With Alex Gordon on open market, Royals must choose between face of franchise, financial flexibility

The face of the franchise grew up only a few hours away from his home ballpark. During a decade in Missouri, he planted roots deep within his community, earned All-Star appearances, collected Gold Gloves and personified his organization’s ethos. When he reached free agency, days after winning the World Series, his team prepared to offer him the largest contract in its history in order to stay.

In 2015, that player is Alex Gordon. But four years ago, that player was Albert Pujols, and his foray into the open market placed the front office of St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak at a crossroads, forced to choose between sacrificing long-term flexibility or losing an iconic player.

“You’re trying to find a place where you can find balance,” Mozeliak said Wednesday at the GM meetings at the Boca Raton Resort and Club. “But in the free-agent market, that might not necessarily come to fruition. Then it ultimately comes down to what might be your next best alternative.”

For the Royals, the free agency of Gordon offers a reprise of St. Louis’ situation with Pujols, only on a smaller scale. The Cardinals declined to match a 10-year, $240 million offer from the Angels, allowing Pujols to leave. Rival executives do not project Gordon to receive a deal longer than five years, but the package could cost more than $90 million, and the Royals have never handed out a contract worth more than $55 million.

Mozeliak trusted that his core group of players, a unit that included Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright, could survive even the departure of Pujols, the greatest player in his generation. The Royals must prepare for a similar transition, relying upon a younger nucleus of Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Perez and Mike Moustakas.

General manager Dayton Moore has called this situation a first in his career. But it is not unique in baseball. In conversations this week with executives who have conducted similar negotiations, a few consistent themes emerged.

Teams must gauge the importance of the player within their organizational culture, and how that culture may survive if the player departs. They must determine the player’s overall value to the team’s brand, and their ability to market other players in his absence. And they must acknowledge the likelihood that a long-term contract with a player in his 30s will morph into an albatross as the player’s production and health decline.

Josh Hamilton won an American League MVP award with the Rangers and helped lead the team to back-to-back pennants. But after five seasons, Texas general manager Jon Daniels allowed Hamilton to walk after 2012.

“You have to weigh both sides of it,” Daniels said. “You don’t want to be flippant with the sentimentality and the fan piece. But the contracts are real. Every situation is different, with both the club and the player and the player’s relationship to the team, but that’s a tricky one.”

Hamilton carried with him additional risk factors, including a history of drug and alcohol abuse, which the Angels acknowledged when the organization inked him to a five-year, $125 million contract. Unproductive at the plate in 2013, slowed by injuries in 2014, Hamilton relapsed before the 2015 season.

Unwilling to stomach Hamilton on their roster, Los Angeles shipped him back to Texas. The Angels agreed to pay the overwhelming majority of his salary.

These situations do not always descend into acrimony. On Nov. 4, 2009, Hideki Matsui stood atop a stage inside Yankee Stadium, clutching the World Series MVP trophy. As the crowd showered Matsui with adulation, general manager Brian Cashman understood this would be Matsui’s final moment as a Yankee.

Cashman brought Matsui from the Yomiuri Giants to the Bronx before the 2003 season. Matsui spent seven seasons in pinstripes, adored by both fans and peers. Yet he would turn 36 the next season, his legs creaked and the Yankees sought more flexibility with their roster.

“It’s tough,” Cashman said. “Because you build relationships with these people. And you’ve had success because of those people. It’s a collision of hardcore business decisions that the player has to make for him and his family, and you have to make for you and your franchise. All of a sudden, you were just on the same team and now you’re pitted against each other.”

Matsui landed with the Angels. The next April, when Matsui visited Yankee Stadium, his former teammates mobbed him and presented him with his World Series ring. “It was very tough to watch,” Cashman said.

But, Cashman continued, “unlike Alex Gordon, who looks like he’s a man of pristine health and younger, Hideki was toward the end of his career. He had bad knees. He had some complicating issues.”

Even so, baseball history reminds us how often players break down as they enter their 30s. Bat speed slows. Hand-eye coordination dims. Minor aches take longer to fade. The body betrays the player.

When David Wright stood a year away from free agency after the 2012 season, the Mets felt compelled to act. So despite concerns about his long-term viability, the team reached an eight-year, $138 million extension with him.

Wright raked in 2013, but various ailments limited him to 113 games. His on-base plus slugging percentage plummeted to a career-low .698 the next season. He injured his back this spring, and doctors diagnosed him with spinal stenosis. He played in only 34 games.

“I think any long-term, free-agent deal — you take a look at all of them — there’s a certain percentage on the dollar that you’re going to get,” Mets assistant general manager John Ricco said. “Part of that is because of injury. Part of that is because of declining performance. You do factor that in. The longer you go, the more you factor it in.”

Gordon is renowned for his commitment to his fitness. But he still underwent wrist surgery last winter. A severe groin strain cost him nearly two months during the summer. Upon his return, he looked more tentative in the field and more plodding on the bases, in the view of rival scouts.

Ricco also raised an interesting point, one that compares the Royals with the Mets. At the time, Ricco insisted, Wright served as the only marketable player on the Mets. The team had let shortstop Jose Reyes depart in free agency the year before. Without Wright, Ricco explained, “who are we?”

Kansas City does not have a similar problem. Gordon is beloved by the fanbase. But so are Hosmer, Cain, Perez, Moustakas and others. Mozeliak spotted the connection with his own organization, a team that allowed an iconic player like Pujols to sign elsewhere, a team that has remained a championship contender without him.

“Championship clubs tend to have more than just one player,” Mozeliak said. “Kansas City is a prime example of that. When you look around that field, it is sort of like, ‘Who’s going to be next?’ And that helps.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 1:27 PM with the headline "With Alex Gordon on open market, Royals must choose between face of franchise, financial flexibility."