Baseballhead:
Houston, We Have a Problem

Michael Cox

Ever since Roger Clemens' announcement that he wanted out of Toronto ("I'll teach you bastards to let The Great Jose Canseco go!"), speculators have speculated, pundits have punted, and almost everyone has been able to come up with a rationale under which The Rocket could come to their local team.

Well, everyone except Montrealers and Miamians, that is.

Anyway, all that speculation has ground to a halt as of yesterday, when Clemens retracted his trade demand and said he expects to report to the Blue Jays' spring training camp. No real reason was given, but I suspect it wasn't because the Jays signed Joey Hamilton. So what happened? It's anybody's guess -- sunspots? The Internet? A Ken Starr investigation ("so we can't nail him on that 'clubhouse cancer' thing. I know a little girl who'll wear a wire and coax him to hug her...")?

It's hard to tell. However, you can be sure that the utter inability to make a deal so far has played a big part. Sure, Clemens is worth top money right now. Sure, he's worth a tidy little package of top prospects in a trade. The problem is that he's not worth both.

Despite Clemens' agents' statements that he's been offered $15M per year contracts by the teams who desire him (likely as believable as owners' declarations that they're losing money), nobody is willing to give up the farm and bust their payroll, when they could get a lot of fine players by simply doing one or the other. Even Astros owner Drayton McLane, after initially overruling cooler-minded GM Gerry Hunsicker, has seemingly overcome his blind zeal for Clemens.

Speaking of Hunsicker, Clemens reserved a certain amount of venom for the man, as well as 'Stros prez Tal Smith, because both dared to declare the$27.4M demand for an extra year was Clemens'. Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but don't agents represent their clients' wishes, with the consent of said clients? If the Hendricks brothers ask for the Texas moon for Clemens, I don't care how much he protests, it's still his demand.

And although Clemens had the contractual right to a trade, the Jays had a right to a reasonable amount of value in the deal, and with their suitors' GMs mainly concentrating on the contract renegotiation demand, the offers were getting worse instead of better. And owners can toss money around all they like, but without a GM who really wants to deal, they end up offering Darren Bragg or Andy Sheets.

The kicker: Clemens did say that it's OK if the Jays keep working on a trade, and that he won't even make a renegotiated deal part of the bargain. Of course, what he's really saying is that he has no problem playing for a contender for one year at his current salary, at which point the Basic Agreement lets him demand a trade again, or become a free agent, if there's no raise. Somewhere along the line, he will get his money.

But for now at least, he'll be stuck pitching to the best of his ability for a measly $8M. Damn whoever forced him to sign that multi-year contract!

Item: The year's almost at a close, and we at Strikethree.com are not immune to the holiday doldrums. Between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, we'll be giving our writers the week off, but don't go away! In addition to our continuing daily news, we'll be showcasing the best articles of 1998, as selected by the writers themselves.

Incredibly, we have more readers now than we had even during the regular season, so I'm sure a lot of you have missed out on these gems of baseball scribery. We'll have a different classic "repeat" every day, so when you get that new gift iMac connected up, give the browser a try right here.

We're not sitting still, however -- in the new year, we'll have some new features that I think you'll like. Don't hesitate to tell us what you'd like to see on Strikethree -- send a message to me or any of the gang and tell us what you think!

 

about the author

Michael Cox does none of his Christmas shopping until the last minute -- he swears it's "an adrenaline thing." Tell him he could accomplish the same buzz at home with a case of Jolt at mc@strikethree.com.

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