Win-Now (2)

The Twins' movements this winter had the entire baseball world buzzing.

Everyone had quietly agreed it was about time the club started spending. Sure, the roster was riddled with holes — but looked at another way, that meant the gaps were clearly defined, the kind of deficiencies you could plausibly fill through free agency in a single stroke.

Even so, the prevailing assumption had been that a full-throttle win-now sprint in one leap was unrealistic, and that with this year's free-agent crop hardly an appetizing lineup for the Twins anyway, they'd patch things up modestly this offseason and launch in earnest next year. Instead, they were flooring it right out of the gate.

And the rumors filtering out were anything but ordinary.

Every rumor, from every direction, said the same thing: the sums the Twins were floating, here and there and everywhere, were simply enormous. Bonus material was the story that Han Tae-gun, chairman of Seoul Group — newly crowned as the club's outright owner this season — had seen this year's results and lost his mind entirely.

As a corporate entity Seoul Group might not be the largest in the country, but in terms of personal assets and raw cash on hand, it was without peer. If the parent company had given the green light and decided to run with unlimited funds in a league where a luxury tax existed only as a discussion topic, there was simply no mechanism in the KBO to stop them.

Twins fans cheered the rumors while cautiously worrying they were being played for suckers; fans of every other club grumbled that those damn Seoul teams always got everything. Even the Seoul Dragons, who had done nothing but sit quietly, caught a stray beating in the crossfire, and the argument burned hotter by the day — while the contents of the rumors hardened into received fact.

Had the general manager directing these negotiations and his staff been reading the public chatter, they would have traded hollow smiles.

"How are things progressing with Lee Byung-yeon?"

"The agent's initial reaction wasn't bad, but we'll need to watch the player's own response a little longer. Considering his side hasn't let slip a word of what his current club offered, I'd say we're still out in front."

"That's a relief. And Sa Moon-jik?"

"His agent has been quite proactive, but... you know how it is with that one. His loyalty to that club is the genuine article. The player himself hasn't given us so much as a word since turning down our first offer."

"Well, we've kept the channel open, so there's still a chance. I'll leave coordinating with Jo Hyeong-jun's side to you. If it looks like it's overheating, walk away."

The Twins were burning money, were they? Certainly, the figures they'd dared to name were audacious. But that was it — they had fired their maximum possible offer in a single shot. There was no room to raise it, and no prospect of doing so.

It wasn't a matter of budget so much as a matter of salary structure. No matter how urgently a team needed an outside transfusion, if a newly imported player's salary ballooned far beyond the internal free agents', it would poison the club's future down the line. And the current budget was, in the end, nothing more than a special allocation from the parent company.

So the offers they'd tabled were indeed substantial — but by KBO standards they weren't some absurd, reality-bending sums. They were closer to the logical ceiling of what common sense permitted.

Except even a "sensible" offer, once it hits the maximum, doesn't stop being the maximum. Blowing your ceiling on the opening salvo — who negotiates like that?

Negotiation requires someone actually sitting across the table! Some people, drunk on stomping through the Korean Series, had their heads in the clouds, but the Seoul Twins' current situation was dire.

The outfield had not a single first-tier player besides Joo Byung-min. Max, the foreign bat who'd held down one corner, had been released after the club decided to scout a replacement import, and Lee Hae-ryong, who'd sporadically manned the opposite corner, had been ruled unable to play the field from next season onward.

Beyond that, they had about three fringe players who'd spot-started around the grass on a rotation... and frankly, those were guys the Twins only got to field because they were the Twins. On any other roster they'd have rotted in Triple-A-style obscurity forever.

The middle infield was passable, but both corners were ugly. Baseball might demand less of a team career than other sports, but a player who jumped ship purely off one good season could easily find himself unable to so much as glimpse a title until his NEXT free-agent contract.

Worse, a hole-ridden roster meant the burden pressed down harder on the individual — and that overload would eat into his numbers and his legs alike. Unless you sealed a man's mouth with absolutely crushing money, baseball-wise this was a profoundly unattractive team.

If there were at least the vanity of becoming the head of the snake, a chance at being the franchise's marquee star, they could have dangled that fantasy — but this team's stardom was already locked down, at a different position admittedly, by the Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk duo.

So all the Twins could really do was prove, through sheer force of money and roster-building, how serious they were — and pray.

"Honestly... landing both of those two would be the best-case scenario, but..."

"It looks difficult. Everyone's struggling with the pandemic these days, but the Mariners aren't exactly broke, and on the Tigers' side — it's Sa Moon-jik we're talking about, not some fringe piece. They'll have no trouble matching our terms."

