So the Sox offered the Orioles Manny for Tejada. The Orioles will ask for a lot more, namely a young pitcher, and I hope the Sox don't give in to that. As nice as it would be to have a hitter like him (and he's no Manny, but the price difference reflects that), I just can't get excited about anything more than a straight up trade, which won't happen.
And quite frankly, I just don't like Tejada. My main impressions of him of course comes from his complaints about Derek Lowe's "obscene" gesture, after Game 5 of the 2003 ALDS. "He's going to pay for that sign he made. I'm a man. I'm a professional. I have my kid up in the stands, dammit. He's going to pay for that." Not only was that an open threat to another player, it also came after 5 games of live TV picking up his screams of "motherFUCKER!" after every one of his crappy at-bats. (And there were a lot of those: he was 2-for-19, with no walks, for a postseason OPS of .217.) And now he's announced that with the O's, "things haven't gone in the direction that we were expecting". I really wish someone would ask him what exactly he was expecting. He forgoed even taking offers from smaller market teams like the A's, and signed with one that everyone knows is run by a miser, who cares only about profits and not about fielding a good team. I really hate it when players sign for the best-paying contract they can find, with no regard for what team they're actually signing with, and then suddenly feel that somehow they have the standing to comment on their teams' "desire to win."
Okay, enough ranting.
Yep, agreed on pretty much all counts. Although I would throw in a pitcher if it meant the O's pay the whole contract for Manny. If they did straight up, I would imagine the Sox need to kick in about $15 million to make Manny a $15/year player. Of course Manny has more talent, but economics rules the day.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, there are about a dozen other guys that have done the "take the money and run and then want to go to a winner...." First and foremost - slappy mc blue lips.
Tejada antics in 03 were a bit silly, but if he comes to the Sox, I'll chalk it up to him being a competitor. To the me the bigger concern is what, if any, steroid effect there may be. Sure he has never failed a test - but we all thought Canseco was crazy, but he did name Raffy and look what happened. And then Raffy named Tejada, albeit tangently, but who knows.
Regarless, in my opinion any Manny-Miggy trade is the closest the Sox will get to fair value in terms of impact/talent.
One note from today - rincon gets two years at $1.5 from St.L. Seems like short money in a market that just gave Scott Eyre, Bobby Howry and the Farns 3 years each at $3-5MM. I guess that is exhibit 4,230 why I am not running a MLB team.
And just as quickly as it started, it all appears to be disappearing. Tejada is backing off his comments. Oh well, like I had written earlier, it was nice to dream.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I shudder every time I think about the possibility of Alex Gonzalez taking the field at SS next season. Any talk about him being a superb gloveman, should quickly be followed noting that offensively he has been about as weal a hitter as Tony Womack. Good god, if we lose Manny there is no room in a lineup for a guy like that.
And while on the subject of Gonzalez, did anyone else see that piece (I forget where) about the offensive spike in a number of players (Gonzalez included) that corresponded with Pudge's term in FLA. There were some pretty interesting numbers to back it up.
I know the market is slim, but some of the names that come up are truly awful. And the other thing is that Gonzalez will probably get $5MM per year - almost as much as Braves will pay Edgar. Funniest quote of the weekend from Gonzalez' agent saying there had been a lot of interest in Alex from teams looking to upgrade at SS. Upgrade?
Well, technically it's an "upgrade" if you don't have anyone there.
ReplyDeleteMight the Sox go after Nomah? Would be interesting to see if he'd even consider offers. There are also Rocket rumors. (And then we could bring Mo Vaughn out of retirement to play 1st; get Fisk to catch Wakefield; Lee as the new leftie in the bullpen. There -- I've solved most of the Sox's roster problems, hiring only people who were run out of town previously.)
Also, I have to say, Tejada did wriggle out of his comments pretty well. Since he only said he wanted a "change of scenery", he was able to say "I never said I wanted to be traded. I said I want to see a better team. I don't want to keep losing like we have the past two years."
ReplyDeleteSo the "scenery" he wanted changed was the view from the dugout of the other team high-fiving each other on the field after another win. Nice work Miggy.
Under the Earl proposed restructuring do you hire Dan Duquette or Lou Gorman as the general manager?
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget Jeff Bagwell can come back and play some first as well.
Nomar? I'm not sure you want to plan on penciling his name onto the lineup card 150 times. Especially at SS. I'll play the role of GR here - had the sox been able to pull off the Manny/Miggy trade, then you could sign Nomar to play left. How about this for a lineup:
Damon (L)
Nomar (R)
Ortiz (L)
Tejada (R)
Varitek (S)
Lowell (R)
Nixon (L)
Youk (R)
Cora/TGraf/Pedroia (L/R/R)
Not a bad lineup....
Turns out I'm an unoriginal bastard. Oh well.
ReplyDelete