Here’s a rhetorical question for everyone:
If you felt betrayed by Alex signing with Texas after his statements about wanting to stay in Seattle, do you feel better or worse knowing that there’s another fan base that feels weirdly betrayed in the same way?
I had a friend once who brutally betrayed me to impress a girl, and that was it — I never trusted or really hung out with him much again, though he remained friends with our mutual friends (if that makes sense) so I did see him, and he was always congenial when we had to be in the same room. And if he’d moved on down the line and stuck a knife in the next guy, as I always expected would happen, I don’ t know if I’d have felt sympathy for them, or as if they’d deserved it because they should have known what was coming, or even if I’d felt some combination of both.
Cost to get Alex: 16m/year + 2-years of a super-prospect at below-market prices
Now.. hmmm… did the Mariners blow $16m this off-season? Um, yup. Do they have the prospects to make a trade like this happen? Yup.
The real problem, of course, is that Alex would never, ever return here, for a couple of reasons:
First, he wants to be on the national stage. He thought that would happen in Texas and it didn’t, so he wants to go to New York where all the media is, et cetera. Seattle is bad for exposure.
Second, the booing. We’ve commented on this idiocy a number of times, but the constant bad conduct towards Alex means that it would be unlikely he’d be willing to waive the no-trade, let alone restructure his deal.
Since we’re late to the party, and you’re probably sick of reading stories about Alex Rodriguez, I’ll make my points brief:
What the Rangers get:
1. Approximately a $16-18 million dollar savings, per year, from 2005-2010.
2. A good second baseman, in his prime, not eligible for free agency for two years.
3. Worse, probably by three to four wins.
What the Yankees get:
1. The best player in the American League for the bargain of 112 million over 7 years.
2. A Rodriguez-Sheffield-Giambi-Williams-Posada middle of the line-up. Good Lord.
3. A monstrous luxary tax bill.
What the Mariners get:
1. A weaker opponent for the 19 games scheduled against Texas.
2. The reality that they have almost no chance at the wild card.
3. Another reason to hate the Yankees.
Could this deal help both teams? Sure. If Texas spends their money well and Soriano continues to perform at a high level, they should be able to replace the difference between the two players with the money saved from Rodriguez’s contract. However, that will require them to make shrewd acquisitions while hoping that the market doesn’t change, and neither of those things are guaranteed. New York simply improves their roster at the cost of an even greater financial burden, but one that they can still make a profit on.
If the Yankees were smart — and if they’ve shown us anything over the past eight years or so, it’s that they’re both smart and not smart at the same time — they’d play Rodriguez at short, Jeter at second and the almost-newest Yankee, Mike Lamb, at third. Not gonna happen, though. I would like to make this wild prediction, however: Lamb will be the PTBNL in the Rodriguez-Soriano deal and the Rangers will play him at 2B with Michael Young moving to SS.
For all the talk of Giambi’s health, he did manage to lead the Yankees in OPS (.939) last season while ranking 7th in the AL. Then you’ve got Jeter, who despite not being as good as advertised, still manages to get on base at nearly a .400 clip for his career. Moving on, you’re looking at Gary Sheffield, Jorge Posada and of course Rodriguez. Bernie Williams should see a jump in his offensive production assuming he’s moved to DH, and Hideki Matsui isn’t exactly a slouch.
What’s scary is that despite all this, the Red Sox might still score more runs than the Yankees. As for a new 2B? Here’s a scary thought — Montreal’s Jose Vidro. OK, forget I said that.
What should really worry M’s fans about the super-arming of the Yankees (esp if/when they pick up a top 2B one way or another) is that if there are two 100+ win teams in the AL East, the M’s might as well book their travel plans now (or, even better, book their luxury vacations), because today it looks like there’s no way they’re going to wrangle a wild card this coming season, and the A’s and Angels look like the teams that are going to dog-fight for the division pennant.
