Drew Has Baseball On The Run

The consistent view from this small, inconsequential corner of the baseball universe has been that the Phillies were obligated to offer J.D. Drew more money than any drafted player in history. That and nothing more.

They have done that. So if Drew, the 1997 Golden Spikes Award winner from Florida State who has remained unsigned for more than 50 weeks now, decides he prefers the summer fly-fishing in Minnesota to the occasional gridlock of the Philadelphia freeways, that’s his business. If he would rather spend more time in courthouses than major league clubhouses, that’s fine, too.

It’s his inalienable right. But the Phillies shouldn’t be hammered for staying within the structure of baseball’s draft, either.

That remains the opinion here as the final hours of this chess match are played out.

Yet, in recent days, a disquieting thought has occurred. It’s not difficult to imagine club president Dave Montgomery attending an owners’ meeting and being slapped on the back by a succession of his peers, comrades congratulating him for his principled stand against Drew and dastardly agent Scott Boras.

It’s not hard to conjure up a picture of Ed Wade on the phone with other general managers who urge him not to cave in. For the good of the game, of course.

There’s a problem here, though. If the people who run baseball teams have proved anything, it’s that they’re out for themselves at all times. And that means only one thing.

If Drew does manage to extricate himself from the draft and become a free agent, you know exactly what’s going to happen:

Some of the same guys who have been so adamant about the Phillies not overpaying Drew will line up to wave cash in his face and, yes, somebody will probably end up paying him $11 million.

That isn’t to say that any team should roll over and play dead whenever a demand is made. There has to be a limit somewhere.

But the fact is that this is a player the Phillies need. And Boras is right. If Drew becomes a free agent, he will get three of four times more than the offer currently on the table.

The Phillies have less than four days to use all their creativity and flexibility to try to be sure it doesn’t come to that. No matter what anybody else in baseball says.