I’d be lying if I said this didn’t make me laugh:
In his Rangers debut, Ryan Dempster gave up a season-high eight runs in 4 2/3 innings, but he got plenty of help from the bullpen and the Texas offense. The Rangers, after collecting 17 hits in Wednesday’s win, overcame three deficits and pounded out 18 hits in a 15-9 win over the Angels at the Ballpark in Arlington on Thursday night. With the win, the Rangers split the four-game series and extended their lead in the American League West to five games.
To his credit, Dempster DID try to smooth things over with the fans, most of whom turned on him like expired yogurt after he managed to block the Cubs from getting one of the best young pitching prospects around, by taking out a full-page Ad in today’s Chicago Tribune Sports Section.
Follow me below the jump for more. . .
Nice try, Dempster. I still think you’re a selfish jerk. Terrifyingly, this is a subject upon which Steve Rosenbloom and I agree:
Ah, but if you connect the dots, Epstein gave a bunch of reasons to criticize Dempster and gave some insight on how ticked he must be, especially after Dempster spent a week claiming he never said no to the Atlanta deal.
“He didn’t technically say no,’’ Epstein said. “He said, ‘No, not now. I’m not going to go to Atlanta before I see about L.A.’’’
Sounds like there’s a “no’’ in there. That also sounds like Dempster had given Epstein the OK to trade him to Atlanta. Why else would Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer have spent so much time on that deal? Hoyer told WSCR-AM 670’s “Mully & Hanley Show’’ on Thursday that he spent a week crafting the trade to land the Braves’ big prospect, Randall Delgado. Does any sane person believe Hoyer would do that just for practice?
No, he did it because Dempster said OK to Atlanta. The Braves were on Dempster’s list of teams for which he’d waive his no-trade rights. But it turns out, the Cubs couldn’t trust Dempster to keep what they believed was his word because the only team he wanted to go to was the Dodgers.
“It created a market of one until about 15 minutes to go (before the trade deadline),’’ Epstein said.
Finally, in happier news (but still with a “suck it Dempster” twist. . .):
Villanueva homered in his first two bats for Class A Advanced Daytona on Thursday night in the Cubs’ 8-2 win over Fort Myers at Jackie Robinson Ballpark.
The game, which was Daytona’s fifth win in a row and seventh in its last eight, was his first with the club since being sent from the Rangers to the Cubs organization as part of the deal that sent Ryan Dempster to Texas.
The 21-year-old third baseman admitted he wasn’t particularly trying to impress his new bosses.
“I didn’t expect anything like that to happen,” Villanueva said. “I was just trying to do my best here. I was happy to have new teammates and be part of this organization, and I wanted to do well for them.”
Don’t miss Wrigley Talk Friday, which comes your way today at 1:00 pm CT on Blog Talk Radio.
The Cubs are in LA tonight to take on the Dodgers at 9:10 pm.
Wow, this from the Sporting News:
How badly did Ryan Dempster want to be dealt to the Los Angeles Dodgers? Badly enough that he was allowed to listen on the phone as the Chicago Cubs negotiated with the Dodgers in an effort to convince him that the deal wasn’t going to happen.
“It was an unusual situation. But I think it as helpful to have him there so he could hear first-hand that (the Dodgers deal) wasn’t going to happen,” Cubs president Theo Epstein told the Chicago Tribune. “If someone wants to really go to a place, you can tell him over and over it’s not going to happen. But unless they’re convinced of that, they’re not going to want to move on to their second choice.”
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And he didn’t let Colletti know Dempster was listening in???? Holy Cow, what a low-life lack of ethics. Tell me one GM who is going to trust Theo again. Low life. Gutless. Unethical.
I have a hard time going with any line of logic that claims an unethical bent to telling the truth.
I believe the word you are looking for is class, not ethics. After the shit Dempster had pulled with multiple front offices (Chicago National League and Atlanta), class was no longer warranted.
Semantic point well taken. A complete lack of class, though I would submit there is an unspoken ethic among GMs that their trade talks are private. If you were called by a potential employer to give a reference on a fellow worker or one of your subordinates, would you want the candidate secretly listening to your comments? And if you learned that happened, would you ever deal with that potential employer again? I hope the rest of baseball boycotts this scumbag and we have to pay to price as a team until Saint Theo is out on his ass. … And regardless of what Dempster pulled, class is always warranted.
Eh. They may have told Ned that Ryan was listening in. We really have no idea.
you’re a smart lady. Do you honestly think Theo told Ned? Theo himself said it was an “unusual situation.” And he did it so Dempster would know the deal wasn’t going to happen.
