Nathaniel Whalen

Since we now have absurdly early deadlines – earlier than any paper in the city – we were not able to get Jeff Berry’s reply into our story Monday.

For those who are wondering, Buehrle’s agent had this to say to a pool reporter about all of Ken’s pregame comments:

"Mark is willing to forego free agency and has made no secret of his desire to remain in Chicago. In return, he simply wants assurance that he will stay with the Sox for the next four years.”

In other words, he wants a full no-trade clause.

Here were Ken’s pregame thoughts on it.

“I don’t really, I haven’t read a whole lot of what’s going on, so I don’t know if the perception is out there that we’ve offered him little in the way of trade protection. I know that enough got out there to where I placed a call to him on Friday personally just to let him know a couple of things. The first thing I wanted to let him know is this is no effort on our part to get him some sort of sign of trade deal, we’re not going into this with the mindset of moving him. You always have to try to maintain some fluidity, some flexibility when you’re talking about constructing a roster, but we’re not going into this with that mindset. We would not have made this overture if it was with this mindset. So, there is that.

“Then I went on to explain as well that there’s more trade protection actually in this situation than – at least in my recent memory, in my seven years – than we’ve offered anyone. What it amounts to is basically a combination of things, and I don’t want to get into all the aspects of it, there’s only about 18 months of exposure and that’s in the middle of the deal that he has to worry about. If that’s the only thing that’s the roadblock at this point, then I have to be optimistic that something can get done. …

“What we’ve tried to do with a few other contracts we’ve signed recently – Contreras and Konerko are a couple – is, there was a complete no trade for the first year – in Garland’s deal as well – a complete no trade for the first year to address that issue of signing someone and going into it with the motivation to trade them. In Konerko’s deal there’s a limited no trade after that. So, obviously we’re not shy about extending ourselves and giving a player who’s important to us and who’s valuable in a number of ways some of that protection, but it’s the full complete protection – and let me just explain how that works. As soon as you do that, everyone who comes through the door to the negotiating table is going to be expecting the same.

“Whatever free agents you go after will also be expecting the same treatment. Now, having said that, I can completely understand – and I talked to Jerry about that today – we completely understand him wanting and requesting it. And it’s not really a matter of us not desiring to do it completely, it’s a matter of business practice and how that’s going to affect the next day, the next player I attempt to sign, future free agents down the line. The ramifications just are, boy they could turn you into a team you’re not going to enjoy seeing.”

So, someone wondered whether it’s hard to give Buehrle the no-trade clause, then tell someone else that was a special exception.

“The answer to that question is yeah it is and you would be surprised at the number of things you have to deal with in a negotiation. It may not necessarily be what your club has given into and not given into. It may be another club in your league or another club in your division. That’s how the salary structure and all the other things in baseball, how they’ve evolved and developed. It is huge deal and something we would like to try to avoid for the sake of keeping some fluidity, some maneuverability in the clubhouse.”

So, what do you think? Give Buehrle the no-trade clause or not?