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Originally Posted by slugger922cubs
^^This^^ A long-term extension was offered. He didn't want to be locked up. Not odd behavior. he countered back with a 1 year deal near the AAV or max year of the contract. I still don't find that odd behavior. From the player/agent perspective if you value the player that much in one year why not offer that every year or next year. You're getting feedback that the player wants a short deal and feels valuable enough to get paid. You can try to work back down to a lower number or offer more in the long term deal. how much do you want the player.
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Obviously, it's more valuable to the team in a case like that (given that usually during arbitration players' salaries tend to go up each season) to lock a player up for more years. So if I'm willing to pay $2 million for one year, I'll probably pay $20 million for 5 ($4 million/year), if the player is fairly young-- especially since that likely locks him up beyond arbitration, which is why as the GM I'll want that.
It's insane then for the agent, if he wanted $2 million for one year and gets that offer to say, "So, you're willing to pay $4 million a year? How about $4 million for one year then?" If a GM wanted to sign the player to a one year contract he'd just have accepted the original offer (or, much more likely, come back with 1 year/$1.6 million, trying to figure what he'd shave off his opening demand-- and my experience is, if you accept the player's length they always will accept a bit less than they opened with, which makes sense; you don't open the negotiation with your bottom line).
But in this case the counter-offer was multi-year and in some cases the player won't take that, especially when buying free agent years. Still then, the player at the least says, "Look, I won't tie myself up over a year, but I still want an agreement so let's say $1.9 million for one year." Given there's a good chance he'd accept about $1.6 million if he opened with $2 million, that's actually trying to reach an agreement.
More likely, he says, "So you want me long term? Well, $4 million a year isn't enough for me to do that, and 5 years is a little long...so how about instead of $4 million a year for 5 years, why not $5 million a year for 4 years, plus a bonus for making the All-Star team so if I improve enough I get paid extra for it?" Or maybe he accepts the 5 year/$4 million per year framework (maybe asking for $4.2 mil a year just to get a bit more) but with an opt-out after the 3rd season (maybe when he could go free agent). That might work for him because if he gets hurt or declines for some other reason he's got the team locked in for 5 full years, but if he improves and thus his market value increases or he decides he wants to leave the team due to chemistry, bad team performance, or playing time he gets a chance to do so.
Any of those is negotiating, trying to reach an agreement. A free agent, or a free agent eligible player, sometimes may not want to reach an agreement (though I tend to think almost anyone should sign if you overpay enough), but a player in his arbitration years should be looking to reach an agreement as long as he thinks he wouldn't do better just going to arbitration each year, taking into account the security he has from a long term deal (but also, of course, that in arbitration his salary will likely increase each year so long as he doesn't get worse and that once one buys out free agent years, the player is losing freedom of movement, so that should obviously cost extra).