17
2011
Nationals Acquire Tom Gorzelanny From Cubs
An article by Hojo's Mojo
According to ESPN Chicago, the Nationals have acquired LHP Tom Gorzelanny from the Cubs in exchange for three minor league prospects — two pitchers and an outfielder, according to two major league sources.
Gorzelanny was 7-9 with a 4.09 ERA last season, and last week there was speculation that the Mets might be interested in acquiring the left hander.
Last month, Mike Puma of the New York Post said he Sandy Alderson asked the Cubs about Gorzelanny, since they were intrigued by his 119 strikeouts in 136 innings.
He became available after the Cubs acquired Matt Garza in a trade with the Rays several weeks ago.
The 28-year-old had his best season in 2007, when he posted a 3.88 ERA in 201 2/3 innings for the Pirates. He is arbitration eligible for the second time and earned just $800K last year. He will be under team control through the 2012 season.
The trade is pending a physical that Gorzelanny is expected to take on Tuesday.
Don’t look now, but here come the Nationals…
About the Author: Rob Johnson
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This whole offseason has gone like this:
1. Mets interested in player “A”
2. Brewers sign player “A”
1. Mets interested in trading for player “B”
2. Nationals trade for player “B”
1. Mets close to signing player “C”
2. Royals agree to deal with player “C”
Get the picture?
media guys make up rumors about almost every player available?
Mikey, u gotta stop BELIEVING every inuendo that’s published or hinted at. I’m guessing “not doing much” escaped your attention when Sandy referenced it repeatedly. While so many opined,boycotted, urged, demanded a frontoffice regime change, why wasn’t the typical position appraisal period anticipated? Is it a suprise that every person who stops in occasionally on this site is more ascutely aware of the +/- of this team than Sandy? Considering he was on a mission in the Dominican & his job was out of the Commissioner’s office after stints with SD & Oak. why wouild anyone think he ever paid any attention to the NYM prior to getting the shot at an interview? This is a natural phenomenon whenever a top mngt position is filled from outside of an organization a true competant executive will want/need a period for evaluating & judging for himself before commiting to any high cost longterm irrevocable decisions or course alterations.
would have liked to pick him up if the prospect cost was modest. Oh well. and yes, this does seem to lower the odds of the Nats being after Young.
and somehow, I don’t think getting him and Cora suddenly makes the nats the WC favorite.
Yeah, the Nats have done nothing this offseason!
Agreed to terms with OF Jayson Werth on a seven-year contract.
Agreed to terms with OF/1B Matt Stairs on a minor league contract.
Agreed to terms with RP Chad Gaudin on a one-year contract.
Agreed to terms with OF Rick Ankiel on a one-year contract.
Agreed to terms with RHP Chien-Ming Wang on a one-year contract.
Agreed to terms with 1B Adam LaRoche on two-year contract.
What a comical offseason it’s been for the Mets.
You’re gonna complain about Capuano, Young (likely to happen) and Carasco and champion Gaudin, Ankiel and Wang? And Werth is pretty much 100% regarded as an atrocious contract. And what’s Matt Stairs gonna do in the NL?
I mean, look, I have no problem with you feeling Alderson and co. haven’t done what you think is necessary, but to compare the Nats offseason FAVORABLY to the Mets is comical in itself.
Agreed. And come on, until the Nationals do something, I’m going to keep predicting the Nationals do their usual Nationals thang during the season
Excellent contrast Xtreemicon.
Capuano borken down arm and then lost starting job on worst starting rotation in nL. A truly great sign.
Young… Hasn’t been healtyh since 2007. Might as well have kept John Maine. Another truly excellent sign.
Carasco… Mop up man on worst bullpen in NL. Couldn’t even be set up man for that lousy pen. Anoither truly great sign.
And don’t forget Sandy’s favorite who brings back the memories for him of the good ole days….roidal ronny. If Omar made those deals there would be 100% demands for his immediate removal.
no doubt. These guys would be KILLING him.
If John Maine was on another team and was acquired by saber Sandy on the cheap despite Maine’s recent injuries his army would be calling it a low risk high reward move and praise him.
That is SO TRUE!!!!
But Bayonne if Maine was not here to begin with then no Mets would have their 1st hand view of his 2010 season as a reason to say enough time for someone else.
I mean really do you not see that?
I mean of course some would say that having not seen 1st hand what Maine did as a Met. If Maine did what he did as a Phillie last year do you think they would be negotiating to sign him again for 2011?
I mean really cmon
That’s the second most ridiculous statement I’ve been hearing from the Anti-Sandy crowd. If that were true, why are there no demands for Sandy’s immediate removal?
And none of these guys are really all that improtant. They arte low risk, high reward type deals. A few of them aren’t even ML deals. They are minor league deals with Spring Training invites.
