No prior agreement needed if they just put in the highest bid.
True. But I was thinking the conversation would be to avoid any unpleasant negative feelings. Like when the Mets “traded” Wilmer Flores.
The acquiring team gets exclusive access to negotiate with their players, so they could get them into a long term contract before any other team can so much as text them. So the under the table pre-trade discussion would make sense (if allowable).
And why would anyone do that without hearing what other teams are willing to pay?
Guaranteed money. It happens all the time.
It’s all guaranteed money. In the scenerio given this is a player good enough for another team to give up genuine prospects just to rent him for a couple of months. A player like that won’t get less on the open market.
The Angels decide to go with 71 year old Ron Washington to manage. You know, someone who the young players can relate to.
https://www.si.com/mlb/2023/11/08/los-angeles-angels-hire-ron-washington-manager
Not if you get injured before the end of the season and become a free agent without any interested teams it’s not.
Players sign contract extensions before turning into free agents all the time, even with teams they’ve just been traded to. Griffey Jr. signed the largest contract in MLB history (at the time) the day he was traded to the Reds in 2000 - the last year of his 4 year deal with the Mariners.
That’s not at all what was being discussed. The scenerio given was a player at the end of his contract gets traded to a contender for prospects. The team he is on tells him he is getting traded for prospects with a wink that at the end of the season his original team would sign him again. It’s not in the player’s best interest to sign with the original team without seeing what other teams are bidding.
Signing an extension before the contract ends is not similar at all.
I am on several teams’ email lists, the result of buying tickets to their games. They tend to send me very similar emails telling me about the players who have been nominated for various awards. Today I got four of them:
The Orioles wished me to vote for six of their players, who all have been selected candidates for the all-MLB team.
The Phillies wanted me to be aware that I could vote for five of their players, each of whom had been selected a finalist for the all-MLB team.
The Twins alerted me to the fact that four of their players are candidates for the all-MLB team and urged me to vote for all four.
And the Pirates asked me to vote for the one Pirate who is a finalist for the All-MLB team.
I guess some teams really are better than others. Wonder if the A’s had anybody on the list at all.
It is often very much in a player’s interest to sign without seeing what other teams are bidding. Because as I mentioned, it’s guaranteed money.
Let’s use a hypothetical example. Consider a made-up player that we will call “Gen Kriffey”. Gen’s contract with the Pilots is up at the end of the year. Before the season ends, he gets traded to the Maroons for a handful of prospects. Before he gets on the airplane, the GM of the Pilots calls him into the office and says, “Gen, you’ve been a real asset to the team. These prospects are going to really set us up for next year. We’d love to have you back next year wink wink.”
Gen arrives at Maroons Ballpark, walks into the GM‘s office and says “I could suffer a debilitating back injury next week, rendering my upcoming free agency completely worthless. My highly paid and incredibly knowledgeable agent knows what the market is for my talents within a few thousand dollars. Can we sign the largest deal in MLB history?”
Absolutely none of that contradicts the scenario we have been discussing. Players sign extensions months before becoming free agents all the time - because it guarantees them a massive payday and mitigates any potential loss of income from injuries. Here are 6 more examples of this playing out.
Nonsense.
You are still arguing a scenario that was not given.
The scenerio that was:
Griffey is on the Pilots.
He gets traded to the Maroons for prospects at the end of his contract.
GM of the Pilots says we want you back to finish your career so we will sign you as a free agent.
Griffey says good idea.
Griffey agrees to come back to the Pilots without negotiating with any other team.
Your scenerio:
Griffey is on the Pilots.
He gets traded to the Maroons for prospects at the end of his contract.
GM of the Pilots says we want you back to finish your career so we will sign you as a free agent.
Griffey before the end of the season signs a contract extension with the Maroons.
Do you really not see the big difference?
ETA: sorry Kriffey. Wrong player
Of course I do. Do you remember asking this:
That was in response to me mentioning that the acquiring team (from the in-season trade) has exclusive rights to negotiate with that player. The answer to that question is “because the money is guaranteed, and his health is not guaranteed”.
Plus, while becoming rare, some players have been known to sign with a specific team for less money, simply because they like where they’re playing.
If you have Kriffey, who plays for his hometown team and is approaching his last contract, and has said that he wants to retire as a Red, for example, but he’s generating a lot of trade interest. Trade him for the prospects and younger players, with his full knowledge that it’s only being done to set the team up for future success. Then sign him right back.
I’m sure it’s collusion of some sort, but I’m not aware of it for sure, and I’ve never heard of it being done before.
The operative word in my sentence was “that.” “That” meaning that exact scenario not a completely different scenario which you came up with. Yes your scenario makes sense. It’s not the same as having a closed door handshake agreement to come back to the same team months after your guy would have signed.
It was speculated that exact thing was going to happen with Anthony Rizzo. He was very popular with the Cubs. He won a World Series with them. He seemed to be genuinely unhappy to leave. I read many people say the Cubs were going to come back and get him as a free agent. Then the Yankees kept him and signed him to a contract. Now he’s Aaron judge’s best friend and they have matching dachshunds.
That doesn’t validate or invalidate the premise of my original statement.
In hot Hotstove news, apparently the GM Winter Meetings are off and running (and running and running…). There’s a rampant norovirus that has struck 10% of all attendees with violent diarrhea, and so the remainder of the conference has been flushed.
Sure. Your statement is valid. It’s just a non sequitur that had nothing to do with what it seemed to be commenting on. But it’s valid.
With modern technology the winter meetings don’t have the same importance. In the past that’s where a lot of the deals happened. I’m sure there is still some important elbow rubbing going on but it’s an excuse to get away from the wife and sit at the bar with your cronies. It can all happen on zoom now. Seems like lately all the big deals happen after the meetings are over.