“One of the reasons that I didn’t sign with Boston was they don’t offer full no-trade clauses,” Teixeira said. “I would hate, personally as a father and a husband, I would hate to uproot my family here in New York and get traded somewhere else. That’d be devastating. I could play baseball anywhere, really, but to have to uproot your family, that would be really tough. And Boston doesn’t give full no-trade clauses. This is what could happen.”
In the two years before signing that eight-year deal with the Yankees, Teixeira had been traded twice, so he went into that offseason fully aware of what it meant to be moved midseason.
“I tell people, the last two years before free agency, I was a gypsy,” he said. “I lived all over the place. So it’s not easy, it really isn’t, and that was one of the big reasons that I wanted a full no-trade clause.”
That no-trade clause, and the comfort in knowing that he won’t be part of a Red Sox-type blockbuster, has brought some comfort and stability.
“I have never once questioned my decision to come here,” Teixeira said. “This is the most amazing place to play baseball. Living in New York is unbelievable. But I’ll be honest with you, a no-trade clause helps because your family can set roots. You know that if you have a bad game, they’re not going to trade you. You know that even if your team might have a bad stretch, they’re not going to look at you as, ‘Oh, you’re the reason why. We’re getting rid of you.’ This is a tough business, and whether that trade goes through or not, just the fact that they’re talking about getting rid of three guys they committed to just shows that it’s all about winning. It’s not show-friends, it’s show-business.”
Repoz
Posted: August 25, 2012 at 11:55 AM |
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1. Infinite Joost (Voxter)And we wonder why players usually choose not to voice their honest opinions in public.
Should fit in nicely here.
In one of the threads on the blockbuster, someone posted that that this went away two CBAs ago. The current CBA is here (PDF). The section on assignment of contracts starts on page 78.
As this trade shows, if your no-trade protected player is miserable, he'll probably okay a deal.
Vox, if your folks could have gotten a guarantee from their employer that they wouldn't be moved every few years, I suspect they'd have jumped at it.
I thought it was because his wife liked NY better. He's so lucky the Yankees have A-Rod to take a brunt of the abuse there, or else a .250 hitting first baseman making his salary would likely get a lot more grief than he does when things go bad.
EDIT: Guess not. Have a Coke on me, CoB!
My point was simply that even if all 3 of these players had had full no trade clauses, this trade would still have happened: 2 of them waived no-trade protection that they did in fact have to LA, and the third is going home to Southern California. It's a complete non-factor in this situation.
edit...re-reading your post, you weren't going the way I originally thought. Never mind. You're on the same page.
Two reasons:
1. Some people here hate Teixiera.
2. Some people here love to tell players to get off their lawns.
1) Tex is going out of his way to point out what a smart guy he was.
2) Tex, after spurning the Sox felt the need to put them down some more.
3) Tex got a better deal in NY money-wise, so he never really had to make a choice about whether to hold out for a no trade.
4) Gonzalez wasn't really in a position to negotiate an NTC because he was not a free agent. It was pretty much either take $154 mil or wait a year with a bum shoulder.
5) Tex's face.
But I could never quite put my finger on it...as to why.
5) Tex's face.
Now I can.
Loaf pincher.
Man always looks like he's busting a grumpy ...
Mrs. McGunnigle's family moved at least once every two years for about three decades. It was very damaging; the kids are all ###### up in one way or another.
I understand Teixeira's comments, but what percentage of MLB players have no-trade provisions? Most players in their 30s are bouncing around a lot; very few have 10 and 5 rights or better than a limited no-trade. My guess is that the Yankees would be the team with the most players with no trade provisions. According to Cots, the only Yankees with full no-trade are A-Rod, Jeter, Rivera, Sabathia, and Kuroda. Checking a couple of other teams... No Rangers have a full no-trade (though Young has 10 and 5 rights), and on the White Sox Danks has full no-trade for 2012 only and that's it (Pierzynski and Knoerko have 10 and 5 rights). No Phillies have full no-trade, but Halladay and Howard have "most favored nation no-trade protection" (meaning they get no-trade protection equal to the best contract on the team).
The Cardinals have a lot of full no-trades: Holliday, Beltran, Lohse, Berkman, Jake Westbrook, Yadier Molina.
The point is that full no-trade is relatively unusual.
I lived in about 20 places by the time I was in my mid-30's.
Can't say how "damaging" it was (when I was a kid I just assumed you were supposed to move a lot), but it's still weird now to think about being in one place for a long time.
"... especially in light of the fact that Ca$hman was willing to write me the biggest check."
It's only a non-factor because the guys who did have some no-trade protection decided they did in fact want to go to the other team. Tex is saying that, when he was a free agent, it was important to him to be granted the same authority from his new team, and claiming that part of the reason he didn't go to Boston was because he wouldn't have gotten such a say. Whether that claim is BS, and it was all bout the $$$, I leave to more knowledgeable people to determine. But any big trade like this could prompt a well-paid slugger to say, "I'm glad if a team ever wants to do this to me, it's up to me whether or not I go," which is what he seems to be saying here.
Seems to me #20 has it pretty much right.
Not even close to the same situation. Unless your parents were in the military, they actually chose to move. Being a professional athlete and a soldier are the only professions where one can be forced to move across the country against one's will. That's not a small or inconsequential thing. Even if you work for a company that transfers you, you have the option of finding another job with another company in the same field. Ballplayers don't have that option because MLB has a monopoly and is the only place they can practice their profession.
Tex is finishing his 10th year but just 4th in NY. Given players have no control over where they play in their first 6 years, the only way to become 10/5 eligible in your 10th year is to re-sign with your year 6 team. I suppose that's part of the point of 10/5 but it doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent. Given the realities of the baseball labor marketplace, it just seems anachronistic.
Presumably if players wanted greater no-trade protection, they could bargain for it in the CBA by giving the owners something else of value. Presumably that isn't happening because owners value the added ease of transferring contracts that not requiring player consent provides (rightly or wrongly) more than the union values geographic stability ( at least up to a certain point).
I guess 5 years is long enough to assume you've put down roots, and early-mid thirties (around the time most players have 10 years service time) old enough to have a significant number of roots dug in pretty deep (multiple, older children).
They don't get it back, they keep it. It's in the contract. The contract cannot be assigned without the player's consent. That means every time, unless a contract is written specifically to make it a one time thing, which I kinda doubt.
EDIT: 10/5 rights OTOH, are gone once a player accepts a trade, for a rather obvious reason.
Or a perfectly understandable reaction to his face.
Now this is the sort of well-reasoned analysis people come to this site for. "I don't like this guy cuz his face."
Teixiera's backpfeifengesicht is irrefutable, though. It is a force unto itself.
Military yes. But how does a professional athlete differ from any other employee in this regard?
When was the last time GM traded an engineer to Ford?
Perhaps never, but people get transferred to other cities all the time. Like ballplayers, they either go, or quit.
Red Sox fans leaping at the opportunity to take offense to something.
Tex's comments are logical and understandable. With that said, didn't all three of the big names in the trade have to consent to this trade?
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