Minaya, on the other hand, brought us both Hernandez brother, Moises Alou, Jeff Franceur, Luis Castillo, Jose Lima, and Oliver Perez.Thats 4 starting pitchers, our starting second baseman for the last 4 years, 2 starting corner outfielders meant for the heart of the line up.
And Giuermo Mota. Who Omar resigned after he got busted for roids.
So please stop portraying Minaya as some kind of martyr whom we are unfairly picking on.
But Harry, Omar “won” the off season every year and won 71 and 79 games the last 2 years because he failed to adequately back up the players he brought here.
He never adequately addressed RF, 2B or the starting rotation and his only answer in LF was to go free agent twice and a rookie infielder once.
He filled in our starting rotation with Jorge Sosa, Brian Lawrence, Livan Hernandez, Tim Redding, Alay Solar, Dave Williams, Jose Lima, Kaz Ishi and Fernando Nieve.
He also resigned, for a lot of money El-Duque who was hurt the year before on the eve of the playoffs and traded away a few young starting pitchers. Jae Seo, Brian Bannister and Jason Vargas.
Trading Vargas especially was idiotic. He gave Seattle anything they wanted in that trade and the biggest piece Seattle wanted wasn’t even coming from us, and he did it for a relief pitcher everyone knew was hurt, and he didn’t even bother to get a physical on him or even have a surgeon look at his medical report.
He also let this injured relief pitcher play in the WBC in March.
He did have bad luck with Duaner Sanchez and Burgos but why did he have to include Vargas in that trade? He traded Lindstrom AND Owens to get Vargas and then trades him for a guy who pitched with a bad elbow the year before.
If we had a 28 year old LHP who made 31 starts and had a 3.78 ERA coming back in our rotation this year we’d be looking pretty good starting pitching wise.
You guys want to excuse Omar who was always the toast of the town at this time of the year and blame someone who just got here to fix the mess Omar left us in.
If you are trying to say that a healthy Capuano is better than a healthy Wang, this discussion is over because I dont debate baseball with minors.
Also dont go counting your chickens too early with Young, all Ive read were rumors, like the rumor the Mets were interested in Gorzelanny and the one they were after Brian Fuentes. Sure Young makes your argument work better, but while I’m dealing with facts, your playing fantasy baseball.
I’ll take Ankiel, Werth, Stairs, La Roche over Peking Hu, Raul Chavez and Ronny Paulino and day!
As I said comical!
but you aren’t taking them over those guys. You are taking laroche over Ike. and Werth over (I guess) either Beltran or Pagan. Ankiel is a bench guy now, but I actually would have liked to sign him for that. Stairs is Chris Carter without the defense now.
All laroche does is try to replace them losing Dunn (mets did not lose their best hitter) And if you want to counter werth, the Mets are getting Bay back!
and capuano at least pitched the whole year (or the majority of it). wnag didn’t pitch an inning, so you can’t compare them really. Who cares what Wang did in 2006 at this point?
“but while I’m dealing with facts, your playing fantasy baseball.”
Of course you deal with facts that’s all you do your famous for your fact dealing.
Xtreem go play fantasy baseball your beneath this fact dealer.
Maniac, don’t know about your criteria; but to me lipstick & a new dress on a pig does not qualify as a prom date.
Pfft………..tell that to my prom date.
X, OK WHAT’S HIS NAME?
and even with all those additions, they still don’t have as good a team as the mets.
Werth is a good player (or at least was in the perfect situation for him with the Phils). But, who knows what he will do as “the man” with the nats, and the contract was ludicrous.a
Laroche is a nice stop gap 1B signing, maybe he puts up about the same numbers as Ike. And no way will he replace Dunn’s output (you forgot to mention that the Nats also lost some key guys).
Other than that, a spare OF with major injury issues, a 40 YO dude that can’t play the field, a BP arm and a SP that is so damaged, he did not pitch at all for them last year.
oh, and Strassburg will be out for the year.
yes, they signed some guys, but they had holes to fill, they had to.
I think the issue is tht the Nationals have made very concrete investments to improve their team while another team in their division does not.
“Concrete investments”? Thats what were are calling the Werth deal?
Defendig the do nothing regime is very difficult. No matter what happens in DC at least they didn’t give their fans the finger and not even try to improve their team.
This notion of getting the finger is a matter of opinion. While you feel like you got the finger I don’t so like I said matter of opinion. While some Nats may feel getting Werth was not giving them the finger some others may feel it was by not resigning Dunn instead. Matter of opinion.
They ain’t giving their fans the courtesy of a reach around either.
Win.
Making bad signings for too many dollars and too many years is not trying. It’s covering your ass so you can SAY I was trying but checkbook baseball wins a World Series about once every 20 years and face it, we tried that approach 3 times under the Wilpon and three times it crashed.
To continue on the same path would just return the same results. I want something better and long lasting and after watching the s**t team Omar put out here the last couple of years, it’s about time we tried something different.
Any Moron can club a free agent over the head with his owners wallet but that’s no guarantee of winning anything. Obviously.
