No one thinks Lidge is capable of getting anyone out anymore, not anyone. Personally, I’m with the low risk, high reward crew. Maybe it was a case of misreading the market, or maybe it was a case of Lidge wanting to be where he can be impactful on young pitcher’s career, or maybe for all we know the incentives are ridiculous, like 3 mil for 50 innings and another mil for every half a run lower than 4.00 his ERA is, but for a million, I’d have brought him in and let Beato start the season in Buffalo. I’d do it like last season with Young. Bring in the really risky guy with a healthy, young future piece ready to back him that still needs some work (Gee).

Lidge won’t help a major league team on the field this season, but if he were here, he can help the future by letting Beato simmer longer till he was nice and ready. I could go with Francisco, Rauch, Ramirez, Acosta, Byrdak, Parnell and Lidge.

Just opened a Ruthless Rye IPA from Sierra Nevada. Hope you are drinking something tasty as well, CHEERS!

Tomorrow I will try to find it but over where many of us lurk at Real Dirty this guy wrote a great breakdown about Omar and his transactions. The way it looks, Omar had a specific philosophy from 05-07. He did a great job at filling many positions and making the money work in many areas. After the collapse he turned into the dutch-boy stuffing dollars into the holes of the dike, and the roster fell a part. Omar v1 could of probably done a decent job with the ship, but Omar v2 is the one who helped steer it into the rocks.

Thinking backwards as usual because he possesses no innate knowledge of the game, everything is learned from his morning paper.

I don’t need an OBA to sign Fielder and Pujols. As long as those guys hit their usual 38-50 HRs and drive in 100+ runs NO MATTER WHAT TEAM THEY ARE ON because whoever signs them will have table setters so don’t worry about who is getting on base in front of them as in traditional baseball for 150 years that wasn’t the case – you just get the guys you need to put you over the top. Joe you’re a Painful Rectal Itch of the highest caliber.

And like Jerry DiPoto AND me said, the guys who have good eyes ALWAYS had it, so don’t worry about it because you already know they have it – you can’t turn someone into it (although Ruben Tejada’s done a good job of it)

But Fielder and Pujols were probably always this way so that being said – as long as they hit there share of HRs and drive in 100+ runs – which they can do on any team..and oh…..hit in BIG SPOTS and get CLUTCH hits – they will get their money.

Oh, i know Adam Dunn walks a lot but I really don’t feel like discussing him here because he’s not relevant to the conversation.

I wish I could turn back time and keep Omar Minaya and pair with Bobby Valentine as field manager and let those 2 work together with a small budget. Although I cannot prove it I GUARANTEE you that the Mets would be in better shape now and possibly even contending – even with the small budget.

It is very easy to make the case that Sandy Alderson, since taking over, has made a bad situation even WORSE not better.

I’ve been watching and been involved in baseball almost my entire life and I don’t need YOU to tell about it. I know that, I can just tell but the stupid things and the stupid conclusions you come to here. Oh and when I work with a PC and an iMac, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro PhotoShop, various DVD softwares, constantly experimenting with various compression codecs, Excel for customer databases and formulas, I don’t need you to tell me about complex.

This is baseball,, not computer programming.

Fielder/Pujols can hit a ton of HR’s, RBI hit some doubles and take a walk. This allows them to be more productive for their team and be a higher caliber than someone like Dunn. That is why they get more money and will be more successful. You are just to simple in the brain to understand more complex material.

And I don’t need a stat sheet to know that Adam Dunn would not get the same kind of contract as Pujols or Fielder. You’re letting statistics dictate whatever baseball sensibility you possess and you’re going to go nowhere thinking like that. And you’re thinking too much and over analysing in your post to me because again, you’re getting too involved with statistics.

Each team gets the guy they think best suits their needs and each team works with their own budget. It is not relative to anything else and your “league average” nonsense, as noted by another poster, is not relative to anything else other than fodder for stat geeks.

Look I’m not enamored with the Francisco acquisition, but if the Mets didn’t get him someone else would have gotten him at the same price. The market is going up on all free agents this year and the Mets needed to get a guy that wouldn’t want more than 2 years and can pitch effectively. Not too many guys fit that criteria.

If they just hit HR’s and RBI’s then they would get a contract like Dunn at 15m, not 23m.

HR & RBI is how they make their living and why they get signed. Oh and AVG because as long as they hit all that other stuff like OBP will fall into place.

But the people who do things like that – you are on their side so that’s different.

Lidge’s experience should help a young Storen as he grows as a closer and at $1M the Nats are not really risking much that if he say breaks down he can probably be replaced during the season if need be or at least I would suspect he could.