Painting the Corners

by Bob Weintraub

  But Keenan rejected it every time, without even legitimizing the proposal through any discussion of its pros and cons. He knew from past encounters that Remy’s goal — his disposition in fact — was to pay as little as possible in every situation. “Reasonableness,” he recognized, was just another term the general manager used in trying to bring the price down. “No bargain-basement rates,” Keenan said. “No hometown discounts. Pay him what he’s worth today because it’s only going to be more tomorrow.”

  Once Remy came to grips with what it would cost to sign Orlando for another three years, he considered his options. Conceding the player’s value and agreeing to Keenan’s terms would make life a lot easier. It would resolve the matter at once and keep any pressure from building up as the schedule progressed. Every heroic at bat Orlando had that helped the team win games could make it more costly to sign him when the season was over. The problem was that the agent’s uncompromising demands would push player payroll for the following year right up to the line already drawn by the club’s ownership.

  Remy realized that factor wasn’t a complete stumbling block. He’d still have the chance to reduce payroll through trades or by not picking up the team’s options on certain players. But his experience wouldn’t let him rest comfortably with that sort of planning. Players with options on them had a strange way of suddenly producing results, turning their salaries for the next season into irresistible bargains. And potential trades might come along that would cost the team more money, but significantly improve its chances for a championship.

  His second choice was to treat the negotiations as ongoing and to stress for public consumption his continued desire to sign Orlando, but be ready to move him to another team before the trading deadline in July. Remy had actually been leaning in that direction for a while, having become disenchanted with his superstar over the winter for several reasons. It began when Orlando caused a stir while being interviewed on a local radio station during the World Series. He complained that the team hadn’t done enough during the season to bring in players who could win the big games. “We’d have had a shot at the Series ourselves with just a little more help,” he had said. “Sometimes you wonder how much management really cares about winning.”

  The sports talk show hosts had been all over Remy to respond, but he refused. He disliked almost every one of them and knew that appearing on any of their shows might only make matters worse. Instead, he instructed the club’s publicist to issue a statement pointing out that the team’s payroll was the sixth highest in all of baseball, demonstrating its commitment to putting a winner on the field.

  About a month after the interview, Orlando was arrested in California and charged with being present at a party where illegal drugs were confiscated. He pleaded innocent, and a public relations firm hired by Keenan took the offensive on his behalf. The charges against him were ultimately dropped when the district attorney couldn’t prove that he had any prior relationship with the men who supplied the drugs or that he knew they were being passed around that night. On the advice of the team’s general counsel, Remy had taken a “wait-and-see” attitude about it when the story first broke. Later, he was belittled by Orlando in the sports pages for not supporting him publicly from the outset.

  Remy was also disturbed by Orlando’s physical appearance at the Baseball Writers’ dinner in the middle of January. He guessed that his left fielder was at least twenty pounds overweight and in the worst shape he’d ever seen him. Watching him slowly move to the stage to receive an award, Remy began to fear that Orlando’s weight, if not kept in check, would quickly shorten his productive career. At a photographer’s insistence, the two of them posed for a picture together, but their mutual greeting had been cold when they first met that evening and there was no other conversation between them. Remy felt he was owed an apology and saw no reason to be cordial toward the player if one wasn’t forthcoming.

  Those incidents had forced Remy to think about whether it would be wise to sign Orlando for three more years. On a personal level, he didn’t appreciate criticism from anyone on the team regarding his efforts at putting together a contender, least of all from the player who commanded the most media attention. His position was that they should play the game, as they were paid to do, and keep their mouths shut about things that weren’t their business. He worried about Orlando’s statements causing a rift between himself and the owner who thus far had confined himself to the numbers side of the ball club he purchased three years earlier.

  But that aside, Remy also knew he had a limited amount of time to put together a team that could play its way into the World Series. Money purchased talent, and he wanted to be sure he didn’t waste a lot of it on Orlando if his superstar had peaked and was on the way down.

  Remy had spent more time than usual with the team during spring training. (It was while shagging flies in the outfield one afternoon that he slipped on some wet grass and tore the meniscus in his knee.) He wanted to get a close look at several players he hoped were ready to move up from the minor leagues, as well as the low-cost free agents he had signed over the winter. At first he was pleased to see that Orlando had been working on his own to get himself in condition. Some of the excess weight had disappeared and he was usually in the middle of the pack when the team was running wind sprints.

  As the players got ready to break camp and move north, Remy evaluated the team’s chances. He concluded that it was probably good for a third-place finish, still two years away from being a World Series contender. He also felt that signing Orlando to an expensive extension wouldn’t get them there any sooner. Although he suspected that most fans would be upset if he traded his left fielder during the season, Remy was sure he could get excellent prospects in return from a team that saw itself in the race for the playoffs. The idea appealed to him. His job was to bring a championship to the city, and he’d have to do what he thought best, whether or not it was a popular move.

