NEWS ITEM: Roy Halladay pitches no-hitter
Whatever Cliff Lee’s price was going to be as a free agent this winter, it just went up. Not because of what he did Wednesday, pitching another great game in the post-season, allowing 5 hits and a run while striking out 10 in 7 innings against Tampa Bay. No, because of what Roy Halladay did.
Halladay pitched a no-hitter against Cincinnati, only the second no-hitter ever in post-season play. The Philadelphia ace, bolstering his luster as the best pitcher of his era, fell one batter short of matching Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series for the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Halladay’s two-out walk to Jay Bruce in the fifth inning also kept the 33-year-old right-hander from becoming the first player to pitch two perfect games, in the same year yet. Halladay pitched a perfect game against Florida May 25.
What did Halladay’s dominant no-hitter have to do with Lee, who was his teammate in Philadelphia for a few minutes last December?
The Yankees are the answer to that question. Not that they needed another reason to pursue Lee in November as a free agent, but seeing Halladay blow away the Reds reinforced the value a top-flight pitcher provides in the post-season.
Coincidentally, the Yankees’ ace, CC Sabathia, struggled in winning his playoff-opening start against Minnesota, throwing 111 pitches in 6 innings with a split of 63 strikes and 48 balls and giving up 4 runs (3 earned).
Sabathia was outstanding in the post-season for the Yankees last year (3-1 in 5 starts), but he has had post-season problems and Lee has had none. Lee has a 5-0 record in 6 post-season starts, including two victories against the Yankees in last year’s World Series. ). Lee, in fact, outpitched Sabathia, his former teammate in Cleveland, in the World Series opener last year.
The Yankees were prepared to pay big for Lee before the playoffs began, and now they will be willing to pay bigger. They gave Sabathia $161 million for 7 years when he was 28 years old.
Lee will be 32 when he signs his next contract. Take two years off for age and add a few million a year. That should get the deal done. Under the new free-agent rules, teams can sign free agents from other teams five days after the World Series. The Yankees, with no financial competition, can have the deal done by mid-November.
In addition to Halladay’s vivid reminder, the Yankees have had their own reminders of their pitching needs. They left Javier Vazquez off the roster for the division, and they banished A.J. Burnett to the bullpen.
Meanwhile, the Phillies are starting Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels against the Reds. They could have had Lee instead of Oswalt but opted to trade Lee to Seattle for prospects.
The Phillies said they traded Lee because they had to restock their minor league system, having traded a bunch of young players for Halladay. However, skeptics, who included me, believed they didn’t want to have to pay both Halladay and Lee.
My argument was the presence of Halladay and Lee would have set up the Phillies for their second World Series conquest in three years. They may have that same setup with Halladay and Oswalt, whom they traded for in July, but yesterday Lee showed them what he could do.
NEWS ITEM: Players, owners agree on changes in free-agent rules
This was not a major news story, primarily because no one looked between the lines of the announcement from the Players Association and the commissioner’s office.
The details of the agreement aren’t important, but it is the fact that they reached an agreement that is significant. It is significant because it signals that neither side wants a fight in the next round of negotiations next year. That means that labor peace, which has prevailed since 1996 and covers two collective bargaining agreements, will continue through another agreement.
What is behind the recently announced agreement?
The union, acting on information from player agents, suspected that the clubs had colluded against free agents during the past two off-seasons, just as they had done after the 1985, ‘86 and ‘87 seasons.
In that 25-year-old scandal, two arbitrators found the clubs guilty of violating the basic agreement. The two sides negotiated a $280 million settlement, which despite the sound of it, was a cheap deal for the owners.
I don’t know how strong the union’s evidence would have been this time. Some agents thought a good case could be made. But union officials opted to negotiate a settlement instead of filing a grievance and doing battle before the impartial arbitrator, Shyam Das.
The commissioner’s office, denying any guilt, was pleased to do a deal.
Neither side wants to fight because everyone is making too much money. No one wants to kill the Golden Goose.
That’s why the negotiations to replace the labor agreement that expires after next season will go smoothly, barring unexpected developments.
That’s why Commissioner Bud Selig will squelch any talk, public or otherwise, from owners about the need for a payroll cap. The owners have fought that fight and lost it, and now they know they don’t need a cap.
That’s not to say the negotiations will be free of skirmishes, but they will be manageable. There is also the possibility that when the union passed up the chance to file a collusion grievance, its officials told the commissioner’s posse, “You owe us one.”