Category: Trades

Minaya Confirms Mets Tepid Interest In Sabathia

SAN FRANCISCO - JULY 10: American League All-...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The NY Post Mets Blog confirms that Mets GM Omar Minaya spoke to Cleveland Indians GM Mark Shapiro about trading for C.C. Sabathia. Minaya says that the Mets had the prospects that the Indians were looking for. But the Mets remain undecided how aggressive they’ll be prior to the non-waiver trading deadline.

Bringing Sabathia in for a load of prospects would have been absolutely ridiculous for the Mets. They just traded four top prospects for Johan Santana this off-season. Doing it again for a team with a record hovering around .500 wouldn’t make sense at all. It’s good to see that Minaya kept his head on that one.

Sometimes the best trades are the ones that aren’t made.

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Brewers Going For It- Trade For Sabathia

Cleveland Indians pitcher C.C.Image via Wikipedia

The second place Milwaukee Brewers decided to go for it this season. Major news outlets are reporting that they’ve completed a trade with the Cleveland Indians for C.C. Sabathia. He’s considered the best pitcher available for a trade prior to the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline. Look out Chicago Cubs, the Brew Crew is making a run.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays were also considered contenders for Sabathia until recent days.

The Indians will receive Double-A Huntsville prospect Matt LaPorta plus other players. LaPorta is a masher, hitting .288 with 20 HR and 66 RBI’s in 84 games.

Sabathia turned down Cleveland’s offer of 4 years/$72 million to play out this season and become a free agent. This season Sabathia is 6-8 with a 3.83 ERA after a bad start.

Sabathia is 27 years old, a three time All-Star, and 2007 Cy Young Award winner. Baseball Reference defines similar players to Sabathia at his age are Dennis Eckersley and Greg Maddux among others. Nice deal for the Brewers.

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Audio: Olney On Mets Trading Jose Reyes

ESPN baseball writer Buster Olney talks to Michael Kay about the possibility of the Mets trading Jose Reyes. He says that it’s not out of the realm of possibility if the right deal comes along. Specifically, he mentions the Rays as a team that could put together an adequate package to satisfy the Mets.

ESPN Radio

There are a couple of things that I’d like to mention on this topic:

  1. Omar Minaya would have to be completely insane to trade Reyes. He wouldn’t find another player that’s an equal replacement to lead off. Reyes’ contract is extremely reasonable. The list goes on of reasons not to trade Reyes.
  2. The Rays are mentioned in every trade discussion now even though they’ve never been a major player in trade deals in the past. Just because the Rays have a wealth of talent doesn’t mean that they’ll become dealers overnight. Until the Rays start making major deals I don’t want to hear about them being linked to every player that may become available for trades.

Mets In The News July 2- Pedro, Kazmir, And More

There are several Mets related news items today coming off the rare offensive outburst in St. Louis last night. Tony Armas sure wasn’t fooling many Cardinals and doesn’t have the velocity to instill much confidence in the Mets’ fan base that he can capture a permanent spot in the Mets rotation. But he did a nice job for one start. I think he was more lucky than good.

Onto the news for Wednesday July 2:

