CHICAGO -- It's nearly the holiday season.
Or, here at the general managers' meetings, (Matt) Holliday season.
"I think what November's become, it's a greeting card month for free agents," Holliday's agent, Scott Boras, was saying here in the lobby of the O'Hare Airport Hilton as the only full day of meetings on the docket wound down.
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| All signs point to Matt Holliday commanding a deal similar to Mark Teixeira's. (Getty Images) |
And the developing story this winter will be how long Boras keeps suitors at bay before signing Holliday. Tuesday, he dropped plenty of hints that Holliday should command a package similar to what another Boras client, Mark Teixeira, earned last year from the Yankees: eight years, $180 million.
Over in a quiet corner not long after Boras was done issuing an early State of the Free Agents address (the formal version annually arrives at the winter meetings in December), a smiling Cardinals GM John Mozeliak slumped in a chair.
Mozeliak had just met with Boras, the first of what undoubtedly will be a long, slow dance toward the free-agent slugger either returning to St. Louis -- as the Cardinals hope -- or cashing in on a huge payday elsewhere.
Boras is selling Holliday as the premier slugger on the free-agent market this year, though a rival agent, Joe Urbon, recently described Jason Bay as the most "complete" player. Bay batted .267 with 36 homers, 119 RBI and a .921 OPS for Boston last summer.
However you divvy them up, they're 1 and 1-A.
"I represent Matt Holliday," Boras said. "I'll serve as his advocate. I don't know what criteria [Urbon] is looking at, and that's fine.
"All I can tell you is that I've been around baseball a long time ... and Matt Holiday is a complete player. That's all I'll say."
The Cardinals want Holliday back.
The Red Sox want Bay back and spent time working on that Tuesday.
Meantime, other clubs are positioning themselves. San Francisco badly needs a hitter and, according to sources, the Giants are pursuing Bay as well. Maybe Holliday is their second choice. Maybe the Giants go elsewhere. San Francisco GM Brian Sabean works quickly and plays things quietly, so as not to serve as a launching pad for driving free-agent prices even higher.
"We'd love to have him back under the right circumstances," Red Sox GM Theo Epstein said of Bay. "I think he's certainly open-minded to returning to Boston. There's a process and it has to play itself out. ...
"He's never been a free agent before. He's got ability and right to see what other teams have to offer and that can be an important part of process for some players."
For clubs, too.
"I think there are invitations, there are checking points, there is certainly a methodology to what each franchise does," Boras said, expounding on his "greeting card" sentiment. "But right now there is this exhaustion of what I call the pliable market. From finding out in ownership meetings in October, the GMs report here and determine what they're going to want to carry economically. Are there any teams that are going to offer any platform, or trade, or element that's going to have an effect on my team?"
Even if St. Louis can afford a Teixeira-like deal, the key question the Cardinals must answer internally is how it relates to their franchise player, Albert Pujols. His current seven-year, $100 million deal that expires after next season (during which he will be paid $16 million), and there is a club option for 2011 that pays Pujols a base salary of $16 million for that season, too.
Can the Cardinals afford both Holliday and Pujols?
And, near-term, could they pay Holliday more than Pujols?
"Albert is an iconic player who began with us, and we'd like to have him remain with us," Mozeliak said. "We have two years to get it done.
"He's a two-time MVP and probably will make it back-to-back this year. I'm not disparaging one over the other, for us to make this work, you'd like to have both type of players. We recognize the impact Holliday has had on our team. If not him [returning], it's going to have to be somebody else."
Holliday batted .313 with 24 homers and 109 RBI combined for St. Louis and Oakland last summer. In 93 games with Oakland, he hit .286 with 11 homers and 54 RBI. In 63 games with St. Louis, he hit .353 with 13 homers and 55 RBI.
To some, the splits reinforce the idea that some of Holliday's early numbers were artificially inflated by playing in Coors Field, and that maybe he's not an American League player.
One executive scoffed at that this week, though, praising Holliday for being among the hardest workers he's ever seen.
"Whatever time you get to the ballpark in the afternoon, Matt Holliday is already there," the executive said. "He's always doing something. Always. Riding the bike. Lifting weights. He takes extra batting practice every day. Sometimes I think he cares too much."
Holliday said last summer that he thoroughly was enjoying his time in St. Louis and would love to return. Mozeliak believes that's genuine. The Cards GM also reiterated that the club's level of interest in Holliday remains high.
"The players we gave up to get him were a high cost," Mozeliak said. "And, more importantly, we thought it was a very good fit for us, what he brought to our club."
The Cardinals also were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs with Holliday, though that point wasn't brought up by Boras.
"It all boils down to last year we had one club that made a commitment to a franchise player and they won a world championship," the agent said, referring, of course, to the Yankees and Teixeira. "That's because they had an infrastructure and they made the right decision in the right place.
"It turned out to be an excellent decision for them both baseball-wise and economically, and I think of Matt Holliday as another player like that in this marketplace where you have a franchise player out there at a young age and you have a chance to really differentiate yourself as a franchise from all others and you'll see how many teams are going to be involved in it."
And if the Giants, for example, swing away from Bay and toward Holliday, Boras said that the possibility of playing in a park that is less friendly to hitters really wouldn't affect his man.
"You've got to remember that Matt Holliday is a great hitter," Boras said. "He's not necessarily a home run hitter. Being a gap hitter and the way he can run and score runs and drive in runs, Matt's value is based upon RBI and runs scored and runs produced.
"His OPS has always been very high, in the .900s, and ... he's always had the ability to drive a baseball. So him playing in a variety of ballparks, unlike a power hitter who may need more geometric variables to his favor for his production. ..."
Works, in other words.
At least, in Boras' negotiating world.
The picture of Mozeliak sitting in a chair in a corner of the lobby, taking a momentary load off, was apropos. It's going to be awhile before these negotiations conclude.
"I do think one of the things I learned this past year is, April 1 isn't necessarily your club," the Cards GM said. "I think there's always time to still get to where you need to go. I look at the past few off-seasons, there've been acquisitions made in January, February, March, and they can still help you be productive.
"I don't feel if we don't have what we need by, say, Dec. 20 we're in a state of going backwards. You can always get better, and there are always avenues to do so."
