Girardi Gets Yankees Spot, Torre to L.A.
Yesterday afternoon Grady Little ‘resigned’ as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Joe Torree was named his successor. In this morning’s New York Post Mike Vaccaro opines about how quickly this happened. There’s lots of speculation regarding the makeup of Torre’s new coaching staff in L.A.. Rumors have included Don Mattingly, Larry Bowa and SNY’s Lee Mazzilli.
In the meantime the Yankees have moved on by naming Joe Girardi their new manager. This prompted Mattingly to remove himself from the Yankees. Mattingly said he left the team because it wouldn’t be fair to Girardi to have Torre’s bench coach as well as his own possible replacement sit next to him in the dugout. But popular wisdom is that he was not happy that he didn’t get the managerial job and needed some time away from the organization.
Comments to this post
ARod and the Mets?
There’s already been a lot of speculation on where Alex Rodriguez will end up now that it is a certainty that he will be on the open market. There are very strong rumors that have him going to the Los Angeles Dodgers along with Joe Torre and Don Mattingly. But here in New York it looks like we’re divided on the prospect of the Mets getting ARod.
I’m not so sure I like the idea of ARod as a Met but it’s hard to argue that he is one of the most prolific hitters in history. And though he has not had any glory in the post season you’d have to think he gives your team a heck of an edge.
My problem is positioning. In his career Wright has played shortstop and third base. Currently the Mets have Jose Reyes and David Wright at those positions. Late season breakdowns aside you have to admit that they’re a pretty good pair. If you sign ARod then you have to move at least one of them. If you put ARod at short then you’re likely to play Reyes at second base. That experiment has been tried (anyone remember Kazuo Matsui at shortstop?) and failed. If you put ARod at third then it means moving Wright. With Carlos Delgado at first base you’d have to put Wright at second base. I can’t say why but I don’t like that idea. I’d almost rather them deal Delgado and put Wright at first but that’s not very likely. (Michael Kay has suggested they’d play Wright at second for 1 year then move him to first the following year after Delgado’s contract expires.) Or you could put Wright in right field but that would seem like a waste. Another option would be to trade either Wright or Reyes and put ARod in the traded player’s position. No matter how you slice it fitting him in will be a mess and would be disruptive to team chemistry as the two players in those positions are team leaders. You could also argue that they could do some drastic improvements to the pitching staff with the money they would need to sign ARod and that may be more important.
I’m still tossed up about signing ARod but I could certainly understand if the Mets take a pass on this one.
Comments to this post
Mets Free Agents
Six Mets filed for free agency yesterday. They are:
The obvious missing name here is Tom Glavine but that’s going to happen any day now.
If I’m Mets GM Omar Minaya then Castillo becomes the immediate top priority from all the names on that list with Lo Duca being the second priority unless a reasonable trade can be worked out for someone else.
Comments to this post
Delcos: Nay-Rod
John Delcos lobbies against signing probable former Yankee Alex Rodriguez.
Comments to this post
ARod Opts Out
Several sources are reporting that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez will opt out of his contract and see how much he can get on the open free agency market. Though there wrre reports that the Yankees were going to try to extend his contract Brian Cashman was very clear a couple of weeks ago when he said the Yankees will not sign him if he is a free agent. Apparently on the open market he will cost the Yankees more than they are willing to pay. Solid thinking when you consider ARod’s agent is the money hungry Scott Boras.
(As a side note, many people talk negatively about Boras and his money talk. I don’t like the guy either but his business revolves around getting the most money possible for his clients and he’s good at what he does. That’s how he attracts such high profile athletes. He’s just doing his job.)
Rumor has been that Boras will see a contract that pays ARod about $30 million annually.
Hank Steinbrenner showed he has some of his dad in him when he channeled the boss with some tough talk:
We’re not going to back down. It’s goodbye….. It’s clear he didn’t want to be a Yankee. He doesn’t understand the privilege of being a Yankee on a team where the owners are willing to pay $200 million to put a winning product on the field…. If you don’t want to be a Yankee and paid what you’re being paid, we don’t want you, that’s the bottom line. You’d be hard-pressed to argue that point. If you don’t understand the magnitude of being a Yankee and understand what that means, and being the highest-paid player in baseball, I think it’s pretty obvious.
Very tough talk indeed. I love that “magnitude of being a Yankee” stuff.
So if this is the real deal then the baseball economy is about to be turned on end once again. Stay tuned.
Comments to this post
Sox Win!
Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on their World Series championship. The Sox swept the Colorado Rockies in four games to win their second Word Series in 4 years.
Comments to this post
Metsblog on Sabathia
Over on Metsblog Matthew Cerrone puts forth the idea that C.C. Sabathia may be a more realistic acquisition for the Mets than everyone’s off season dream, Johan Santana.
Comments to this post
Marcus Giles: Free Agent
Marcus Giles was waived yesterday by the San Diego Padres. Though he has not had a very good last two years he would be worth bringing into spring training to compete for the Mets starting 2B job should the team end up parting ways with Luis Castillo. If Castillo goes then Ruben Gotay is the favorite to get the spot from within the organization but it would be good to bring in some competition for him in the spring and make him earn it.
Comments to this post
Davidoff on Magadan
Ken Davidoff has a nice piece on former Met player and current Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan in today’s Newsday.
Comments to this post
Reardon Freed
Some may remember that in December 2005 former Mets reliever Jeff Reardon was arrested for armed robbery after he robbed a jewelry store in Palm Beach. Last year he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was required to go to counseling for a year. Today Reardon was freed of court supervision. Doctors said that when the robbery occurred Readon was under the influence of several prescription drugs. He is now out from under the influence of the drugs and free to live his life without any court interference. Good luck, Jeff.
Comments to this post