That said, this talk about the Yankees scoring some historic number of runs seems… early, at the least. They’re an old, old team, with Giambi’s health an open question, and CF a potential black hole of offense (and defense) if Lofton plays regularly there. If they replaced their 2B hole with, uh… Bret Boone (who has been an astonishingly productive player, defying almost everyone, including me, who didn’t see this coming), or… Marcus Giles? Then they might be looking at getting over 1,000 runs. Who’s out there and good for someone looking to cut salary. Jeff Kent, maybe? Ray Durham?
Alex Rodriguez to New York for Soriano, huh? That’s the hot story of the day, though we’ll see when it comes through (or doesn’t). We’ve known Alex has wanted to move to a national market for a while now, looking for the added exposure and money to be made there.
And normally I’d be baffled about the reported decision to play Alex at *third* while “Past a diving” Derek Jeter continues to play short. Alex is in every way a better shortstop than Jeter: he’s a much better defender and a superior hitter, in both areas by such a margin that it’s not even close. A straight swap of Jeter for Alex is 60 runs over the course of the season, easily. Jeter’s got “athleticism” but his range is bad. Some argued Jeter could be the solution to the team’s center field defense problems, where he’d be able to track fly balls and use his speed without having to field those tricky grounders that give him so much trouble. If Soriano’s the trade bait, I don’t know who they scrape up to play second, but they could find some Dominican glove wizard at this point and offer Mussina & Co. some relief from last year’s single-fest.
I’m not baffled, though, because these are the Yankees, and they haven’t always looked at things in the same rational way I might (which is “what are our needs, what do we have, what can we get, how do we put together a winning team after we’ve answered those first three questions?”). For instance, the Yankees are able to look at an average right fielder and upgrade him to Gary Sheffield, and punt outfield defense entirely for a year (or more).
With Boone out, the Yankees discovered their stopgap solutions at third were all pretty shabby (but would one of them have been able to do a passable Boone impression? Probably). If Alex Rodriguez has been a third baseman last year, he’d have been the best-hitting third-baseman in baseball, which now that I’ve typed that strikes me as one of the strangest and most impressive things I’ve ever seen. Holy mackeral. An Alex-for-Boone upgrade gets the Yankees 30 runs, maybe more. Now it doesn’t solve the Jeter and up-the-middle defensive problems, but now second base is open. What’s weird is that leaving Alex where he can contribute most and then finding Jeter a position keeps thier offense the same (they’d both be in the lineup no matter what) but would improve their defense markedly.
But this isn’t the ideal solution. For all the carping I do about the Mariners and their ill moves, the Yankees got older and better without fixing their problems, which was expensive and not easy. That they are apparantly unwilling to face Jeter’s defensive limitations or ask him (as the captain) to make a move that would make the team significantly better (um, actually, maybe I should be happy that’s the case), maybe this is a great sign, that Bad George Yankees may win a ton now but will ultimately spend themselves into oblivion on contracts (like Jeter’s) that reward public regard and chemistry over performance and team-building.
Like the Mariners have done!
“That’s who I care about — the little kid who needs bootlegs because his parent or guardian won’t let him see the excessive violence and strong sexual content you and I take for granted!”
Email today: Dave Myers is being frank and honest, and even if he’s wrong, it’s good to hear it.
Now, my own opinion of the Snelling Crippler aside, I disagree with this entirely. If Myers really thought that Cirillo sucked, the time to be honest and forthright isn’t now, with Cirillo on San Diego’s payroll and a new guy in town, when it doesn’t matter. It would have been when the position was up for grabs. But if he did it, best to do it in private out of the public eye, right? Why is this any different? If Myers wants to boost the new guy a little, go right ahead. But taking a shot at a departed player is nothing to applaud, and accomplishes nothing.
Looks like the M’s won’t have John Mabry to kick around anymore!
The 19th non-roster invitee is one Wiki Gonzalez, according to the link above. Gonzalez was not on the original list of 16, and what I had heard is that if he impressed the M’s with his play during winter ball, they’d invite him. Apparently hitting .211/.318/.380 in 71 at-bats is enough to impress the M’s, which fits with the rest of this off-season if you think about it. Thanks to everyone who emailed about this.