They could wax poetic all they wanted — "With Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk here, just come, and we'll declare a Twins dynasty" — but who on earth took that seriously? Money had to come first, ahead of every other club, before anyone would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so much as waver.

General Manager Jung Gi-hyuk offered up another silent prayer. Plan A was signing both of the A-grade outfielders currently on the market... but that much was greed. One of the two. Just one. If they whiffed on both and ended up overpaying Jo Hyeong-jun as the chicken standing in for the pheasant, he might genuinely die of the indignity.

Astonishingly, despite the gargantuan gulf between the two offers, Sa Moon-jik had politely declined the Seoul Twins' very first proposal. And then he had gone, just as politely, to his own club.

"Thank you, Moon-jik. Our team's situation is tight, but we'll match you as far as we can. So go home and don't worry."

"No, thank you. I'll head back now, then."

The difference between a guaranteed 6.5 billion won and a guaranteed 12 billion won. Even for Sa Moon-jik, honoring his loyalty at a confirmed gap that size would have been a stretch. Frankly, at that spread, it read less like a contract and more like a politely worded request to leave.

But he had trusted his team. The Stove League had only just opened, and what the club had offered was a mere first draft. If they worked the terms upward from here, patiently, they could surely arrive at a deal respectable enough that even his wife would be persuaded.

With his resolve settled on that thought, he stepped out of the general manager's office — and spotted, far down the corridor, one man with fury written all over his face.

"Mr. Sa Moon-jik. Another private meeting with the general manager? Why do you keep doing this? Even if you truly want to re-sign with your club, how many times have I told you — this approach costs you dearly!"

The man his agency had assigned as his handler.

Given that agents lived on commissions, one might assume he was angry because a smaller contract meant a thinner cut for himself. Sa Moon-jik entertained no such thought.

His reputation around the league said as much, and everything Sa Moon-jik had experienced so far pointed the same way — this was a good agent who worked sincerely for his players' rights and intentions. This time, too, the man was only speaking out of genuine worry that Sa Moon-jik would come out the loser.

And yet Sa Moon-jik shook his head.

"I have no intention of clinging to my own profit while my team goes through hard times."

"Why would the player be the one to— haah..."

The man was no fool. A general manager who kept arranging one-on-ones with a client who had no negotiation or legal expertise, and a club opening offer that devastating low — the reason behind it was obvious. The club intended to squeeze out every last won on Sa Moon-jik's contract.

It was devotion to the team, and nothing more, that let it slide.

The agent left only a single line, his face etched with exhaustion.

"Mr. Sa. I respect your convictions, and I agree there are values that matter more than money. But let me say this — I'd like you to think again about whether 'the things that matter more than money' are really just the one."

Sa Moon-jik nodded at the sincerity packed into those words.

He took the message to heart — but he was not persuaded. Because what reason did he have to stay with this team at all?

A player who'd been merely middling even in college. A team that had given a man seriously weighing a corporate-league career a chance, despite a draft slot as low as the ninth round.

The coaches who'd offered him that opportunity without a trace of prejudice against the "low pick" label stapled to his name, the veterans who'd worked so hard to help a green rookie, the local fans who'd lavished on him — unpolished as he was — a measure of support and love he'd never earned, and the wife he'd met through it all.

In Sa Moon-jik's baseball life, the Hamheung Tigers had always been more than just the team that debuted him. This place was his hometown. His family. And what kind of person abandons family over money?

As long as they didn't abandon him first, Sa Moon-jik had no intention of abandoning the Tigers. So he steeled himself.

Even a nation on the brink of ruin is said to have three loyal ministers — and yet those loyal ministers never save it. Why? Because the structure itself is so rotten that the will of one or two men cannot turn the tide.

The general manager of the Hamheung Tigers, after bringing the matter before the club's leadership, could not help wearing an expression of grave seriousness — a stark departure from his usual air of incompetence.

"Eight billion guaranteed. That's the ceiling. We can attach options taking it to eleven, but matching the full twelve is impossible. He's a player who loves this team — you'll just have to talk him around somehow."

"Sir, setting aside how those options are structured, under your old playbook a deal like that is effectively eight billion guaranteed and nothing more. That leaves a four-billion-won gap against the Twins' offer. How is loyalty alone supposed to fill that?"

Call him incompetent, call him high-handed — he was still a former Tigers player turned general manager. He knew right from wrong, at the very least.

