MLB 2009-2010 Off-Season Catch-All
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 - 3:59pm
Winter meetings are starting up so it's almost time for the hot stove talk, but in some sad news, Peter Gammons is leaving ESPN. Well, there goes one of the few reasons to watch the Leader anymore.
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I don't think there's any possible combination of moves the Mets can make to become a viable 2010 team. However, I think there's any number of moves they can make to weaken the team from 2011- onwards. They've reached the point where blowing everything up and starting over, with a big investment in player development makes more sense than trying to struggle on with a damaged core of stars. Unfortunately, between the NY Media's focus on win-now, the Wilpons' loss of money in the Madoff Ponzi scheme, and Omar Minaya's weakness as a GM, I don't think this is going to happen.
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Speaking as a Tiger fan, Granderson to the Yankees makes me a sad panda. May well prove to be a good deal for Detroit, but Grandy is a guy Tiger fans wanted to stay in the old English D for his entire career.
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Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I don't know if I can watch the Tigers without Granderson. He's one of those career players who you expect to see out in the community, not a commodity to be traded for three pitchers.
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I agree wholeheartedly on Minaya, who seems to throw terrible contracts at players that no one else is even bidding on (Castillo, Ollie), but the Mets apparently made money off of Madoff, strangely enough:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125609397243898233.html
I don't know what they can do to compete next year, but Lackey and Holliday would be a good start. So much hinges on the health of Reyes, I worry.
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Emotionally, I absolutely agree with you. The general national consensus seems to be that the only loser here may be the Diamondbacks. Everyone seems to think this Jackson kid -on the field- is capable of Granderson like production (probably without all the triples, but perhaps also without the weak hitting against lefties) and several guys seem to be saying they would trade Edwin Jackson for this Scherzer guy straight up and I have to agree. Jackson had an amazing first half last year, but really went in the tank the last couple months especially those last few weeks where he gave up at least five runs in all but one of his last five starts. Scherzer looks to be a very high ceiling guy -holy cats the strikeout numbers!- and the other pitchers certainly don't appear to be stiffs. I think/hope the organization got better for the long haul this week, assuming they're able to keep Verlander in two years, of course. Nonetheless, the thought of Grandy in pinstripes makes me want to throw things.
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Very happy about the Granderson trade. I like Posnanski's take on it.
It's also a bit ominous that this was the Yankees 27th World Championship and Granderson wears #28. Very excited to see what he can do in Yankee Stadium.
I really hope AJAX works out for Detroit. Yankees fans have always looked for the next great center fielder after Bernie Williams and AJAX was slated to be him. His power has fallen off a bit lately but he's been consistently rated as the Yankees top prospect and one of the best players in AAA. Here's a good NY Times article on him.
Phil Coke is a pretty decent bullpen guy and could be a solid #3 starter in time. There's been times he's coughed it up but more often than not, he's been lights out.
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seth wrote:
Fyi, the Wilpon's didn't lose anything in the Madoff scheme. The two guys doing most of the investigating (can't remember their names but they were on the 60 minutes special awhile back) showed that the Wilpon's actually gained money. In the end they gained $48M instead of the $700M loss that was initially reported, according to court filings by the Madoff victims. Check the WSJ for the original article.
The Mets should offer Wang a one year contract. In fact, it should have been done already.
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Well that's good news - but it removes any excuse they have for the organization's general incompetence. It looks like they're going to throw money at Jason Bay and Benji Molina now. The Jason Bay move is just generically bad, but Molina? He's Luis Castillo redux, especially with Josh Thole just about ready to contribute at the Major League level.
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So Halladay's been traded to the Phillies. I now have absolutely no reason to cheer for the Blue Jays.
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Reports and tweets all over the place about a Halladay to Philly, Lee to Seattle, prospects to Toronto trade.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/12/14/phillies.hallad...
From what I've read, the reasoning behind the trade, for Philly, seems to be that Lee wanted to test the free agent market after this year, and Halladay is willing to talk extension with Philadelphia.
I'm glad Halladay won't end up a Yankee or Red Sock, and from the various tweets on the subjects it looks like the Blue Jays are going to get a decent package in the trade.
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Ok, now will the Mets retrench? This is pretty much a doomsday scenario for the next year or two in the NL East.
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Halladay for Lee seems like a side-grade at best, but I guess if they lock him in longer and he maintains his performance the Phillies come out ahead.
John Lackey to the Red Sox.
Hideki Matsui to the Angels.
JJ Putz to the White Sox.
I have absolutely no idea what the Mets are doing. They need pitching more than anything else at the moment and they just let the best available arm go to their hated rival. Like Tanglebones said, doomsday scenario. Hey Omar, please please please sign Wang for one year.
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I'm guessing they're not in LOVE with anyone in the free-agent class (they're all sort of A-minus and on the wrong side of 30), don't want to lock themselves into any bad contracts, and are sort of writing off 2010 with a dim eye on the Wild Card if their main guys have a bounceback year. But they couldn't say this, of course, with all those season tickets to sell.
