that he doesn’t care about loyalties or off-field factors when negotiating contracts. He would prefer to let Cano leave than saddle the club with another albatross-like commitment that they’ll regret in five years. It was Cashman who wanted to let Alex Rodriguez leave when A-Rod and Boras opted out of the third baseman’s contract in 2007, but had his blueprint and implementation sabotaged by Hank Steinbrenner. As it turned out, Cashman was prescient. He was also willing to let Derek Jeter walk if it came to that after 2010. Both Cashman and Jeter knew that Jeter wouldn’t leave and the negotiations were a face-saving wrestling match, mostly on the part of Jeter trying not to be embarrassed by taking a giant pay cut.
That brings up the “why” as to Cashman making public an offer that was made and rejected. The Steinbrenners are obviously feeling the heat not just from the chance that Cano could leave, but from the warm California sun and budgetless amounts of cash Dodgers’ GM Ned Colletti has to spend. “Significant” is the word of the day and Boras knows the Dodgers will be “significant” bidders for Cano—in fact, they won’t be stopped if they desperately want to sign the second baseman and will continually trump the Yankees until Cano is given the previously mentioned offer he can’t refuse.
This revelation was a public relations decision and it was a bad one. With it in the public now, the pressure shifts to Cano. The reality is that the dollars and years were unlikely to be anywhere close to what it would’ve taken to convince him to forego free agency, but the cryptic, undetailed telling of the tale by Cashman leaves plenty of room for ambiguity and the onus hovers around the player while putting each side in an antagonistic position. Rather than conducting a friendly negotiation in which the parties want to get the deal done as happened with Wright, the passive aggressiveness between club and player/agent is sure to begin next. Cano is not as cognizant of his image in being a Yankee for life as Jeter was. Unsolicited providing of this information was a bad idea and it’s going to explode in the Yankees’ faces unless they get Cano signed.
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