If the Mets not making moves as you say because the Nats are is an issue for some then it is what it is but I don’t follow the “keeping up with the Jonses” mentality myself.
Would the Mets have been able to offer a Michael Burgess type OF prospect to match the Nats offer? Puello or Neuiwenhuis (will never spell that properly!) would have come closest to being a match, but can’t see the Cubs taking either of those over Burgess who seems to have more raw potential at this point. So I say it’s fair to say the Nats offered more than the Mets could have in getting Gorzelanny. Yes, he would have helped the Mets rotation, but I think the Cubs got better value than what the Mets could have given them. You can thank the previous regime for not stockpiling better minor league talent through the amateur drafts these past 3 or 4 seasons as one (MAJOR) reason why the Mets weren’t able to get Gorzelanny.
Shut up! This is all Money Ball Sandy’s fault! He should be able to bring in all th best players from everywhere because the entire MLBPA wants to play for the Mets!
Mets Baseball can’t begin soon enough.
32 days till pitchers & catchers and counting.
Watching players play rather than only having to read this defeated mentality that the Mets new F.O. have failed before it has even begun by some here is just so tired.
I can only hope as a “Mets fan” that this new F.O. can lead the Mets to a W.S. cause if they do I wanna see all the jump on the bandwagoners fight for room on the wagon.
Great point by Steve Popper that absolutely explains why so many Mets fans like me are angry at this offseason!!!
For all of the injury troubles of the last two seasons, the Mets were contenders at the All-Star break. If they are again then the new front office might regret not reaching into the Wilpon’s pockets for the money to secure one reliable starting pitcher – a pitcher not coming off surgery who the Mets could count on for 200 quality innings.
http://blogs.northjersey.com/blogs/amazinstories/you_gotta_believe_-_2011_the_mets_insist_they_do/Steve%20Popper,%20blog%20for%20Bergen%20Record
“For all of the injury troubles of the last two seasons, the Mets were contenders at the All-Star break.”
Sadly, the playoffs are in October.
This from Popper.
Even with a damaged Johan Santana shutting down for September last year, the Mets finished sixth in the National League in ERA, but were 13th offensively in OPS, which might have been a better reason for the 79-83
northjersey.com/sports/113835274_Popper__Don_t_count_us_out__Mets_say.html
Someone needs to tell him OPS is evil.
problem is, there were no SPs that met those criteria on the open market, with the exception of Lee (and that is assuming you can count on him to stay healthy htis year).
so after Lee, who was never coming to the Mets, exactly who was there to get? Pavano? Garland? Show me the quality and/or guarantee there (and Garland seems to be stuck on the west coast, and happy to reup there).
unless wilpons pocket had $200mill in it to waive at Lee, I just don’t see the guy they missed (and of course you can trade, but that is a whole nother issue!)
also, it is very likely that if the Mets are right in the race again as they were last year, Sandy will actually go out an dmake the moves needed to grab the bodies needed to make the full run, something Omar never did.
Maniac, How exactly were we contenders at the All Star break the last two years?
2009 we were 42-45 in fourth place 6.5 games behind the Phils and trying to put out of our minds a June record of 9 wins and 18 losses. In the entire NL only 3 teams had a worse record than we did, leaving 7 teams to leap frog, and one that we were tied with and a mere 7.5 games to make up and to do it without Beltran, Reyes and Delgado and with Castillo, Perez and. C’mon.
2010 We were 48-40 comfortably ahead of 7 teams in the NL but trailing the Braves in our division by 4 games and a one half game lead over the Phils. You could say we were contenders for the Wild Card I guess. Basically we were one of 6 teams, not counting Division front runners and actually had a 1/2 game lead over Philly and a one game lead over SF and StL and trailed the Dodgers and Rockies by 1 game for the Wild Card. One thing I do credit Omar for here is not making the Kazmir for Zambranno type trade with us hanging around but still having so many poor performances at so many different positions it wouldn’t have made any difference. The production we received from LF, RF, C and 2B were so far below what the average player at those positions provided I don’t know what Omar could have done about it in the off season.
Those positions needed to be successfully addressed a few years before hand.
Being out of the Wild Card by only 1 game in 2010 and basically lumped in with 6 different teams all clumped up within a game or two of each other could understandably be considered “in it” although I never had that feeling it doesn’t mean others couldn’t have and I’m sure if we were only a game out I would have been hopeing for sure.
2009. We were clearly out of it by a mile.
sometimes doing nothing is the right way to go. sure, it would be great to have signed lee and crawford, and trade for a-gon and greinke, but that wasn’t going to happen. after that, it was silly to overpay for the second tier guys ( werth, beltre, dunn, uggla ), and those guys weren’t really fits here. i’m happy with this approach for now.
the bad news is that two of the best free agents out there for next year are already mets. it’s hard to see a big name sign or trade happening until 2013, but i guess it’s possible.