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The Giants have demoted Barry Zito to the bullpen, as was 
first reported by ESPN’s Buster Olney yesterday afternoon.
Zito signed a $126 million, seven-year contract with the Giants following the 2006 season.
He is 0–6 with a 7.53 ERA in six starts for the Giants this season.
…wow, was i wrong on this guy…i was really in favor of the Mets signing zito back when he was a free agent, mostly because i never anticipated the Mets ever having a chance to acquire a pitcher like Carlos Zambrano or Roy Oswalt or Johan Santana via trade…thankfully, i was wrong on all accounts…more important, thankfully omar was right…he clearly chose wisely…
Zito started his career 47–17, but is just 66–65 since 2003.
For more, check out the ‘Wow, I just got rocked’ faces of Zito, post at Yahoo!’s Big League Stew, by ‘Duk.
…on a separate note, i always wonder if a guy like Billy Wagner, or a guy like Jeff Nelson, men who have had quite prolific careers as relief pitchers, do they find it insulting when we say it is a ‘demotion’ because a guy is ‘sent to’ the bullpen…
See, Omar knows what he’s doing…some of the time.
Zito truly is one of the worst free agent busts in history. At least Kevin Brown was decent for a year or two for the Dodgers.
Omar knows what hes doing because he only offered Zito 90 million instead of an insane 126?? That’s kind of shifting this story around… if Zito had agreed then we’d have a 90 million dollar bull pen arm and everyone would be lambasting Omar.
If Omar thought Zito was a safe longterm investment, Zito would be a Met. The 90 million was a token offer, meant to show the fanbase that he was involved, nothing more.
Trudat. Boras would have never let Zito sign for 90 mil.
90 Million a token offer? That’s why they flew out to CA to meet with him?
Boras wouldnt of let him sign? Like he wasn’t gonna let A-rod sign for less then 35 million?
Come on guys… admit it, The Mets wanted Zito, he could easily be OUR problem right now. To make this a story and say Omar is smart because of it, is a reach. Be glad he didn’t come to us, and move on, it has nothing to do with the Mets.
You don’t see people running stories on how Vlad has done, or any other player we didn’t almost sign.. so why is this one a story?
you are wrong, sorry, you are blatantly wrong, the Mets never offered 90 million, and never had a shot at Zito, Zito wanted to stay on the west coast as well, and had other teams offereing 100 mill other then the Giants.
sorry, but Omar never offered Zito 90 mill, it was stated over and over again that they offered him somewhere around 75 million, not 90 mill, and they were never really in the race for Zito, because there were other teams, most notably Seattle, that were willing to go over a 100 million. It’s very annoying when fans lie like this. Get the facts straight.
First of all.. NONE of us will ever really know what got offered.. my point is.. the mets FLEW to CA (and yes that’s a fact).. and fine.. $75 million is still a TON of cash.
Had Barry wanted to come to the Mets, we would of paid him $75 million, and then he’d be in the bull pen.
That’s all I’m saying..
I don’t know why this is a story on here.. there’s no story on Bannister having a great start to a season, or Vlad winning an MVP the year after we didn’t sign him.. so why is this a story?
you’re right, its not a story, but either way, the Mets didn’t have true interest in him,, they must have known other teams (at least 2 we know of so far) were offering over a 100 mill, and when you only offer 75, thats just not true interest.
You’re making the point that Omar is smart because of this, for only offering $75 million.. which my point of my original post is.. that’s a stretch at best.
Agree to disagree.. just think there’s much more relevant news in Mets land then a how a guy we only offered 75 million too is doing..
that’s a good point about the demotion line Matt… although i don’t think anyone is comparing Zito to Wagner or Nelson at this point.
clearly there’s a distinction between guys who get it done in the BP, and guys who will be put in when the game is not on the line – to get some ML experience or work on an aspect of their game.
clearly Zito couldn’t do what Wagner is doing right now… so i doubt Billy takes any offense.
I also do not think guys like Wagner take offense because Zito was sent to the pen because he was hurting his team and has no options. Therefore the only place to put him and limit the damage is the pen since you can pick and choose when to use him.
Nonesense about the demotion. Billy Wagner is a reliever by trade, and an important one at that. When a STARTER is sent to the bullpen, it is a demotion since he’s on the team (originally) to be a starter, not a reliever.