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Which I'd be ok with, if there was any sign of a strategy looking beyond 2010, but I just don't see it. The farm system is pretty much barren at this point, and the core players are going to be aging out of their primes extremely soon.
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After Santana the Mets rotation is horrible. Letting Halladay and Lackey sign elsewhere without really trying to land either of them is inexcusable. I'm not even a Mets fan but I at least want to see them be competitive. So far all the Mets have to show for themselves is Benji Molina, whom as Tanglebones already said, can't do anything that Thole wouldn't do.
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You're probably right. What irks me most is how they've let the culture devolve so much in the last three years that it's a repellent destination for big name free agents.
And as for Molina, they're still at loggerjams with him too... he wants three freakin' years. Don't give in, Omar.
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Looks like the Red Sox are pursuing Adrian Gonzalez.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/red-sox-take-aim-at-adrian-gonzalez
There is no way the Sox would give up both Buchholz and Ellsbury for Gonzalez unless maybe they were getting something back. Heath Bell?
The two most likely scenarios in my opinion are:
1. One of the two, plus Max Ramirez from Texas in the Lowell trade, plus one B, B+ prospect.
2. Beckett gets traded for a package of prospects that is then traded to Padres plus one Bos prospect.
Buchholz and Ellsbury would be a massive overpay.
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Trading for Adrian Gonzalez means Youkilis has to play third (which I thought the Sox didn't want to do) and Victor Martinez would I guess rotate between 1st, catcher and DH. Throw in Max Ramirez and Varitek (is he back?) and you've created a logjam at 3 positions. In addition to giving up young players, this seems like a move the Yankees would have made in years past...loads of talent but not enough role players.
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I don't see the concern. As I mentioned Max Ramirez would be flipped and sent to SD. Lineup would look something like this:
Ellsbury - LF
Pedroia - 2B
Martinez - C
Gonzalez - 1B
Youkalis - 3B
Ortiz - DH
Drew - RF
Cameron - CF
Scutaro - SS
Bench:
Lowrie - Util
Varitek - C
Hermida - OF
Logjam implies there are more players than there are positions available. That's not what I'm seeing here.
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Martinez is a great hitter but he's pretty bad behind the plate. Varitek isn't any better defensively and offensively he's done. If Max Ramirez is flipped, thats a huge problem...especially the way teams were running on you towards the end of last season. I was under the impression that the Sox acquired Martinez with an eye towards moving him towards first base permanently because he was widely regarded as a below average catcher.
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Varitek is toast. He's terrible in every aspect of the game. Martinez's caught stealing % in 07-08 was in the mid-30's. It took a dive last year, but everything I've seen or read has him as our full time starting catcher. If you've seen something different I'd be interested in taking a look at it.
I've seen mention of Martinez being slightly below average behind the plate, but not terrible. I'd be interested in anything you have relating to that also.
Flipping Max Ramirez is irrelevant. He's not a solution to our defensive catching woes:
One scout on Max:
http://espn.go.com/boston/columns/redsox/blog/_/post/4749628/name/edes
Stopping baserunners is going to be a problem next year. I'd prefer they drop Varitek and bring up Dusty Brown who's been very solid against baserunners. One thing is certain. There's no way they'll carry 3 catchers on the major league roster
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I know, it's sad that I never gave a damn about Tim Tebow. And he never gave a damn about me.
Holy crap that was funny.
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Melky Cabrera and a prospect to the Braves for Javier Vazquez and a prospect.
Jason Marquis to the Nationals for 2 years...another starting pitcher the Mets could have used signs elsewhere in their division.
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Nice move by the Yanks. I wonder if this means they'll be making a play for Holliday or Bay.
"Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way."
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They swear they're not, as they're firm on keeping payroll under 200 million and one of those guys would likely push them into the neighborhood of 210 mil. Maybe Damon will come down on his demands and sneak back in there. Would probably be best for all involved.
And hey, my Mets just signed a 35-year-old knuckleballer to a minor league contract!
Blorf.
Seriously, just sign Bay, Molina (no 3-year contract though), and someone like Garland, and we'll be sort of okay... though still without a true #2.
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Oh, there's plenty of true #2..
Here's an article that claims that, among other things, Steve Philips signed Komiyama because:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/sports/baseball/22mets.html?_r=3&ref=sports
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Yeah, last year at this time they said they weren't looking at Teixeira, had already maxed their budget on CC, and Burnett, and were happy with Swisher at first.
And this link says the Yankees are going to try and cut their budget to $185M this offseason. Right now they're around $205. It looks like they've been playing this game for a couple of off seasons, pretending not to be interested, and knowing agents will come to them for a final offer.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4714489
But I do agree with you that re-signing Damon makes the most sense.
I think Bay would be a great solution for the Mets. It looks like his price has been coming down.
"Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way."
— Martin Luther King Jr.