MVN: Most Valuable Network

With the recent news that Roger Clemens has signed a contract with the Yankees worth a prorated $28 million for the course of the year, Zach, Evan and Mike attempt to make sense of it all...

ZACH:

We were all fooled by Roger Clemens. While the speculation mounted, the message board posters debated and the anticipation built towards an announcement from the Rocket, the plan was intact all along. When Andy Pettitte departed from the Astros and joined the Yankees, the decision was final. Before the season began and the first pitch was thrown, Clemens had made up his mind. Even during the bogus conversations between hopeful Theo Epstein, John Henry and the Red Sox front office took place, the Hendricks brothers and Clemens were already packing their bags for the Bronx.

You can deny the facts all you want and continue to kid yourself, or you can admit Roger Clemens would have meant a great deal to the Boston Red Sox this season. As we learned in 2006, you can NEVER have enough pitching. A Clemens acquisition would given Boston, inarguably, the deepest and most talented rotation in the major leagues and would have allowed Jon Lester’s timetable to be extended in great length. It was a dream scenario running through the dreams of some Red Sox fans- a Clemens six-inning masterpiece, a talented bullpen holding the line, Jonathan Papelbon slamming the door.

The other percentage of Red Sox fans would have felt grimy rooting for Roger again. They see him as an egotistical self-loathing jerk who had the nerve to have the first name of his children all begin with K. After all, Roger is the only player to ever piss off now four fan bases over the course of his career. He left Boston on a sour note, putting on a boatload of weight and coasting through the 1996 season while being distracted by his hatred for GM Dan Duquette and his refusal to give Roger an extension fatter than his waist. He turned it on for the 20K game in Detroit and lured Toronto into giving him that contract. The rest is history --- he won consecutive Cy Young’s, turned around his career, won two rings with the archenemy and proceeded to go into his mid-40’s untouchable.

Maybe I‚Äôm too young to have the full perspective of these times, and maybe I‚Äôm too na?Øve to the relative nature of professional athletes today, but I really wanted Clemens back at Fenway Park. It would have been fantastic seeing him lead a rotation consisting of two pitchers that consider the Rocket their hero, Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling. He could have mentored Jon Lester. Even gone out on a note that involved a ring where it all started and #21 being lifted to the rafters. But, no, that was too good to be true.

He chose the Yankees for fraudulent reasons he’ll probably lie about. When healthy, their rotation can now rival the Red Sox. Chien-Ming Wang looks like he can be the 19-game winner he was last season after his 7.1 perfect inning performance on Saturday. Mike Mussina is very steady, as is Andy Pettitte. Add Clemens to the mix and rookie phenom Phil Hughes and that’s an outstanding 1 through 5. When you throw in the Yankees offense, I would say they are the AL East favorite, despite their 5.5 game deficit.

Following this news, I‚Äôm embarrassed I ever wanted Clemens back in Boston. I can‚Äôt believe I was willing to give him another chance, felt I would be able to easily root for him while putting the past behind and his holier-than-thou attitude out of my head. Throughout this entire process, I was na?Øve to think he would finish his major league legacy with a curtain call in Boston that ends in the previously mentioned scenarios. In the end, it‚Äôs all about the cash and all about going where he‚Äôs comfortable, with his chums Posada and Jeter and Pettitte in New York.

Once a schmuck, always a schmuck. Guys like Roger Clemens don’t change.

He simply doesn’t get it. Curt Schilling won a World Series ring in Arizona and could have hung it up. He took a challenge that lay ahead of him and grasped the opportunity by winning a World Series in Boston and becoming a local hero throughout the city forever. He pitched with the bloody sock in Game 6 and risked the rest of his career numbers for one game and one cause. Do you really think Roger Clemens pitches that game?

Instead of completing his career with the Red Sox and taking that challenge, Clemens went to the Yankees and pissed off the entire Sox fan base in the process. Those ovations we gave him at Fenway late in his career were regrettable. He never felt any love with the fans, it was all staged and cold-hearted. All along, it’s about Roger and only Roger. He took a prorated 28 million from the Yankees, sprinting towards the cash. He’s not worried about his legacy at all.

