Daily Archives: December 19, 2007
According to MLB.com and ESPN.com, Carlos Silva has agreed to a four-year deal with the Mariners.
Chad Durbin will sign with the Phillies, and not the Pirates, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Lastly, according to Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports.com, Ron Mahay and the Royals have agreed to a two-year contract.
…thanks to tr, michael and jason for the links…
…by the way, WFAN is not reporting that the Mets have acquired a certain big-name pitcher from Minnesota…
…the show’s host has been talking about football all afternoon - if you can call it talking…
Tagged WFAN |In his recent Rumblings & Grumblings column for ESPN.com, Jayson Stark writes that Mets OF Fernando Martinez has more upside than Red Sox OF 
Jacoby Ellsbury, according to an ‘AL front-office man,’ and so the Mets can certainly put together a package that would be ‘attractive to the Twins.’
…i have lost the links, but i had checked in with a few Twins blogs to see their side of this discussion, and i recall reading how most of them were quite fond of the Mets prospects – it didn’t read as though they preferred any one package to another, be it from the Mets, Yankees or Red Sox…
Stark quotes another AL Executive, who still believes Santana will eventually end up on the Yankees, as saying…
“The Twins are doing the right thing, waiting for the right deal. But the Red Sox don’t need to panic. They don’t need him. There’s no reason for them to get anxious. But the Yankees actually do need him. They’re just trying to convince themselves they don’t.”
…stark alludes to it, but the sense i get is that it’s not so much that the Yankees refuse to include both hughes and Ian Kennedy in the same deal, it’s that the Yankees refuse to trade hughes…period…
The folks at Busted Coverage, a blog about ‘booze, ladies and football,’ have put MetsBlog.com against The Sports Hernia in the South Region of this year’s Sports Blog Of The Year tournament.
To vote, click here and scroll down.
Tagged MetsBlog |Pete from Long Island sent in an e-mail asking…
“Do the Mets get a draft pick for losing Paul Lo Duca? Also, as of now, where will the Mets be
drafting?”
…as of now, thanks to compensatory picks from the Braves and Tom Glavine, the Mets will have the 18th, 22nd, and 33rd picks during the first and supplemental-first rounds of next june’s draft…
The Mets do not get a draft pick for losing Lo Duca.
…by the way, i anticipate a lull in content over the next few weeks, so, if you have a question, feel free to send it in using my e-mail address or the Contact MetsBlog.com box featured in this site’s sidebar…i will try to post as many questions and answers as i can…lastly, if i cannot answer the question, i will do my best to find someone who can…
According to a post on Monday from Tim Brown at Yahoo! Sports, free-agent LHP Kyle Lohse is considering offers from the Mets and Phillies, ‘both of which could go to four years.’
However, according to Todd Zolecki at his blog for the 
Philadelphia Daily News, there is nothing to the above report from Yahoo!.
Meanwhile, in a report for Newsday, Ken Davidoff writes that the Mets ‘do not seem particularly interested’ in free-agent starting pitchers Livan Hernandez, Carlos Silva or Lohse, ‘unless their prices drop.’
In 34 starts for the Reds and Phillies last season, the 29–year-old Lohse was 9–12 with a 4.63 ERA, while striking out 122 batters through 192 innings.
In a recent report for the Pioneer Press, citing ‘team insiders,’ Charley Walters writes that the Red Sox remain the favorite to acquire Johan Santana from the Twins, offering Jon Lester, Coco Crisp, Jed Lowrie and Justin Masterson.
According to Walters, citing ‘buzz,’ a Santana 
trade ‘could be made within days.’
