And Then There was 1…
This afternoon, the Met’s reached an agreement with Jason Bay, affirming what has been speculated for the past few weeks. With the larger market teams unwilling to offer Bay the 5th year and extra money he was asking for, the potential landing spots for the left fielder shrunk considerably and resulted in only one serious offer on the table. Now that Bay is taken, all the attention is on Matt Holliday.
Widely considered to be the best OF’er in the free agent pool, Matt Holliday’s asking price is somewhere in the $15-$16 million a year for 5 or 6 years range. Now that Holliday is the only top OF’er in the free agent pool, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bit more urgency from St. Louis to sign him, but did Holliday leave the best offer on the table because he wanted to be patient?
According to multiple sources, prior to the Sox signing Lackey, they offered Holliday a 5 year, $83-$85 million dollar contract. That was the highest offer he has seen this off-season, but has since been rescinded following the addition of John Lackey and Mike Cameron. If Holliday and his super-agent Scott Boras were holding out for the most money this off-season, they may have waited too long and missed out on an opportunity to come to Boston.
Most likely Holliday will sign with the Cardinals within the next week or so. He likes playing in St. Louis and seems to respond well to working with new hitting coach Mark McGuire. If he isn’t playing for the Sox, it’s best he stays in the National League far, far away.
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You say, “Matt Holliday’s asking price is somewhere in the $15-$16 million a year for 5 or 6 years range…” but he already turned down (according to Buster Olney) the Red Sox $82.5 million offer (16.5 million at 5 years) before the Lackey signing.
The Cardinals reportedly offered 5-8 years (depending on the report) at approx 16.5/year, so you’d imagine it would take more years and money to draw him off that offer…
Boras has been publicly calling for his value to be 8 guaranteed years at the Teixeira price range.
December 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pmThanks for the comment Wil E. I used the phrase asking price when I meant what he will probably get. They turned down the Sox offer for 5 years 82.5 million because he wanted 6 years and was holding out in hopes more money and competition would arise, but instead most teams have ducked out of the race. Boras has been calling for the 8 guaranteed, but the realistic length of a contract will probably be 6 years.
December 29th, 2009 at 8:31 pmHe’ll be signing for more money than 15 or 16/year. Been keeping up on the news? Yeah. Bay (the less coveted player) signed for $16.5MM/year setting the benchmark for Holliday’s contract.
He’ll make more/year the shorter the contract is, essentially. At 5 years he’ll likely average $18-19 million, at 8 years it could drop to as low as 17 million/year.
December 31st, 2009 at 2:53 amAnd then there were none?
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/43638BC021CF8727862576A1006859FE?OpenDocument
17 million/year at 7 years… I hate being right all the time…
January 5th, 2010 at 5:43 pmGood call Wil E, I was thinking his salary would drop a bit due to the lack of competition, but I was wrong. Should have known that Boras wouldn’t let that happen. Thanks for reading!
January 6th, 2010 at 2:32 pm