15
2009
Cardinals Up The Ante; Offer Matt Holliday 8 Year Deal
An article by 
As Omar and the Mets continue to wait out what they call a slow moving market, other MLB teams are quickly scooping up some of the key free agents and addressing their needs.
Yesterday, the Red Sox signed John Lackey, while the Phillies added Roy Halladay in a 3 team deal that sent Cliff Lee to the Mariners.
The Red Sox also signed outfielder Mike Cameron to a 2 year deal worth $15.5 million and announced he would be their everyday left fielder.
Tha Angels signed former Yankees LF/DH Hideki Matsui to a one year $6.5 million deal.
Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is now reporting that the Cardinals have offered Matt Holliday a new 8 year deal which would pay him $16MM annually. Obviously, the Cards are anxious to get a deal done and this offer would be hard to top unless the Yankees were to get involved. It actually tops the 7 year, $100MM contract Albert Pujols signed in 2004.
This weekend I actually speculated that Holliday would get 8 years in another post in which I asked if Jason Bayat 5 years would be a better deal for the Mets.
I am now becoming very concerned about the Mets strategy in low balling Bay with a similar offer to the one he rejected from the Red Sox. Yesterday his agent said that he would be making an announcement this week. Some have reported that Bay already has a 5 year offer from an unamed team.
If Bay does end up signing elsewhere, it will be slim pickings for the Mets and I have no idea how they would proceed moving forward.
The Mets have now seen hitters Matt Holliday, Curtis Granderson, Chone Figgins, Mike Cameron and pitchers Randy Wolf, Roy Halladay, Rich Harden, Andy Pettitte, Brad Penny and John Lackey all come off the market in the last two weeks.
Slow moving market?
More like a slow moving Mets front office.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
Went to my first Mets game, a Mayors Trophy game at Shea, in '73. We beat the Yankees 8-4 and I was hooked. I marched in two Banner Day parades, and before the Grand Slam single, there was the "Hendu Can Do" grand slam - I was there. I've collected Mets memorabilia all my life and started Mets Merized Online to feed my addiction.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationals | 26 | 18 | .591 | - |
| Braves | 26 | 20 | .565 | 1.0 |
| Mets | 24 | 21 | .533 | 2.5 |
| Marlins | 24 | 21 | .533 | 2.5 |
| Phillies | 23 | 23 | .500 | 4.0 |
Last updated: 05/25/2012
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That’s insane that the Cardinals would offer a man his age eight years. Won’t he be around 38 at the end of the deal? Even Albert Pujols only got a seven-year deal a few years back and he was only in his mid-twenties at the time.
As much as I want the Mets to do something, they can’t go insane by offering contracts to players like the one the Cards offered to Holliday.
Hopefully, with the Red Sox giving up their pocket change to sign John Lackey, they might not be able to re-sign Bay, so that might help the Mets get him.
I totally agree. The Mets get offer Holliday an 8 year deal. But I think they should now offer or work out a deal with Bay for 5 years.
Does anyone know which teams is rumored to offer Bay the fifth year?
The Mets cant*
Apart from the moves by other teams, the only Met non-move that concerns me is their failure to go after Figgins. He would have been an ideal top of the order complement to Jose Reyes and would spell Luis Castillo’s departure, assuming a shift to second base. If we added Figgens and Bay, our line-up would be…
Reyes, Figgins, Wright, Beltran, Bay, Murphy, Francouer, Catcher, Pitcher…
which is a line-up that compares well with most other major league clubs. Pagan and a developing F-Mart & Niewenhuis are centerfield insurance for Beltran.
Given the current state of affairs, I’d really like to see us go after Brandon Phillips, if possible. The Reds need pitching, so we could dangle Pelfrey and/or Maine, plus F-Mart. If we parted with one or both pitchers, we could sign Pineiro and/or Marquis without experiencing any discernable drop-off in the rotation. Forget about potential, we need performance.
Reyes, Phillips, Wright, Beltran, Bay, Murphy, Francouer, catcher, pitcher…
that’s a line-up that would put lefties in the wood-chipper.
Pitching? Omar’s back at the bargain bin on Roosevelt Avenue’s chop-shop looking to piece together a rotation with used and tattered parts.
His front end choices? Sheets, Escobar, Bedard …Yikes! What to do, Omar? Here’s what I would do…
Sign Sheets & Bedard to incentive-laden 3-year contracts. 5 mil per year, with clauses that could rise to 12 mil based on incentive factors (200 innings, 15 wins, Cy Yong ranking, etc…) I could justify the 10 mil per year on these guys much more easily than pissing away 12m per annum on Ollie.
I would then sign either Pineiro or Marquis to a 3-year deal, @ 8m per annum.
In the best of all worlds, we’d have…
Santana, Sheets, Bedard, Pineiro & Ollie with Niese, Nieve, Figueroa & Co. available for spot starting. This rotation assumes the absence of Pelfrey & Maine. I would also consider developing Brian Stokes for the rotation if he is able to develop off-speed pitches to his repertoire.
It ain’t perfect, but as Jose Reyes would say, “What else I can do?”
If Bay signs elsewhere, it’s game over for the Mets. They’ll be forced to break their bank for Holliday, and seeing as players are avoiding the Mets like the plague, theres a good chance he’ll go elsewhere anyway. The Mets are going to face a fan-revolt next year.
DO NOT go to 8 years on Holliday, that just murders your long-term health. If the Mets do nothing else this offseason I’d be disappointed, but if they start overpaying people and already price themselves out of the 2010 FA class I’d be livid. If Bay is all you get this offseason, fine. Sign a hard-working high-upside pitcher or two like Sheets/Duchscherer and work with them. I’d be wary about Marquis/Pineiro, its more likely that if we sign them we’ll get Ollie redux and a guy who gets gassed by midseason. I’d be fine if we don’t sign Molina when we have a multitude of decent catchers and Thole waiting anyway. If the Mets come out and say “listen, these guys just were not worth it, not when we could save some money, ensure that our best players got healthy and now we will ABSOLUTELY be big players in 2010.” If and only if they do this, would I be ok with the dismal offseason we had.
I have to think the Red Sox signing Cameron means they are intensifying their efforts for A GON. If the cards offer is accuratem then I see no way the Mets get involved there. That leaves Bay, but I don’t want to see us over pay for him just to make a deal. I also think Seattle is going to be a big player there….the aquisition of Lee signals to me that they are gonna make a run for it next year, considering Lee is a FA next year and the Angels are now VERY weakened.. They have the top 1-2 pitching punch and the top 1-2 in the batting order in regards to table setters, so they now need a table setter. If they make an offer comparable to the Mets he will surely choose them.
*** i meant they need a bopper to drive the table setters in
Let the Cardinals bid against themselves. I rather have Bay anyway.
The Cardinals may as well offer him a 10 year contract. The Cards are lucky that Puljos is not an egotistical sissy like A-rod, because Puljos is a 250-300 million dollar player if there ever was one.
I don’t know what Boras has but I got to admit, he’s good, he makes these GM’s look like blithering idiots.