Womack signs with Yankees
All I have to say about this is GO YANKEES GO!! YOUR SELF DESTRUCTION CAN NOT BE COMPLETE ENOUGH FOR ME!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
From NY Newsday:
He figures to slide into the leadoff spot in the Yankees’ lineup.
Tony Womack’s career OBP is .319. His career high was a league-average-ish .349 last year at 34. This cracks me up. The Yankees are crazy. And good for them! As long as we have salary capping, that’s more money for everyone else to spend.
2y at $4m is the word on the net.
More deals going down
Okay, most of this is about ninety percent done, so if not everything works out, don’t sue me. I’ve been given the okay to make it public, however.
Brad Radke’s staying in Minnesota. Two year contract. Update: This has hit the wire. Confirmation’s everywhere.
The Phillies think they’ve got Matt Clement locked up. The Indians were making a hard push, but it appears that they won’t match Philadelphia’s best offer, which is in the 3 year, $26 million range.
Matt Morris re-signed with St. Louis. Update: This too.
Worst Deal Yet
This is the deal I was referring to yesterday, and now that the Washington Post is reporting it, I’ll stick it on the blog. The Yankees are going to sign Jaret Wright to a 3 year contract that, with incentives, will be worth around $23 million. The guaranteed money is quite a bit lower, but this is still an insane amount of money to give a guy with his track record.
It appears that the winners of this offseason will be those who avoid the middle class entirely. It’s a great time to be a midly effective right-handed pitcher.
Wilson re-signs
The Mariners re-signed Dan Wilson today. One year contract, dollars not disclosed, but it is believed to be worth around $2 million. We’ll give an exact figure once we get our hands on one.
Update: 1 year, $1.75 million. Considering it was basically inevitable that he was coming back, this is really a best case scenario.
Rumblings
Looks like there are several non-Mariner related deals on the verge of going down. One may be announced tomorrow. The offseason should begin this week.
And, as I’ve repeatedly said, patience is the key for M’s fans. There may be some good news on the horizon.
Today’s giggle
MLB.com’s Mariners Mailbag includes this gem:
I ask myself this every year, but do you see the Mariners actually going out and spending some money to acquire a much-needed addition (or two)? It seems like we always make offers, but never get the job done. The Mariners have one of the highest revenues in baseball, and what about all that money they ended up not having to pay for Sasaki?
— Jason Y., Puyallup, Wash.You must have forgotten that last winter, the Mariners signed several free agents (Eddie Guardado, Raul Ibanez, Scott Spiezio, Rich Aurilia and Ron Villone) for more than $50 million and re-signed Ichiro for $44 million. That’s a lot of money to most of us. Some of that “Sasaki money” was used to pay off underachieving players (like John Olerud and Aurilia) after they were released during the season. The Yankees paid very little of Olerud’s $7 million salary, and the Padres paid about $175,000 of Aurilia’s $3 million contract. And just because a team makes an offer to a player (they offered Miguel Tejada $45 million over five years) doesn’t mean that the player will take it.
That Sasaki money wasn’t spent on anything. At the start of the year, they had $5-7m or so (depending on who’s talking) in money that they had said they were budged for, but had not spent on payroll including Olerud and Aurilia. Dropping those two didn’t do anything to the budget. If anything, it raises a larger point: if the Yankees paid Olerud something, and the Padres picked up any of Aurilia’s salary, then the total amount they were under their original budget was higher, not lower, than when they started the season with Sasaki money burning a hole in their pocket.
Or, if you prefer…
There hasn’t been much written or said about Matsuzaka, who pitches for the Japan Series-winning Seibu Lions, and held the touring U.S. All-Star team to five hits in a complete-game win in Sapporo last month. The reason for the lack of publicity is that the right-hander isn’t a free agent and therefore can’t sign with an MLB organization for several more years.
Except for, you know, here. And the reason for the lack of publicity? Before he re-signed there, he was going to be a free agent after this season and there was much speculation that he’d come over.
Also, uh… Dan Wilson’s been terrific for 11 years, which is greatly overstating his case. Even if the Mariners sign Delgado *and* Sexson, there would still be “plenty of at-bats” for Bucky to pick up. “Since Koskie is less expensive, his signing would allow the Mariners to fill other holes.” Like last year! We should spend tons of money on multi-year contracts for a new set of aging players every year, because then you’re filling more holes — and you guarantee you’ll have holes the next year! Yay!
Arbitration deadline
Tomorrow is the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to their free agents. If they do not tender an offer of arbitration, the team is unable to sign the player until May 1st. In essence, if you do not offer arbitration to one of your free agents, you are choosing to let him go. Free agents not offered arbitration no longer qualify for compensation, so the signings will pick up after tomorrow and teams no longer fear giving up draft choices for marginal players overvalued by Elias’ ridiculous ratings.
I’m expecting the club to offer arbitration to both Dan Wilson and Ron Villone, though it is possible that they will work out an agreement with Wilson that he will not accept the offer of arbitration. This will give the team and player until December 19th to work out a deal. The M’s want Wilson back and he wants to come back, so I’d expect an agreement will be reached, probably not before tomorrow however.
Mmm… steroids and dear readers
So it took me a full day to write “Steroids and Condemnation” and when I posted it, I was worried. I turned off comments and braced myself, as I’d seen this topic go badly every time I brought it up, here or in a column at Baseball Prospectus.
And nothing happened. The article didn’t get spread around that widely as I thought it might in the wake of the news, but a lot of people read it, and everyone who dropped me a note wrote kind emails that were often long and well-put. No one started flame threads in other articles… everyone was cool.
Thanks. I love this crowd.
The USSM Reading List
People ask me all the time what books I recommend to get into baseball analysis, or strategy, or cool stuff like that — “I’m new to baseball. How do I get smarter in a hurry?”. This is going to change a ton, but here’s a start, and I’ll edit this as I think of more. Read more
Nooooooooooo
John Hickey writes over at the PI that if the Yanks try to drop Giambi, they’ll be after Delgado/Sexson.
Which, to me, is fine — knock yourselves out on those guys. Particularly Sexson. The more the Yankees want to spend, the better.
The piece that really disturbed me is this:
With former Seattle general manager Pat Gillick having paid a visit last month to Delgado in Puerto Rico, the Mariners were considered the favorite to land the slugger.
I’d really hoped Gillick was spending his time in Toronto working on his resume and calling friends in baseball looking for new work, so that the team could finally move on and commit to the new team. That he’s recruiting isn’t that bad, but that he’s active and involved makes me cringe.
Or, alternately, there’s this:
The Mariners apparently are looking into the possibility of signing Jeromy Burnitz, a left-handed hitting outfielder with power.
He is left-handed, yes. And he does hit for power sometimes, sure. But he hit really badly in LA, which is a decent comp for Safeco if you want a rough estimate, he’s 35 and not a good fielder. That’s not what the M’s need.