Quote:
Originally Posted by ClubFlames
EE needs to quit the whole charade of 'Jays were hasty' or 'They didn't let me test out free agency'. If EE wanted to be here, he would have signed that contract without hesitation. 4-years/$80 million isn't chump change.It was a fair offer but instead he wanted to leave the Jays hanging while he fielded better offers. Who knows if Morales would have been available 2-3 weeks after or whenever the Jays would have heard from EE that he is signing a better deal, if available. Simply say that you have moved on.
What's done is done, and there's no point debating it again, but that interview sure makes it look like Edwin and his agent messed up because the best offer they received was from the Jays.
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While that ended up being the best offer, no one at the time figured it would be. Not a single person or media outlet thought he'd be signing for a lesser offer. This is why it's easy to say it wasn't a legitimate offer by the Jays, which is further substantiated by the fact that they pulled it almost instantly when it was determined that he may sign it. The Jays didn't even give him a day to mull it over. Given what Edwin has done for this franchise and the respect the fans have for him, that's pretty pathetic action by the Jays. Actions like this are why the Jays organization and management have very little respect around MLB despite what some seem to believe here.
Baseball isn't hockey. It's not a free agent frenzy where everyone signs in the first couple of hours. It takes weeks. Players wait forever to be free agents and they are absolutely going to see what's out there on the market after waiting forever to have that option. I can see giving Edwin a couple days or a week before moving on, but giving him an offer than turning around and signing Morales the minute free agency opens is ridiculous. I think Morales was actually the first reported signing in the league.
What pisses me off in signing Morales though isn't that they chose him over EE, it's that they continued to string out that they were negotiating with Edwin through their media outlets even after they signed Morales. That was completed BS. Zero change of bringing back EE the minute Morales was signed. Like man up and say you made a choice and move on.
I can see taking Morales over EE if it meant we could strengthen other areas of need, but then to go out and do nothing with the pen and sign Steve Pearce to fill our outfield is beyond ridiculous and basically demonstrated just how "invested" the Jays were in actually winning a championship in their last couple of years of window. They wanted to do enough to just be competitive and keep 40k bums in seats while slowly shedding salary over the next two years.
Make no mistake about it either, the Jays wanted absolutely nothing to do with Bautista this year. They had no choice though when no other team picked him up. Losing and him and Edwin when it could be argued they both wanted to come back would have been a monumental PR nightmare for Rogers.