Stephen Drew certainly thinks a lot of himself.
The free-agent veteran infielder has drawn interest from a number of teams this offseason, including the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland Athletics, but he might continue to remain on the open market if agent Scott Boras doesn’t lower his asking price substantially.
According to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, Boras is seeking $9 million to $10 million for 2015 for the 31-year-old. Sherman reports that teams interested in Drew say those numbers are simply “not in their price range.” Not to mention Drew is coming off an awful 2014 campaign in which he hit just .162 with seven homers and 26 RBIs in 85 games between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.
But Boras is urging teams to look at Drew’s career as a whole and put aside the brutal numbers he posted last season. According to Sherman, Boras “has emphasized the career .764 OPS the lefty swinger took into last season as representative of his client and not the .536 he posted” in 2014 after a mess of a free-agency process left Drew unsigned until May.
That doesn’t mean clubs are buying what Boras is selling. An executive from one of the interested teams wasn’t impressed in the least by what he saw from Drew last season.
“Fine, you want to say June and July (last year) were spring training for him, well, how about August or September?,” the unnamed executive told the Post. “There was never a time in which he looked like a major league hitter. The ball didn’t come off his bat well, there was zero consistency. Nothing.”
Drew’s remains one of the top unsigned middle infielders left on the market, with Asdrubal Cabrera reportedly agreeing to a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday. But he might remain unsigned if he doesn’t lower his expectations.
Thumbnail photo via Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports Images
