PORT ST. LUCIE –
I can’t wait for Manny Ramirez any longer.
Hardball is yet to declare its offseason winners and losers, though the offseason is now over, and a big reason for the delay has been the Manny vigil. Where will he sign? And when?
Well, we are done living on Manny’s clock. I assume he is not going to become a welder, so at some point Ramirez and his agent, Scott Boras, will agree to a baseball contract, likely with the Dodgers.
But this long, national nightmare of deferring a winners and losers column must end. So it will. After this explanation: In most columns of this type, the Yankees are listed as one of the winners after their nearly half-billion-dollar expenditure this offseason. I will not be doing that here and it goes beyond the fact that they gave $82.5 million to a guy (A.J. Burnett) who has started one more game over the last six years (134) than Roger Clemens or Sidney Ponson.
It’s impossible to make the Yanks an offseason winner when the Alex Rodriguez mess blew up in the offseason. They were not well planned out because they obtained Nick Swisher to play first, and ultimately signed Mark Teixeira. That turned Swisher into a bench player who costs them $22 million for the next three years and two prospects to obtain in a market place in which the price tag for corner players like him dropped precipitously.
Also, the Yanks can brag about having a lower payroll in 2009 than 2008, but they already have a payroll of $133.1 million in 2011 with just nine players signed, none of them named Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera. So, yes, the Yanks are better in 2009 because they signed Burnett, Teixeira and C.C. Sabathia, but what they have assured of recreating in the near future is an expensive, inflexible, aging team.
So, here are my selections:
WINNERS
1. RAYS
Despite a tight budget, the defending AL champs did wonderfully at augmenting a solid core for under $20 million total. Pat Burrell should add patience and righty diversity as the DH. Brian Shouse and Joe Nelson are a nice lefty-righty bullpen addition for less than $3 million combined. Outfielders Gabe Kapler and Matt Joyce are a good righty-lefty duo that adds depth and helps keep an already outstanding defense strong.
2. ANGELS
They lost out on Mark Teixeira and seemed to go into a winter-long hissy fit. But they came out of hibernation long enough to make the best sign of the offseason, $5 million for Bobby Abreu for one year. His lefty bat and keen eye were badly needed for this offense.
3. A’S
They obtained Matt Holliday for three disposable pieces, and he either will help them contend or Oakland almost certainly will cash him in during the July trade market for more than it gave up to get him.
4. METS
I believe they still will need a corner outfield bat, but with teams looking to dump salaries in a bad economy, that probably can be done during the season. I worry about Francisco’s Rodriguez’s temperament if he blows a few saves and the tabloids and talk radio shows start pushing for J.J. Putz to close. But in the bigger picture, the Mets solidified the final six outs with K-Rod and Putz while also obtaining under-the-radar Sean Green in the Putz deal, a righty whom scouts love. I also am a big fan of stacking some rotation depth (Freddy Garcia, Livan Hernandez, Tim Redding) to cope with the long season.
5. PHILLIES
The three-year, $31.5 million signing of Raul Ibanez was a severe overpay for a player not as good as Abreu. But new GM Ruben Amaro gained cost certainty in prime years by getting Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels and Ryan Madson signed to three-year contracts.
LOSERS
1. NATIONALS
They couldn’t attract their No. 1 target, Teixeira. Their No. 1 prospect, Esmailyn Gonzalez, was revealed to be at least 23, not 19, and quickly became a non-prospect. Washington is such an unattractive alternative that Adam Dunn pretty much had to exhaust every other possibility before finally taking the Nationals’ $20 million, and Dunn only exacerbates the overall poor defense of this team.
2. BLUE JAYS
They are cursed to be in a division with the Yanks, Red Sox and Rays – possibly the majors’ three best teams, and they cut $20 million-plus in payroll, lost Burnett and did not sign a major league free agent or make a significant trade.
3. BRAVES
Most people have them on the Winners list, but how do you make a team a winner that got to the doorstep with Burnett, Jake Peavy, Rafael Furcal and Ken Griffey, and failed to lasso any of them? And, in a few cases was embarrassed thinking it had the players (Furcal and Griffey in particular). Will Derek Lowe help in 2009? Almost certainly. But Atlanta overreacted to being spurned by John Smoltz and wound up paying $60 million over four years to a veteran pitcher whom it had no interest in when the offseason began.
4. GIANTS
This is another team you will find on many Winners lists. But how is that possible? Their two-year, $19.5 million contract with Edgar Renteria might be the worst of the offseason – unless he found the fountain of youth recently. And that set the tenor for an offseason in which they spent too much on aging mediocrities Jeremy Affeldt, Bobby Howry, Randy Johnson and Juan Uribe.
5. ROYALS
You don’t have a lot of money to spend, and you give two-year contracts to Kyle Farnsworth and Willie Bloomquist? What am I missing here? They did tie up Zack Grienke long-term, but were unable to dump team headache Jose Guillen.