Official "React Viscerally and Joyfully to Carlos Beltran's Laughable Failure" Thread

Actually, that's not true. He was planning on signing with the Astros, but chose the Mets at the last moment ($$$$$$$). His wife wanted him to sign with Houston. (Guess he didn't listen to her.)

 

Do you know this first-hand through your sources? Otherwise, I trust nothing about the whole "negotiation" we had with him... not even the little stuff that was strategically leaked to the media, our to inside sources, to keep the Astros in the game.

 

This info came from Beltran's "personal handler", which was in turn relayed to me through my source. (As for credibility, my source broke the Beltran to Houston trade before anyone else knew.)

 

Pretty good source... *sigh* why are we still living in 2004

 

Yea... I remember that.

But how do we know Beltran's personal handler wasn't tipped off by Beltran/Boras/etc. to do what he did? Justice was feeding a lot of "inside info" as well, that could have come from him.

The whole thing could have been staged... and it wouldn't have been that hard to pull off.

 

The only person who has talked about the idea that Beltran screwed us is Drayton, who we know has been criticized by multiple Astros players in the past for his handling of contracts (Kile, Bagwell, Biggio at the minimum). Everything else points to what VecseySux said. So while it's possible that it happened the way Drayton said it does, from what we know about Beltran's personality, and the fact that Boras, while an extremely annoying & money-grubbing agent, has never pulled something like that before, it's a pretty hard case to make.

My guess is the reality is somewhere in-between the Drayton version and the Boras version.

 

So, you're telling me Boras was using sound ethical principles when he was telling Tom Hicks that another team was willing to offer 200+million for Alex Rodriguez? (when in reality, the Braves were offering closer to $120 million).

Oh, he's done it before... in fact that situation played out worse than this one... the team got his player, and he STILL screwed them over.

The very second the Mets were granted a visit to Beltran in Puerto Rico, whereas the Astros were told "don't come to us, we'll come to you", the writing should have been on the wall...

 

Totally different situation. He didn't go out and convince some other team they were signing him. No team got screwed over the way the Astros supposedly did. The Rangers were willing to pay that price, so that's fine.

The Rangers didn't get screwed. They made the decision that A-Rod was worth $25MM. That was their own stupidity.

Fair enough - that's great in hindsight, but clearly no one felt that way at the time. The question is whether Boras lied to and/or misled the Astros and pulled out at the last minute. Until then, they were upfront that they were negotiating with multiple teams - nowhere did they ever tell the Astros they were going to sign with Houston. Drayton certainly thought that he was, but Drayton is a naturally optimistic person so that's not surprising.

 

I never said they pulled out at the last minute... I'm saying that the only reason they were negotiating with us in the first place is to create a market for Beltran.

It has been documented that Boras calls Steinbrenner at the 11th hour, and offers him a "cheaper" deal for Beltran, and they passed (the Yankees said this, not Boras). Had the Mets not been there, the Astros would have technically been the only team vying for his services.

But, Boras routinely tells teams that there are "8-10 other teams in the running", when that usually isn't the case. He also tells teams they will get a fair shot at signing a player... I don't believe that was the case here. Beltran so badly wanted to be a Yankee, there were rumors that he already had a book deal lined up about his first season in the bronx (this all comes out after he signs with the Mets, obviously). I also recall that during the "negotiation", Boras said that the Angels, Cubs, and thee other teams IN ADDITION to the Yankees and Astros are in the running (btw, the Yankees never made an offer for Beltran... how could they be "in the running?").... none of this was the case.

He's a great agent... he did his job like he was supposed to... I'm just not going to buy into the "well, Beltran really wanted to come to Houston, but they didn't love him enough." argument. I agree that the truth is somewhere in between, but I really believe that he wanted to go to a NY team all along.

 

Knowing what we know now, it would have been pretty cool after that moment, the Astros said to hell with you and your client, leaving the Mets as the ONLY team in the race for Beltran and giving them, not Boras, all the power.

 

The Astros would have been crucified by both the media, and the fans... especially since Boras/Beltran would have likely said "they were in the running, I don't know why they backed out." (hell, they DID say this publicly during the negotiations, and afterwards... it may have even been true, on some small level.) Who knows what happens if the Astros back out... the damage to everybody's psyche may have been so severe that it prevents them from going to the World Series that year.

Also, Boras would never tell the Mets that they were the only team in the race. The media was told constantly that several teams were in the running... including the Yankees (who never offered him a deal), and the Angels (who had signed Steve Finley). In the end, only two teams actually made offers for Beltran... the Astros and the Mets.

The whole "dance" was done strictly because of the Yankees. He really wanted to be in pinstripes, and frankly I bet Boras/Beltran were shocked that the Yankees "couldn't afford" the cheaper contract offer Boras was giving them at the last second (in reality, Steinbrenner was fed-up with the likes of hot young free agents like Giambi, etc. back then... hence them trading for a proven veteran, Randy Johnson).

In the end, he "settled" for the lesser NY team... in no small part due to Omar Minaya. They could have let us off the hook, or told us which way they were leaning, but that wouldn't have been good for Beltran (looking at it from his point of view).

Them blaming the "no trade" clause as the only reason why they didn't sign was really silly (and the only thing that made me "angry" about the whole situation)... especially after the Yankees told everybody how Boras was pleading with them to sign Beltran.

 

Hence why I said knowing what we know now. Nobody would have been upset because we would all know Boras/Beltran were playing us.

Even so, it seemed pretty obvious that despite all the teams being thrown out there, the only ones getting any serious play were the Yankees, Mets and Us. And of course like you said the Yankees never really offered him a contract and seemingly dropped out of the race long before the 11th hour approached. In fact, as I recall it basically had come down to the Mets and the Astros, which is why Boras kept feeding us that BS so as to drive Beltran's price up higher...so in hindsight, we don't bite, that leave's the Mets, despite whatever crap Boras tries to pull out of his hat. I think the power would have shifted and the Mets could have lowballed him; teams learned from the Ranger's mistakes, which is why in reality there wasn't a huge bidding war for him.

 

WHAT? No, man... that was the series against the Cardinals a year before, not the year of the World Series. We've gone to the World Series only once, and that was WITHOUT Beltran. Beltran had NOTHING to do with it. If we would have traded him somewhere and got GREAT players for him, then maybe he would have something to do with it.