Wow….wowowowow. I honestly didn’t see this coming, or at least not so soon. I figured they’d make a decision by mid-season, or maybe look to trade him. Very interesting.
Although, to be honest, this makes me pretty happy. After he took all that money from the Giants, and made a few offhanded comments about the Mets organization, I lost some respect for him. Good to see what goes around comes around.
Now, call me a hypocrite, but you think maybe we should look to work out a trade for him? He had his only real success under Peterson’s tutelage, and this is the epitome of buying low. Maybe if Vargas puts together a few good starts, we could work something out where we send Vargas and a PTBNL for Zito and cash. Then, if Peterson can work his magic, we’ll have a solid rotation next year with:
Santana
Maine
Zito
Pelfrey (?)
Perez
Just an idea, please don’t kill me.
that’s an expensive idea you have there Midtown. any team that buys on Zito right now would definitely be buying low, but not “cheap”.
he’s a Giant until the end of the deal unless he starts pitching good enough for a team to pick up most of that contract. and then, of course, the Giants would want to keep him to make good on their investment.
Notice the cash I’m asking the Giants to send our way. They pay a reasonable amount of his salary, we send them a few serviceable young players, and we possibly have another resurrection case on our hands a la Maine and Perez. Zito pitched way better than Perez or Maine ever had in their careers before coming here. I think it’s worth considering.
Maine was still a prospect, and Ollie had great raw stuff, he just had bad mechanics. Zito’s velocity is WAY down since his Cy Young year, he barely hits 85 anymore. Plus, the sense I’ve always gotten is that his heart really isn’t in baseball all that much. I’d pass on him, unless the Giants were literally going to give him to us for free (or, for like Jorge Sosa. Same thing)
How much money is left on his deal? Do you guys think the Giants are going to eat 90% of it? I don’t think there’s a way in heall Giants are “eating” 70-80 million just to dump Zito, and Omar certainly won’t make a trade for a busted pitcher who’s signed for the next 5 years to a major league deal and pay him 50 million…
Zito’s deal is very heavily backloaded. Basically the Giants still owe Zito $113M of the $126M 7 year contract he signed over the next 5 seasons + the remainder of this season. There is also a $7M buyout to prevent the 8th season (at $18M) from kicking in.
Really, great job by Brian Sabean. Hands down the absolute worst GM in baseball and possibly all of sports.
I feel that the Zito situation is different than Perez or Vargas. The difference is that when Perez stopping pitching effectively, he still had great stuff; the execution was just off. Whereas Zito’s stuff has gone down the toilet.
I wouldn’t give anything up for Zito, especially since we’d have to pay him millions and millions (even if SF covered half his contract).
Even swap…Delgado for Zito? Haha.
I sometimes wonder if a majority of Met fans eat paint chips in their spare time.
chad bradford is gonna be available in july,lets get him.
ditto that RussMac
and guys… dont give props to omar …he would have given him the same $, just not the years ……. lets thank the giants more than anyone for giving him the ludicrous contract :)
Well seeing as he never offered the money or the years. Actually if I remember correctly the Mets offer was way off from the Giants as they offered well above the next best offer. Since he was not willing to go to those years or dollars wouldn’t that mean Omar was smart enough to say not worth it.
Omar never had any intention of signing Zito — he made a token offer which was not meant to be accepted.
It’s an interesting comment, but I don’t really see a fit in terms of Wagner/Nelson with Zito. Zito is demoted to mop-up work I assume, not high pressure situations that can actually decide games on a nightly basis. “Ace” (notice the quotation marks) to mop-up man is a demotion, and is categorized as such.
Kellman is right.
You don’t get demoted to closer. Maybe Feliciano or Sosa are offended by the terminology, but I assume both would like to close if they could (what reliever wouldn’t?), so getting out of middle relief is every pitcher’s goal (one could argue), either into set up or closing roles or into the rotation.
Since Wagner and Nelson are/were closers, I can’t see them being offended by the terminology.
“Wow” is an understatement. A $126 million dollar mop up bullpen arm? Could you even FATHOM that happening here?
God help Giant fans.
LOL. I thought this site become a tabloid by hyping the’ Delgado not coming out of the dugout for an ovation’ scandal. Faux news.
