I don’t really follow baseball. I find it kind of boring to watch. But I’m from Philly, and the Phillies are the world champs so I can’t escape news about them no matter where I go. This piece caught my attention because it made me think about the business side of a sport from the perspective of those who have to decide who plays and how much they should get paid to play. We always hear about players saying “it’s just business” when they are putting their teams through the ringer to get more money or leverage to negotiate a new contract by holding out on the team.
When a team decides to cut a player, or demote a player that for some reason is very popular despite falling production, the fans paint them as heartless, soul-less entities that are only concerned with their bank accounts. Sound familiar? Yeah, sounds just like every athlete that is holding out, or pouting, or whining through the media in order to get more money. What we fail to acknowledge while we always say it’s just business and that athletes should get as much as they can while they can is that the organization is also trying to get as much as it can while it can too. It’s a two way street. This brings me to Jamie Moyer and the Phillies. I heard on sports talk radio that he made some statements about his unhappiness with the team for demoting him to the bullpen and promoting Pedro Martinez to be a starter. To be fair, Moyer was critical in the championship run last year. To continue being fair, he has the highest ERA in the national league this year, and most of his wins have come with heavy run support, so he’s not as good as he was last year. Athletes do have emotions, but we’ve established a culture in sports where we don’t care. They should always say the “right” things, and Jamie certainly didn’t do that.
Pedro Martinez was acquired when the Phils thought they’d have to give up Happ in a trade for Roy Halladay. Well, that didn’t happen. We got Cliff Lee, and gave up relatively nothing. That means the Phillies now have an extra pitcher being paid to just sit there. When you suck at your everyday job, or rather when you aren’t living up to your salary, your bosses don’t usually demote you with your current pay like what’s happening to Moyer. You either get less money or you get fired. Moyer gets to keep his money, and actually work less. But he’s complaining, and to the credit of the media here in Philly, they aren’t just painting the team as the villains because most of them do have a soft spot for Moyer. Here is an excerpt from an article on philly.com with his comments.
“I’m really not happy with this decision that the Phillies have made,” Moyer said. “I will take what they’ve asked me to do, but I’m not real excited about the decision that’s been made.”
Moyer said that when he negotiated his two-year, $13 million contract with the Phils over the winter, he felt that an understanding existed between the lefthander, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. and team president David Montgomery that he would be a starter.
“I feel like I’ve been misled,” Moyer said. “I’m a little disheartened a little bit because I know this past winter when I was negotiating with the Phillies, this was a sore thumb, if you will, about this potentially happening. Ruben, you can’t promise anything in this game, but I really felt that Ruben kind of parlayed to me that this type of situation would not happen.
“I actually even had some conversation with David [Montgomery], and them reassuring me this type of situation won’t happen. Again, I’m a little disheartened by the way it’s happened, how it’s happened.”
So Jamie, shouldn’t the Phillies feel like they were misled when they paid you millions to perform like you did last year? Did all the talk in this championship starved city about the Phillies getting a mulligan for this year because they won last year make you think that you can just go out there an go through the motions? Well, you misled the team by demanding a contract based on your performance last year, indicating that you would do the same thing this year if you were paid better. The vast majority of fans were pulling for you all the way when you wanted a new contract. It took long enough, but now you have your Favre moment. That’s when you stay in the game a little too long after your skills have gone down a few notches. Or maybe it’s when you used to have the unyielding support of fans and you milked that a little too long. I don’t know, but it’s certainly not good.
Bottom line is that if Jamie Moyer was still as good as he was last year, he wouldn’t have been demoted. Furthermore, you won’t get much sympathy from the average Joe who gets fired when he doesn’t perform up to par, not just demoted with salary to do less work. In my opinion, you aren’t entitled to be a starter. Playing professional sports is a JOB, that’s why it’s called a profession. You don’t have a right to it and it’s not a privilege either. You have to earn your way into your chosen profession. Owning a team is also a JOB. As a player, your job is to perform at your peak and win. As a team owner or someone responsible for running the team, your job is to put the best employees on the field so the team can win. In the end, the player makes money based on how he performs, and the team makes money based on winning. The more they win, the more they attract paying customers for their product. It’s that simple. Why do we as fans tend to vilify teams when they go about the business of running their organization as the business that it is? I’m not going to be leading any kind of support for any organization out there. They are money hungry, but then again that’s the reason why owners buy teams.
I’d like to find a few words to express how I feel about declining and unproven athletes who feel slighted by the team when the team is trying to put their best players out there to win. I just couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t require a lot of #@%*#@# to censor myself. I asked one of my co-workers who’s a big baseball fan and he suggested firing Jamie Moyer. His suggestion, however, involved a parking lot, a horse, and actual fire. I laughed, and it was wrong (but still hilarious) but his sentiment I think is representative of how regular working folk feel when millionaires pout and cry in public about being demoted when they are still making millions. Baseball contracts are fully guaranteed after all. So I thought about the words of one of my favorite entertainers. When it comes to athletes like Favre, Moyer, and most highly drafted NFL rookies, “know your role, and shut your mouth”.