IF the rumors of the 4 year 44 million deal that was bandied about with Philly are anything close to true, the I simply refuse to believe that the best deal Boras could find for Madsen was a 6 million offer from Cincy.
My guess is that Madsen targetted the Reds and was willing to leave a lot of money on the table in order to play here. Sometimes, it is not all about the bird in the hand when it comes to money.
Think about it... if you are a closer who thinks you are the best (and you want a LTC that reflects that), the only way to prove it is to get a ton of saves. That means you are looking for a team with a the following:
1. A strong rotation. With the addittion of Latos, we are now defintely approaching top tier.... but more importantly,
2. A rotation not known for complete games. We have a bunch of guys that can go 7, and that means you also want
3. Dependable set up men that will protect leads in the 8th inning and we now have the very best in baseball in Marshall, but you also want
4. A team that plays excellent defense... you do not want to have any outs given away in the 9th and even unearned runs still cause blown saves, but you will also need
5. A manager that users a closer just about every time he can no matter what (Dusty) and finally
6. A team with a dependable but not blowout stlye offense. We are not a team that scores more than 6 all that often, we have morphed from the boom or bust era of the Griffey/Dunn offense to one that is consistently in the 3-6 run range.
I do not think any other team is such a perfect setup for a closer looking for the best opportunity to strut his stuff. I think Madsen plans on getting 45+ saves this year and securing that huge paycheck next year.
