Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Santana a Met!!

Is there a way not to be excited about this (that is unless you're a Phillies or Braves fan)? Of course they have to work out the dollars, but it's just money, right? $140M or so for 6 years? Why not. It's a helluva better deal than Zito got ($126M/7 years).

When I saw the deal on the scroll on ESPN, I was shocked. Carlos Gomez + 3 minor league pitchers? Pretty good deal. Sure it's 4 of the Mets' top 7 prospects, but that speaks more to the dearth of talent in the Mets farm system than anything. Humber didn't look like anything better than a #3 or #4 starter. Mulvey also looks like a middle of the rotation guy. Guerra probably has the highest ceiling, but he's 18. You can project all you want, but you never know.

See the Peter Gammons analysis

Monday, January 28, 2008

Bedard a better deal than Santanna?

I'm hoping that Omar Minaya isn't so fixated on Johann Santanna that he missed out on the conversations with the Orioles for Eric Bedard. No doubt that Santanna is the better pitcher, but the cost in prospects and salary is greater than the difference in talent.

According to a report on ESPN.com, Seattle is about to acquire Bedard for 4 players, mostly prospects:
* Adam Jones (Seattle's #3 prospect)
* reliever George Sherrill (great numbers in relief)
* minor league pitcher Chris Tillman
* and a fourth undisclosed prospect

Now that seems to be much less talent than the Mets are offering up for Santanna (both Gomez and Martinez + 2 of the Met's top starting pitching prospects) and his salary demands for 08 and beyond will be lower too. I love Santanna, but if I could deal one of Gomez or Martinez, plus Aaron Heilmann and one of our starter prospects for Bedard, I'd feel better about that deal. What do you say?

Kennedy Backs Barack

The announcement expected today that senior senator and liberal standard bearer Ted Kennedy will endorse Sen. Barack Obama will have a huge impact leading up to Super Tuesday on Feb 5th. This is a big blow to Clinton and sure just about wrap up Massachusetts for Obama (along with support from Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick). But more importantly, it should provide Obama with greater support from the Democratic base across the other states voting on Super Tuesday and Florida. This piece of good news for Obama comes right on the heels of Barack's impressive, one would say landslide, victory over Clinton in South Carolina where he more than doubled Hillary's tally.

The support from Kennedy also comes on the heels of the endorsement from Rep Mel Martinez of Florida. Martinez' endorsement could help prop up support for Obama from Latinos, where Clinton has been strong. Clinton's strength with Latinos was most notable in the recent Nevada primary where Clinton produced a 6 point victory in a race where Obama won the endorsement of the largest union in the state, yet Clinton peeled off enough of the union's Latino membership to pull off the victory.

You can also read between the lines that this is a rebuke of the more active and aggressive role that former President Bill Clinton has taken in the race. Bill came under intense rebukes from Democratic leaders like Kerry, Pat Leahy and Tom Daschle in the past few days for distorting Obama's positions much like former Republican strategist Lee Atwater used to do (most famously with the Willie Horton attach against Gov. Mike Dukakis is the 1998 election).

Johann Santana Countdown

I just read that Santana could be a Met within 10 days. It's so hard not to get my hopes up. But the thought is absolutely tantalizing. Santana was dominant in the AL, but on the Senior Circuit he'd put up numbers that we haven't seen since Doc Gooden in
'84. They may even make them lower the mound again a la Gibson.

From a rag-tag rotation that virtually had a new 5th starter every time through the rotation and had John Maine as it's "ace" to:

Santana
Maine
Pedro
Oliver Perez
El Duque

All of a sudden that's a rotation that should win the NL. Maybe not The Series, but the NL.

Now if only Carlos Delgado could learn to hit again or if the Mets had any corner outfielders, that would be good too.