There is an article up on Fansided.com authored by someone named Zachary Rotman who quotes former GM Jim Bowden from a podcast called Foul Territory. Here is the Bowden quote: "Buster Posey is completely opposed to opt-outs. He does not want them. That's a real, philosophical, in-cement viewpoint that he has right now in his first year running the Giants."
I wish I had a more reliable source for this but it does fit with the tea leaves I am reading, so am not at all surprised. Since Scott Boras seems to insist on opt-outs for almost all of his free agent contracts and since a high percentage of top-talent free agents are Scott Boras clients, this may play a bigger role in the Giants relative lack of free agent activity than penurious owners or negative player perceptions of the organization.
BTW, if this is truly Buster Posey's position, I fully support it. IMO, opt-outs are a big reason why the Giants as an organization failed to gain traction in the FZ era.
Like you said I don’t fully believe this is true. But I do disagree with you and possibly buster on the opt outs. This is the new market reality. Opt outs are the way you sign players to “bounce back deals” and I think that is generally where the market upside is to be found. The dollar to WAR ratio for the giants on these opt outs deals has been tremendous.
ReplyDeleteThe flaw Farhan had is he was desire to let all of the opt out guys walk (except Chapman? Not sure if it was really him). If he resigned the right ones we would think differently.
I think not a good move for Buster here to rule out a tool or heck even a market reality just on principles sake.
- Fan
We'll just have to disagree on this one. Opt-outs are a scourge. If they are bad for your team, which I believe they are, saying no has to start somewhere and I applaud Buster for having the courage to let it start with him. He got two really good cornerstone players signed without opt outs and got a "bounce back" option signed for just one season with no opt-out. That's a pretty darn good offseason in my book. And yes the team is better off today than it was when Buster took the reins. His next big task is sorting out which of the younger players are keepers. Adding another free agent cornerstone can happen next offseason.
DeleteWhen opt-outs first started showing up in contracts I was kind of soft on them while practically everybody else was saying they have no redeeming features for the team. After watcing the results of several op-out contracts over the course of the last 3-4 seasons, I am firmly in the camp that there is nothing good in them for the team. If the player performs well, you almost certainly lose him and if he performs poorly or gets hurt, you are stuck with a bad contract.
DeleteOh! And I did not say I don't fully believe what Bowden is saying. In fact, it fully agrees with all vibes I am picking up from my own observations. I was just commenting on the fact that Bowden might not be the most conclusive source for any MLB rumors or inside information.
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