[外電]Desire to win now kept Greinke from joining Nationals

[ug945 (ug945)]

MARYVALE, Ariz. — Decision time was approaching fast for Zack Greinke. It
was mid-December, and the Kansas City Royals were preparing to honor his
request for a trade, and the Washington Nationals were among the teams
working to acquire him, and an offer of a $100 million contract extension had
been made to Greinke’s agent by the Nationals, and at that critical
juncture, with the baseball world waiting to see what he would do, Greinke .
 . fired his agent.

Within another 48 or so hours, everything would be resolved. Greinke, the
2009 American League Cy Young winner, would quickly hire a new agent, and on
Dec. 18, would waive his no-trade rights — without the enticement of a
contract extension — to accept a trade to the Milwaukee Brewers.

In Washington, however, folks in the Nationals’ front office were left
wondering: What just happened? More specifically, they wondered: Why did
Greinke fire his agent, John Courtright, the day after Courtright rejected
their contract-extension offer? Surely, that wasn’t a coincidence.

Presented with that question on Tuesday, as he sat in the Brewers’
 spring-training clubhouse, an earbud stuck in one ear and attached at the
other end to an iPad, Greinke declined to discuss specifics (“If the
Nationals want answers, I’ll talk to them,” he said), but he acknowledged
the sequence of events made it appear as if he was upset at Courtright for
turning down the offer. (Courtright, meantime, did not return a telephone
message seeking comment.)

“I could definitely see,” Greinke said, “how it looks a little weird.”

Greinke, however, insisted the decision to reject the Nationals was his own —
 and was not about the money, but rather his desire, at age 27 and after
seven years of losing in Kansas City, to go to a team with a chance to win
right now.

“It wouldn’t have gotten as far as it did [with the Nationals] if it wasn’
t appealing,” Greinke said. “The one thing I couldn’t get over was the
fact that, here I was trying to get out of Kansas City because the team wasn’
t good. Not saying [the Nationals] don’t have a chance, but I was trying to
get to a team that was looking really good at the moment. And I believe [the
Nationals] will be good eventually.”

Much of what Greinke came to know about the Nationals and their ambitions he
learned in early December during a clandestine meeting with high-ranking team
officials in Orlando during baseball’s winter meetings.

“What got us talking seriously was the fact their owner wants to win really,
really bad,” Greinke said, referring to Nationals managing principal owner
Theodore Lerner, with whom Greinke met in person. “They convinced me they
were really trying, and I believe them. My whole family liked the possibility
of going there. I respect everything about the Nationals. And I’m not a guy
who goes around saying that about every team.”

......
......
In their face-to-face meeting with Greinke in Orlando — held at an off-site
hotel, so that the media would not be aware of Greinke’s presence — the
Nationals pointed to their recent signing of free agent right fielder Jayson
Werth, to a seven-year, $126 million contract, as proof of their commitment
to constructing a winner in Washington.

“The Nationals got Jayson Werth, and if they got me to come there, then free
agents and other players start thinking, ‘Hey, Washington’s getting some
players,’” Greinke said. “I think that was a big reason they wanted me — to
convince other players to come.”

For the Nationals, the cost of acquiring Greinke would have been steep — not
only in terms of money, but in talent. The Nationals indicated to the Royals
that they were willing to part with Jordan Zimmermann, one of their top young
pitchers, and discussed other names such as reliever Drew Storen and second
baseman Danny Espinosa — two other young, low-cost players at the core of
the team’s building-from-within model — as potential pieces of the package,
according to sources familiar with those discussions.

That, too, factored into Greinke’s equation, he said, when it came time to
decide where to go.

“The Nationals are trying to build a winner,” Greinke said, “and if I’m
going to go there, I didn’t really want them to trade away the players they
were going to build around. That hurts their team.”

When it was suggested to Greinke that perhaps his path will intersect with
that of the Nationals another time — Greinke’s current contract expires
after the 2012 season, roughly the time the Nationals expect to become
legitimate contenders — he did not shoot down the notion.

“Maybe it works out better that the deal [with Washington] didn’t go
through,” Greinke said. “In two years I might be a free agent, and then
they get to keep the players [who would have been] in the trade. And some of
those guys could end up being key players for them.”

大意：

國民當初在競爭 Greinke 時曾提出100M等級的延長合約給他，在拒絕國民後他的經紀人
John Courtright先生遭到開除，不過 Greinke 否認開除經紀人是跟$$有關係，拒絕國
民是他自己的決定。

魔神Z：我不是說國民是個爛隊，國民的老闆Lerner跟我說他們想要變強，我也相信他們
       不過加入他們勢必會掏空他們的農場，我想還是算了

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→ foolishboy:整
推 s9527206:我倒覺得隊魔神來說球隊能不能贏球才是重點 XD 其他都是
推 s9527206:場面話。不過這交易告吹我覺得對球隊是好的，還是感謝他
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