Some players have no-trade provisions in their contracts, meaning they have veto power over any trade. In some cases, the players want the clauses because they genuinely want to ensure that they will remain with the team they signed with. Most often, though, they have and use the provisions for economic purposes. That is, if a team wants to trade a player with such a provision, the player says how much are you willing to pay for my ok?
It’s the latter group that prompts me to propose a revolutionary idea. Representatives of the players and owners are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, and I am suggesting that they insert a new element into their trading rules.
Unfortunately, while the union would heartily endorse the idea, the clubs would want no part of it because it would cost them money. Yet it would be well spent money.
I propose that when a player is traded, unless he has asked to be traded, he receives a payment as part of the deal. Either team in the trade could pay the “trade bonus.”
I’m not talking about millions of dollars or a sum that would infringe on the trade, but a payment that would acknowledge the upheaval the trade would have on the life of the player and his family (yes, players have living, breathing wives and children). It could be a flat fee or a small percentage of a player’s salary, to be determined in the negotiation of the plan.
The idea came to me as I studied this year’s trades that were made in the month before the non-waiver trading deadline and realized that there are some players for whom this saying applies: If this is July, I must be changing teams.
Let me offer some names: Orlando Cabrera, Wilson Betemit, Edwin Jackson, Octavio Dotel, even Cliff Lee and Mark Teixeira, whose multi-million payoffs were preceded by repeated changing of addresses.
The premier pitcher Lee, for example, was traded three times in less than a year, from the Indians to the Phillies July 29, 2009; from the Phillies to the Mariners Dec. 16 of the same year, and from the Mariners to the Rangers July 9, 2010.
And that series of moves didn’t include his trade from the barely breathing Expos to the Indians June 27, 2002.
Lee finally gained control of his life last winter when he signed a 5-year, $120 million contract with the Phillies as a free agent. The contract includes a partial no-trade provision. In this instance, the provision is more about allowing Lee to say where he will play than about an ability to extract more money from the Phillies or the team they might trade him to.
Teixeira has full no-trade protection in his 8-year, $180 million contract with the Yankees. He welcomed it after his experience in the 15 months before he became a free agent.
The Rangers traded the first baseman to the Braves July 31, 2007, and two days short of a full year later the Braves sent him to the Angels. Three months later Teixeira ended the baseball version of musical chairs, became a free agent and joined the Yankees.
Wilson Betemit played for the Yankees but only passed through. The Dodgers, who obtained the infielder from the Braves July 28, 2006, traded him to the Yankees July 31, 2007. The Yankees then sent him on to the White Sox for Nick Swisher Nov. 13, 2008.
Betemit was most recently traded by the Royals to the Tigers July 20.
For the first seven and a half years of his career, Orlando Cabrera played for one team, the Expos. In his last seven and a half years, though, the shortstop has played for eight teams. Five times he changed teams as a free agent; he was traded four times:
Expos to Red Sox July 31, 2004 in four-team swap; Angels to White Sox Nov. 19, 2007; Athletics to Twins July 31,2009; Indians to Giants July 30, 2011.
Octavio Dotel, a 37-year-old pitcher, has never had the kind of payday Teixeira and Lee have gained, but he has had as much experience being traded as the two of them combined. He epitomizes the kind of player I’m talking about who deserves additional payment each time he is traded.
Dotel has earned less than $40 million in his 13-year career, which in real life is nothing to sneeze at but in baseball falls short of today’s average salary.
Playing at the moment for his 12th team, the Cardinals, the Dominican right-hander has been a free agent five times and has been traded six times.
Signed by the Mets, Dotel was with them less than a full season when the traded him to the Astros Dec. 23, 1999. The Astros made him part of the three-team trade in which Carlos Beltran moved from Kansas City to Houston June 24, 2004, setting up his great post-season performance that year and his move to the Mets for 7 years and $119 million.
Dotel was next traded by the Royals to the Braves July 31, 2007. On the same date in 2010 he was traded by the Pirates to the Dodgers. Later that season, on Sept. 18, the Dodgers sent Dotel on to the Rockies .
The well-traveled Dotel wasn’t finished traveling. He signed with team No. 11, the Blue Jays, as a free agent just before the end of last year. The Blue Jays made it an even dozen for Dotel a few days before the trading deadline, sending him to the Cardinals.
And the season still has seven weeks in which the Cardinals could trade the pitcher to yet another team, as the Dodgers did last September.
Even Dotel, though, would find it difficult to outdo the arduous pattern of Edwin Jackson’s career. The 27-year-old right-handed pitcher has less than six years of major league service, but he has played for six teams (belonged to seven) and has been traded six times, averaging more than one trade for each season.
Jackson was traded twice on the same day last month, July 27, going on paper from the White Sox to the Blue Jays, who turned around and traded him to the Cardinals. At least he didn’t have to travel to Toronto.
His hectic trade history began Jan. 14, 2006, when the Dodgers sent him to Tampa Bay. The Rays traded him to the Tigers Dec. 10, 2008.
The Tigers then included Jackson as one of seven players in a three-team transaction in which he landed with the Diamondbacks and Curtis Granderson with the Yankees Dec. 8, 2009.
Jackson didn’t stay with the Diamondbacks for long. They traded him to the White Sox July 30, 2010, and a year later he moved rapidly from the White Sox to the Blue Jays to the Cardinals.
Club officials wouldn’t agree, but it only makes sense that a player who has endured Dotel’s and Jackson’s trials, tribulations and travels should be subsidized beyond the travel expenses the labor agreement calls for.
What general manager would subject himself to the constant changes in place of employment as Dotel and Jackson have had? What makes it acceptable for general managers to do it to Dotel and Jackson without compensation of some sort?
Wherever the two sides are in their confidential negotiations, they have time to adopt this revolutionary step 35 years after they negotiated terms of free agency.