Don't hold it against me but I am going to go rob a bank. I feel that would be best for me and my family.
Just saw Gerrard's comments on what he faced in MLS. FWIW this was Robbie Keane speaking to me a couple of years ago pic.twitter.com/5CGhHuLqYx— Graham Parker (@grahamparkerfc) November 3, 2015
I have a very strong feeling this is going to turn into a lot of bs drama that none of us really want to deal with
I'm not saying I agree with his judgement, but I don't hold the choice against him personally, either. And I'm not saying we should roll out the red carpet for the guy or anything; just that I wouldn't turn my nose up at him if he came calling hat in hand because of some perceived moral slight.
Penedo didn't do anything illegal, though. I think the common belief is that he behaved unethically by breaching his contract/reneging on his commitments to the team, but I just consider that business. A contract should be breached if the breacher stands to gain from dissolving the contract (or in Penedo's case, if he thinks he does. Like I said -- not vouching for his judgement). At worst, I'd call him churlish, which is a word I just learned from LAA.
All of this feels like agents and publicists at work. That's the thing with players like Gerrard they usually have a team of people around them protecting their image and controlling the press as much as possible. It sounds like they're searching for a way he can ditch the Galaxy while still maintaining his positive image. The method seems to be make subtle digs about MLS (will play well overseas) and play up how hard this is on his family.
Actually, that's not how contract law works. A party to a contract can breach it (for whatever reason) but is then supposed to be liable to the other party for the damages caused by the breach. You can't just breach a contract willy-nilly without consequences. I am waiting to see how Jaime compensates all of us for the loss of a supporters shield and 6th cup.
I would accept taking him back, winning #6 trading him to Seattle or LAFC at some point where he pulls a Ricketts and costs them an MLS Cup. In a perfect world against LA, in a slightly less perfect world in the final.
I would accept taking him back at a renegotiated $1.00 per year, using the money saved to get a reliable keeper, and loaning him out to Los Dos for the season.
except that Penedo didn't breach his contract. if you've got different information, share it, but it sounded like he asked to be released and the team agreed. that's not a breach.
Agreed is the crux of it, isn't it. Probably technically right that he didn't "breach." But as a practical matter the team had no choice. Once a player says I don't want to be here, the team can't force him to stay - forced servitude has been abolished for some time in this country. So their "agreement" was coerced unless they wanted to be really churlish (Nice word, Lazy) and bar him from taking employment elsewhere for the term of his contract. Again, not a practical option in terms of the damage that would have done to the team's reputation among players. So their "agreement" is not really an agreement at all - he had a figurative gun to their heads. So I still want compensation!
The breacher is only liable for the damages specified in the contract itself and agreed to by both parties before-hand in case of a breach, not all damages resulting from the breach (unless that is what's specified). A contract should be written to 1) deter a breach and 2) make the contract holder whole in the case of a breach. So the consequences are built-in, even if for Penedo that just meant forfeiting his salary. So you can break a contract willy-nilly if you don't mind dealing with the consequences. The point of a contract is to monetize the consequences so either party can make an informed decision about whether to fulfill the contract or to breach -- not necessarily to strictly discourage a breach. Penedo breached (well, technically he didn't) and paid the consequences, so I don't see where he failed morally. I doubt he was contractually liable to deliver an MLS Cup, so no one can make that claim against him.
