On Wednesday, Betts said he does not "expect anything to happen until I'm a free agent" (after the 2020 season), but he also would not rule out the chance that he and the Red Sox would agree on a deal.
You should definitely keep your ears open and see what is said. But that doesn't mean you necessarily have to agree on or take whatever is given. Like I said, I love it here. I think this is great place to be to spend your career here. But that doesn't mean you should sell yourself short. I'm under no pressure to do anything. It's OK for two sides to disagree. It's perfectly fine. It's normal. Like I said, I've got two more years. I'm going to make the best of them. I've got to work on year one right here, go out and do my best to help the team win. Also next year, it's one of those things where it's all right to disagree.Betts signed a $20 million deal for this season in his second year of arbitration eligibility.
It's a good bet Blake Snell will not remain in a Rays uniform one second longer than he absolutely must. After leading the majors in ERA and winning the AL Cy Young Award, Snell received a raise of $5,500. (Snell also benefited from a $10,000 league-wide minimum salary hike.)
From Inside the Empire: The True Power Behind the New York Yankees, by Bob Klapisch and Paul Solotaroff, out next Tuesday:
[Brian] Cashman, like the three or four masters of his craft, is one part diplomat to two parts pickpocket. He can politely boost your watch and wallet and leave you thinking the heist was your idea. [Derek] Jeter's style, by contrast, is to dictate terms and expect you to glumly accept them. His first act after buying the Marlins was to pointlessly freeze out Stanton. ...
A thousand miles north, the Yankees looked on, appalled. "Derek's done a good job of pissing everyone off," said a member of the team's administration. "I'm sure the guys at MLB now are scratching their heads, thinking, 'What the fuck did we do by selecting him?'" ... [B]aseball's bosses got a celebrity who didn't seem to understand how relationships work at the executive level. ...
While Cashman insists that he liked Jeter as a player, it isn't entirely clear that he means it. ... Treated like a civic institution in New York — worshiped by the faithful ... and protected by the tabloid scolds who trolled other stars on Page Six — [Jeter] somehow remembered every slight and provocation. Jeter grew distant from writers who dared to notice that he couldn't get around on a good fastball. His initial coldness toward Alex RodrÃguez was as stark as it was cruel: there was that graceless moment in 2006 when a routine pop fly somehow fell between them. Jeter, hands on hips, glared daggers at A-Rod, emasculating him on national TV. ...
Nonetheless, Jeter wanted to get paid like the player he'd been in his middle twenties. In the fall of 2010, he became a first-time free agent at the age of thirty-six. He'd had a bad year at the plate and a worse one in the field, but he demanded a max contract into his forties. Cashman pushed back, declining to bargain against himself. The terms he set and stuck to — $51 million for three years — pricked Jeter's damaged pride. "Jetes sent messages through his agent that we were fucking him when no one was willing to pay what we offered," says Cashman. "I'm like, 'How much higher do we have to be than highest?'" He invited Jeter and his agent, Casey Close, to go out and shop the deal. Jeter returned to the table smarting; no one had come close to the Yankees' bid. ... "At the meeting, Derek said, 'What other shortstop would you want playing here?' and I started rolling off names," says Cashman. "I got, like, three names down and Casey said, 'Stop, this isn't productive.'" ...
God Mookie, can we love you any more????
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