No Piniero for you?

[Fman99]

SI.com and Ken Rosenthal reporting Joel Piniero to Anaheim, 2 yrs 16 million. If that's the case I will assume that he's just a Dave Duncan scrap-heaper who will suck outside of St. Louis this year (see Weaver, Jeff).

But shit, the Mets are running out of choices now. Sheets maybe?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Fuck all current, former and future St. Fucking Louis Cardinals.

[soupcan]

Fuck all current, former and future St. Fucking Louis Cardinals.[/quote:3gr8nas5]


Ditto Molly.

[bmfc1]

Does the Mets front office have any clue about assembling a pitching staff? This wasn't that difficult: sign a FA SP and trade for another. Instead, they have done nothing. Santana, Pelfrey, Maine (off an injury), Perez (off stinking), and the same nobodies that permeated into our lives last season. No Piniero, No Marquis--the guy that actually wanted to be a Met! So that means overpaying for fragile Ben Sheets or signing Jon Garland or Jarrod Washburn. I know: their strategy is to get the only guys left after everyone else has signed because those guys will come the cheapest. The only real hope, if you can call it that, is if the Reds have to dump salary and get rid of Harang or Arroyo. It should not have come to this but the Mets FO screwed it up. So let's sit back and enjoy Nelson Figueroa and Pat Misch.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Instead, they have done nothing. Santana, Pelfrey, Maine (off an injury), Perez (off stinking), and the same nobodies that permeated into our lives last season....[/quote:xe12p5m1]

Santana's also coming off an injury. You left that out.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Reality is that they mostly didn't permeate our lives. And instead were largely replaced by others.

[metirish]

For that money and years I am surprised it's all he got.Sheets apparently wants between 8 & 12 million coming of a year when he didn't pitch. I think I would rather have signed JP for what he got than pay Sheets anything close to it.

[ashie62]

I'm confident Ollie, Maine,Misch & Figgy can help pitch the Mets to a championship.

[Valadius]

Fuck all current, former and future St. Fucking Louis Cardinals.[/quote:2k1zlbmj]

I'll drink to that.

[Benjamin Grimm]

[stevejrogers]

[seawolf17]

Instead, they have done nothing. Santana, Pelfrey, Maine (off an injury), Perez (off stinking), and the same nobodies that permeated into our lives last season....[/quote:26ek8mcw]

Santana's also coming off an injury. You left that out.[/quote:26ek8mcw]
And Pelfrey's coming off a suck.

[nymr83]

No Marquis--the guy that actually wanted to be a Met! So that means overpaying for fragile Ben Sheets or signing Jon Garland or Jarrod Washburn.

Marquis is an average pitcher, Sheets is an ace if healthy. Garland is just as good as Marquis, he might even be better at Citi Field because some of his (too many) homers could turn into long outs. Washburn is a pretty similiar guy as well. If you wanted Marquis I can't see why you'd be unhappy with Garland or Washburn, unless you are a graduate of Tottenville High School.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I'll take Sheets. Pineiro would have been nice at that price, but hey-- spilled milk.

I think Beltran's absence shifts things a bit-- now, there's no point in safe moves, really, because one of the big three is losing significant time. If everything needs to break right for you to contend, might as well up the ante, and the potential value of that "everything," no? I think Sheets AND Bedard are the thing. I think a half-year of a good Sheets is worth 7-8 million... and I think Russ Branyan, if healthy, is the best first-base/corner-OF option left, so pick him or Delgado up.

Screw Garland and Barajas. Balls out, ladies and gents.

[G-Fafif]

Clever airbrushing job, Topps, but that's a former Cardinal right there.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Also, Doug Davis, a name we've been hearing a lot but have been mostly ignoring, signed with the Brewers. (One year, $4.5 million.)

So who's left? Garland, Sheets, and Smoltz?

[soupcan]

Smoltz? Can you imagine?

Glavine and then Smoltz? Ugh.

What's next - Chipper Jones at first base for 3 years?

[Frayed Knot]

If Chipper were available right now for 1st base duties I'd be all over him like ... well, like Chipper on a Hooters waitress.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

For all the Smarty McSmartypantses in this thread, perhaps it ought to be F all post-1984 Cardinals, even you, Bernard Drinkey.

That said I was sort of intrigued by Pineiro and was hoping we'd come away with him at a good price but now he's back on my shit list along with the rest of Missouri and Southern Illinois. "America's Breadbasket" can bite my flabby white ass.

Bedard and Sheets are still out there, maybe an incentive-heavy offer to the former gets it done.

I'm also reminding myself that I thought from the start we'd go the trade route. Meche, Harang, Arroyo -- some of them have to go.

[TransMonk]

I didn't want Pinero at all anyways.

I'm now firmly on the bandwagon for Sheets AND Garland.

[ashie62]

16 million for 2 years of Pineiro was too much I guess

Ben Sheets? Don't the Mets have enough iffy pitchers?

[Centerfield]

Smoltz? That's like Ben Sheets without the upside.

[TransMonk]

All of the FA options this year (other than Lackey) can be described as "iffy". I had as much trepidation about Pinero being a bad sign as I would Sheets.

Sheets provides the most upside "if" he works out. Sheets, if healthy, will most likely not suck...we would just need a contingency if/when Sheets were to go on the DL.

I have to think Smoltz would only be a bullpen option.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Yeah, I see Smoltz as a guy "in the mix" rather than as someone who'd be likely to go north from St. Lucie in the starting rotation.

The contingencies for Sheets would probably be guys like Niese and Nieve and Stoner, or Perez if one of the above pushes ahead of Oliver during spring training.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Ben Sheets at 8 million, if he's healthy, is a huge discount. If he's semi-healthy and gives us 100 innings, well... it's still a relative discount (consider that the team is paying Frankie Walks-a-Lot 11.5M this year for about 70 likely less-effective innings) and, in combination with a Stoner/Nieve/Niese platter, would provide significantly more value for that cash than Garland would for a little less.

I repeat: Beltran's absence shifts the goalposts. High-upside risk-- as long as the costs aren't prohibitive-- is the PRUDENT way to go right now with the leftover money. Sheets, Wang, Bedard... si, si and si.

[metirish]

I want to see the conversation between Sheets and Tom Seaver where Tom acts like naming a kid Seaver is the most natural thing in the world and is shocked that more kids are not named so.

Tom after a few glasses of wine and that conversation would be even more awesome.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Tom Seaver's reaction to a fellow pitcher naming a kid Seaver would probably be very different than his reaction to a fan on the street giving him the same news.

[Centerfield]

Depends on if that pitcher is a foxhole sort of guy.

[smg58]

I see no point in making a big commitment to guy who might not be better than what we've already got. Maine, Pelfrey, and Ollie all have one nice year on their resume too, and an average year from any of them isn't much different than an average year from Piniero. (And they're all younger than Piniero too.) A few games of Sheets/Wang/Bedard would be a bigger upgrade than a whole season of Piniero.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Since the Mets seem to have money left in their piggy bank, they might as well go all in on Sheets. Sure, if you guarantee him $9 million or so, you're taking a gamble, but it's for one year (he's surely in no position to demand two or more years) and if it doesn't work out, he'll be coming off the books in time for the next spending season.