Dye to White Sox
Dave · December 9, 2004 at 10:56 am · Filed Under Mariners
Kenny Williams has done it again. Jermaine Dye gets 2 years, $10 million from the White Sox to replace Magglio Ordonez in right field.
At this point, it’s pretty evident that the middle class of baseball players is so remarkably overvalued that a team would be best served by avoiding it completely. Acquire as many star players as possible, than fill out the roster with young players making the league minimum. There’s just no reason to pay $5 million per season for Jermaine Dye.
Comments
78 Responses to “Dye to White Sox”
Rumor has it that Ryan Howard is Pedro’s real daddy.
Re: Numerous respones to the “Patience, Patience, Patience” comment…
You guys remind me of kids holding out balls to the players, fishing for autographs before a game.
“Mr. Cameron, Mr. Cameron! Can you please hint for us?!”
Then when he walks past you without even looking up:
“Awww, c’mon Dave, what are ya, some kind of JERK!?!”
Paul Covert has the right idea. If you can’t grab the best, don’t settle for slight upgrades. Koskie over Leone is a bad idea when the potential upside won’t help in 2005. Beltre vs. Leone is a clear choice; either way Bavasi can’t mess it up. If he choose Beltre, we get one of the best. If he sticks with Leone, who is 28, we have a stopgap until we are ready to compete.
I don’t have Dave’s inside connections, but I concur on having patience.
In ESPNs list of top 50 free agents — http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?page=top50mlbfreeagents — none of the top 10 have been signed and only four (Garciaparra, Glaus, Benitez, Percival) of the top 20 are locked up.
After almost every contract signed so far the reaction here has been “whew, glad the Mariners didn’t pay that”, with Garciaparra, Wilson, and some backup catcher who got a better deal than Wilson being exceptions.
If you look at the free agents “we” most wanted at the start of the offseaon, Beltre, Pavano, Clement, Drew and Delgado (the best of plan B) ALL of them are still out there.
As someone else said, I’d feel a lot better if Corie Koskie was off the table — Spiezio, Leone, and Dobbs can do the same at no cost. I can’t believe he’s in the $4-6M range not the $2-3M range.
My hunch is a signing of Pavano or Delgado in the next few days.
No Pavano por favor.
Hey guys! I think we should trade Winn, Gonzalez, Spiezio, Ibanez, Reed, Jacobsen, Sherrill, Madritsch and Snelling for Howard!!!!
–AK1984
Regarding the patience comments. We are all fans of a 99 loss team that missed its World Series window so forgive us the exuberance.
I think we should try to trade Ryan Howard’s real value for his perceived value.
Wait, what if we do a 3-way deal!
Phillies get:
Previously Stated
Reds get:
Baek
J. Lopez
Livingston
Bloomquist
Asdrubal Cabrera
Seattle gets:
Howard
Griffey
Now THERE’S a trade
Uh, did I ever mention Jeremy Reed, Bucky Jacobsen, George Sherrill, Bobby Madritsch or Chris Snelling in my trade ideas? Moreover, I was looking to dump Winn, Gonzalez, Spiezio and Ibanez (along with Franklin, too) for somebody like Darren Dreifort or Bobby Higginson. As it is, I wouldn’t bank that much on Ryan Howard — maybe a combination of Clint Nageotte and Travis Blackley, along with Bobby Livingston — for he isn’t the end-all/be-all; although, he has good power numbers (over a 1000 OPS in AA). However, his strikeout/walk ratio is poor, and the Mariners aren’t known for thinking positively of those guys (e.g.: A.J. Zapp) so it isn’t likely they would want him anyhow.
Irregardless of some of the prior posts, and with Ryan Howard notwithstanding, I am curious as to whether or not most of you would trade Franklin, Hasegawa, Gonzalez, Spiezio, Winn, and Ibanez for either Darren Dreifort or Bobby Higginson?
oh, sorry. I should’ve mentioned I was trying to mix your “trade the whole team” idea and your Ryan Howard idea.
AK, trades like that just don’t happen in real life. No GM in the world wants to waste 6 roster spots when he can waste 1 instead.
Re 61
I just don’t think a team would take that much dead weight.
