Frayed Knot

Madden is currently working on a biography of Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner Bet that'll be a hard-hitting expose!

Austin Jackson is considered a good prospect so it's not like they're giving up nothing - although he's basically the kind you hope one day becomes as good as Granderson. CG did have an inexplicably bad 2nd half this year. This says good-bye to one or more of the Damon-Matsui-Melky crowd. Probably Melky. Arizona would get pitchers Edwin Jackson (Tigers) and Ian Kennedy (Yankees), the Yankees would get Granderson, and the Tigers would receive reliever Daniel Schlereth and starter Max Scherzer from Arizona, and outfielder Austin Jackson, pitchers Phil Coke and Mike Dunn from the Yankees. These three-ways always take a while to sort out. - Kennedy was the guy the Yanx drafted about 20 spots ahead of Joba, but he showed little while up in the majors and then needed aneurysm sugery. Still young enough to have promise I guess. - Edwin Jackson has spent years now looking tantalizingly great but only for brief periods of time - Schlereth (LHP) & Scherzer (RHP) share a lot of consonants and a real hard fastball. Scherzer could start or relieve, Schlereth (son of former NFL player and current ESPN analyst Mark) has been strictly a reliever since college. - Coke is a decent situational lefty. Don't know anything about Dunn.

Boras was trying to sell teams on the idea of Perez = Koufax during his FA period prior to last season: Both left-handed, wild, high-Ks, high-BBs, etc. The fact that Koufax then "got it" at around age 27 and turned into what he turned into was what Boras tried to link to the then 27-ish Ollie. Nice try.

I would put tack this on to the news of Billy Wagner's signing except I don't know where that is as it's probably buried in some all-purpose thread ... Anyway, Braves reliever Raphael Soriano has gone and foiled Atlanta's apparent plan by accepting their arbi offer and could be looking at a raise over the $6+ mil he was making in 2009. The Braves' pen now features recent signees Wagner and Saito in addition to Soriano. That makes for one very expensive 1/2 a bullpen and probably foils their plan of getting a draft pick back for him to replace the one they gave up to get Wagner. The Rockies Raphael Betancourt and Twins Carl Pavano were the other FAs-to-be who accepted their clubs offers.

Pudge to the Nats for [u:1xlv08uj]two years[/u:1xlv08uj] (not for a ton of money ... but still) which takes him out of any consideration that he may fill a slot here. Not that I heard he was a real possibility, but I'm sure someone somewhere has him on the list of supposed Omar man-crushes.

I was fine with just the links but it's OK either way. Mainly I just wanted to see some sort of system that honors good posts around here and wasn't necessarily thinking about a vote to select the overall best. Doesn't mean I'm not reading them.

Of course if you decided to pass on every potential 18 y/o star jock with an inflated sense of self-worth the list of potential picks suddenly goes way down. Hard to know whether this guy is actually a bigger dick than your run of the mill HS draft pick or just the one of the bunch who didn't sign here and whose - once private but now suddenly available - comments to his equally dorky buddies we happen to be reading.

That's the thing about Castillo, it's hard to tell if dealing him away actually is mgmt's top priority or if everyone (fans and media) merely assumes so because of some kind of collective short-term amnesia which results in the theory that 2009 never happened and it's Luis Castillo version 20.08 who's owed $12mil over the next two years automatically making any deal into addition by subtraction and any warm body in return an upgrade. Either way, the result is going to be the inclusion of him in virtually every NYM-based rumor and make the Mets a possible landing site for every bad contract in MLB since the assumption is that we'll gladly take anything that will get Luis outta here.

Except that, at worst, he would have been $1mil down the drain and not $127mil. Much smaller bullet.

Might as well separate out some of these rumors since most of them - real or otherwise - are going to involve moving Castillo somewhere. Ken Rosenthal says: "The Mets and Diamondbacks are showing the most interest in free agent infielder Adam Kennedy ... The two clubs view Kennedy as a potential starter at second base. The Mets would of course have to unload Luis Castillo to make room. Three other teams like Kennedy for a super-utility role, says Rosenthal's source (the Red Sox have been mentioned previously). Kennedy, 34 in January, hit .289/.348/.410 in 586 plate appearances for the A's while playing second and third base this year. He was released in February by the Cardinals with $4MM remaining on his contract. The Rays signed him to a minor league deal and shipped him to Oakland in May.