…of course, people close to santana thought he was close to going to boston last week, as well, yet nothing happened…also, during the Winter Meetings, reports suggested a deal was close and, again, nothing happened…which is why i will only anticipate news when news actually happens…
…meanwhile, i have talked to some people who believe that the Mets and Twins have not talked in weeks, while others believe they have…my sense is that things are quiet, though this may have more to do with family issues involving team officials and agents than it does with a break-down in talks…
…last week, we were led to believe that it would cost Fernando Martinez or Carlos Gomez, or both, plus up to four pitchers, including Aaron Heilman, to get santana…now, according to people connected to the team, that number could be more like five pitchers…which is confusing to me, because i can’t name five quality pitchers for the Mets to actually give at this point…
…i realize i am a Mets fan, but, i just don’t understand why gomez and four pitchers, including heilman, is not better than what the Red Sox are offering, especially since, from what i understand, the Twins like gomez as much as ellsbury…
…nevertheless, word is that the Mets are ‘monitoring the situation,’ yet remain positive…
…from what i can gather, Omar Minaya wants a top-line starting pitcher as much as you and i do, despite his recent praises of John Maine and Oliver Perez…what’s worse, i think the players want a pitcher like santana as well…i sense a bit of panic, because, as i understand, Dan Haren may actually have been this team’s top choice, though they never stood a realistic chance of getting him…meanwhile, for the same reason haren was too difficult, Erik Bedard is not a realistic option as well…plus, if Mets prospects were not attractive to oakland in a deal for haren, i can’t see why they’d be suddenly attractive now in talks regarding Joe Blanton…therefore, as crazy as it may seem, santana, the best pitcher in baseball, may be minaya’s only option…
In the Chicago Tribune, Phil Rogers writes that the White Sox may look to trade SS Orlando Cabrera, adding…
“It’s possible that they could get Coco Crisp and
Julio Lugo from Boston for Cabrera, or that they might get a rich package of prospects from the Cubs and let Juan Uribe play shortstop for another year.”
…it reads like rogers is speculating…however, if the Red Sox ever trade crisp, to me, that’d be an indication they will not being trading Jacoby Ellsbury, who, from what i can gather, heads up the preferred packaged from boston for to the Twins for Johan Santana…so, this is worth watching…
According to ‘sources,’ the O’s have toned down their efforts to trade LHP Erik Bedard, reports Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports.com, because they are ‘dissatisfied by the offers they are receiving.’
The Mariners, Reds and Mets are among the teams most interested in Bedard, Rosenthal writes.
…as i wrote yesterday, the O’s will want far more than the Mets can part with – just ask the A’s, who recently traded Dan Haren, who the Mets were very, very interested in, but who they had no chance of getting…
…lastly, as i once mentioned, i sense there is some truth to the idea that the O’s are reluctant to deal with the Mets, for reasons associated with Kris Benson’s health…fact is, in addition to the benson issue, the Mets lack the talent to get bedard and so it only makes things that much more complicated…
…frankly, based on language being used during the Winter Meetings, i have always believed that the O’s will end up hanging on to bedard through opening day and revisit contract talks during that time…if the two sides cannot reach a contract agreement, which they will not, the O’s can move him to another team at the trade deadline, and still probably get a similar package to what they can get now…
…by the way, the same gameplan is still an option for the Twins, regarding Johan Santana and Joe Nathan…
At MetsGeek, Chris McCown takes a look back and details the trade that brought Mike Hampton, as well as Derek Bell and all of his $5 million salary, to the 
Mets in exchange for Octavio Dotel, Roger Cedeno and minor-league pitcher Kyle Kessel, who never reached the major leagues.
In 33 starts for the Mets in 2000, Hampton was 15–10 with a 3.14 ERA.
Hampton won the National League Championship Series MVP for the Mets in 2000.
…i remember thinking that Steve Phillips was a genius after that trade, which played a key role in helping the Mets get to a World Series the following season…unfortunately, the next three seasons were a total mudslide, with phillips at the wheel…
As McCown points out, the Mets selected David Wright with the supplemental draft-pick awarded to them from the Rockies, who signed Hampton to an eight-year, $121 million contract.
…in hindsight, not signing hampton, who has not pitched since 2005, may be one of the best moves ever made by the Mets…not only did it cut hampton loose, but it paved the way to wright…
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