#61- what gives you any confidence that Darren Dreifort will ever pitch an entire season again?
well, obviously LA has signed Kent, and the Angels are abput to sign Finley (per Rosenthal) because the M’s are getting the Belts 🙂
Yeah, you are both right. First, trades like that just don’t happen that often; secondly, the likelihood of a team taking on six bad contracts for one bad contract isn’t likely, either. Additionally, I don’t care that much about Ryan Howard; I jus’ used him as an idea for a cheap option at first, for I don’t want the Mariners to waste money on Carlos Delgado or Richie Sexson. Now, with that established, I do believe that the Dodgers or Tigers might be stupid enough to accept those six players for Darren Dreifort or Bobby Higginson, respectively, for two reasons: 1. The thought of trading one average player for two average players (Winn & Ibanez), three below-average players (Franklin, Hasegawa, & Spiezio), and one throw-away player (Wiki Gonzalez) would be something they [Dodgers or Tigers] would want, because of the possibility that one of those players might perform extremely well. 2. Both Dreifort and Higginson are examples of bad management, and to trade them away would make it look as if the Dodgers and Tigers were doing something productive, while in fact we all know that it would be inanely doltish.
“At this point, it’s pretty evident that the middle class of baseball players is so remarkably overvalued that a team would be best served by avoiding it completely.”
All of a sudden, Winn’s and Ibanez’ contract don’t look so bad. In light of recent signings, they are starting to look like bargains. On the other hand, their trade value appears to increase with each new bloated contract for a middle-tier player. Heck, teams might even take another look at Franklin.
I like the idea of Griffey for DH, but I am a party of one.
Re: #69, you will likely remain a party of one until Junior or the Reds agree to waive and/or pay all of his deferred money. His contract is as close to unmovable as you will ever see in professional sports, with deferred money being paid out for something like 15-20 YEARS from now.
AK,
You gotta consider roster spots not just $$, some team may be willing to dump a bad contract for other bad contracts that are shorter but they only have 25 spots on the roster so can’t take back 4 or 5 guys for 1 unless all of them can beat out guys they have on their roster already.
Griffey is a bag of glass who makes Edgar stealing second look like Ironman. I know Jr has some weird hold on people who must have more than nostalgia in whatever pipe they’re smoking, but a team would be better off taking any money they would spend on Griffey and just hand it to the fans, because they’ll contribute as much to the team winning as Griffey would, and from exactly the same position: sitting on the sidelines. And the fans might actually spend some of the money on concessions, since they’ll actually be able to get up and walk to them without hurting themselves.
Shoeless Jose:
Top Notch. I’ll buy the rights to that statement!
I’m with Dave on the ‘patience’ trajectory; in fact, things are going well for the home team so far. Consider: of all the players who could _really_ serve as cornerstone options in a rebuild for the Ms, both those discussed in detail on this blog plus a few I keep scribble on the back of an envelope, only ONE has come off the board, Troy Glaus. And if the Ms are going for Beltre, which clearly they are, they can’t sign both practically speaking, so Troy wasn’t really going to fit the Mariners actuals. Certainly for the $-and-years he signed for, he was a no-go for the Mariners on any rational basis (or for the D’backs, either, but they need a cornerstone slugger to market the team, so they did something close to what the Tigers did last year in getting I-Rod, went a year too far at premium $$$).
There are no signs or solid rumors even on Beltre, Drew, or Clement, and that by itself is favorable, and fits the matrix of Dave’s contact cited early one: other teams locking up their money in player’s whom the Mariners _don’t_ want. To me, this is looking better each day.
Shoeless, shame you think so little of Griff, yall gonna be stunned by his 2005. I know, sounds funny now.
I’ve been hearing that how many years now? Every year he’s on the DL is one year closer to the glue factory.
I thought we were all going to be stunned by his 2004. And we sort of were – both by how well he was doing, and by how abruptly he stopped doing it.
Regarding Dye, this was not altogether a bad signing for the White Sox. Joe Borchard and Timo Perez were the backups to Lee, Rowand, and Everett. The backups are crap, pure crap. Everett now becomes the backup and Dye joins the starting crew.
Just 3 years ago, Dye was coming off 3 excellent seasons. Oakland signed him to big contract and he became often injured and he went flat. Last year was the year he should have bounced back but instead he was just mediocre. He is only 30yrs old and is likely to either produce more mediocre numbers with good defense or he will bounce back to where he was prior to his leg injury. For a 2yr deal (4M 2005 + 5M 2006 with club option and 1M buyout for 2007), this is not a bad signing for them. As for motivation, his big contract expired and he was essentially booted out of his home town.
This was not a terrible signing by the White Sox. Without any reliable, young, cheap OF talent in the system to replace Everett, Dye is essentially a gamble that will produce at least mediocre numbers on a short term contract.