We can see the whole canvas now. Teams have three distinct segments during the year to improve: The offseason, spring training, and then the deadlines for non-waiver and waiver deals.
That covers a period from the end of the previous season through the last day players still could be made eligible for a playoff roster. With the close of shopping on Aug. 31, we can now see which organizations did best and worst in importing talent.
For this exercise, we are talking about only new players added. So we are not talking about the Yankees’ wise decision to retain Andy Pettitte or the Mets’ foolishness in keeping Oliver Perez. It also means no points to the Rangers for the brilliant strategy to shift Michael Young to third so defensive whiz Elvis Andrus could play short.
We also recognize how quickly perceptions change. A month ago, the Phillies might have topped this list on Raul Ibanez alone, but he really has struggled in the second half. Also, we are not using a crystal ball to project what, say, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira will be at the ends of their contracts.
This is a current view of who succeeded and failed in bringing new blood to their organizations:
1. YANKEES
If you have $400 million-plus lying around, you too can invest in Sabathia, Teixeira and A.J. Burnett. But two factors in lauding the Yankees here:
1) In the past, they have not always spent wisely in free agency (but enough about Carl Pavano). At the moment, Burnett is raising doubts if he was a good sign. But Sabathia and Teixeira are elite performers.
2) The Yankees also have excelled at the smaller stuff this year.
General manager Brian Cashman accepted a contract extension after last season and said he was motivated to change the storyline that, essentially, he did not know what he was doing. So far, so good. He stole Nick Swisher from the White Sox. He took a flyer on Sergio Mitre, who was recuperating from Tommy John surgery. And he deepened the bench and staff by adding Eric Hinske, Jerry Hairston and Chad Gaudin for little in prospects and
a bit more than the
$1 million the Yankees received in selling Darrell Rasner to a Japanese team.
2. DODGERS
Signing Orlando Hudson and Randy Wolf to one-year deals was brilliant financially, on the field and in the clubhouse. Ronald Belisario has been, arguably, the best minor league sign of the offseason, helping an overtaxed pen immensely. Don’t laugh Mets/Yankees fans, but Guillermo Mota and Jeff Weaver have helped.
And for the second consecutive year, Dodgers GM Ned Colletti has done very well at augmenting his roster during the season by upgrading the rotation (Jon Garland), bullpen (George Sherrill), and bench (Jim Thome, Ronnie Belliard).
3. CARDINALS
In the offseason, St. Louis improved its lefty setup crew with Trever Miller and Dennys Reyes, but also took on a complete bust in Khalil Greene.
Nevertheless, during the season, the Cards have transformed their lineup, mainly by obtaining Matt Holliday, but also Mark DeRosa and Julio Lugo. Plus, St. Louis has taken a so-far-successful flyer on John Smoltz.
4. MARINERS
After the amateurish overspending of Bill Bavasi’s tenure, Jack Zduriencik moved wisely in his first year as GM. Seattle won the three-team, 12-player trade with the Mets and Indians because they got by far the best player, Franklin Gutierrez. And Seattle found a low-cost alternative to the biggest player moved in the deal, J.J. Putz, when it made a small trade with Boston for David Aardsma, who entered the weekend with 33 saves.
Russell Branyan added power to the lineup, and Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Sweeney provided pedigree and leadership to the clubhouse.
5. ROCKIES
Obviously, it was not easy trading their most accomplished hitter, Holliday, to Oakland. But the return, notably Huston Street and Carlos Gonzalez, have helped make Colorado a wild-card contender. Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd traded for two-fifths of a surprisingly strong rotation: Jason Marquis and Jason Hammel.
And as injuries have eaten away at pitching depth, O’Dowd stayed vigilant in adding Rafael Betancourt, Joe Beimel and Jose Contreras.
HONORABLE MENTION
The Tigers had a lot of expensive pitching dead weight that would have sunk them if they had not obtained Edwin Jackson in a trade and Brandon Lyon in free agency. The 2009 Nationals are mostly a disaster, but they did build an interesting outfield in Adam Dunn, Nyjer Morgan and Josh Willingham while reaching a good agreement with first-overall pick Stephen Strasburg. The Braves did well in addressing their rotation (Javier Vazquez, Derek Lowe, Kenshin Kawakami) and lineup (Adam LaRoche, Nate McLouth, David Ross, Garret Anderson). The Angels have benefited from moves big (Brian Fuentes), medium (Bobby Abreu) and small (Matt Palmer).
WORST
1. Mets
There was an arrogance/ineptitude combination that beset the Mets in the offseason. The Cubs all but begged the Mets to take the Staten Island-born Marquis with the promise of paying half the contract, but the Mets told Chicago they were set with pitching. They gave the same message to the Rays when Tampa told the Mets that Jackson, Hammel and Jeff Niemann were available, and not at a significant prospect cost. And remember the Mets were overconfident because they had created a
No. 5 starter battle among Tim Redding, Livan Hernandez and Freddy Garcia.
Abreu’s reps also begged the Mets to let the Manhattan resident play in Queens. That was a no go, too because the Mets believed in a corner outfield rotation of Daniel Murphy, Fernando Tatis and Ryan Church. There has been a lot of back-patting for turning Church into Jeff Francoeur. But Church has roughly the same OPS as a Brave that Francoeur does as a Met.
The big trade for Putz was a disaster, considering it also brought the ineffective Sean Green. The Mets counteracted a good move, plucking Darren O’Day in the Rule 5 draft, by losing him on waivers to Texas to get Nelson Figueroa on the 25-man roster.
2. CUBS
The formula for becoming the majors’ most disappointing team: Kevin Gregg as the closer, the volatile Milton Bradley on a three-year contract to serve as the lefty might (Abreu begged here, too), and a two-year contract for a non-descript utilityman in Aaron Miles.
3. ROYALS
They cannot hide behind the small-market excuse. There is just plain negligence when you hand two-year contracts to Kyle Farnsworth, Juan Cruz and Willie Bloomquist; and trade for Coco Crisp, Mike Jacobs and Yuniesky Betancourt. Should we also mention that they were the employer this season of Sidney Ponson?
4. WHITE SOX
They traded Swisher and Vazquez, and not only have nothing yet to show for it (we will see about Tyler Flowers from the Vazquez deal), but they used some of the saved dollars on Jake Peavy and Alex Rios, who could be disasters that keep on giving expensively into the future.
5. RED SOX
They lost out to the Yankees’ late bid on Teixeira, and decided to invest in high-risk, high-reward, one-year ventures on Smoltz, Brad Penny, Rocco Baldelli and Takashi Saito. They really weren’t counting on Saito to be — by far — the best from that group. The poor pitching of Smoltz and Penny probably will cost them the AL East title, and maybe the playoffs.
Victor Martinez’s offense was a deadline godsend. But Boston flipped LaRoche (who has been a boon in Atlanta) for the unproductive Casey Kotchman. Ramon Ramirez has been a bullpen asset all year, and maybe the late additions of Paul Byrd and defensive ace Alex Gonzalez will matter.
DISHONORABLE MENTION
Tampa has nothing to show for moving Jackson and Hamels, and its big-money move of the offseason, Pat Burrell, has not worked. The A’s attempts to add offense with Holliday, Jason Giambi, Nomar Garciparra, Orlando Cabrera and Scott Hairston has been a debacle. The Indians went 0-for-3 with their big moves of the offseason: DeRosa, Pavano and Kerry Wood.
joel.sherman@nypost.com