The Baseball side of the Twitter universe blew up with the news from MLB.com writer T.R. Sullivan and Joel Sherman of the New York Post that The Philadelphia Phillies have signed free agent pitcher Cliff Lee to a 5-year $100 Million-ish deal. Sherman on his twitter feed says that Lee was offered by the Yankees:
#Yankees offered Lee $23m for 6 yrs ($138M) plus a $16m option for a total of $154M over 7 yrs
So obviously his signing with the Phillies wasn't about the money. This makes the Phillies rotation look as such: Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels. Simply amazing.
UPDATED 12/14/2010 1:40am
T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com reports that:
The Rangers' last offer was for $138 million over six years with an option for a seventh season.
So both the Yankees and the Rangers offered the same base salaries through the actual amounts that Lee could have earned would have depended on the tax rates he would have had to pay. In the end Lee agreed to a five-year deal with a vesting option for a sixth season that could bring the total to $120 million. Lee apparently took less years and less money to re-sign with the Phillies.
As I said before, Simply amazing.
FH
- Click Here for the AP report of Cliff Lee's signing with the Phillies from the Philadelphia Daily News website
- Click Here for T.R. Sullivan's article Phillies swoop in and bring back Lee from MLB.com dated Deember 14, 2010
- Click Here for Alden Gonzalez's article Yanks miss out on Lee as lefty heads to Philly from MLB.com dated December 14, 2010
Have to say that I'm having a flashback moment with Lee signing with the Phillies. It reminds me of when Greg Maddux spurned the Yankees' contract offer in 1992 for a better deal with the Atlanta Braves. In retrospect, the Yankees ended up getting Jimmy Key and four years later they got the first ring since 1978. Is it a Deja-vu scenario?
ReplyDeleteAnd for those Yankees fans who are upset they shouldn't be. The Yankees never had Lee and won 95 games without him. They have young pitching that they can develop. I believe that Grienke is not the answer.
ReplyDeleteNow the Rangers fans, well there's a different story. They have every right to be upset. They had Lee and lost him. I said it from day one, for the good of the game, Lee should have stayed in Texas.
T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com gives the Texas Rangers point-of-view in the Cliff Lee negotiation in his article Seventh year deal-breaker for Lee, Rangers.
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