So, how did LaTroy Hawkins convince the Brewers to give him a two-year, $7.5 million deal at age 37? According to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he schmoozed them in person at the winter meetings:
And the $7.5 million probably wasn’t bad either. My cousin has a friend who’s a member of the LaTroy Hawkins fan club dating back to his days with the Twins and basically describes “Hawk” as the world’s nicest person. And whether in Minnesota, Chicago, Houston, New York, San Francisco, Baltimore, or Colorado the reporters covering Hawkins’ teams have also tended to rave about how friendly and accessible he is. The morale of the story? If you’re a really nice, outgoing person and have a 3.29 ERA in 655 career relief appearances you can probably earn yourself some extra cash along the way.
“It helped he was in Indianapolis with his representative, Larry Reynolds,” general manager Doug Melvin said. “I had a chance to meet with him. Whenever you have a chance to meet with someone in person, it always helps negotiations. LaTroy wanted to come up and meet us.” ...
“I’m a firm believer that talking to a guy in person, you get to know him a little bit better,” Hawkins said. “I watched this team from afar and really admired what they’ve done the last few years putting a team together. I just wanted to be a part of that.”