Diamondbacks Managing Partner Ken Kendrick says that he's disappointed with Stephen Drew and his slow return to the field from injury in an interview today with Brad Cesmat of XTRA Sports 910 (via Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic on Twitter). Kendrick believes that the shortstop is overly focused on protecting his future value rather than his maximizing his current production.
"I think Stephen and his representatives are more focused on where Stephen's going to be a year from now than going out and supporting the team that's paying his salary," Kendrick said, before adding that Drew hasn't been direct when presented with these concerns by the club.
Meanwhile, agent Scott Boras was quick to respond and denied the notion that his client is taking his time in coming back from his ankle injury. Boras told Piecoro that the suggestion flat out doesn't make sense.
"If you're talking about what the best thing Stephen can do for himself, that's to play baseball and play a lot of it," Boras said. "I don't think he wants anything different. That's the best thing he can do for Stephen and for his team. Why would he not want to play? The guy's going to be a free agent."
Drew has been out of action since fracturing his ankle on a slide into home plate nearly a year ago. The 29-year-old is earning $7.75MM this season with a $10MM mutual option for 2013 ($1.35MM buyout).
I actually agree with Boras…if he’s healthy enough to play, the best way for him to gain value in the free agent market is to play and show teams they shouldn’t worry about his health. If he’s not healthy enough to play, then he’d just be hurting the team, and maybe hurting himself further. As much as it pains me to be on the same side as Scott Boras, I sort of think I am here.
Missing time will hurt his value. However, I think missing time from a freak injury hurts his value way less an injury that might show him to be injury prone.
proving his health would be the most important thing for him going in to free agency
Did anyone else think this article was about Howie Kendrick at first?
I was actually thinking of Kyle (and I’m not kidding, I really had no idea why Kyle Kendrick would be disappointed in a Diamondback on the DL).
hahahaha me too! I was like why the hell does a Phillies pitcher care about Stephen Drew!
Rude.
There is no other way to describe this kind of talk. If I were Drew, I’d be out of Arizona the first chance I get.
Drew was already on his way out of Arizona. This was more like a “Don’t let the door hit ya” kind of thing.
what could you possibly hope to gain by making a comment like that
I agree. Simply ridiculous statement by Kendrick. I can’t see any purpose for saying something like that.
There are certainly some people disappointed in Kendrick for making such a statement. How ironic.
He really blew his ankle up — it wasn’t a simple injury.
Ken Kendrick called out Justin Upton a bit, as well, in this interview.
Calling out players is why the organization’s PR people had to pretty much put a muzzle on Kendrick 2 years ago. Upton has been underperforming and has been looking, for lack of a better word, lazy when playing the OF. Drew has been lazy when playing offense almost his whole career. This is not a surprising move by Kendrick, just sort of a class-less one.
The Diamondbacks were saying similar things about Brandon Webb when he was still with them. I think that the training staff might put unrealistic timetables on some players. All you ever hear from the Diamondbacks is that player X should be ready by Y date, and then they end up missing that deadline. If I were Kendrick and my staff told me the player should be ready I would be annoyed too when they fail to be ready (Kendrick should have never said what he did, it was just stupid), but I might want to question my medical staff as much as my players.
he’s just upset he’s going to have to be a seller as opposed to a buyer and that Drew isn’t helping him get back value for him. Pretty low class comment
This is a great point. With the new CBA, the Diamondbacks know they have NO chance of signing Drew past this year, and now that there is no draft pick compensation for losing your Type A and Type B free agents, I’m sure Arizona would like to trade Drew at the deadline to bring in a few prospects at least. He is going to be the only shortstop on the free agent market…and if you haven’t looked around lately, shortstop is a very depleted position in the League. The handful of quality ones are all locked up long-term. If Drew shows he is healthy over the summer and puts up numbers similar to his career averages, he will easily pull in 65+ million this fall.
Actually, there is some compensation for some free agents. I think that they have to be one of the top 100 paid players in the league or something like that. But you’re right in saying that the new CBA does away with any compensation for lesser FA’s.
They have to be offered and refuse a “qualifying offer.” I don’t remember exactly how “qualifying” is determined, but it’s supposed to be around $12M for one year. The idea is that anyone other than the top free agents would accept the deal because of the relatively high AAV, and the top free agents would refuse because they could get multiple years and/or more money.
“The qualifying offer, which will be determined by averaging the top 125
player salaries from the previous year, is expected to fall in the
$12-13MM range for the coming offseason. All qualifying offers are for
the same duration (one year) and the same amount ($12-13MM). ”
Edit:
That is from Ben’s story here dated 5/17
And there it is.
Thanks john.
One problem- Dbacks arent selling bud.
Kendrick almost cerrtainly went about it the wrong way, but he’s not really saying anything that hasn’t been openly speculated about since the beginning of May. Quite frankly, ever since late 2010, Drew has been at odds with the front office. He and Boras made no qualms about how they felt Drew was an underappreciated player and also making clear that in order to retain Drew the Dbacks would need to break the bank. Add to that, the fact that he was struggling mightily when he injured himself, and then somehow wound up with a hernia while on the DL, and there you have the recipe for some animosity.
Not defending Kendrick, but he’s never been one to pull punches before when the team didn’t perform. So this isn’t the most surprising of developments.
Kendrick is being completely unrealistic and on top of that very immature and bush league. I think it boils down to the fact the Diamondbacks, although their future used to be bright, are now on a serious decent. They are struggling with Upton and just broke the piggy bank for a catcher who has had 1 productive year.
Kendrick’s stance makes no logical sense. Drew’s best bet is to get back to the field and perform and show he is 100% healed and healthy. That is how he will rake it in next Fall as the only shortstop on the free agent market. It does him no good to slow play the Diamondbacks, because that just continues to keep the health questions coming. It was a totally freak incident, and was pretty gruesome at that. Kendrick is just running his mouth like a sore loser. To throw one of your own players under the bus like that is pretty immature. I’m sure Drew is now just counting the days until he can move on to a real contender!
I wonder how quickly Ken Kendrick would be back to full strength after having his foot spin around 180 degrees?
That is exactly it…it’s not like Drew is nursing a hamstring, and just doesn’t want to push through it. He tore every ligament and tendon in his ankle and also had a spiral bone fracture. And Drew doesn’t play first base…he plays the most demanding position on the field in terms of range and demand.
Maybe Kendrick should realize that running on the treadmill at 5mph for 15 minutes is not considered athletic…I don’t think he would be chirping this nonsense if all his ligaments and tendons went through a meat grinder.
People, stop acting like you know the situation going on with the Dbacks right now. Kendrick is trying to light a MUCH NEEDED fire under this under-performing team. He made some comments about Upton too that may not come across too well. They won 10-0 without Upton in the lineup tonight, he might be sitting tomorrow as well according to Kirk Gibson. This teams needs something, anything to get going.
If Kendrick is pissed, he will more than likely be traded next month.
you have to admit, there is something about the Drew boys..they just dont’ show any fire. There is probably something that Kendrick can’t say about Drew….
I love it. Rid yourself of these soft players as soon as possible and get some guys on your team who actually want to play. I guess Stephen Drew is rehabbing his injury with the same guys who helped out Kendrys Morales.
he’s an injured 3 month rental….. what would they get for that? not much…..
that said my Tigers would love to get him and push Jhonny P to 2b….Raburn and a RP prospect like Putkonen???
100% agree with Boras