April 20, 2008
Spinning Age
The Athletics front office, in the wake of the Miguel Tejada birthday change, tries to make it seem like age doesn't matter:
In other words, Tejada's age wasn't a big deal to the A's, except possibly when they signed him in 1993 as a teen out of the Dominican. He was much more signable at 17 than 19.
As to letting Tejada leave as a free agent, general manager Billy Beane said, "For us, losing players is not a function of age, but a function of the size of contract."
This is a team that calculated the monetary value of every ball in play. This is a team that knows the worth of every minor league player in North America. The know the exact value of age, and that certainly goes into their evaluation of what is the correct size of a contract. Nice try, Mr. Beane.
Posted by David Pinto at
09:04 AM
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It's not just Beane; everyone in baseball tries to sell the line that it doesn't matter. Yes, it matters, and anyone who works in baseball knows that. A couple of years makes a huge difference in the likely career path of a player.
I'm not sure who or what they are trying to protect. Do they not want to admit that they were duped? Are they trying to avoid conflict with a player? (This would excuse Ed Wade, but not Billy Beane.)
Or possibly, as with PED's, baseball was at least tacitly complicit in Age-gate. After all, if you're signing players to big contracts, wouldn't it be worth your while to do a little research? "Due diligence," anyone? Perhaps baseball execs are trying to excuse or downplay an apparent case of negligence on their part.