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Black Friday bidding wars: MLB style

Charles LeClaire / USA TODAY Sports / Reuters

If ever you managed to muster up the courage to head to a mall, or any retailer, the day after Thanksgiving, you've witnessed, in the flesh, the carnage Black Friday can bring. First comes the stampeding, and it's bad. Best leave the kids at home on Black Friday because Jimmy from Queens needs his half-off snow-blower, and he doesn't care who he tramples on to get it.

Still, that isn't nearly as bad as what follows. You've seen it on Twitter a hundred times over. There, between two equally ravenous customers, sits the last remaining discounted prize. It could be an iPad. It could be toilet paper. That doesn't matter. What matters is the demand now exceeds the supply, and, on Black Friday, that means it's time to fight.

In the billion-dollar industry of Major League Baseball, though, the open market is more civilized (kinda), with executives using economic might and negotiating savvy rather than physical strength to overpower their rivals in free agency. As such, let's take a look at three hypothetical bidding wars for a trio of players expected to field big-money offers this winter.

Brian Cashman (Yankees) vs. Theo Epstein (Cubs)
Player: Aroldis Chapman

Chapman: Gentlemen, start your bidding.

Cashman: Aroldis, we'll give you $90 million over five years. You yourself said you'd like to be a Yankee again!

Epstein: Look, 'Roldy, we're prepared to give you $80 million over five, but you'll actually get to play for a competitive team. We just won the World Series! Dude, you got the win in Game 7.

Cashman: It's New York, Aroldis. Assuming your interests extend beyond deep-dish pizza, this is the place for you. I mean, Times Square! Broadway! Have you seen Hamilton?

Epstein: Yep. New York is definitely the place for you. You like paying $35,000 per month for your one-bedroom apartment, right?

Cashman: Do you like getting changed in a dark, damp hole crudely dug out before World War I? That's essentially what the home clubhouse at Wrigley Field is like.

Epstein: We have our 2016 World Series rings keeping us warm, Brian.

Chapman: Enough, fellas. I'm going to New York.

Dave Dombrowski (Red Sox) vs. Ross Atkins (Blue Jays)
Player: Edwin Encarnacion

Encarnacion: What do you have for me, fellas?

Dombrowski: Eddie, we want to make you rich, and we want you to help us win a World Series. You know that we're the team to beat in the American League East, and I don't have to tell you how well you've hit at Fenway. We're prepared to offer you $90 million for four years.

Atkins: You've been the face of our franchise for a half-decade, Edwin. You became a star in Toronto. Fans come to the ballpark dressed like parrots because they love you so much. And we need you, moving forward. $80 million for four years. What do you say?

Dombrowski: You want to keep playing on artificial turf in that concrete hole, forced to listen to "Hooked on a Feeling" and an endless barrage of Tragically Hip and Sam Roberts songs for the rest of you career? Come to Fenway, man. It's a sanctuary.

Atkins: Pft. Give me a break. They already hate you in Boston, Edwin, because you're not David Ortiz. Struggle for a month and they'll never let you hear the end of it, even if you wind up in the Hall of Fame. David Price is still getting hounded on Twitter for losing a playoff game. You want to live like that?

Dombrowski: Yes, Edwin, do you want to live in a city where everyone lives and breathes baseball? Where our team's owners are actually invested in our success and aren't just some faceless cell-phone giant?

Atkins: So, uh, Donald Trump i-

Encarnacion: Right. Toronto it is.

Jerry Dipoto (Mariners) vs. Jeff Luhnow (Astros)
Player: Mike Napoli

Napoli: Alright, gents. Let's hear it.

Dipoto: Mike, we want you to be our everyday DH in Seattle. We're so close to snapping that drought, and we think you're the guy that can get us over the hump. We just added Jean Segura, and with you, we'll have one of the best lineups in the game. How does one year at $10 million sound?

Luhnow: Listen, Mike, you might get a couple more ABs in Seattle, but we are now the team in the AL West. We got Brian McCann and Josh Reddick now, and there'd be no stopping us if you came aboard. One year, $8 million, with a vesting, $10-million option for 600 PAs? Cool?

Dipoto: Mike, you spent two seasons with the Rangers earlier in your career. You're 35, man, and you're a hefty dude. Do you really want to go to Houston to toil outside in 110-degree heat for six consecutive months?

Luhnow: Yeah, no, it must be awesome living in a city where summers are spent inside, drinking coffee, because it never stops raining. Also, you gotta drive up or down a hill to get anywhere, and there's a chance of earthquakes.

Dipoto: Those "hills" increase property value, Mike, just in case you want to buy a house here in Seattle. Do cacti increase property value?

Luhnow: No, but home runs increase a player's value, don't they? Mike, where do you think you'd have more success: at Minute Maid Park, which is like heaven for right-handed power hitters, or at Safeco Field, where Adrian Beltre once hit eight home runs in a season?

Napoli: Yee-haw. I'm going to Houston.

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