If Juan Gonzalez had accepted Arbitration, what wo

[Alex]

Well, somebody had to ask.

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Alex

[Bye!]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Alex:
Well, somebody had to ask.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I brought that up once before. I'm sure Dolan and Shapiro were sweating it. They gambled and won. I think they felt that Moorad was too much of an ego-maniac to accept arbitration. In this case, Shapiro's instincts were good.

Moorad and Juan blew it. I believe they could have gotten a $15 million dollar deal in arbitration - and if I'm not mistaken, no money is deferred in arbitration deals.

What would Shapiro have done if they had accepted? Probably traded Omar too, and maybe he wouldn't have asked for Lawton in the trade. He definitely wouldn't have signed Ricky.


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[Ytown Tribe fan]

It wasn't much of a gamble. They KNEW that Moorad wouldn't advise his client to accept it, even if it was in his client's best interests.

Juan could have fired Moorad though, and gone with an agent who was actually trying to help him -- that was the gamble. But players never fire their agents during the Fall and Winter when they're looking for work. They wait til after they've signed a crappy contract to do so.

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[Alex]

That's not the point, the point is we had already done the Alomar deal.

What would Shapiro have had to do get the budget to an acceptable level.

Perhaps that premature 2 million dollar payout to Juan was a "Quid just go" payoff. Instead of waiting a year or two for the 2 million dollars, Juan agreed to not seek arbitration in exchange for getting it now.

Hey, would that be some kind of ethics "violation"?

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Alex

[Mr. October]

Alex - Do you know why the FO offered arbitration to Gonzalez?

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[i'm castor troy]

If Juan accepted arbitration, I believe the front office would have just bitten the bullet.

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Buttafucco is Inuendo

[Alex]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mr. October:
Alex - Do you know why the FO offered arbitration to Gonzalez?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure do, because they knew Juan wouldn't accept arbitration, and they would be get some draft picks.

But that is not the focus of my question.

And frankly, the one way the F.O. would be 100% guaranteed Juan would say no was probably via paying is 2 million dollar deferral right away.

This really should be investigated.

This type of transaction, if it happened the way I am laying out, is unethical and it probably is illegal, I'm not saying this happened, but it sure looks like it could have been a motivating factor.

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Alex

[UK Tribe]

The early payment of the $2m was in exchange for Juan revoking a clause in his deal preventing him from being offered arbitration.

At the time he signed the deal the prediction was that he'd get at least 4 years, $60m and he didn't want to put off potential suitors by them having to give up draft picks.

Then Moorad saw the market soften and decided arbitration would be a good thing and negociated the early payment in exchange for the draft picks the tribe would get.

This caused a huge amount of speculation that Juan might stay (on this forum for example) and was an attempt at creating some competition for Juan's deal. There may have been a handshake that he wouldn't take arbitration but I don't consider that immoral and doubt if it's illegal.

No investigation needed.

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[The Crank]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by i'm castor troy:
If Juan accepted arbitration, I believe the front office would have just bitten the bullet.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No. Somewhere, I believe in a Pluto column, Shapiro is on record as saying that salary would have to habve been trimmed elsewhere. Dolan gave Shapiro a budget and Dolan was not going to go beyond that budget for Gonzo two years running.

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[*TR]

The Tribe never HAD to cut costs. They made money last year. Dolan thinks they didn't make enough. It's a totally arbitrary decision by a cheap owner.

[This message has been edited by *TR (edited February 01, 2002).]