  Remy’s third option that April day, as he heard Keenan extol his client’s valued presence in the clubhouse, was to let his left fielder play out his contract. He could then decide whether the team would bid for Orlando’s services before he filed for free agency, or even after he did. Remy recognized the gamble he’d be taking if Orlando had another good year. His price tag would go up even further and the club would be in danger of losing him to another team without getting any compensation in return.

  Keenan had finished talking. He sat almost motionless, his hands resting on the table, fingers intertwined. For once, it didn’t seem that he was negotiating while a cab waited for him outside, its meter ticking away.

  “Let’s break for lunch,” Remy said.

  “Sure. That’s fine,” Keenan answered. “But just 30 minutes, okay? I’ve got to get a plane out this afternoon.” The cab was back in the picture.

  Remy presented the three options to the team owner, Karl Vance, and solicited his input. Vance sat behind a large oak desk, arranged so that his chair was in a corner of the office. The shades in the room were drawn, the only light coming from the Tiffany-style desk lamp in front of him. His face was well tanned, almost to the point of having a cowboy’s leathered look, and he kept his hair short so that the gray moving in rapidly at his temples was less obvious. Vance was a no-nonsense kind of guy. He had made his fortune in software, and the millions he spent to acquire the team had come from the industry giant that purchased his company seven years earlier. At 55, he cared more about celebrity status than power. Remy had come to understand that the owner said what he meant and meant what he said.

  Vance put the ball right back in his general manager’s court. “You know what I did whenever I was faced with several lousy options, Paul?” he said. “I always tried to figure out the least miserable choice and then went with it. In my opinion, signing him now would be that choice.” But then he hurried to add, “That’s what I’d do, but you’re the baseball man and I count on you to make the right decisions.”

  Remy bare
ly had time to finish the sandwich and orange he’d brought from home that morning before Keenan returned. While eating, he decided to rely on what he had seen in Florida and not press to negotiate a contract extension for his left fielder with Keenan. Orlando had hit only two home runs in the exhibition games and was still overweight with the season ready to get underway. At the end of spring training, Remy comforted himself with the fact that he could trade him before the deadline if the right deal came along. It would be easier to justify the move to the media and fans if Orlando’s performance was below average during the season, as he suspected it would be. But if a trade didn’t materialize, Remy felt he could persuade Vance to pay Keenan’s price for the player’s services when the season was over, either before or after Orlando became a free agent.

  “It’s your call,” Keenan told him as Remy balked at Orlando’s price tag and their meeting came to an abrupt end. He picked up his papers, put them in his Coach portfolio and walked to the door. “I think you’re going to regret it,” he said, and left. “Asshole,” he mumbled, going down the stairway.

  * * *

  When he drove out of the ballpark on July 4th, an hour after his team had scored four runs in its half of the ninth to steal a victory, Paul Remy found himself in a quandary. Much to everyone’s surprise, his club was leading the division by two games. Several players were having breakout years. The team’s batting average was third in the league and it had already banged out 24 more home runs than on the same date a year earlier. To complement the slugging, several members of the pitching staff were consistently giving the club six or seven good innings, lowering its earned run average to the fourth best in baseball. The come-from-behind win that holiday afternoon was, incredibly, its eighteenth of the half-completed season. There was a lot to feel good about.

  Remy’s concern, however, centered on Jamal Orlando. He had been both right and wrong in predicting the kind of year the left fielder would have. Orlando was batting 30 points below his average and striking out more often. His playing weight remained a problem. He was slow fielding his position and was seldom waved home from second on a sharp single to the outfield.

  But his clutch hitting had been outstanding. He led the league in runs batted in — fourteen ahead of his closest pursuer — and was third in home runs. He was the player everyone wanted to see at bat in the late innings when the tying or winning runs were on base. On three occasions he had been walked intentionally even though first base was already occupied. Opposing managers were more willing to move the potential tying run to second base and pitch to someone else than risk being beaten by one swing of Orlando’s bat.

  With the trade deadline just weeks away, Remy knew that Orlando’s name would come up in discussions with other clubs. His experience and gut told him that the time was right to part company with his star outfielder. There was the certainty of getting some good prospects in return versus the increasing likelihood of losing Orlando to free agency later on with nothing to show for it. He was certain that Keenan would have Orlando test the free agency market and that the asking price for his client could increase dramatically from what it had been in April if he continued having success at the plate. Trading Orlando would incense the fans if it affected the team and derailed its pennant hopes, but it was a gamble he might have to take. Still, a sense of panic attached itself to his thoughts on the matter. As much as he wanted to see the team continue to do well, he hoped that if a long slump were in the offing, it would start right away.

  But the baseball gods weren’t smiling at him. While the ball club began to lose as many games as it won, the same held true for the other teams in the division that were chasing it. With two days remaining to consummate any trades, Remy’s club was still holding on to its slim lead.

