All my posts are my opinion - just like yours are. If I forget to state it and you're too dense to see the obvious, look here!
It's clear that Jeter is on the decline but I wonder if some here aren't underestimating him slightly. He had a bad year this year but a genuinely fantastic (at least offensively) 2009 -- probably his best year of the decade or at least since 2001. He's durable. If he can eventually end up in the outfield he's a player worth paying for (not for six years though).
Payments are skewed when you talk about the Yankees; any free agent is going to expect more from them than other teams. So I don't know that they'll find comparable quality for that much less than $15 a year. Conversely, although no other team will pay Jeter what the Yankees will, he's still a better option than a lot of teams have in front of them.
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
The problem with you logic is you aren't just paying him for next season. Your paying him for next season as well as 2014. The key question is how much longer will Jeter be productive? He really isn't a SS right now but in all likelihood he isn't going to move off SS anytime soon. I don't think anyone is suggesting that Jeter wouldn't be worth his keep next season, just it gets dicey heading forward.
Not only that but he's worth more to the Yankees than he's worth to any other team. If Jeter wants to go elsewhere and someone like HOU says they would like to have him but only at $10M a year, he's going to have to think awful long and hard about it. In NY, Jeter can play SS until he's in a wheelchair. He's their captain and leader. He also swings a decent bat. When he retires, he can pretty much write his own ticket. I see talk show host in his future. He won't be able to do that in HOU or SD or StL.
ESPN New York ran a piece today that said, should the Yankees negotiation implode completely, Jeter could be in line to receive an offer with the Dodgers that would reunite him with Torre.
If by "implode", you mean the Yankees pull their offer, then yes, Jeter will probably get several offers, that will be about 4-5 million for a couple tears. But as long as Yankees offer is on the table, no team will get in. Yankees are already offering about 3 times he would be worth on open market.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
The Yankees are worth far more to Jeter than he is to the Yankees.
In the short term, the Yankees will face a minor fan uproar, with a few poorly written columns that will play humorously in the Deadspins and The Big Leads. But in the end it will mean nothing to their bottom line. They'll continue to sell tickets and print money with their YES Network broadcasts and sponsorship.
The Yankees have had lifetime Yanks before. They'll have lifetime Yanks again in the future. If Jeter takes a deal with another team, he becomes just another player who left the Yankees for 'greener' pastures.
The Yankees' obligation here was to offer a respectable deal to keep him in pinstripes. They've done that. Following next week's winter meetings, it will be clear to Jeter and his representation the landscape that they are facing. And when that picture crystallizes, they'll be left the prospects of salvaging his reputation to 'settle' for the Yanks' offer. I suspect the Yanks will give a little in the form of a 'lifetime' contract' that will be in essence four years at $15m-15m-15m-12m.
I read an article the other day that mentioned the Cardinals as a possible player for Jeter. I don't think the Cards have even considered making an offer for Jeter, and they have no reason to. The Cards were burned last time they signed a Yankee favorite. The Cards need to focus on signing Pujols to a LTC...not bringing in an overrated Yankee.
There's no way Jeter and LaRussa could co-exist in the same dugout.
Grape works as a soda. Sort of as a gum. I wonder why it doesn't work as a pie. Grape pie? There's no grape pie. - Larry David
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