It’s interesting this topic player vs. club has come up a few times in the recent past. Beckham’s AC Milan adventures, Donovan’s sabbatical and now Penedo’s abandoning the team. In each case the player decided to do what was best for the themselves ahead of what was best for the team and in each case you had wildly varying degrees of support, or lack thereof and even flip-flopping depending on the player. I have to admit I don’t quite understand the robust justification of Penedo’s behavior. He was an above average keeper, but he’d be third or fourth on the list of all-time Galaxy goal keepers. He wasn’t with the team all that long and the manner in which he turned his back on the Galaxy and the timing were the most damaging of the three cases. I’d expect this level of support and debate if a guy like Omar, Keane, AJ or Juninho did the same thing, guys who’ve paid their dues with the team –actually I’d say based on the talk around Omar right now if he did do the same thing he’d be getting a hell of lot less support here – but Penedo played 54 games, only completed one full season for the Galaxy and doesn’t come close the irreplaceability of a Beckham or Keane. He was and is a goal keeper worth right around $175K a year. The only thing I can come up with is his predecessor and successor were so bad and cost LA so Penedo looks incredible by association. Bottom line for me, Penedo screwed LA. He is as responsible for LA’s early post-season exit as anyone, except his damage was done by choice, not incompetence. That’s a long road back, longer than even Gordon’s exploits against the Galaxy.
I think a lot of different things are being mixed in here. Even if it was legal to breach the contract, that doesn't make it moral. He committed to the Galaxy and then reversed that commitment with the expectation that it would make him better off and the Galaxy worse off. It's hard to see that as moral. The fact that it also worked out badly for him after the fact isn't a justification.
Sorry. Unless the law has changed radically since I retired a few years ago, that's flat out wrong. A contract CAN specify damages but doesn't have to. Many don't. And my comment about him owing us a cup was meant facetiously. Should have used an emoticon.
I understand why Cadaver and some others don't want Penedo back. His departure left us hanging midseason and may have cost us the Cup so there are good reasons for the anger at him. But I do want to play devils advocate a bit. There were two parts to this messy saga -let's start with the early season salary standoff. Clearly Jaime and agent thought LA wereundervaluing him monetarily given his on field performance so far. Whatever you think of their methods it's worth looking at whether they were correct. Let's look at the tape and at comparables. Jaime joined LAG in Aug, 2013 at a starting an salary of 78k. He became an instant starter, played 9 regular season matches, saved 77% of sog and posted 4 shutouts and a miserly 0.78 GAA. In the playoffs in two games he faced 6 shots & allowed 2 goals. In 2014 he started 29 games, posted 8 shutouts and had the leagues 2nd best 1.14 GAA (of the 19 goalies starting over 10 games only Rimando had a better GAA. His save pct of 70.4% was 4th best in MLS. In the 2014 playoffs he posted 3 consecutive shutouts, allowing only 3 goals in 5 games and ended with a superb playoff record of 0.60 GAA, while making 5 saves in the MLS Cup final. By all measures this would have to be considered a superb year for the team and for Penedo. I"m not sure exactly how things went down at the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015 but as of the start of the the '15 season Penedo was still making the same 135k he made in 2014 (138k guaranteed). And Penedo and his agent clearly felt undervalued and weren't happy. So how did that compare to other (supposedly) top keepers? Well for various reasons, including longevity and national team appearances, Hamid and Rimando were making about 3 times as Penedo at 400 and 370k respectively. Ousted was bringing in 300k, Kwarasey and even Ricketts (really?) 260k. The over the hill Kennedy and Tally Hall were both paid 228k. And the list goes on: Steve Clark guaranteed 188k, Frei 165k, Bendik 157k, and Robles at 151k. Clearly Bruce was reluctant to give Penedo a significant raise. It may be that Bruce didn't rate him or Jaime was just the one he decided to sacrifice for salary cap reasons (as opposed to say Dunivant). So Bruce and Penedo + agent both play hardball at the beginning of the season. After some Penedo-less games they finally settle on a 175k salary with 178k guaranteed. So 80k less than Ricketts but 37k more than Robles. I would say that would be at the lower range for his quality but still in the "fair" range. Penedo then has a great half season for the Galaxy. In his 18 games he had 5 shutouts, a 1.18 GAA despite our very subpar midfield, and his 72.5% save rate was again excellent behind only Hamid, Frei and Gonzalez who had lights-out great seasons. Then comes the GC and the surprisingly quick complete falling out between the two sides. According to Penedo and even other sources the issue at this point wasn't a greedy grab for another pay raise. It was that Penedo wanted to have longevity - he wanted a guaranteed contract. Probably asking for a 2 or 3 year guaranteed contract. But from what I read Bruce wouldn't even offer him a one year guarantee for next season. Conclusion: At that point Penedo and his agent mishandled the situation. He should have finished the season and starting looking for a long term contract in the off season. But I'm not sure Bruce comes away shining either. I think Penedo should have been offered somewhere close to the 175k right off the bat for 2015, given that he had been one of MLS's best keepers in 2015. I also suspect that Bruce really did undervalue Penedo and overvalue Ricketts significantly. From the rapidity of the parting it appears Bruce many have quickly went with the "fine, you don't like it - then leave" answer. I of course wasn't privy to the conversations were going on but that is what it looks like from the outside. I still do understand why many wouldn't want Penedo back. He never should have left the way he did. But I just think in fairness it should be recognized that he faced a lot of resistance to being paid fairly in the first place and that his departure was more about wanting a guarantee he could stay with the Galaxy than just a greedy money grab for higher pay.
