This is why baseball is so great, the trades and free agent discussion just extends the sport throughout the year. The games may be no longer be played on the diamonds as the summer months turn to winter, but games have shifted to the penthouses now. The players are moved like pawns on a chessboard, with each team trying to recover what they have lost from the previous season. Those teams who are successful in acquiring the most efficient group of players will win the grand prize at the end of the year – a World Series.
The last time myworld can remember names like Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee were involved in a trade was when Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez were traded to the Blue Jays for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. A couple years later the Blue Jays benefited from that trade when Joe Carter hit a game winning homer in the seventh game of the World Series to give the Blue Jays the championship. The Blue Jays will have to hope that history repeats itself and one of the players they acquired equals Joe Carter’s accomplishment. They will have a few years to wait for that to develop.
The Seattle Mariners have to be happy with their acquisition of Cliff Lee. This will give them the best twosome in baseball with King Felix Hernandez and Lee. Unfortunately, this twosome will only last for one year when Lee leaves for free agency, unless the Mariners can convince him of the quality of life in Seattle and he agrees to sign an extension. The two draft picks the Mariners acquire should they lose Lee to free agency will not match the three prospects that the Mariners gave up to acquire Lee. They just have to hope that the one year he plays for them will earn interest in a return to the playoffs and the World Series.
The Phillies were able to acquire their ace and get a two year extension from him. They couldn’t do that with Lee. Getting the two year extension from Halladay was enough to convince them to depart with Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor, two players they were unwilling to part with when the name of Halladay was discussed last year. They have to hope that the two pitchers that they acquired from the Mariners, Phillippe Aumont or Juan Ramriez, will balance out what they lost for Kyle Drabek. Ideally, it would have been nice to have kept both Lee and Halladay, but a team’s salary structure can only take so much of a financial hit, despite what Scott Boras would like you to believe. Acquiring a Halladay contract and keeping Lee would have put them in the neighborhood of the Yankees as far as salary commitment.
The Toronto Blue Jays will have to be happy with the three prospects they acquired for Halladay. It will be more than the two draft choices that they would have inherited for the loss of Halladay. With the trade they get three prospects without shelling out the large bonuses that are required when signing high draft picks. The Blue Jays have already traded one of the prospects, Michael Taylor to the Oakland Athletics for a player they have coveted for a long time, Brett Wallace. They were actually the first team to draft Wallace in the 42nd round in 2005 out of high school, but they couldn’t convince him to sign. Three years from now having Travis Snider and Brett Wallace in the same lineup will be really scary.
You also can’t forget the Yankees acquisition of Curtis Granderson that makes them a better team. Sorry, Melky Cabrera is not a good defensive centerfielder, no matter how much Yankee fans will try to color it by convincing you that his defense is underrated. The alternative, Brett Gardner is a good defensive centerfielder but he doesn’t provide you with much offense. The Yankees are used to parading a juggernaut of offensive dynamos like Micky Mantle, Joe Dimaggio and Bernie Williams out there. Mixing in the name Brett Gardner to patrol the hallowed pastures of centerfield just doesn’t cut it. It is still too early for Curtis Granderson to pass the litmus test of Yankee greats, but he has to be better than the Melky Cabrera and Bret Gardner duo.
Anytime you do a salary dump, no matter how you try to spin it, you are not going to be a better team the following year. The Tigers will have to hope that Max Scherzer replaces the loss of Edwin Jackson in the starting rotation, but Austin Jackson is not going to replace Curtis Granderson in centerfield, at least not in 2010. Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth are both bullpen fodder, though Schlereth still has closer possibilities.
The Diamondbacks were trying to acquire a third starter to add to Brandon Webb and Max Scherzer. They did get Edwin Jackson from the Tigers but they had to jettison Scherzer to the Tigers in return. They will have to hope that their Yankee acquisition, Ian Kennedy will become that third starter. So instead of Webb, Scherzer and Jackson they will have to settle for Webb, Jackson and Kennedy.
Now that the Christmas holidays are getting near, a number of the premiere free agents are signing contracts to help them buy those presents. The John Lackey signing with the Red Sox certainly gives Boston one of the best rotations in baseball with Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and a recovered Daisuke Matsuzaka. They are also trying hard to convince the Padres to depart with Adrian Gonzalez, but they will have to depart with one of their roation hopefuls, Clay Buchholtz to get him. To get an offensive player with 40 homeruns at a bargain basement salary will cost the Red Sox Eric Bedard like prospects. The question becomes – are they willing to pay? Myworld can guarantee that Adrian Gonzalez will provide a bigger bang for your buck than Bedard gave the Mariners.
Hideki Matsui also got tired of waiting for the Yankees to choose between Johnny Damon and himself, so he signed a free agent contract with the Yankee killers the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles. Damon now bats his eyes towards the Yankees to convince them that there is enough in him for them to shell out four more years. Good luck with that.
