When many of you woke up last Friday, the sports world was flooded with reports about Jay-Z potentially costing Robinson Cano as much as $50 million by angering the Seattle Mariners. According to several sources, Cano and the Mariners had agreed to a nine-year, $225 million contract on Thursday night. Talks reportedly hit a snag when Jay-Z asked for a 10-year, $250 million contract at last minute that infuriated Seattle’s brass.
“Robinson Cano should have never left Scott Boras!” they all said.
Before we knew it, the Mariners had caved and Cano agreed to his massive deal. And the most amazing part about it is Jay-Z may have actually gotten the Mariners to outbid themselves with their final offer.
According to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, the Mariners believed some other team had offered Cano nine years and $225 million. Who was that team? Why haven’t we heard anything about Cano being in legitimate talks with any other team or receiving any other offers that were north of $200 million? Probably because there was no other team.
The only other known offer Cano received was something in the range of seven years and around $160 million from the Yankees. That is nowhere near what Cano eventually signed for, and we previously told you that New York was not willing to go beyond $200 million to keep Cano. It now seems like there is a good chance no team was going to blow a $200 million offer out of the water.
Therefore, we are left to assume that Jay-Z handled Cano’s contract negotiations like a genius. Unless someone can prove there was another team that made a competitive offer, the only possible explanation is that Jay-Z dangled his high-profile client in front of the Mariners and then pulled him back. By that time, Seattle could already see the way the future of its franchise looked with Cano. They weren’t walking away from the table, and Jay-Z probably knew that. All indications are he handled the situation with perfection.
H/T Baseball Nation via Deadspin
