Derek Jeter's contract negotiations have gone public. If you somehow haven't heard, the Yankees initial offer for their shortstop was a three-year, $45 million that Jeter's longtime agent Casey Close laughed at.
Close's argument was easy to anticipate. Jeter's an icon, he's an essential Yankee or, perhaps better stated, he is the Yankees.
The bottom line is that Jeter is worth more to the Yankees than he is to any other team. Especially coming off this season, the comparables show he's worth around $10 million a year. Save for the Mets making a desperate marketing move, it's hard to see any team matching the Yankees first offer.
And if Jeter does manage to get a total package higher than what the Yankees offer — know that that first offer isn’t their final offer — the team knows that he wouldn’t be dumb enough to go. Why? Because, depending on the market, Jeter losing the lifelong Yankee label could cost him so much in marketing dollars that he’d actually be losing money anyway.
Yea, we're gonna say it would be in his best interest to stay. He's getting to old to feel like the King of Major League Baseball.