mtutiger

Late to dropping a comment, but Jimmie wasn't always the best color guy, but I grew to appreciate him more toward the end..... he had been there basically every step of the way in terms of my fanhood. He'll be missed greatly.

Yeah, I don't think Harris is getting enough credit for taking the arrows on this. Obviously some will come back and say "he shouldn't get credit, that's his job".... OTOH, his predecessor was fine with making excuses.

There was, although that seemed more speculation by the beat writers than anything vetted through a serious legal analysis. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Tigers know more about what happened than what any of us do. If they were fine letting him come back with no strings attached or were fine "giving him a pass", I'll defer to their judgment. The bigger problem, IMO, is the poor communication that happened at the deadline. And as much as people can yammer on about "players rights" and all, in the real world, going back on a decision like that generally comes with long term consequences.

Ladies and gents... I present to you the mainstream, Rich Lowry-approved, alternative candidate

A couple of points: Other teams that were suitors for ERod's services may well have been on that no-trade list.... by taking those teams off the table, perhaps it limited the amount of options they had to deal him off even more than we realize. How often are deals actually killed via a no-trade clause? They appear to be mostly used as leverage for players to extract more out of teams, but I honestly cannot recall a similar incident of a player actually killing a deal like this. Even if ERod's a headcase, I'm not sure that, in and of itself, you just limit yourself for an event that is unlikely to occur and yes, I doubt very few, including the fans who are currently the loudest about how this went down anticipated this playing out this way. If there weren't other teams who were making acceptable offers or providing the value that the Dodgers appeared to have been willing to provide, why not make the 'calculated risk' to go for the best possible return as opposed to just accepting something that team considered substandard?

Yeah, I'd be fine with him opting in. I'll still cheer for him and wish him success as long as he's a Tiger. But as far as extending or giving him more money, after reading Rosenthal's article, he can go find that somewhere else as far as I'm concerned.

Because the Dodgers were heavily involved in the JV sweepstakes (and presumably would not have traded for ERod if they had won the JV sweepstakes), I'm not sure how easy this would have been to get done earlier in this case.

Thinking of Baltimore, who was often thought of as an alternate destination and who completed the Jack Flaherty deal shortly after it was revealed that the ERod deal was dead, I'd be surprised if that deal wasn't completed or well on it's way to be completed by the time ERod changed his mind at the 11th hour as well. Assuming that the reported timeline of events is accurate.

Yup.

This is fair as well, I just think there was so much focus on assigning blame over the past 24 hours that people really weren't thinking about how to explain what happened. Why it all happened. This is kinda what bothers me.... it doesn't matter if it's Harris or Avila or whoever, just looking at the outcome and assigning blame while not thinking about the process that lead to said outcome and understanding it misses the mark IMO Rosenthal provided at least some additional context, that at least one other avenue was explored (via three way trade) and that the market, past LA, may not have been as robust for ERod's services.

Rosenthal's piece spreads the blame around as opposed to just entirely sticking it to Scott Harris, so I suspect that may be what he's getting at.

The fact that the reality may be more complicated than what came out of the initial reaction to this happening by Tigers fans does not inherently make it suspicious, no. And Gene Mato's statement last night, at least in my view, would suggest that Rosenthal's reporting isn't that far off what actually happened (if at all)

LOL at the social media comments about ERod being a winner because he got to use the clause. Using the clause he negotiated is one thing.... not being a good faith actor is another completely. He crossed the line into the latter, from all indication.

In retrospect, the fact that Gene Mato released a statement on Twitter last night was perhaps PR to get ahead of this story getting out.

Those comments from the other GMs are sour grapes.... if even just one team is willing to pay the price, that validates the price IMO

Rosenthal's write up was pretty fair, and with the discussion of possible three-team trade discussion, it kinda blows a hole into the hole "tunnel-vision" plot line. I do take issue with his comment about the criticism for just selling him for a lower price being less than Seidel's blistering criticism; I absolutely could see him being taken to the woodshed by the writers/fan base if he wasn't perceived as returning the kind of value that they believed ERod was worth.

In terms of stature and payroll, the Dodgers are in a different category than some of the other clubs that were linked to ERod. It is possible they were uniquely suited and more willing to take on the contract and whatever risk came with it than Baltimore or Cincinnati were.

Possibly, but it depends on what other teams were offering for his services. I dont have that information

I would imagine that Harris may have a philosophy of not accepting pennies on the dollar in a trade as well

I dont think he didn't trade ERod because of what teams think about him. I dont think that enters his mind at all. But I do think that teams shouldn't just trade their pieces for pennies on the dollar just for the sake of trading either. And with what we know and has been reported, that is potentially what they were looking at, although we will likely never know for sure.

Maybe, but the two teams most commonly connected to ERod behind the Dodgers (BAL, CIN, neither one known for carrying large payrolls) are both teams who may be less interested in assuming the risks of taking on that contract. Which undoubtedly would have an impact on the return

I mean, it depends on if we are talking a little less or a lot less, doesn't it?

This argument could have been used to justify the JD Martinez trade, fwiw.

If we're being honest, Seidel is just giving the people what they want.

One imagines that there are few decisions that a baseball executive makes that dont come with some level of risk.