Chad Cordero Teaches Us An Important Arbitration Lesson

On February 18th, I recognized that it is arbitration season with a post about Miguel Cabrera’s victory for the players against the owners after they had gone 0-4 thus far in actual hearings [‘Tis Arbitration Season]. More importantly for this post, I referenced an article I wrote a year ago titled: Arbitration…good or bad? Hey agents, let’s start remembering our fiduciary duty to our clients, which includes caring about our clients’ psyches.

So where does Chad Cordero fit into my little rant? Chad Cordero is represented by Larry Reynolds, President of Reynolds Sports Management. Reynolds has a very impressive list of clients, but after looking at Cordero’s statement to MLB.com, some players may decide to re-evaluate the service he provides.

Chad Cordero had an option of signing a 2-year deal with the Washington Nationals or taking his case to arbitration in an attempt to re-evaluate the amount of money that he will earn this upcoming season and become a free-agent thereafter. This is what Cordero had to say about the matter:

“I don’t know why I didn’t sign [the two-year deal],” Cordero said. “I wanted to. The Players Association thought I had a good case and they wanted see how it turned out. Even if I lost my arbitration case, I wasn’t going to lose. It’s still a lot of money. It’s still more money than I ever would have thought [I’d make].” [Notes: Patterson, Ayala making strides].

Your client expresses that he wants to sign a contract and you, as his agent, decide to go against his wishes and convince him to go through with an arbitration hearing. Are you looking out for your clients interests or your gain? How did this happen?

Cordero was happy with the offer that the Nationals originally presented. Maybe he wanted to remain on good terms with the team. It is a possibility that he did not want to be subject to whatever was said in the arbitration hearing. Whatever his reasoning was, it seems that in the principal/agent relationship, the agent should give advice to the client, but if Cordero truly did not want to go ahead with arbitration, then Mr. Reynolds should not have pushed him.

Then again, the client does have the final say. So, in the end, Cordero must have chosen to go through arbitration himself.

-Darren Heitner