Back to Baseball:
Now we find out that Minaya was right all along on Zito. Delgado will probably end up with 25+ Home runs and the Mets will do very well. I wonder what those who thought (a) Zito is great, (b) Lets give up the house for Santana and even then the Mets don’t have the trading chips, (c) Delgado should be released, (d) Bedard is the next multiple cy young phenomena, (e) Lastings is god, (f) Church is rubbish, (g) Gotay is actually Brandon Phillips, etc. would say?
Minaya knows what he is doing?
I’m with ya, except I’d still have taken Bedard if Santana went to the Sox or Yanks. Omar lucked out that those 2 were only in it to cancel each other out, b/c the fact is their prospect packages were more impressive than ours. Luckily they backed out and Omar stepped in, for which he deserves kudos.
Omar does tend to ‘luck’ out a lot. Maine and Perez? and Figueroa, Sosa in the bullpen?
Maybe because he is one of the best GMs, he is more right than wrong…. (he does make mistakes as well).
I’m not arguing with you about Omar being a good GM. I’m saying he got lucky the Yankees and Red Sox backed out of the Santana talks, because if one of them had offered up their top prospect packages (around Hughes or Bucholz), the Twins would have taken that. That wouldn’t have made Omar a bad GM, it just means the Yanks and Sox had more coveted high minors prospects.
I was just saying that IF one of those 2 had gotten Santana, I wouldn’t have minded Omar getting Bedard, even though it’s clear Omar made the right move by waiting the Yanks and Sox out and getting the main man. Also, when defending Omar, I wouldn’t use Sosa in the bullpen as one of the better examples…
To be fair, the Red Sox have repeatedly and emphatically denied that they *backed out of the Santana talks.* They claim, and it makes sense to me, that the Twins didn’t want to trade Santana to an American league team.
DO NOT PRAISE OMAR for not signing Zito. he just got lucky there was an even dumber GM out there who wanted Zito more.
Omar would have signed Zito to a 5 year 80 million contract, but there was a significantly better offer out there.
Omar wanted Zito more than anywhere from 25 to 28 of the other 29 GMs. again, we got lucky that the Giants had both the dumb GM and the money to spend.
Again, if Minaya had wanted Zito, he’d be a Met right now.
I’m sure the same bunch who dumped on Omar for not making a “serious” offer to Zito, now refuse to credit him for being too smart to fall for the Zito hype.
This isn’t really related (although it DOES have to do with a bullpen thing), but I’ve been trying to decode one of the answers in Marty Noble’s most recent mailbag on the Mets official site:
Q: Sanchez hasn’t given up a run in 6 2/3 innings of work so far this season. I seem to remember that he had a 21-scoreless-innings run going before he got hurt. Does that make his official total number of scoreless innings 27 2/3? …
A: Your memory is a tad fuzzy, Ben. Sanchez’s streak began during the 2006 season. He allowed 19 runs, 16 earned before the injury that ended his season on July 31. …
Umm….is it just me or does he not answer the question? He got hurt during the 2006 season, we all know that. It’s great that he allowed 19 runs, 16 earned before he got hurt, but the guy wasn’t asking if he hadn’t given up a run the whole year, he was asking if he hadn’t given up a run in the 21 innings before getting hurt. What the heck is Noble talking about?
Noble is a pompous gasbag who probably only read half the question before deciding to answer.
never mind, I looked it up on baseball-reference and Duaner had a 21 inning scoreless streak to begin the season, then started giving up runs, and gave up his last runs of the season on July 19th, then pitched 4 scoreless innings before the cab accident….Im guess Marty meant to say something like “Sanchez’s streak began the 2006 season, and then he gave up 19 runs…” He still phrased it pretty poorly.
By the way, speaking of cab accidents, how come Duaner’s couldn’t have just led to some broken teeth and Glavine’s in 2004 have led to a torn shoulder? We would have had a healthy Duaner last season, and it’s unlikely the Mets re-up Glavine for last year if he had suffered that kind of injury. The world is a cruel place for Mets fans…
And tell me, genius, who would you have pitching the 200 innings Glavine picked up last year??
I wonder what kind of spin Maddog will use to make this look genius.
“just look at the success the Yanks and Red Sox have had converting starters like Papelbon & Joba into relievers. I tell ya, Zito’s gonna be the next great closer.”