Not sure if this is meant for me, but I wouldn't call my support of Penedo "robust"...or even "support"; I just said I don't hold anything against him personally and would take him back. I don't begrudge anyone their personal feelings, but Penedo can't have been valuable enough to screw us out of a Cup and someone who should've been lucky to play for us at the same time. If Penedo was truly expendable, then who cares if he walked away? If, OTOH, we assess that he was valuable -- indeed, valuable enough that he cost us an MLS Cup, as suggested -- then we should be angry with Bruce for failing to accurately assess Penedo's value and doing what it took to retain him. Putting aside the moral outrage of Penedo daring to ask for his contract to be renegotiated partially thru the season, how does the decision to not meet his demands hold up in retrospect? It's not that I "forgive" Penedo; it's that I don't have an issue with this sort of thing to begin with. No one thought it was immoral when Omar got a de facto demotion so that Dos Santos could be brought in or when Kofi Opare got shipped to an entirely different coast for no apparent reason at all. (But I mean -- it didn't disrupt an MLS season or anything serious -- God forbid). It's business. That's just my opinion, though.
Wondering if he wants to get fit before the Beckham charity match so he doesn't look like an old man out there. Also, I wish I looked that fit after 11 months of not training. Sigh.
Where it all falls apart for me is that he signed a new contract in 2015 and then a handful of months later decides it's not a good enough contract. If he didn't like what was offered pre-season, we can part ways before the season starts which gives us enough time to have a different plan. In my mind he played us for 6 months of contract and then left during the "traditional" summer off-season in the hopes of getting a contract elsewhere. He is in the wrong here, regardless of whether he was undervalued by Bruce or not. On that point a player is only worth what someone is willing to pay him. NO ONE outside of MLS was willing to give Penedo a contract (or at least a contract he liked) in the last 6 months. Penedo significantly over valued himself. He's not worth $200k+. He's just not a good enough keeper, international, and is 34. That $175k is fair value for him and he bailed on us mid-season for some spectre that never materialized. Also, Ricketts was kind of on a legacy contract and we were only paying a very small portion of his salary as Portland picked up a large portion before he went to Orlando and I believe Orlando picked up some of it when he came here. Now obviously he wasn't worth it at any price (and many here said so before he played a game for us) but "over valued" Ricketts is hard to claim when Bruce had to react to Penedo leaving mid-season. It was a terrible move and we would have been better off with Rowe or even friggin' Bennet Sneddon but it's hard to claim over valued when we were responsible for probably less than half of Ricketts' salary. But now we move forward. If Penedo comes back, what kind of salary/contract does he want? I sure as heck am not going to give him the same sort of contract he had before. He's got no bargaining position. If we're going to spend $200k on a keeper, we can do just as good, if not better than Penedo. If we pay Penedo less than that, say, $100k because he's got no other option, are we going to find ourselves in the same position come June 2016? Screw that. As I said above, a player's value is dependent on what someone is willing to that player. Obviously we weren't overvaluing Penedo or he'd have a contract somewhere by now. Now, as for the "cost us MLS cup" versus "easy to replace" the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. We were put in a very tough spot to replace our starting keeper halfway through the season and given the time and