"Thrifty business: Mets, Yankees wise to save their money"
In contrast to the mind-boggling signings by so many other teams, one would have to admit it's been a rather frugal and prudent winter for our local nines.
While Omar Minaya has seen to it that the Mets will be AARP's team of the year with the signings of 40-year-old Moises Alou to play left field and 37-year-old Damion Easley to serve as a utility infielder, with 37-year-old Jose Valentin at second base, fortysomething El Duque and 40-year-old Tom Glavine in the rotation and 33-year-old Guillermo Mota in the bullpen (upon the conclusion of his 50-game steroids suspension), the ever-active GM wisely took a pass on Barry Zito once that sweepstakes started to get insane.
Because of his inability to acquire a top-of-the-rotation starter or upgrade substantially at second base, it might be concluded that Minaya has had a bad winter. But at the same time, would throwing crazy money at Zito or - even worse - at mediocrity such as Vicente Padilla, Gil Meche, Miguel Batista or Adam Eaton be considered as a good winter? To that we would say only, "Come see us in September."
If Minaya was applauded his first two winters for his aggressiveness in pursuing Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran as cornerstones for his Met renaissance, this offseason he deserves plaudits for his restraint in not following the desperate measures of so many of his GM compatriots. The fact is, there were no bona fide top-of-the-rotation starters available this winter, unless you want to put Colorado's Jason Jennings in that category, and he was only going to be traded to Houston, where he lives.
While a prospective Mets rotation of Glavine, El Duque, John Maine, Oliver Perez and either lefty Dave Williams or rookie Philip Humber might seem a tad underwhelming, at least until Pedro Martinez hopefully rejoins it in June, look around the rest of the NL East and you'll find only the Florida Marlins can claim a rotation five-deep in quality. And other than Dontrelle Willis, their arms are still too inexperienced to be considered real deals.
With the dearth of quality starting pitching, many teams have shifted the emphasis to the bullpen, which is why 12-man staffs are now the norm. It was the bullpen as much as anything that won for the Mets last year and Minaya, who added another power arm in Ambiorix Burgos as a hedge if Duaner Sanchez is not fully recovered from shoulder surgery, is clearly counting on that to be the case again.
"I know we may not have a lot of sexy names in our rotation," said Minaya, "but in reality there were only two guys we really focused on getting - (Daisuke) Matsuzaka and Zito, and while it turned out we finished second by a long shot for Matsuzaka, we made a very aggressive offer. With Zito, we told them up front it couldn't get into (6-7) years for us. Still, I feel we are an improved team from last year because in Alou we got the offensive guy we wanted and Burgos will improve our bullpen."
Like Minaya, Yankee GM Brian Cashman is looking to his bullpen as a strength, while he continues to stockpile young power arms for mid-season or '08 delivery, the latest being 24-year-old Princeton product Ross Ohlendorf, the "goods" prospect coming in the Randy Johnson deal.
If anything, Cashman has done more substantial subtraction than addition for the near term. Having traded Johnson and the equally disgruntled Gary Sheffield, he has nonetheless resisted making a clubhouse-cleansing trifecta by dealing Alex Rodriguez. Unlike Sheffield and Johnson, A-Rod, for all his foibles last year, still yearns to make a go of it in New York, although he has to know the onus for another failure to reach the World Series will be on him as much as it will be on Joe Torre and Cashman.
As for Cashman, it's now clear why he spent so much time at the Winter Meetings with White Sox GM Kenny Williams. They both seem to be following the same philosophy this winter of trading established players for young starting pitching. Williams traded starter Freddy Garcia for two Phillie pitching prospects, lefties Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez, and would-be '07 starter Brandon McCarthy for Texas' top prospect, another lefty, John Danks.
Williams nearly traded another established starter, Jon Garland, to Houston for two other younger (and inexpensive) pitchers. Williams' deals were given their impetus by White Sox board chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who has become both outraged and exasperated at how his fellow owners have pushed the starting pitching market to insane heights.
Cashman, who picked up three pitchers, including top starting prospect Humberto Sanchez from the Tigers for Sheffield, agrees with Reinsdorf's assessment.
"Our thought process for the past two years has been to stockpile as many young pitchers as we can, so you don't have to go into the free agent market and do desperate things," Cashman said. "It's been proven again and again you can be slaughtered there, where all the pitchers are over-priced. Plus, our payroll simply couldn't go any higher than it was."
So now, with Ohlendorf, Sanchez, top prospect Philip Hughes, No. 2 prospect Tyler Clippard and last year's highly regarded draftees Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy and Dellin Betances, the Yankee farm system is arguably the deepest in baseball in terms of quality arms - a dramatic two-year turnaround since Cashman was put in charge of the entire baseball operation, including the draft, which still has not produced a single starting pitcher of any consequence since Andy Pettitte was taken in the 22nd round in 1990. From 1991, when they took ill-fated Brien Taylor No. 1, to 2004 when they made Hughes their No. 1 pick, the Yankees drafted a total of 405 pitchers. Of the more than half they signed, other than '96 No. 1 Eric Milton, who was traded to the Twins for Chuck Knoblauch, not one had any impact on their staff. You can't even try to scout that badly.
It's a Madd, Madd World...
We can only imagine what '50s and '60s pitchers such as Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson or Robin Roberts must think of this: Cubs reliever Neal Cotts, who was 1-2 with a 5.17 ERA and 12 homers allowed for the White Sox in '06 after going 4-0 with a 1.94 ERA and just one homer allowed in 2005, was given more than a 100% RAISE from $400,000 to $825,000 last week.
For all their major off-season maneuverings, the Red Sox neglected to fill their most important need - closer - and there was likely considerable angst in the Nation last week when the Sox announced plans to try newly signed Joel Pineiro in that role. Pineiro was 13-22 with an ERA well over 5.00 as a starter for Seattle the past two seasons, but Sox chief scout Allard Baird was impressed with his stuff as well as his composure after being demoted to the bullpen last year.
For those wondering why Arizona would give up four players, including durable reliever Luis Vizcaino and blue-chip starting prospect Ross Ohlendorf for 43-year-old Randy Johnson with his creaky back and $17 million salary, one baseball executive offered this interesting theory. "The Diamondbacks owe him $44 million in deferred money and they're still heavily in debt from the Jerry Colangelo era. They need to re-structure that debt and Randy is their biggest creditor.”
