November 20, 2007

What Would It Take?

The burning question running through Metsville is where they are going to get top pitching, a good starting catcher and how much is it going to cost the Farm System.

The latest rumor is that the Orioles are prepared to shop Ramon Hernandez and Erik Bedard, but at what cost.

Erik Bedard is the acting Ace of the Orioles staff and isn’t arbitrational eligible until after the 2008 season. He finished the 2007 season with a 13-5 record, 3.16 ERA and 221 strike outs. The biggest question for the Mets is how to fill the void of innings pitched, when Tom Glavine left, and if you’re thinking that Bedard is the answer, you are mistaken. He had pitched only 182 innings last season. So the Mets are still going to have to spend money on a Livan Hernandez or Carlos Silva type of pitcher.

Ramon Hernandez is only 31 and under contract for the next two seasons when he will be 33. A favorite in the Mets pursuit of the off-season after the 2005 season, Hernandez waited too long to reply to Omar’s offer (Like Bengie Molina) and settled with the Orioles. Molina is a career .263 hitter, so his 2007 batting average of .258 was a tad under par. But his 9 home runs were way under his normal production. In 2006 he rang up 23 long balls (’05 – 12 & ’04 – 18) and after an injury year, the Mets should be able to swing him away from the Orioles with minimal damage to their farm system.

So, if a deal were to go down with these two teams, I feel it would resemble something to this effect:

Orioles give: Erik Bedard & Ramon Hernandez
Mets give: Aaron Heilman, Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber, Joe Smith, Ruben Gotay and Lastings Milledge (or Carlos Gomez)

That’s an awful lot, but that’s what it’s going to have to be in order to pull off a deal of this magnitude.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

that just seems like an extreem amount of prospects to give up

Anonymous said...

you have to give up alot to get that much quality

Anonymous said...

bedard would be a great on two punch with martinez and then followed by maine and perez and you got a great rotation if you add silva at the end

Anonymous said...

the rotation would look nice and we wouldnt need any pitching for a long time

Anonymous said...

its just too much to give for two guys

Anonymous said...

this is a hard decision to make for omar to give up all of that talent

Anonymous said...

thats a thinker

Anonymous said...

I would probably do that.. the only thing holding me back would be the lack of heilman and smith in the pen would kill it. Omar would have to get some serious help some how getting solid relief through the free agent market because he'd have no prospects left to trade for any. I think most free agent relievers are going to want a schowenweiss kind of deal..