It would be great if Kazmir filed for arbitration after this season and were let go by D-rays. D-rays whole payroll is only $24 M and top player is Crawford at $4.1 M. Kazmir only gets $424 K now, and clearly in arbitration he would be awarded more than D-rays probably want to pay.
I would love to see Mets re-sign him; he would give them the youth and options they need on their pitching staff. Of course, the Yankees or Red Sox would probably outbid us, so I doubt we'd get him. The main benefit of Kazmir - besides his awesome talent - is that he owns the Red Sox. This is obviously a huge upside for the Yankees and would be worth whatever they can pay, especially given their suspect rotation. But who knows, perhaps we could put together a package that would be more attractive for one reason or another.
5 comments:
Kazmir
for
Pelfrey, Humber, F Mart
A trade like this could probably land him. Would you make the deal? Not I. Quantity is key with young arms--one never knows which pithcer has 2 years, and which has 15, left in those elbows and shoulders. I am still a believer in Pelfrey and Humber.
Kazmir
for
Pelfrey, F Mart
A trade like this would probably not land him. This is a trade I would make. We have surplus young outfielders, F Mart seems to be the most highly regarded of the big 3 (Lastings, Gomez, Martinez), but he's also the farthest away with the most growing to do. If you were the D-Rays, someone will double down and put two or more blue chip pitching prospects on the board, so why take only one?
A deal which could satisfy both side would include two blue chip prospects, only one being a pitcher, and one or two B+ level prospects:
Pelfrey, F Mart, Carp, Coles
for Kazmir.
Of course, why not go whole hog?
Pelfrey, Collazo, F Mart, Gomez, Carp, Coles, Burgos
for
Kazmir and Crawford
I agree with you, the first trade is probably giving up too much. Even when we realize that however good Kaz is right now, he'll be twice as good against the NL, it's still giving up too much if it's Pelf + Humber + F Mart.
That said, I think we (and anyone else offering a trade to D-rays) has a big advantage: D-rays clearly want a small payroll, and Kaz's arbitration (if he chooses to enter it) would clearly bust that. So, they might be willing to take a bit of lopsided trade just to dump salary. On the other hand, as you say, the Mets aren't just negotiating with the D-rays, they are also competing against all other teams out there who might be willing to give up even more prospects than the Mets to land Kaz.
I think another positive though is that Yankees seem unwilling to part with their young prospects, so we might not be at any disadvantage there. Red Sox unfortunately have a ton of young talent that they could use as trade bait, and considering how badly Kaz owns them (and faces them at least 2-4 times each year), they might be highly motivated to get him. Also, Schilling is getting old as is Wakefield, so if you look at Beckett + Kaz + Buchholz + Lester + Dice-K, that's ridiculous.
Mets management will also be tempted to unload the dump truck to re-acquire Kaz. They how much bad karma (in the eyes of the fans) could be undone by getting Kaz.
Well, bottom line is Mets really should do something about securing a legit #1 starter in offseason. I think this season has shown that: (a) can't depend on older players for a full season, and (b) Maine / Perez / Pelf are not yet consistent enough to be dependable week in and week out. Whether we make a move for Santana or Kaz or someone else remains to be seen. I get the sense from Omar that he thinks the core team for the next 2-3 years is already in place, and only utility players should be added at this point. But who knows, that reasoning has to change if you have big questions about Pedro, Duque, and Glavine.
Well, if Glavine is back and Pedro can pitch, it's hard to imagine anyone being out there who's going to be a big upgrade to our current rotation, other than Johann.
Sure, you've got to take a shot at the best pitcher in the game. After that, I'd have to see the names. Who will be the 5th starter that gets bumped? Probably Pelfrey, or else Humber, Mulvey, or Vargas were one of them to pass Pelfrey next spring. So you are delaying a young pitcher who could get some experience as the 5th starter another year. You're also replacing the 4th starter in the playoff rotation (Ollie Perez or John Maine) with the new pitcher, so he has to be an upgrade over those two to make it payoff in October.
For Johann, it's worth it. For Carlos Zambrano (despite his horrific outings post-contract signing), it would have been worth it. Alas, that ship has sailed.
Who else is out there this winter? Carlos Silva? Andy Pettite? Kyle Lohse? Matt Clement?
Those look like the next best tier after Santana's off the board, based on the site I was looking at:
http://www.mlb4u.com/freeagency.php?field=position
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