Category: Roster

Mets And Duaner Sanchez Avoid Arbitration

Duaner SanchezToday the Mets agreed with Duaner Sanchez on a 1-year/$1,687,500 contract. That’s one of the six players off the Mets board that are salary arbitration eligible. Last season Sanchez made $950,00.

I have to say that I was really disappointed in Sanchez at several points last season. He had his up’s and down’s. He finished the season with a good 5-1 record but with a 4.32 ERA and 1.320 WHIP. The latter stats were major drop off’s from his prior three seasons. Of course, he didn’t pitch at all in 2007 after injuring his shoulder in a car accident. He’s just never looked the same to me since then. His fastball isn’t even close to the mid-90’s, where he was before the injury.

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Mets Sign IF Alex Cora

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The Mets announced the signing of infielder Alex Cora, formerly of the Boston Red Sox. He’ll become the backup middle infielder for this season. He signed a 1-year/$2 million contract yesterday.

He’s your typical light-hitting middle infielder that can pick it at shortstop and second base. So Damion Easley won’t be coming back which is fine with me. Easley had some big hits but was a liability in the field and had too many nagging injuries for a part time player.

Alex has 11 major league seasons under his belt and he turned 33 in October. His brother Joey is the White Sox bench coach. Cora brings a career .245 average with basically no power. His lifetime slugging percentage is .348.

I’m usually pretty neutral about bench players because they don’t usually have a major impact over an entire season. But I thought the Mets would’ve looked for a back up infielder that had some pop in his bat. With Luis Castillo being an automatic out, they could use someone like Easley that brought some offensive contrast to the position. We’ll see how this works out.

Tim Redding Signs With Mets

This is kind of a “ho-hum” signing for the Mets. It’s certainly not the big-deal Derek Lowe signing that we’ve all been waiting for. Tim Redding agreed to a one year contract with the Mets for $2.25 million with incentives that could take the deal to $3 million.

Redding may be a servicable starter, and I stress “may be” in this sentence. He’ll be competing for the fifth spot in the rotation with Jon Niese, Bobby Parnell, Nelson Figueroa, and whomever else the Mets bring in.

I don’t think we’ll be seeing a big introduction at Citi Field for Redding. He’s coming off somewhat of a career year with the Nationals last season at 10-11 with a 4.95 ERA. It’s not anything to get crazy about. He’s a guy that you just hope can get through five innings without killing your chance to win the game. He’s never pitched 200 innings/season in his seven year career.

You can his full career stats at Baseball Reference.

Flickr photo courtesy of dbking.

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Mets Won’t Offer Lowe Fourth Year

Once again Jack Curry of the New York Times comes up with some seemingly solid information about the negotiations between the Mets and free agent pitcher Derek Lowe. Apparently, Curry is talking to someone with inside knowledge about the Mets strategy in dealing with Lowe and his agent Scott Boras,

Curry says, definitively, that the Mets won’t offer Lowe a fourth year. Currently, the Mets offer stands at 3-years/$36 million. The money will be a topic of negotiation but not the years.

I can understand the Mets reluctance to give more years to Lowe considering that he’ll be 36 years old next season. But Lowe has been durable. He’s pitched at least 182 innings/season since 2002. That was his first season as a starter.

If I were Omar Minaya, I wouldn’t get too hung up on three years. A vesting team option for the fourth year should be acceptable. Maybe they could look to vest the fourth year if Lowe averages 190+ innings over years two and three of the contract, or something along those lines.

Mets Get Putz From Mariners

The Mets traded for “closer” J.J. Putz from the Seattle Mariners. It took three teams to get the deal done with the breakdown looking like this:

Mets Get: RP J.J. Putz, RP Sean Green, OF Jeremy Reed

Mariners Get: RP Aaron Heilman, OF Franklin Gutierrez, OF Endy Chavez, and four minor leaguers from the Mets- Mike Carp, Jason Vargas, Ezequiel Carrera, and Maikel Cleto

Indians Get: RP Joe Smith, IF Luis Valbuena

Clearly, Putz is the big fish in this deal and he’s due to make $6 million this season with a club option for $8.6 million with a $1 million buyout.
Rosenthal: Putz packing for New York
Rosenthal: Putz packing for New York

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Mets Tender Contracts To Five Players

NEW YORK - OCTOBER 05: Pedro Feliciano #25 of...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The Mets decided to offer contracts to all five arbitration elegible players. Ryan Church, John Maine, Pedro Feliciano, Duaner Sanchez, and Jeremy Reed were all offered contracts.

The Mets have a history of agreeing to contracts without going to salary arbitration with their players. Last year Oliver Perez won $6.75 million in arbitration and that was the first time the Mets went to arbitration in 16 years. After the Mets got spanked there, expect them to agree to contracts with all five players before the deadline on Feb. 1.

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Mets Trade Schoenweiss, Cash To D-Backs

The Mets continued their demolition of the 2008 bullpen by trading Scott Schoenweiss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Mets threw in $1.6 million of the $3.6 million that Schoenweiss is owed for 2009 in exchange for righty Connor Robertson.

Robertson is 27 years old and spent most of 2008 in Triple-A. Even if he never makes one appearance in the majors this will end up as a plus trade for the Mets unloading Schoenweiss. He’s been extremely unpopular at Shea, with good reason, and never justified the 3-year/$9 million deal that he signed after the 2006 season.

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