scouting required to vet a foreign keeper it's unlikely we were going to be able to find someone is the short period we had. If we'd parted ways pre-season, I'd have no doubt we'd find someone to replace Penedo. As well, most of us agree that Brian Rowe would have done a ton better than Ricketts in the Seattle game so even if Rowe is a step down from Penedo (and he is) he's not such a massive step down. Certainly Bruce screwed up by acquiring Ricketts in the first place but I think we probably do competently with Rowe in goal. As well, we have a tough cap situation and I don't find the "just pay the man" type argument to be as black and white as it is presented. It's a tough situation to manage because in a salary capped league when you're already up against the cap you're constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul and you can't give in to everyone, specifically when you've got 4 maximum salary players. However, all the other stuff is kind of window dressing. The bottom line is that we came to an agreement for the season and then Penedo reneged on it just a few months later. This isn't like Penedo was on the end of a 3 year deal which he was criminally under paid. The ink was barely dry on his new deal. We should have squashed this pre-season, it appears as though we did, and then Penedo finally asked out mid-season when he thought he had a better opportunity. I'm not sure what Bruce was supposed to do otherwise. As I said above, one could make an argument that Penedo decided to take the 6 months of pay that got him to the summer transfer window and then get out when it was convenient for him. And for the "welcoming him back" situation it just seems like an accident waiting to happen. He's got no bargaining position and we have all the power. This isn't going to end well for Penedo and he's not going to get near what he wanted in the first place. It's not about "I was 175k player for you before, I'll just have that contract again". Is he going to be happy on the, say, $100k he's worth now? Doubt it.
For now, yes. It resets soon (sometime between when MLS cup ends and December 31st) but I just don't see any obvious player we'd bring in. Remember that the allocation list is fixed now: Alejandro Bedoya, Nantes (FRA), Senior USMNT Brad Guzan, Aston Villa (ENG), Senior USMNT Tim Howard, Everton (ENG), Senior USMNT Aron Johannsson, AZ Alkmaar (NED), Senior USMNT Fabian Johnson, Borussia Monchengladbach (GER), Senior USMNT Juan Anangono, Leones Negros (MEX), Transfer Deshorn Brown, Valerenga (NOR), Transfer Geoff Cameron, Stoke City (ENG), Transfer Giancarlo Gonzalez, Palermo (ITA), Transfer Doneil Henry, West Ham Utd (ENG), Transfer Fredy Montero, Sporting Clube (POR), Transfer Andy Najar, Anderlecht (BEL), Transfer Tim Ream, Bolton (ENG), Transfer Alain Rochat, BSC Young Boys (SWI), Transfer Oriol Rosell, Sporting Clube (POR), Transfer Richard Sanchez, UANL Tigres (MEX), Transfer Camilo Sanvezzo, Queretaro (MEX), Transfer Jose Adolfo Valencia, Independiente (ARG) (on loan from Rosario Central), Transfer DeAndre Yedlin, Tottenham (ENG), Transfer Junior Flores, Borussia Dortmund (GER), Youth USMNT Julian Green, Hamburg (GER), Youth USMNT Shaquell Moore, Unattached, Youth USMNT Marc Pelosi, Liverpool (ENG), Youth USMNT Rubio Rubin, FC Utrecht (NED), Youth USMNT
Nope not directed at anyone specifically, just an observation that for a player who abandoned his team mid-season he’s getting kid glove treatment compared to Beckham and Donovan. I never said, nor implied that Penedo was lucky to play for us. I think he was wort his $40K raise, I think he was worth $175K a year. I think he was worth a guaranteed contract, but not mid-season, not after a successful renegotiation 6 months ago. Oh and for the record I’ve not used the word moral or ethical; I don’t think behaving like a child rises to the level of unethical or immoral, it’s simply immature.