Why don’t you or Paul Sullivan or someone do some reporting and find out if Colletti was aware. Quarter bet says he was hoodwinked by a huckster.
Why did it matter that Ryan was in the room? It’s not like they were talking about which players would be moved for him, but rather that LA wasn’t going to be making a trade for Ryan.
Theo didn’t say, “Hey, come on is so you can hear how little they value you with what they’re offering.” By all accounts Theo was saying, “Look Ryan, LA’s not going to happen. Is there anything else you’d be willing to do here?”
Why the hell do you keep lumping me in with Paul Sullivan?
I’d be pissed too
Trade talks are Private? That’s not passing the smell test either. GMs leak info to the media like a sieve all the time to better their negotiating power and to get other teams to up their offers. At this point I’m pretty sure that all the other GMs and agents know who Theo and Jed are. I doubt their personalities and ways of dealing with stuff are going to be a hinderance to the team moving forward.
Ryan on the other hand? I’m not so sure. Remember what happened to the last popular veteran, stand-up Cubs player with unique family circumstances who started dicking around with a trade? His name was Derek Lee. I’m not seeing DLee being invited back for much of anything these days, primarily because he burned bridges late in his career.
I want to clarify the info being leaked bit- the Chicago press corps gets nothing for leaked info, but that’s what happens when your pulling double duty from the sports desk of the Trib and the marketing dept for the Cubs.
Leaking information is different than carefully orchestrated surreptitious eavesdropping. One is done all the time and is an accepted part of the process. As far as I know, the latter has never been reported before. I’ll be interested to see what comes out of LA as this story gains some footing.
Actually this was reported by LA sportscasters as part of their coverage on the trade deadline, and so far there has been little or no evidence of anyone in LA caring. The talk in LA is more about how Hanley Ramirez does not appear to be the missing piece in the Ddogers offense, and about what is wrong with Chad Billingsley. I’m going to the Dodgers-Cubs game tonight, and if I actually find any articulate Ddoger fans, I’ll ask them if they are “outraged.”
Let’s set the record straight here. There is no rulebook on negotiations and how they should be handled and who can listen in on phone calls and can’t. This is a business. Theo/Jed were stuck in a corner by Demp and had no room to breath. They had only one trade to make because of the arrogance of some dumb pitcher. When they were prepared to shop everyone out the door.
Someone without saying names obviously has a vendetta against our brain trust. I believe that Theo acted in good faith and wouldn’t give a rats ass if Colletti knew that Ryan was listening in or not. There is no code that is in place that states someone can’t listen in.
To call Theo a scumbag is unwarranted. That dude is busting his ass trying to make this team better and he’s doing a fucking-lot-better then Hendry or anyone else has. This mess is Demps fault. Our FO could have and did have way better deals in place before some fuckwad came in and spoiled things. IN THEO I TRUST
Wow!!! All of this could be made into a book.(fact or fiction).Then maybe a documentary-movie.Hidden,mysterious,sinister dealings. Behind the scenes of MLB dealings and trades.
>>”there is an unspoken ethic among GMs that their trade talks are private”
You know this how, Mr. Jr. GM? How many GM offices have you been in (or near) during trade talks?
Whoever has a conversation on the phone with Theo can just say “Is anyone else on this line?”.
In fact maybe that’s how they should start the conversation.
That’s if the report is true.
Anyone else want to put odds on Dempster/his agent being laughed out of contract negotiations when he says “Jim Hendry gave me a no trade clause on a multi-year contract. What can you do?”
Dempster has quite an elaborate signature.
Heads up. . . we’re doing WTF at 2 pm today. Not 1.
I’ll rearrange my calendar.
I thought they said they moved Dempster to another office at some point in the talks
they did.
I think it’s a given that, when you’re negotiating over the phone, you’re talking to a pretty good size group of people most of the time. It’s general courtesy to say “You’re on speaking phone and I’ve got this person and this person and this person in here with me,” but I don’t think it’s unethical NOT to do that.
Yep. Unless you’re talking with your lawyer, doctor, therapist, or ordained religious official of choice, do not assume any level of mandated ethics in your communications.
So, a lawyer, doctor, therapist and ordained religious official walk into a bar . . .
“you’re on speaker phone and I got your wife here with me” That would be a question of ‘ethical’,maybe
As would be, “You’re on speakerphone and I have the IRS here with me”…
you’re a nut