As for Zito, I seem to remember on this blog everybody screaming for Omar’s head when he didn’t sign Zito, who wasn’t worth the money or the years he was asking for. Zito tanks, but I doubt Omar will get credit for not signing him. I understand he wanted to sign him to shore up the rotation, but at least he wasn’t desperate enough to cripple the Mets for somebody who clearly wasn’t an ace. Not only would you have lost money, you would have lost the draft pick and been stuck with an ineffective Zito for 7 years. In the end, it worked out for us. But I keep forgetting when good things happen, Omar is just lucky….
i suppose thats true. it’s possible to praise omar for not getting desperate and tacking on years to his offer to zito. but that and not pursuing him at all are two very different things.
Well then you’re uninformed. Omar went across the country to meet with him.
And it was well documented, because Zito felt put off by the meeting.
Its amazing to see how far this guy has fallen. He had 200-K seasons when he first got into the league. Very strange.
May be he was on the needle and had to get off when all the testing got serious…sounds like a reasonable explanation to me…
WoW am I glad that the Mets didn’t sign Zito, I was a huge huge supporter for the Mets to go after him, but I’ am extremely happy they didnt. Although I can’t help to stop thinking… would he be in this position had he come here? The thng that always stuck in my mind was that as a Met he would have been reunited with Rick Peterson, would that have had an impact? Don’t get me wrong.. like I said I’ am happy with Omar’s decision to not get him but does anyone else think it may have been different? I know he lost velocity and that but I just think that with Peterson, things may have been a little different.
I was one of those fans that wanted to sign Zito. I did not want Omar to go 7 years though. I agree with the post above about Zito being a different pitcher with the mets. Having Peterson plus Shea, I believe, would give him better numbers. If the Giants pick up half the salary, I would take him in the rotation over Pelfrey.
If you think NY plays easier than SF, you’re insane. Zito would’ve been a bigger bust here than anywhere else. I wouldn’t take him for 1/4 of the salary – and didn’t he get a no trade clause? I’m sure he’s not going to want to come to the Mets….
How can you say Zito would be a bigger bust in NY??? Sorry, but, Peterson changed Perez and Maine and made them into good starters. And don’t forget, Zito’s best years were with Peterson.
I’ve always been a huge Barry Zito back in the days when he was with the A’s and this is really tough to take. I really wanted the Mets to get him, but not throw a seven year deal at him, so I am really glad we didn’t end up getting him. But this just sucks for Zito. Is he hurt? Is it being with the Giants and adjusting to a new league? I have no idea. I hope he figures out what’s going on being in the bullpen.
Haha.. I could totally see Mad Dog say those comments about Zito/closer.
fan**
What a joke Zito has become. I dont understand how you go from 200-k Cy Young pitcehr to the worst thrower in the league.
it all started when he arrived in spring training last year and he said he was changing his windup before ever throwing a pitch.
The earlier comment about the Mets trading for Zito may not be that far fetched… It could be a Hampton like situation, where the other team pays alot of salary. I can’t see them giving up on him this year, but maybe next. (If it is this year, and Zito shows signs of straightening out, would you trade Oliver Perez for Zito, with the Giants paying half his salary?) Don’t forget, OPerez will be a FA this year….)
Zito has $106m left on his deal. That’s including a $7m 2014 buyout. He also has a FULL NO TRADE CLAUSE. Even if the Giants pay half his salary, and he agrees to come to NY, I still don’t see how $50m over the next 6 years is worth it. Not to mention that crazy insurance that the Mets will have to pay for having a long contract on him…
50 mil over 6 years amounts to a little over 8 mil per season. How much did Meche, Silva, Lilly, sign for??? What 10-12 mil per season. Not to mention, neither guy one a CY Young. If the mets can get Zito, I say do it.
zer09,
Zito is still owed over $113M + the $7M buyout.
He only earned $10M of the guaranteed $126M (the $126M figure does not include his $7M 2014 buyout) last year. The contract, like most long term MLB contracts, is heavily backloaded.
what an awful, awful contract.
This makes the Pavano deal look decent.
zito’s a non-story. he’s still pitching and I’m sure he’ll do fine coming out of the bullpen. It’ll probably only last through one start and then he’ll be back to starting. Even though he has 5 or 6 years left on his contract, I’m sure the Giants will get there moneys worth and Zito will continue to help them win games.
Costanza called it. He was an ardent “don’t sign Zito” guy.
I also felt that he was going to implode. His peripherals screemed “he will suck in two years”.
This is the best thing not to happen for the mets.
I can see it now… Every free agent reliever is going to go out looking for $150M 7-year deals… ;-)