One thing I have always believed about this deal was that the player's union pressured both sides to turn it down. Now, I don't want to sound like some kind of conspiracy theorist here, but I know there were rumors about the union pressuring Thome into signing with Philadelphia over Cleveland because the Phillies had the higher price and it could cripple future contracts if he got lowballed.
Anyway, consider this:
1) The union loves no trade clauses. It truly takes a lot of power away from the owners. The way the Diamondbacks handled this trade was disgraceful. Trading a player with a no trade clause publically, then making it look like he was the bad guy when he didn't accept. The union must have been fuming about this -- give a guy an option, then use public pressure to get him to wave this option. That alone is ahy I am so critical of those who down Williams. You cannot pressure an unwanted employee to quit in a normal job, and what they did to Matty was unfair. It seemed like they were trying to turn Matty into the bad guy so they could erase their mistake.
2) The union must also be tired of deferred salaries, and, honestly, they have to be worried about the Diamondbacks chances of paying their players in the future. If you promise a guy $10 million dollars, you should pay it. I don't want to hear any argument about how the guy should be happy making $5 million, that's irrelevant. The point is, you signed this contract saying that you would pay him $10 million this year, in order to get him here. Now you're saying you won't do it? Yeah, they will get the money, but the union has to be tired of this. And I think that's what they told Larry Walker.
I agree with another poster: neither Williams nor Walker got the D-backs into this mess. The organization did, and people have been predicting this type of thing for years. No need to make Matty or Larry the scapegoats. This is just the downside of the reckless spending that characterized the early D-backs. The upside was a World Series win.
