Maybe JD doesn't want to sign. Maybe JD loves it here but would never screw himself out of a bigtime coaching job somewhere else in a few years by resigning a new deal with Akron for, let's say, 25% more than he makes now...Unless of course, the contract gives JD an option to be released from the contract at any time, then he'd love the raise, but it does nothing to make us feel better.Using the earlier Thome situation as an example. Maybe Thome didn't want to re-sign with the indians. Maybe he wanted to be a free agent. Or atleast, maybe the Indians were offering him 8M/yr to re-sign, but his agent was telling him he would easily get 11M as a free agent. Why would he renogiate for the 8M. Even if he wanted to stay with Cleveland (which he obviously didn't), he knows that he could probably get 10M out of Cleveland by becoming a free agent first.