I gotta hand it to the Mets: Only they can find a way to be screwed by Carlos Silva without even signing him.Derek Lowe has invoked the name of Silva as some sort of garlic clove that the great Wilpon vampire is supposed to be scared of. Lowe turned down a 3 year $36 million deal because that would be the same money at one less year than Silva got from Seattle.
(Silva, to refresh your memory, went 4-12 with a 6.46 ERA and a 1.60 WHIP for Seattle in 2008 after signing that deal. In the offseason, tragedy struck when Silva was eaten by Andruw Jones.)
So Lowe has gone from wanting Barry Zito money to settling for treading water at Silva level. Now if you remember, I thought the Zito thing was bizarre. And I realize that nobody wants to give in to Scott Boras. But the Wilpons are rolling the dice here. They're using the big bad economy to try to make the market work for them. Fine. But to someone who still remembers the Angels swooping in and getting Vladimir Guerrero, I still worry about somebody making a late run at Lowe and getting him for $45 million for three years. The difference between Zito and Silva is great. But the difference between Carlos Silva and making Derek Lowe realistically happy isn't that large ... certainly not that large for a team with a new stadium and a regional sports network.
Lowe will probably not find a better deal in the northeast, as he wants. But the longer this goes, the greater a chance a team will say screw it, and scrounge up some pennies and make a better offer. It happened with Guerrero, and it certainly happened with Mark Teixeira. If it happens with Derek Lowe and the dice come up craps, then the Mets will have to do something creative ... like trade for Carlos Silva.
Creativity ... not for everyone.
6 comments:
Is Lowe that much better than Ollie, especially given the age difference?
I'm just sayin' . . .
Valid point. My thinking is this: Ollie's already been to the pitching abyss once. If you shell out the kind of money they're asking for, you had better be sure that he's never going back to that abyss. I'm hesitant to do that when there's a more stable option out there.
That doesn't mean I'm right, that's just how I'm wired these days.
They're pinching pennies here I agree. They got off cheap on K-Rod so they should invest here. Pelfrey, Santana are good to start...however Maine off surgery (who knows)....Niese unproven....you really need a solid two or three. If not, you are looking at weakness in the starting staff at just the time you reshaped the bullpen. The problem just shifted.
I don't know. Even with a return to the abyss possibly looming, and Ollie's inconsistencies, he still smokes the Phils and the Braves pretty consistently. Check out Utley's and Howard's stats against him. I'm concerned we're getting too righty heavy . . .
If they get both Lowe and Ollie, then I'm all for it, but then again I'm great spending someone else's money.
The Mets kinda sorta spend other people's money too. Unfortunately, they keep a lot more of it than they spend.
I think they are playing this correctly. Why bid against yourself? (see "NY Yankees") The Mets' offer has been out there for almost a week and so far nobody has matched it. (at least none that has been reported).
We all know Boras' game...always have a NY team involved in any deal. If a team comes in with more money you just know Boras will approach the Mets to see if he can squeeze out another nickel. If the Wilpons decline then we can kill them. But this economy is really making people, except the Yankees, take a serious look at spending. I don't think there will be many offers for him.
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