  • Even though I dislike Newsday’s Ken Davidoff columns generally, he has a good point today about the Mets. He writes that the Mets shouldn’t give up on the 2008 season. I’ve heard the sentiment from Mets fans to start breaking down the team and prepare for next year. I couldn’t disagree more.
  • Christina Kahrl has an extremely well written column for the New York Sun. She contrasts the Atlanta Braves ability to make a deal for a veteran rental with the Mets. She writes that the Mets farm system doesn’t give the Mets much flexibility to bring in non-waiver deadline deals that will impact the 2008 season. By the way, if you don’t read the sports writers at the New York Sun, you’re missing out. Their writers are without equal when it comes to covering the Mets in longer form columns.
  • AP put out a story picked up by just about every sports news outlet that Jerry Manuel is keeping Pedro Martinez on his regular rest today and giving Mike Pelfrey an extra day between starts.
  • Ben Shipgel of the NY Times has a couple of nuggets in his column about the Mets seducing fans into believing that the “turnaround” is beginning after games like last night in St. Louis. Perhaps the biggest news is that Orlando Hernandez is about a week away from making his first rehab start and may re-join the Mets by the end of July.
  • The NY Post Mets Blog has some interesting information about Pedro Martinez. Pitching coach Dan Warthen says that he thinks that Pedro looks terrific right now and resolved his problem of tipping pitches with the help of the Mets hitters. And Jerry Manuel isn’t babying Pedro like Willie Randolph did. Manuel is pushing Pedro harder and says that he’ll go easy on him after “three or four shutouts”.
  • Adam Rubin at the Daily News has several interesting topics today. Moises Alou went 2 for 3 with a homer and 2 RBI’s in his rehab game last night. Jerry Manuel is trying to get Jose Reyes to be more prepared in the field. Willie Randolph will skip the All-Star game this year. Jerry Manuel continues his tweaking of Luis Castillo in the media.
  • David Lennon of Newsday has a good column on Carlos Delgado’s statistics when hitting at night versus day games. He’s a much better hitter during the day. And Delgado didn’t know about the difference when it was brought up to him. Delgado actually said that he likes hitting at night better because there aren’t shadows to contend with.
  • Roger Rubin of the Daily News talks about Scott Kazmir’s shock and sadness when he found out that he was traded by the Mets to the Rays. Now he’s thrilled to be in first place and hoping for post season baseball in Tampa.

Mets Looking At Freel- Phillies At Pitching

Jayson Stark’s Rumblings and Grumblings column today contains a few Mets references:

  1. The list of managers that the Mets will be looking at for 2009
  2. The Mets have some interest in the Cincinnati Reds’ Ryan Freel

He also talks about the Phillies desire to bolster their starting pitching via trade.  He says that they’ve looked at C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Bronson Arroyo, Jared Washburn, and will be looking at Erik Bedard. Their problem is that they don’t have much left in the minors for a trade. So they’d have to “empty the tank” to make a deal.

Ryan Freel would be a nice fit with the Mets.  His scrappy play and ability to play the infield and outfield would certainly be an asset for the Mets aging, injury-prone roster.  His current line is .298/ .340/ .359 with 6 SB’s in 131 at-bats.

Mets Trade Deadline News

Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Xavier Nady during a Pirates/Minnesota Twins spring training game at McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Florida.

Image via Wikipedia

Steve Hensen of Yahoo Sports wrote a column today predicting which teams will be buyers and which will be sellers.  He lists the Mets as buyers with this quote:

Every new manager should get a new toy, and Jerry Manuel would like a relief pitcher, a corner outfielder and a player who actually cares.

Ouch, but hard to argue with.  It couldn’t take that much to get Xavier Nady back from the Pirates.  Having a right handed hitting 1B/OF would be too perfect for this team.

Tim Brown, also at Yahoo Sports, says that the Mets are prepared to make a run at the Colorado Rockies Matt Holliday:

The Mets, for another, have run their horrendous September into 2½ more lethargic months, thus bearing the look of an organization on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Their offense is slightly more average than their pitching. And Moises Alou will hit for as long as his body will carry him, which, so far this season, has amounted to 49 at-bats. They spent a good amount of their farm system on Johan Santana, but team officials believe they could still make a play for Holliday, the 2007 MVP runner-up whose career splits skew so dramatically to Coors Field.

That’s too aggressive a move for my liking.  Holliday is a nice player with a big bat from the right side, but he’s a one and a half year rental.  The Rockies will want multiple top prospects for him.  I’m sure they’ll want Fernando Martinez, John Maine, plus another players that’s under their control for several years. The price will be way too high for Holliday.

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Juan Rincon Refuses Triple-A Assignment

The Minnesota Twins designated reliever Juan Rincon for assignment on Friday. They asked him to accept an assignment at Triple-A Rochester but he refused. The Twins now have 10 days to trade him or release him.

Rincon has a one year contract for $2.475 million. Last year and the beginning of this season have been pretty bad for him. Check out his career statistics (click to enlarge):

image

Source: Baseball Reference

He’s pitched in a lot of games in his career and is only 29 years old. It would be worthwhile for Omar Minaya to get a scouting report on him from Johan Santana.

If Minaya is looking at making some deals before the non-waiver deadline this season, the bullpen is an area that they could use as bait. Aaron Heilman, Scott Schoenweiss, and Joe Smith could all have value in trades for more consistent offense at first base and the outfield.