Heyman breaks down a trade, fails to understand the relative value of players involved, cashes another paycheck

[Note added after posting: as I am only marginally less fucking stupid than Jon Heyman, Chris W had to point out to me that the Cubs didn't even get $3 MM in salary relief. They've got to pay Volstad (or non-tender him, which wouldn't surprise me given how dumb the trade is in the first place) and he's arbitration eligible for the first time. Last year Jason Hammel and Kevin Slowey, two pitchers who are slightly better than Volstad but probably comparable, got 2 years $7.75 MM and 1/$2.7 MM respectively in their first years of eligibility. Put the bubbly on ice, Cubs fans. IT'S GONNA HAPPEN HOPEFULLY.]

As Theo Epstein frantically rushes to establish that the two BoSox titles of the '00s were not of his making (A damaged but talented Carlos Zambrano for a guy who might maybe be a #5 starter on his best day and $3 MM in salary relief? Hot sizzle!), Heyman provides this incisive analysis:

The agreed-upon trade between the Cubs and Marlins of volatile former star Carlos Zambrano for talented former phenom Chris Volstad

The word "talented" needs to be moved back in the sentence so that it's next to "volatile."

works for everyone.

In the sense that it works well for the Marlins.

The Cubs get rid of the volatile Zambrano, who had lost his friends in the clubhouse after losing is way on the mound last year.

Even if the Cubs never wanted him to start another game for them, he's still worth a hell of a lot more than Chris Volstad. It's essentially a contract year for Zambrano. He has a 2013 option that vests if he's in the top 4 in the 2012 Cy voting, in which case you'd like him on your team in 2013 anyways. Otherwise he's gone in 10 months. You eat $15 MM of his $18MM salary and all you get in return is Chris Volstad? Holy moly, how much were the Marlins going to pay if the Cubs asked for nothing but salary relief in return? What a crap trade.

The Marlins give up Volstad, whose great promise has seemed to dissipate the past few years to the point where he was an unacceptable 5-13 with a 4.89 ERA for the Marlins in 2011.

Yes, it "seemed" to dissipate since his very good rookie year in 2008. Since then he's had one sort of barely acceptable season, and two where he was replacement level or worse. 88 starts since the beginning of 2009, ERA just under 5 (in the NL, in a mild hitters park), WHIP over 1.40, bad strikeout numbers, cumulative WAR of 1. Can you say "future 6th/7th inning guy?"

This trade represents a fresh start for both right-handers.

That's true. Could you have thought up that angle on your own? Heyman hopes CBS doesn't think so.

Heyman knows best...

I don't read John Heyman's "Daily Scoop" on si.com that often, and I wish I had decided to skip it today. He squeezed out this turd of an article that basically says, "I don't like Curt Schilling because he talks too much"

After years and years of trying to figure out what makes that fascinating, hard-throwing blowhard Curt Schilling tick, I think I am finally on to something.

He's nuts.

OK, maybe he's not insane in any clinical way. But insane nonetheless. Insane in his own way. There can be no other good explanation as to why he would say aloud that he might like to join the Devil Rays next year as a free agent. The D-Rays. Think about that. No two-time World Series champ and borderline Hall of Famer with a massive ego and thirst for the spotlight willingly signs up to pitch his last season in Tropicana obscurity.

From the Sportswriter's bible, Book of "I Know What's best for you," chapter 12, verse 26-28: "If thouest are an aging great player, thou shall only play for the team with the best chance to winnith." Heyman may have had a point about Schilling being insane here if Schilling says he expects the D-Rays to win it all (or even get to the playoffs) in the next season or two. Luckily Heyman has a quote from Schilling to clear this up.

"It's one of those situations you'd certainly have to look at,'' Schilling said on his weekly radio spot on Boston radio station WEEI. "Knowing that I'm probably going to spend one more year playing, if circumstances happen and things happen and they made some moves that were positive, I'd love nothing more than to finish my career working on a pitching staff where I know that there are young guys that are going to be positively impacted by me being around [after] I was gone. I enjoy that. I love working and talking and being around young pitchers."

Oh, so Schilling would want to play for the D-Rays because he wants to be around young players in a developing franchise? Fuck him, he should be playing for the Yankees, because I'm John Heyman, God of Sportswriting.

Schilling, who is 7-5 with a 4.25 ERA, went on to speak fondly of having a home in the area at one time, as reported in the Boston Globe.

"I love Tampa, I love the area, I love everything about it," he said. "I loved living down there."

So Schilling wants to play in Tampa because

1) He likes Tampa
2) He wants to be around young players

Nowhere in your justification do you provide any evidence that Schilling wants a sweet new deal out of the Red Sox.

Putting aside the fact that Tampa Bay is trying to build for the future and has virtually no chance to win next year (it's never won more than 70 games), and would have no good reason to pursue an attention-starved 40-year-old pitcher, it makes no sense for Schilling to say such a thing from a business standpoint. As a negotiating ploy, it is nothing short of idiotic.

I'll bet Schilling could play for Tampa if he was willing to take a pay cut. Once again, nowhere here does he say anything about getting $13 million dollars out of the Rays, so right now you are just making shit up.

Of course there is one other possibility, and that is Schilling is simply the world's worst agent. Schilling, along with Gary Sheffield and Jamie Moyer, are a few of the very rare major leaguers who represent themselves. That's never a good idea, though Moyer manages to do it without making a spectacle of himself.