The Yankees can't offer him any more than cash. He has a Cy Young and two championship rings with the Yankees and, at this point in his life, has more money than you can possibly imagine. In typical Clemens fashion, he signs with the Yankees for the most money.

It was too predictable, I feel really stupid even considering he would choose a different route.

EVAN:

Over on the right, you'll see a poster from the SportsPosterWarehouse that's currently hanging on my bathroom wall.

I haven't decided yet whether or not it's coming down, but I would be lying if I didn't feel betrayed and shocked by this decision. Saying this will probably put a touch of glee in every Yankee fan that ventures to this page, but it's the honest truth.

Before I get into my take of why Roger Clemens is venturing to New York and not to Boston, let me say this: I thought he was going back to Houston. Why wouldn't he? He had tremendous success pitching in what I think is the weakest division in baseball, he was pitching in his hometown, he was raking in the money, and he would have avoided alienating one of the big cities in baseball: either Boston or New York.

That being said, I knew there was a distinct possibility the Rocket would not choose Houston. If it was down to Boston or New York, I thought that Boston was a slamdunk choice. It wasn't even close. Boasting the best record in baseball, the Red Sox had remained competitive and had a closer that many likened to Roger Clemens himself, Jonathan Papelbon. If Clemens was in the mentoring mood, he had Josh Beckett and Jon Lester in addition to Papelbon to mentor - not to mention Michael Bowden and Clay Buchholz knocking on the door.

The team with the best chance of winning the World Series clearly looked like the Red Sox, and they had a perfect place for Roger Clemens: Julian Tavarez's spot in the rotation. The offense was solid, the pitching was incredible ... I couldn't fathom Clemens choosing to go to a team decimated by injuries and not even at .500.

Clearly, I was wrong. Roger Clemens' second 20 strikeout performance remains the last time he won as a member of the Boston Red Sox. His final appearance as a Red Sox remains that of opposing the New York Yankees and his eventual best friend, Andy Pettitte.

I've been trying to make sense of it all. How does Randy Hendricks, Clemens' agent, head to Boston and start talking contract details, only to swerve off to the Yankees? What is Roger Clemens' motivation for doing this?

There's no other plausible explanation for this: money.

Before I get ragged on for this, let me say that I completely understand why someone would be out to maximize every dollar. I am not a professional baseball player, nor will I ever be, but in every job I get, I will always be looking to maximize my income.

However, there's a more significant difference between a person making $11.00 per hour and $12.00 per hour than there is with someone choosing $28 million over $21-24 million with well over $121 million to his name. Of course, Clemens has a lot more expenditures than I ever will, but ... still.

Look, here's my thought process. Roger Clemens is now embarking on his 24th year in the business, 13 of them were with the Red Sox. He is tied with Cy Young for most Red Sox victories at 192, and this season looked like the strongest blend of a team the Red Sox have had in recent memory, including the 2004 ballclub that took until mid-August to realize its potential. If legacy was important to Roger Clemens, returning to Boston, reuniting with Boston fans, taking sole possession of first place in career Red Sox wins, and possibly going out on top with a World Series in Boston ... that's a Hollywood story.

But that was all for naught. The agent of Roger Clemens was in Boston. The Red Sox's last offer was a prorated $18 million that President Larry Lucchino felt could have been tweaked before "D-Day," which he thought was this coming Thursday. Sorry, Larry. It was yesterday. Brian Cashman, the Yankees' GM, found out. The rest is history: he upped his offer to a staggering $28 million prorated (and by the way, Yankees fans can shut up now about decreasing payroll: their payroll just went back above $200 million) and Roger Clemens accepted, as Cashman was aggressive with his offer and aggressive with the time frame Clemens had to accept the offer: much like the same negotiating tactic he used to land Johnny Damon.

And it worked.