These "scoops" and rumors from those on-line sites are nothing more than regurgitated rumors from other sites - at least some of which is simply stuff folks make up because it sounds like something that various teams might do. - the Castillo for Pierre shit is at least a year old and I don't think EVER had any basis in fact, while the similar Overbay rumor is at least a month old and just as stale - I'm betting the whole Bradley-Castillo-Burrell was totally made up in the first place and is now just being repeated so as to serve as the illusion of real information - the Meche suggestion was swiped from Joel Sherman in this morning's NYPost and even he treats it as barely beyond the speculation point Do yourselves a favor kiddies, ignore 90% of this crap and question the remainder

It's also a different system for the Mets as compared to many of theirs in the recent past. Usually they have a couple of high-ranking prospects but lose points for having little depth. This, as Manual notes, is more the opposite, much better depth** but their closest-to-ready stars (Martinez, Neise) have questions on account of coming off injuries. It's debatable as to which situation is better. ** Kirk Nieuwenhis, for instance, didn't even make BA's NYM Top-10 despite being up there among their Fla St Lg prospects. A couple years back they were scraping for names just to fill out 6-10

Good 1B platoon w/Muffy if you ask me (hits RH). I'm less hot on him as an everyday OFer.

Woody resorts to playing the hopelessly optimistic, mid-western dork from his 'Cheers' days. A bit grisly at times but otherwise an above-average flick.

I spent about a day and a half in Indianapolis on business a bunch of years back and remember eating a lot of food while I was there including some big hairy steaks ... but I don't remember which place(s).

The Phils "upgraded" at 3B by signing Poanco to replace Feliz (although, here again, Davidoff yesterday felt just the opposite) while the Braves have 'taken care of' their bullpen with Wagner & Saito - two older guys coming off injuries/surgeries that, it seems to me, solve a problem that wasn't really a Brave weakness. Mainly it just looks to be another - in what seems to be a lengthening list - column where Madden starts with his conclusion and then goes about hammering a few conveniently round facts into some available square holes.

"Madden's a jerk and that's an obnoxious remark" Ditto. It's not like they don't go for a big FA/trade target virtually every year. Argue if you want that it's not always the smartest move but, unless there's been some sort of complete reversal of strategy this winter (which BM offers no hint of), there's a lengthy track record here that defies whatever Madden's selling: Glavine, Pedro, Beltran, Delgado, Wagner, Santana, Rodriguez. fwiw, Newsday's Ken Davidoff said on the radio yesterday that he expects the Mets to wind up with one of the Lackey - Holliday - Bay trio, meaning that both optimists & pessimists can latch onto the pundit of their choice.

paying burrell less than castillo overall and freeing up 2nd base for Hudson, who i gues will come waaaaaaaay cheaper than any of the outfielders the mets dont want to spring for I don't care if Burrell costs less overall than Castillo - especially since it's 50% more for this year alone - because he would add little to this team, plus it just perpetuates the bad contracts for worse cycle that's best broken in other ways. I'd rather they either hang on to Castillo (2009 was a lot closer to his career norm than was 2008) or deal him for something more useful while eating part of the money. I also don't buy into the idea that because they're not going to get a real outfielder anyway it's best just take on a shitty one if it gets them a partial upgrade at 2B - only to run into the same dilemma a year from now.

Every GM has an awful trade (or three ... or ten if he's been around long enough) hanging around a back closet somewhere. Omar's Colon deal was particularly bad but it was also under particularly odd circumstances. He was specifically told not to think about the future for his (MLB's) team.

Me don't likey. I neither want Burrell nor am all that hot about getting rid of Castillo. Burrell is a one-dimensional DH on the down-side who's a clear salary dump situation at this point ($9 mil) Bradley is an angry malcontent who's owed even more money and for more time ($9 + $12) Castillo, though limited, plays a middle IF position and is still useful w/the bat and only somewhat overpaid (2 x $6) I don't get what's in it for us.