Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 22, 2005
One More Year

Here's a more complete take on Roger Clemens returning to the Astros. The conventional wisdom was that Roger wouldn't come back unless the Astros signed Beltran. Looks like that was one-sided.

Clemens said Carlos Beltran's decision to sign a seven-year, $119 million contract with the Mets rather than remain with Houston helped persuade him to play one more year. Clemens said he was "a little depressed" after Beltran spurned the Astros because he worried how that would adversely impact the team.

But Clemens the pitcher said he realized he was thinking like Clemens the fan. And once he began thinking like a player again, he was intrigued about the challenge of helping out his jilted hometown team one more time.

"No knock to Carlos, but he didn't do a whole lot," Clemens said. "I mean, he was a tremendous player in September. We needed everybody. He was unbelievable in the playoffs. Everybody saw it. The nation saw it. But who's to say we're not going to have another one of those guys step up and do it for us again?"

And it looks like the fans had a big impact as well:

Still, Clemens tried yesterday to distance himself from the hefty salary and joked about his phone "blowing up" with playful messages about his arbitration figure. It was not about money, Clemens said. It was about deciding if he could drag his body through another draining season. He said he thought he could.

"The dollars never persuaded me to play or not to play," Clemens said.

Clemens said he received a call from Randy Hendricks, one of his agents, on Thursday telling him that the Astros were pushing to make a deal. That is when Clemens consulted with his wife, his mother and his four sons. That is also when, Clemens said, he thought about what happened as he received an award at a Houston Texans football game this season.

"There were 60,000 people yelling, 'One more year!' " Clemens said. "That stuck with me."

If you ask for $22 million, it's a bit about the money. :-)


Posted by David Pinto at 09:09 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

If it wasn't about the money, he'd play for $5 million and tell the Astros to use the rest to add salary to improve the team. I've read many times that Clemens was a very selfish player, and as unintelligent as they come.

The idea of asking for $22 million and then saying it's not about the money doesn't exactly tell me Roger cares about a thing other than the cash. Nothing wrong with that, but there's no use denying it.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2005 11:48 AM

Maybe Roger fel that since the Astro's didn't have to pay all that money to Carlos, they had a bit more for him.

Posted by: Robert at January 22, 2005 01:01 PM

as jim rome says
"when an athlete says its not about the money.....its about the money"

Posted by: Brandon at January 22, 2005 10:31 PM

Except that Jim Rome is an ass - one of the biggest ones I've seen in a long time.

Posted by: sabernar at January 22, 2005 10:47 PM

It's worth noting that (it seems to me) Carlos Delgado is the only major impact free agent left at the time of Clemens' deal (and he plays Bagwell's position). I don't pay close attention to the Astros' roster, but if Clemens left several millions on the table, who's left now for the Astros to spend it on? Obviously they could add depth with another 5 million or more to spend, which can help, but are there obvious upgrades available to them to spend the money on at this point?
If Clemens "held up" the Astros for this kind of salary at the beginning of the free agent season instead of at this point in the offseason, I'd be considerably more receptive to the "selfish" argument. He gave them a discount last year. I imagine he plays for fun, for the challenge, and the money is symbolic of fairness. The pay he settled on is not out of line with his elite peers, given that it is a one year, not a multi-year deal. If the money's not going to go to be spent on improving the team, it might as well go in his pocket as the owners.
I don't think he's going to be worth 18 million next year for performance on the field, but it seems to be clear that he attracted a lot of extra fans last year and generated extra millions in revenue.

Posted by: joe arthur at January 23, 2005 10:35 AM

Having that extra cash on hand might let the team make a trade for a body between now and spring training, or even during the season.

Larry

Posted by: Larry Macdonald at January 24, 2005 12:18 AM
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