Ollie "dissatisfied"

DK reports Scott Boras Mike Fischlin will decline Ollie's final offer. But of course Perez has to accept it.

Fischlin compounds the error by stating that Perez will now hold a grudge against the team. A grudge that he'll hold and nurse and wrap his warping personality about. A grudge that will mean something when he Becomes a Free Agent.

Perez, the Pirates' left-handed ace, has no plan to hold out, pout or let the matter affect his performance, agent Mike Fischlin said yesterday. Rather, his client simply wants to make known his dissatisfaction.

"Oliver's a professional, and this isn't going to affect him one bit. He's not going to cry over it," Fischlin said. "But he's also been educated. He understands that the way the Pirates see the market is not the way other teams see it. They choose to work within their own scale."

Perez's memory of the matter could be long, Fischlin added.

"Players remember things like this when it comes time to be a free agent.

That is total bullshit. If I was a ballplayer and my agent said that to a reporter, I'd fire his ass as soon as I could get him on the speed dial.

Every big-league player is basically signed for three years and $1M when the come up. Anything a team decides to pay them above that is gravy. Players have no leverage whatsoever.

We all know that Oliver Perez, when he becomes a free agent, will do exactly what all other Boras clients do (Fischlin works for Boras). He'll go to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder will probably embarrass themselves. They'll learn that the rumored competition for the player's services in that price range was just an illusion.

If Oliver wants to be an egotist and claim that he has some kind of leverage that he does not have, let him. We can beat him like a rented mule if he's going to say, right now, that there's no chance he'll re-sign with the Pirates in what--four years? Premature would be a good word to describe such threats. Why fires shots across the bow after one good season? Especially when scouts generally regard Perez as fragile-looking? What does that accomplish?

What are his options? Will he malinger, as I always suspected Jason Schmidt did, and refuse to pitch so he can save his health for free agency? At the first sign of that, I'd trade him for players, prospects, and cash to the highest bidder. He can go malinger for some other club. A championship team is more than a collection of supremely-talented individuals. Anyone who is going to so conspicuously put himself before the team shouldn't be highly regarded or trusted as a teammate.

It's one thing to ask for a raise. You may prevail on the generosity of management. Of course management wants to reward good behavior. But it's a different thing to do that and then make some kind of totally unprofessional, money-grubbing, cowardly gesture such as refusing to accept a contract that you are bound to accept by the terms of the player agreement. Get some perspective, ball players and agents. How many years will your average plumber work before he earns $381K?

...all that said, the right course of action, I think, would be for the team to laugh off these bullshit threats. Give him the raise you offered and chalk all this nonsense up as one thoughtless comment by a junior agent. And now you know you may have a reason to not trust that Oliver Perez will have the team's back when they need him.