The Seoul Twins had guaranteed a full 12 billion won. Considering that the fine details hadn't even been negotiated yet, the "if you hit them, you get them anyway" joke options the Tigers would attach were something the other side could easily top.

And he was supposed to shove that in the face of a junior who was sacrificing himself for the team, claiming the numbers were now equal? Coming from a man as authoritarian as the president, that made it harder to swallow, not easier.

But the president swatted the general manager's resistance aside like a fly.

"Come on, you know better than this. You know perfectly well the orders came down from above. Did you forget the chairman himself said this time that Sung Yeon-joon simply must be signed through our club?"

"Even so — this is Moon-jik we're talking about. Ten billion, minimum—"

"Stop pretending you don't get it, all the way to the end. There's already a bidding war over Sung Yeon-joon. Word is the Rangers are already talking six years and 18 billion. Do you have any idea how much live ammunition we'd need to chase that?"

He was right. And the biggest reason they couldn't offer Sa Moon-jik a proper deal wasn't even that the club lacked money — it was the external free agents.

No matter how destitute the club, could it really stiff the only major internal free agent of the year?

The fact of the matter was that the owner — a lifelong Sung Yeon-joon fan — had issued emphatic orders to acquire the newly available catcher this offseason without providing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the money to back them up, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while the board factions who'd sat there before him had made starting-pitcher depth their top priority and sunk capital into the Gu Hyeok signing as well.

By the time those allocations were done, this offer was the absolute maximum scraped together from what remained of the vault. The absurd part was that non–free-agent players had been hit with across-the-board pay cuts that year anyway, citing "difficult club circumstances" — so in a twisted way, one could argue the books were in better shape.

"Anyway, I'm counting on our brilliant general manager to handle it. He's a respected senior, isn't he? And if persuasion truly fails... well, there is one method left."

"A... method, sir?"

"It's not exactly a move you'd do with your chest out..."

The general manager listened carefully as the president explained this so-called "method," then watched the man cough awkwardly and wear a sheepish smile — and was rendered speechless by pure disbelief.

But he was a small man through and through. He had never possessed the backbone to object, lecture, or storm out in protest. The general manager gave a perfunctory nod of understanding and slipped out of the conference room. The broad strokes of the plan, after all, had been decided.

Sa Moon-jik's agent buried his hands in his throbbing head and got to work.

The cause of his headache ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, naturally, Sa Moon-jik himself. The agency handled several players under him, but the only one hitting free agency this year was Sa Moon-jik — and the negotiation was going anything but smoothly.

Yes, an agent is supposed to reflect the client's wishes to the fullest. But how exactly was he supposed to extract the most favorable deal possible from a client whose entire guiding principle was "I won't take offers from other clubs, and I won't let my team take a loss"?

It was a romance rarely seen in this day and age — as a sports fan, the man was genuinely admirable. As his agent, he was an outright catastrophe. Sure, some players cynically used their agents as shields to maximize their own profit, but either way, there had to be limits.

So there he sat, poring over the Tigers' second offer — eight billion guaranteed, eleven with options — weighing just how much fight the club had left in it and how to negotiate from here for something better, and he'd been at it for quite a while.

Right up until a female colleague came sprinting into his office.

"Manager Park! Manager Park!"

"Yes, Assistant Manager Lee. What is it?"

"Sir, you need to look at the community boards! The baseball ones, right now!"

Her jaw clenched, her eyes blazing — something big had happened.

Managing public sentiment around a client was part of an agent's job, which was why the office staff made a habit of monitoring online opinion in their spare moments. But anger like this was rare.

It was Stove League season, so traffic on the boards was up; some troll had probably shown up spreading slander about the player and stirring the pot. Cases like that were a headache to respond to as a private individual, and in the middle of an already brutal season, he had no idea how he'd—

Still thinking it over, he opened the site and scrolled down, down, down — and then froze mid-motion.

A wall of trending posts, every one of them Hamheung Tigers news. The content was maliciously twisted — yet laced with details no outsider could know, details available only to insiders, and only to core insiders with direct access to every piece of information.

Against this offensive — planned by someone obvious — there was nothing the agent could do.

Checkmate. If he revealed the truth, negotiations with the Tigers were finished for good. And if Sa Moon-jik wanted to sign with the Tigers anyway, the club would factor in the furious public sentiment already unleashed by these rumors and push the terms even lower.

Suppressing the trembling in his rage-shaken hands as best he could, the agent picked up his phone and dialed one of his players.

"Mr. Sa Moon-jik. It's early days yet, but I believe the time has come for you to make your decision."