Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Mr. Optober and the Profitable Marlins

From French:
I saw the article in the Times about negotiating strategies that seemed to say that ARod and the yankees still may get together. Somehow I doubt that--the next generation Steinbrenners probably don't want to begin their tenure by backing down to the selfish and unloved superstar...
In fairness, I should say that I read a really interesting article in some on-line offshoot of Fortune that discussed the Yankees based mostly on the financial data the Yanks had to publish as part of their bond offering for the new stadium. The conclusion was that the Yanks will be rolling in dough once the new stadium is up and running, and $30+ million is not at all unreasonable.
I agree with you that in terms of what he's been quoted as saying, he's over-reaching--why sign someone to a 10 year deal because in 7-8 years he might be going for some big and famous records?-- and announcing during the WS probably means that Selig's minions are working the phones behind the scenes to try to keep some owner from doing something really egregious. Of course, Selig seems less adept at that than Ueberroth was.

But the columnists I read (espn, cnnsi, fox sports for Rosenthal) aren't saying anything about the possibility that ARod has painted himself into a corner... If anything, their consensus seems to be that Boras had a deal pretty close to in place before ARod opted out (I love his new nickname--Mr. Optober), citing JD Drew's experience last year. Of course, those guys have to write something, and there's not all that much to write between now and February. But no one is writing articles about why ARod may be headed to Japan ...

The good part of all this is that Lowell will get a bunch more money than he might have otherwise. Good for him.

On the Marlins: In addition to being one of 3 teams to win multiple WS sin '97, they are (according to Forbes) the most profitable franchise in MLB.

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