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It has been an active offseason so far as outlined in this article. As far as Mets fans are concerned, it appears that our ownership and GM misread the market. They thought it would be slow because of the depressed economy and so adopted a “wait and see” approach to the offseason. The theory was that the slow market would drive the FA’s to lower their demands and come to the teams with realistic proposals thereby creating a bargain atmosphere. We can now see that the theory was miguided and did not properly assess supply and demand. The supply of top notch FA’s was low this year with only 3 truly premium players: Lackey, Holliday and Bay. The demand for them was high because many teams are looking to improve and there are few ways to do that. Consequently teams have gotten aggressive. The Bosox scooped up Lackey. Tha Cardinals are bidding high on Holliday to keep him in their fold. That leaves Bay currently available. The Mets have offered to him, but other teams are lurking. It remains to see how this works out. But so far the Mets have been left out while “wait and see” appears to be a failed strategy.
As far as Halladay goes, it appears he had his mind made regarding Philly as his destination. There was probably very little the Mets could have done to change that. Philly offers him the advantage to have ST near his Florida home. It appears his mind was made up long ago and the Phillies only needed to work the deal, which they did without delay.
Where do the Mets go from here? Hopefully learn from this and get more aggressive by locking up Bay and picking from the best of the next tier of FA’s such as Marquis and others. There are many good players still available such as Capps, Carrasco, Garko, K Johnson, and others. Let’s not shoot Omar yet, but see if he can get his act together and make some meaningful acquisitions before it truly is too late. There is still hope Mets fans, but Omar needs to get aggressive. LGM!
How has their approach failed? It is too early to tell. They were not going to sign Lackey for that price regardless. The Mets are better off waiting for Bay because his price will eventually drop now that Boston and the Yankees are not going to pursue him.
No doubt, the market moved much faster than the Mets thought it would. Given that, and that major pieces are off the table, competition for the remaining players from among interested teams likely accelerates from here. Hence, the need to be pro active and aggressive. Recently, Omar commented, to the effect, that you don’t want to have too many offers out there at the same time. The comment stunned me. Why not have 2 – 3 offers out there AND intense discussion with other possible candidates, so we could be ready to move on them if another team was about to pull the trigger on someone we wanted to sign? I hope we sign Bay, and are primed to sign Marquis, peruse Wang’s health, work out a trade for Castillo, sign Kelly Johnson, maybe trade for a pitcher (Meche, Arroyo), sign Capps, Garko, maybe trade for a catcher (Chris Snyder)…do things in the next 3 – 5 weeks to remake this team.
I don’t believe anywhere in my post did I state that the approach failed. I said the Mets ownership and GM were misguided in their view of the market. I went on to say they need to get more aggressive because other teams are not, in fact, holding off. My contention is that if they continue to play “wait and see”, the offseason will not be successful for the Mets. They are simply going to have to compete for players if they wish to make any headway in improving the team. The action so far by the Mets has not bred confidence as there are no signs of real commitment. They are not home free regarding Bay by a long shot as he may still go to the Yanks, Angels, or Mariners.
It appears your right about the strategy of Ownership/Management this offseason. In addition to your comments Mask, IMHO it is very confusing to me why Omar was not aggressive right out of the gate with regards to signing players to improve painfully obvious holes in the line up. Especially after Jeff says his job is on the line. So far, Omar has not lived up to comments/promises that were made in the WFAN interview. What is their plan to fill the #2 on the hill? Although your right about some good players still out there to sign, the GREAT ones have been scooped up. (excluding BAY) This “wait and see” approach is exactly the same approach Omar had at last year’s trade deadline. I think again the Mets ownership/management have been outplayed so far by real GM’s of the MLB.
Ace, I agree that it has been disappointing. With all the hype that we were fed at the Francesa interview, you would think Omar would have taken a more agressive posture. I will reserve judgement until we see the final result, but it appears that more aggressiveness needs to be adopted. I hope, when all is said and done, we don’t conclude that interview was just so much hype. Omar, tell me it’s not so!
Yanks might still go after Bay, they’re not going to be very happy with their outfield if Damon walks. Most annoying thing about that article is that the eff-ing Mets aren’t mentioned at all!
Regarding the overall strategy, it’s still too early to tell however according to Jon Heyman last night they had 3 plans a,b,c.
Plan A: Molina & Bay
Plan B: Molina & Lackey
Plan C: Molina & Holliday
so far, if true, Plan A is still viable; but more difficult than assumed. Neither plan may be the preferred choice of all of us; but they’re paid for those evaluations & contrary to many opinions obviously had more than one plan!. we’re just spitballing.
There is one important correction, I’d like to address in this posting concerning this paragraph:
Ideally, it would have been nice to have kept both Lee and Halladay, but a team’s salary structure can only take so much of a financial hit, despite what Scott Boras would like you to believe. Acquiring a Halladay contract and keeping Lee would have put them in the neighborhood of the Yankees as far as salary commitment.
I believe a mistake was made by calculating the ENTIRE CONTRACT VALUE of halladay into ANNUAL PAYROLL FIGURES; since as of the end of 2009 according to COTS CONTRACTS SITE: the phillies season ending payroll was $127,957,380 compared to nyy’s $206,811,689 a 78-79M difference. the lone addition of halladay’s 20m/yr barely approaches nym ‘09 start payroll of 149m. the satement that both lee+halladay does not fit in their salary structure is accurate since ruben amarro is on record as not able to exceed 140m (for a supposed bigmkt team with ws aspirations) that’s not necessarily a competitive ceiling.