What was it about if it's not about legacy? Roger Clemens' legacy is intact as one of the greatest pitchers of all time, a legacy that probably would not be in place if not for Dan Duquette's remarks about Clemens being in the twilight of his career, spurring Clemens to work out even more and put a chip on his shoulder that resulted in two amazing seasons for the Blue Jays. I'm sure he's not concerned about his legacy (even though I was sure he wasn't concerned about money) ... but the pull to Boston was overwhelming. Last year, when Boston put on a fullcourt press to sign him, they made a video montage of Clemens' greatest moments in his Sox career, a montage that apparently moved him to tears. There were rumors circulating last year that Clemens said he had made a mistake and should have signed with the Red Sox, not Astros.

Is it about money? It sure looks like it.

Was it because he wanted to start pitching earlier? Maybe.

Hendricks maintained a factor in Clemens's decision was that the Sox didn't want Clemens until late June and Clemens wanted to come back sooner. Club sources insist that was not the case, and that Hendricks had raised the issue of the timing of the pitcher's return almost as an afterthought.

Is it about wanting to be the savior? Is it not about the best chance of winning the World Series, but the best chance to look like a savior, with the team uncharacteristically playing well? The Red Sox's Pythagorean record is exactly what the record is: 20-10. The Yankees' record is 14-15, they just jumped into second place and their Pythagorean record is 17-12. Maybe Clemens was aware of that, maybe he wasn't ... but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Yankees weren't down and out after April.

I don't know what the answer is, and I won't know until Roger Clemens tells us the answer. All I can do is look at the facts. All I can do is be led to think that it is about the money. And if it is ... why didn't Roger's agent let the Red Sox try to match the bid or increase it?

Hendricks and Cashman spoke on Thursday night, and the financial parameters were laid out: Clemens would cost a prorated salary of $28 million. Hendricks got off the phone and called Clemens, and told him that the time was nearing for the pitcher to make a decision, and that if he was going to go to the Yankees, now was the time. "Let's do it," Clemens responded. (Buster Olney)

Did they think that the Red Sox wouldn't match it? (If they thought that, they were right. The Red Sox said they would not have bid as high as the Yankees.) Did Brian Cashman intimate that this $28 million deal was on the table for only a specific amount of time?

I don't know. But I know this: Roger Clemens is a New York Yankee, and the homecoming will have to wait for another time. Maybe it will be next year. Maybe it will be two years from now. Or maybe we will have to just have a Roger Clemens Appreciation Day after he retires.

But one thing is for sure. Roger Clemens' homecoming to Fenway Park will not be the way he left it in the regular season of 2003. He will not receive a standing ovation.

MIKE:

Like my fellow writers for Fire Brand, I have an emotional connection the Rocket. When I was raised a Red Sox fan, Clemens was the man. I remember my father taking me to a sports store when I was 4 or 5 to get some baseball cards. Only, I got an 8 x 10 of Clemens as well. And since then it hung on the door of my room until I went to college. Now, it hangs, framed, on the wall of my dorm room next to a picture of Ted Williams kissing his bat and the cover of TIME magazine after the Red Sox won it all. I've kept a picture of him up all this time and he's not coming down now. He got a name with the Red Sox and he will go into the Hall of Fame with a B on his hat. Even though he's going to the Yankees, he'd have to pitch for them well into his 50's to get anywhere near the 13 years he spent with the Red Sox. Sure, the guy's nothing more than a mercenary but we knew that already. Not everyone can have the perfect character. Sometimes you just have to appreciate a guy's raw talent though. And Clemens is one of the greatest talents in the history of the game.

How that will translate in New York should be interesting. One of the first things my Yankees friends said to me when they heard the news was, "how do you think he'll do?" It's hard to tell how a multitude of factors will play out. It's not as if I'm left clueless though. At age 45 he probably won't be helping the Yankees bullpen much. Even last year when Clemens didn't have to face a DH, he still didn't manage to average 6 innings per start. And with a DH and the American League's more patient lineups, it's likely he won't be pitching all that deep into games. It also seems very likely that he will regress not only because of age but because he's coming to a more difficult league. The age and the colder weather in New York come September and October could also put him at risk for injury. Still, if he does manage to stay healthy, he should help a Yankees rotation that's likely to struggle with injury for much of the season. Extra pitching can't ever hurt. I expect Clemens to be solid, although probably not dominant like he was in Houston. He will surely become ineffective some day but believe it or not, this guy might have another couple years in the tank.