(02-07-2024, 09:43 AM)Mikey Wrote:

(02-06-2024, 10:38 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote: I think...think mind you, that the FO should've made contact with the player's agent to at least start the talks so Baalke could say that. If he'd even said "Hey we're doing these things and then we wanna sit down with you but we want Josh here long term" then there wouldn't be the angst we see here. Instead we get a response that sounds like more of Baalke's reputation for being difficult with the players AFTER they already blew it last offseason by not already taking care of this. Baalke does the easy things the hardest way possible and it gets old.

Edit: Of course Baalke is dumb enough to have already put it out there like the Tag was coming, guess he went to the flgates dude's school of Emotionally Unintelligent Negotiating.

eh, calling just to call ain't worth it.

Call me when we are ready to get into the nitty gritty. Agent is going to want to know where they are starting, offerwise, and if agent sends counter they are going to expect response. If there are other distractions that delay that process, take care of the distractions if we're not up against a hard deadline.

Getting them on the horn just to say "we're gonna talk later about deals" is stating the already obvious and potentially disruptive. Agents are probably busy right now with all the darft eligible dudes, figuring out training, testing, filming, etc in lead up to April. Purely speculation on my part, but I know if our developers scheduled a call just to tell me "We're not ready to begin work on the project, but in the near future we will want to get together to discuss your needs" I'd be cheesed that I stopped my current work for ultimately unproductive use of time.

Had he done so there wouldn't be any of this hoopla about "they haven't even spoken about it" going on. 2 minutes on the phone saves face at the press conference and prevents the player's team's public response in that case. It's the managing of that sort of reputation that is Baalke's undoing, he's not good with the EQ part of the job. It's why people see him as unlikeable and are willing to accept all the gossip about him and his relationships with staff and other GMs like the last 2 drafts. I appreciate your own situation, but I just think the white glove work is more necessary when publicly courting an individual for a $!00 million dollar deal.

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