Attorney Bryan Stroh (a former law school classmate whose practice includes sports law and who was also a pretty darn good baseball player at Princeton), passes along this link from MLB.com on Washington Nationals' closer Chad Cordero being pressured by his agent and the MLBPA into turning down a two-year guaranteed deal (said to be worth between $7 million and $8 million) from the Nationals. According to Cordero, both the MLBPA and his agent, Larry Reynolds, thought he would win his arbitration case, and that he would be making a big mistake by signing the two-year offer. They appear correct, as Cordero won his case, securing a $4.15 million contract for 2007; if the 24-year-old Cordero--one of the best young closers in baseball--has another terrific season, he would be poised to make even more in 2008.
But even though he won his arbitration case, Cordero doesn't feel good about being pressured into not signing the two-year contract offer:
"I don't know why I didn't sign [the two-year deal]," Cordero said. "I wanted to. The Players Association thought I had a good case and they wanted see how it turned out. Even if I lost my arbitration case, I wasn't going to lose. It's still a lot of money. It's still more money than I ever would have thought [I'd make]."Assuming this media report of Cordero's feelings is accurate, what does it say about the role of the agent and the players' association? I understand that the players' association has a collective interest in trying to maximize salary averages for each position, and that Cordero's contract affects future contracts of other closers, but who is looking out for Cordero? He is, after-all, a member of the MLBPA; should he be dissuaded from his instinct, or was the MLBPA correct in taking a more guiding approach?
And what about his agent? On one hand, he probably gave his client advice that will enable him to make more money--perhaps a lot more money--but on the other hand, his client doesn't seem to feel too good about what happened. Rick has written extensively on this topic (e.g., his post Players Union Needs to Fix the Agent Business and law review article Solving Problems in the Player Representation Business: Unions Should be the Exclusive Representatives of the Players), and I would be interested in hearing his thoughts.
This topic also brings to mind that many players perceive significant value in non-monetary terms, such as getting to play in a particular part of the country or with a certain group of teammates. Sometimes players are moved by those non-monetary terms in ways that they don't fully appreciate (a subject which I examine in my article: It's Not About the Money: The Role of Preferences, Cognitive Biases, and Heuristics Among Professional Athletes, 71 Brooklyn Law Review 1459 (2006)), but sometimes they genuinely prefer to not go through a contentious salary arbitration process. Along those lines, even though we live in an American culture of "every last dollar" mattering, clearly not every American embraces that creed. And maybe Chad Cordero is one such dissenter.
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