The A-Rod Saga Makes a leading cause Negotiation Class

If you're a baseball fan, or just a fan of trading, one can not help but pay attention to the franchise agreement that multi-multi-multi-millionaire, Alex Rodriguez.

For years, was the highest paid player on any team in Major League Baseball, after signing a contract with the Texas Rangers who has promised to pay more than $ 250 million dollars over 10 years.

Despite his talent, A-Rod did not get the Rangers to World Series, so he was traded to the New York Yankees. The Rangers, as part of this agreement, contract of subsidized Yankee A-Rod, fork in several million a year to jettison its maintenance.

A-Rod has not led the Yankees a World Championship, to be, but last season he had an amazing personal record, hitting 54 home runs. Thus, in the eighth year of his contract 10 years, has opted out of finishing the contract 10 years, giving up about $ 30 million annuity sure to check its value on the open market.

Reportedly, his agent said that the Yankees have had to agree to pay A-Rod a minimum of $ 350 milllion simply for the privilege of negotiating with this great player, despite the fact that they had a pre-existing relationship - was their man in the last four years.

The Yankees refused, calling the agents' bluff.

A few weeks ensued, and apparently, no other team chomped at the bit to negotiate with Rodriguez. A lot of franchises said they had better ways to spend $ 35 million per year.

Began to appear that the Yankees were the only team willing to offer A-Rod you approach the deal he wanted, originally.

Today, A-Rod spoke with Yankees without his agent, in tow. The sports pages are full of speculation, claiming A-Rod will have to eat the $ 30 million dollars tossed by opting out of his original contract for 10 years, so impulsively.

This chain of events brings up an important issue negotiation: if your initial request seems outrageous or detached from reality, will your party can raise your hands and feet, without even fighting the opener?

The answer is definitely yes, as the saga of Rodriguez seems to show.

Through his representative, Rodriguez made an ultimatum as his gambit, which is very defensive and dangerous. It says: "Give me what I'm asking, or else!"

People tend to respond, "Forget about it!" that seems to have been the Yankees' answer.

We never wanted to grab a counterparty with this type of question, especially as the first move in a negotiation. No matter how powerful our bargaining power seems, sometimes we can not afford to move away the best partner available for trading.

As a general rule, bids must appear reasonable and relevant, and should be delivered respectfully, unless we purposely creating a distance as a ruse.

With the largest payroll in the majors, and with the willingness to "spend what it takes" to create a World Champion, the Yankees are unique. But once they said that they were no longer in the hunt, the market value of A-Rod probably collapsed.

Teams who were going to step-up were few in number, and Rodriguez believers had burned a bridge to the Yankees, the trading style of subsequent suitors would hardball experience, to say the least.

Realizing this, the only face-saving thing that Rodriguez could do was to re-approach the Yankees, if you wanted to be paid anything close to its asking price, while sparing himself the humiliation of having to take into account that offers may have been less attractive the deal 10 years has decided to no end.

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