Let's look at this closer. If Schilling was such a terrible agent, as you say he is, how did he acquire a contract worth $13 million per year from the Red Sox? Let's look at someone who is very similar to Schilling: John Smoltz. They have an identical career ERA+ (126) as well as nearly identical numbers of Games Started, innings pitched and strikeouts. And to boot, Schilling is two years older. From 2004-2006, the three years guaranteed from the Sox, Schilling averaged $13 million per year, and Smoltz averaged $10.5 million. The going rate for an agent's take in the MLB is at least %5 (plus a waaaaay bigger percentage of endorsement deals), so that brings Smoltz down to under $10 million per year. Even if the Red Sox didn't have to option the fourth year of Schilling's deal, between 2004-07 Schilling would have made a cool $39 million only pitching three years. Smoltz, on the other hand, would have made under $40 million for pitching all 4 seasons. Such. A. terrible. agent. Worst Ever, in fact. What a crazy idiot.

Presumably, the reason players represent themselves is either because they are cheap, or because they think they know better. In Schilling's case, of course, it has to be because he thinks he knows better. Because he thinks he knows everything.

Presumably, idiot writers like John Heyman write stupid shit like this because they are clinically brain dead, or because they like to play armchair psychologist. In Heyman's case, he thinks he knows what's best for a player, knowing next to nothing about what the player actually wants.

After being ably represented for years by competent and accomplished agents Dennis Gilbert and Jeff Borris, Schilling decided to do it himself in recent years, and, ever since, all heck has broken loose. For his first deal with Boston, to get four years, Schilling put himself in position of having to win the World Series -- not a great bet since Boston hadn't won for 85 straight years. Yet, his pitching is a lot better than his agenting, and he helped them do just that, which guaranteed the 2007 season at $13 million, plus incentives. That brings us to today.

Yeah, all heck has broken loose. Let's say Schilling only signed a three year deal, no incentive extra year, worth a guaranteed $13 million per year. As a then 37 year old pitcher, that's a pretty darn good contract by itself. I'm not sure how the "World Series incentive" clause was written, but it sure seems like it worked out pretty well for all parties. Schilling got an extra year, 365 extra days, for $13 million; he likely couldn't have been able to pull that kind of dough for 4 years from any other team, even with an agent.

Just because you can throw a fastball and splitter at world-class proficiency -- not to mention become a World Series hero in two cities -- that doesn't make you an agent.

John, Just because you can bang your keyboard to spit out letters and hyphens and periods and shit -- that doesn't make you a good writer. It's also too bad Microsoft Word doesn't have a "This Sentence Reads like Shit" tool

Or even particularly sane.

So he's insane because he can negotiate a pretty true to market value contract without an agent? Or because he doesn't want to pitch for the team you want him to?

Regarding Schilling's negotiating skills, one general manager said yesterday, "He apparently didn't go to Agent's University.''

According to Internet blogger eriz, "John Heyman apparently didn't go to Write a Cohesive Argument University."

I could do this all day.

Not only has Schilling put the D-Rays into play, but worse, he's taken the Yankees out of the mix, saying they are the one team he would never, ever play for. And, of course, as everyone knows, the Yankees are the one team that could make the Red Sox sweat.

MAYBE HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT TO PLAY FOR THE YANKEES. DID YOU FOR A SPLIT SECOND CONSIDER THAT? GODDAMMIT, YOU FUCKING RETARD SPORTSWRITERS CONSTANTLY HEAP TONS OF SHIT ON GUYS LIKE JOHNNY DAMON FOR "BETRAYING" THEIR TEAMS AND FANS. AND THEN SCHILLING SAYS HE DOESN'T WANT TO PLAY FOR THE YANKEES ON HIS BOSTON BASED RADIO PROGRAM, AND YOU THINK HE'S RUINING HIS CHANCES TO GET A GIANT CONTRACT OUT OF THE RED SOX, EVEN THOUGH YOU'VE PROVIDED NOT ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT THIS IS WHAT HE'S TRYING TO DO.

Instead of making Red Sox people sweat, Schilling made them laugh. These are the dog days of the pennant race, and even the executives of baseball's best team need a tension breaker at this time of the year. And this was theirs.

When Red Sox higher-ups finally stopped cackling at Schilling's latest D-Ray claim, I did get one of them to come to the phone. Red Sox GM Theo Epstein would only say that "out of respect to the player concerned,'' he wasn't going to talk about this. Epstein also said, "Our consideration now is to win the World Series.''

Yeah that quote is totally not the generic response journalists get from team management when they get asked about signing and trade rumors. Theo Epstein was totally like *wink wink* "Curt's a dumbass. Hahahahahahah." You could totally tell from that comment.

That makes sense. While Schilling dreams of the D-Rays, Red Sox people are thinking of October glory.

While Schilling makes a mess of this, Boston people play it perfectly. In reality, Schilling should be the one with bargaining strength here. If he were half as smart as he thinks he is, he should know he already has the advantage. Through the sheer luck of good timing, he is one of the better free-agent pitchers -- if not the best pitcher -- out there in the world's worst free-agent pitching class.

But instead of understanding that silence is golden, Schilling has done what he does incessantly, which is to talk. Schilling already has come down from a two-year request to one (at least he has on the airwaves).

Now we get around to the actual reason you wrote this article. You don't like listening to Schilling talk. Well, I don't like reading your work. So next time you sign on to a new sports publication, I'll write a post about your contract negotiations with CBS Sportsline using only hearsay and shit I make up. And then I'll finish the piece up by saying "plus he's a fucking atrocious writer."