Derek Jeter, Yankees Agree On Three-Year Contract With 2014 Option

Now that Derek Jeter is officially back in pinstripes, an entirely believable report has emerged: Derek Jeter never considered signing with any team but the Yankees. Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman tweets:

To many of us, this was painfully obvious, even as Jeter’s camp suggested otherwise. In terms of production, and especially at this stage in his career, Jeter was not worth nearly as much as he was charging. He’s most valuable as a fan favorite and franchise icon, and in these respects he was far more valuable in New York than he would have been anywhere else. Heyman also reports:

After several weeks of drama in the papers, it appears that Derek Jeter has indeed signed a contract to return to the Yankees. The 36-year-old shortstop won’t earn the $21 million he made in 2010, but he will nevertheless be paid a considerable sum - more than any other aging shortstop coming off the worst year of his career.

We get some of Jeter’s contract details courtesy of Jon Heyman. As one might expect, it’s a complicated deal. While it’s technically a three-year contract, Jeter has a fourth-year player option for 2014, by which point he will be 40 years old.

After a week or two of negotiations, Derek Jeter will be a Yankee in 2011.

According to YES Network’s Jack Curry, the deal between Jeter and the only team he’s ever known as a Major League Baseball player is “done.”

After weeks of gamesmanship, Derek Jeter and the Yankees have finally been making great progress in recent hours, as multiple sources are expecting Jeter to sign a new contract with the team as soon as Saturday. Sweeny Murti of WFAN is reporting that the Jeter deal should end up at around $51 million.

This would certainly be a little more reasonable than the $22-24 million per year that Jeter’s camp was reportedly seeking. Meanwhile, CNBC’s Darren Rovell has passed along an interesting bit of information:

After all the drama, it seems we may at last be nearing an end.

The 36-year-old Derek Jeter hit free agency fresh off the worst season of his career. The Yankees offered him three years and $45 million to return, but Jeter and agent Casey Close were looking for more, with reports putting their wishes at four or five years and $22-24 million per season. Clearly, there was an enormous gulf between what Jeter wanted and what Jeter was being offered, and the situation began to make national headlines.

An important step in the negotiations between the Yankees and free agent Derek Jeter has been reached - according to Jon Heyman, the Yankees have increased their offer, while Jeter and agent Casey Close have backed off slightly from their previous demands.

Initially, the Yankees came at Jeter offering three years and $45 million. Jeter and Close, in response, indicated that they’d prefer a longer contract worth something along the lines of $22-24 million a year. There was an enormous gulf between the two parties, which made headlines across the country.

More than a week passed by without the Yankees and Derek Jeter talking to one another. However, earlier Tuesday, we heard that talks would soon pick up once more, and now we get word from Ken Rosenthal that Jeter and agent Casey Close met with Yankees representatives in Tampa Tuesday afternoon.

It’s not a surprising development - the negotiations obviously had to continue at some point, as neither side was going to let things end where they were. It’s just an indication of progress. After taking a long holiday, both parties are back at it in an effort to get this thing done.

The Yankees have offered free agent shortstop Derek Jeter a three-year contract worth $45 million. Jeter and agent Casey Close are seeking something longer, at a salary more like $22-23 million per year. It should come as little surprise, then, that talks have recently broken off, as Jeter and the Yankees haven’t held contract talks in more than a week.

But according to Newsday, the Yankees are hoping to resume negotiations this week. Taking place next week are the Winter Meetings, during which there will be a flurry of activity and Cliff Lee may choose his destination, and the Yankees are going to want to have as many questions answered as possible in advance. The Winter Meetings would be made all the more tricky by continuing uncertainty over Jeter’s future in New York.

In the Derek Jeter free agent negotiations, the Yankees made the first move, offering the shortstop a three-year contract worth $45 million. Jeter’s side came back requesting a far greater amount, and though the veracity of the six-year, $150 million rumor has been called into question, sources say that Jeter and agent Casey Close asked for a five-year contract worth somewhere between $22-24 million per season.

In other words, the gap between the Yankees and their star shortstop - at least for now - is incredibly wide, as Jeter and Close are seeking many more years and many more millions than the organization appears willing to offer.

After a week or two of contentious negotiations between Derek Jeter and the Yankees, both presumably in direct contact and through the media, we may have learned why the Yankees’ captain is not signed to play in pinstripes in 2011 just yet.

The New York Daily News reports that “sources close” to the Jeter camp — that would be Jeter and agency Casey Close — say Jeter’s starting point was a six-year, $150 million deal from the Yankees, and that the $25 million per year of that deal is the truly critical figure.

According to Jon Heyman, the Yankees have gone ahead and made the first move. While the team was hoping that Derek Jeter would come to them first and make an initial offer, the front office has elected to kick things off instead by offering Jeter a three-year contract worth $45 million.

As we’ve noted, this offer is the first, but it’s unlikely to be the last, as Jeter is seeking a contract lasting at least four years. He may back down from that demand eventually, but he probably won’t back down from it immediately, as there’s a whole negotiation process that has to take place. Negotiations generally don’t end as soon as they begin.

The situation between the Yankees and free agent shortstop Derek Jeter is approaching the initial offer stage, but team president Randy Levine had some interesting words to say on the matter. Most notably, Levine said that Jeter “is allowed to test the market,” and that this is “a different negotiation than 10 years ago” - when Jeter and the Yankees worked out their last contract together.

There is, of course, little market for Jeter to test, as teams figure he’s going to re-sign with New York and are focusing elsewhere. However, Levine’s statement sends a message that the Yankees are prepared to play hardball, and view this strictly as a baseball move. While they’re certainly aware of everything that Jeter means to the team and the city, he’s also a 36 year old coming off the worst season of his career, and that information isn’t lost on the front office. Brian Cashman and company understand that Jeter may be on his last legs.

We’re now a couple weeks into Derek Jeter’s first-ever voyage into free agency. He isn’t, of course, your typical free agent, as he isn’t particularly interested in signing on with another team, but he also isn’t Yankees property for the first time in his career, and from the sounds of things, he and the Yankees remain pretty far apart in contract negotiations.

The Yankees would love to get Jeter signed to a three-year contract. The 36 year old is coming off the worst season of his life, but he is just a year removed from batting .334 in 2009. However, Jeter doesn’t want to sign something so short, with one source saying that he’s set the minimum at four years, with a preference for five or six. Jeter wants to sign the last contract of his life, and he evidently doesn’t feel like he’s three years away from retirement.

You’d think it might be easy for them to work something out, but Jon Heyman suggests otherwise:

Complicating matters is that Jeter is coming off the worst season he’s ever had. His .270 batting average, .340 OBP, and .370 slugging percentage were all career lows, and he went just 10-40 in the playoffs. He hit a lot of groundballs, sapping his power, and as a middle infielder at an advanced age, one wonders just how much Jeter has left to contribute on the field.