  That afternoon, the Rangers offered him his pick of three out of five minor league prospects in exchange for Orlando. Remy did his statistical research and made several telephone calls to scouts who would have seen the players in action. The reports were all favorable, with two of those on the list projected to be star-quality major-league players. The proposed trade was a winner, he felt, assuring future talent for the team and saving it millions of dollars in the short term. He could try to find another left fielder with power in the next 36 hours or replace Orlando with a less expensive free agent after the season.

  Remy was certain that his club’s worst days that season were still ahead of it. He brought the deal to Vance and recommended it. But this time the owner wasn’t letting his general manager make the call.

  “We can’t do it, Paul.” Vance pointed a finger toward the computer spreadsheet showing on his monitor. “We’ve sold more tickets in July than we ever hoped for. The fans think we’re in the race all the way. They’re buying up all the seats for the games in September. If we let Orlando go, we’d break their hearts. In fact, they’d probably want to run us out of town. I say we have to keep him, even if you’re right and we don’t make the playoffs.”

  “But that could mean losing him in free agency and coming up empty,” Remy warned. “The fans wouldn’t like that too much and the media would have a field day over it.”

  Vance’s reply didn’t conceal his impatience as he turned back to the monitor. “We’ll have to worry about that when the time comes, Paul. Right now, considering the options, our least miserable choice is to do nothing.”

  Remy returned to his office and called the Rangers. “It would have been a good deal for both clubs,” he said, “but there’s a problem here and I can’t pull the trigger.” He wanted the Texas GM to know that the cold feet belonged to someone else.

  * * *

  On August 16th, Remy’s team went to sleep in first place for the last time. The following evening it blew the lead and the game in San Francisco on a walk-off home run by the Giants catcher. That was the start of a nine-game losing streak, the last two of which were played in front of a frustrated and ill-tempered home crowd. After making a final surge by winning five of its next six, the club went into permanent cruise control, playing consistently at the .500 level. At season’s end, just as Remy had predicted, it finished third in the division, seven games behind the leader. Orlando had slacked off some in the last two months, not having as many runners on base for him to deliver, but still led the league in RBI’s and cracked the 40 home run mark again.

  Remy met with Rick Keenan on the afternoon of the third playoff game between the Mets and the Dodgers. He’d had little sleep the night before, trying to script a firm but friendly approach for himself the next day. Keenan’s portfolio lay unopened on the table in front of him. He seemed to be sending a message that he didn’t expect the negotiations to go anywhere.

  “We want Jamal to stay with us,” Remy said. “I think we can give you a contract you’ll like without his having to test the market. Even though his average was off by 32 points, we recognize that he won a lot of games for us and carried the team the first half of the season.”

  Keenan chuckled to himself. He knew that the reference to Orlando’s batting average was the only negative Remy could raise about his client. It would have been meaningless to also make reference to the player’s weight problem or the step or two he had lost on the base paths. Orlando’s run production was all that mattered, and he had shown again that he was one of the best. Keenan saw no reason to argue statistics. He knew he was in the driver’s seat and his attitude confirmed it.

  “In April we wanted 33 million for three years,” the agent said. “Now the price is 50 million for four. I don’t think Orlando will have any trouble getting that as a free agent. In fact, if a number of other signings go higher than what I’ve figured them at, we may be asking for even more.”

  Remy kept his poise but was stunned by the numbers. He had figured on a maximum commitment of 36 million for three years and had convinced Vance to authorize it. He considered it a bad risk to sign a player for any longer than that, especially one who had already been through ten big league seasons. “That woul
d be almost fifteen percent of our payroll for one player,” he said, falling back on an old argument. “Where do we get the revenue out of this ballpark to pay for the other 24?”

  “I can’t tell you how to run your business,” Keenan answered. “If you’d listened to me in April, you wouldn’t have had this problem. I figure you were betting on my client having a bad year. Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s a bet you lost. Meanwhile, Orlando sold a lot of tickets for this club. You were pretty much out of the race for most of September but you had sellouts every day, whether or not they showed up to watch you play. Now Vance has got to show his gratitude for all that money he took in.” Keenan smiled.

  Remy had nowhere to go. He could see that Keenan was prepared to reject anything less than the numbers he had put on the table. He was beginning to dread his next session with Vance even though he had warned him about the predicament they were now in. “I’ll bring your proposal to the owner and see what he says. If we put something together, I’ll fax it to you within a week.”

  Keenan was unhappy with Remy’s emphasis on the word “proposal.” He finished the can of Diet Coke he had been nursing and got up to leave. “Let’s not have any misunderstanding,” he said. “As of right now, you can keep him here for 50 million over four years. Only the amount of the signing bonus is negotiable. Don’t bother offering anything less. If you pass on that deal, he’ll be on the free agent list the first day it comes out.”