Atom Feed (xml)
The Milledge Trade Looks Worse Today
from MetsLifer.com
If you haven't heard there's news from the winter meeting that the Tigers and Mets are talking about a possible trade that would send Dontrelle Willis to the Mets.
What's the catch? Well, the catch is the Tigers have found themselves with a payroll overload and need to cut back so any deal involving Dontrelle would also include taking Pudge Rodriguez and his +$13MM salary. Now Pudge has a no trade clause, but would waive it if he was offered a contract extension from a playoff team (i.e. New York Mets).
So how does this make the Milledge trade any worse? Well we now have an overload at catcher so for this deal to happen we'd either a) have to cut one of our existing catchers under contract b) find a way to package one of them in a deal for Willis/Rodriguez. The problem with option B is we just signed Castro to a contract and just traded for Schneider and are stuck with his contract. This is not about Ryan Church. Church will bat .270 for us and knock in 60 RBIs. This is about getting a middle of the road catcher early in the offseason before knowing what's really out there.
Of course hindsight is 20/20, but it just compounds the bad feeling I'm getting from the Mets this offseason. I have a horrible feeling that come April 1 we will not have acquired a top notch starting pitcher. Livan Hernandez will be in the rotation. And our bullpen will be very similar to last year.
I'd love for the Mets to make this deal with the Tigers. The Marlins were packaging Willis and Cabrera because they wanted to dump payroll. The Tigers don't really need Willis and now find themselves wanting to dump payroll as well. This is a perfect scenario for the Mets. The Mets could try and send Castro, Heilman, and Mulvey to the Tigers for Willis & Pudge. The Tigers don't need any more bats or big time contracts.
Will this happen? Who knows. But if it doesn't happen in the coming week, it will be less likely that it ever will.
4 comments:
Hey Dave - David here! I think this trade is not going to happen because of fan perception. From what I understand, if the Mets and Tigers could have agreed at the start of the deal on who the mets would send to the tigers for willis/rodriguez, it all would have been in one, neat package. However, the Tigers don't want to have their fans think that this would be a salary dump, even though it would, so they stopped talking and the deal, as of last night, was totally off the table but the rumor just won't die.
Finally, I think that if Ryan Church gets 500 at-bats, we're looking at 22 homers and 85 RBI's- at least 10 of those 43 doubles from last season, removed from Washington's cavern of a stadium, would have been homers, so 22 might be about right.
Great post as always!
Best,
David
the trade has already passed
besides it was shot down by thetigers when they were asked about it
another reason why the milledge trade was bad: if santana doesnt get traded this offseason--and that's looking like a distinct possibility--then the twins will definitely look to move him at the trading deadline (anyone think the twins can compete with the tigers and indians?)
if we just let milledge play, and he improves over his 2007 season (which, playing everyday, trust me he will), who's to say he's not going to be hitting .300? he batted over .300 in july and august 2007, when alou was out and he was playing more consistently. got a lot of clutch hits too.
are you telling me the twins wouldnt want him as part of a deal for santana? perfect young affordable replacement for torii hunter.
maybe santana gets traded soon. was getting schneider and church (a carbon-copy of shawn green, whom you could've had anyway) THAT urgent that Omar couldnt even wait until after santana was traded?
anyone who trusts the guy is a dupe. sorry.
Post a Comment