Marcus Semien is a native of the Bay Area who attended the University of California at Berkeley, and then flourished as a major tied after being traded from the White Sox to the Oakland A home. If he was to sign a contract of a year as a free agent, it would be reasonable for his preference to have been Oakland.
But when Semien reached an agreement on a one-year, $ 18 million contract on Tuesday, it wasn’t with the A’s, but with the Toronto Blue Jays. The AA refused to make him a formal offer, instead of proposing a concept that had little chance of attracting Semien, according to sources: a one-year deal of $ 12.5 million with $ 10 million of deferred dollars in 10 one-year installments of $ 1 million each.
The As signaled their willingness not to spend at the Jays level when they refused to make Semien a qualifying offer of $ 18.9 million at the start of the offseason, waiving their right to selection compensation if they signed with a other clubs. But its failure in …