Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports brings us some interesting tidbits in this week's installment of Full Count..
- The Mets will not sign Jose Reyes to a monster contract similar to the one given to Carl Crawford (seven-years, $142MM). However, despite the Mets' financial troubles, keeping Reyes is not out of the question if he's willing to accept a shorter deal in the vicinity of three-years, $45-50MM. Reyes, if healthy, will get more than that on the open market but it's still not a sure thing that the club will deal him. They'll have to consider their position in the standings, how it would impact attendance, and what the return in a trade would be versus the high draft picks they would get if Reyes left via free agency.
- The Mets won't have to worry about Francisco Rodriguez finishing 55 games if they deal him to a club that would use him as a set-up man as opposed to a closer. The Rangers, for example, have Neftali Feliz (if healthy) to finish games. K-Rod can block deals to as many as ten clubs as part of his deal but the Mets, to facilitate this deal, would gladly pick up the $3.5MM buyout to get rid of him.
- Nationals manager Jim Riggleman is one of a handful of managers whose future is uncertain beyond this season. The club has yet to pick up his option for '12 even though most in the game say that the Nats are on the right track. Riggleman's agent told Rosenthal that he is hopeful that the club will either exercise the option or sign him to a multi-year deal by Father's Day.
- The Orioles collected a number of veterans on one-year deals thinking that, at the very least, they'd have trade chips at the deadline. General Manager Andy MacPhail & Co. may need to think again as Derrek Lee and Vladimir Guerrero have done very little at the plate and J.J. Hardy has missed most of the year with an oblique injury. All of this could change, but Rosenthal wonders if manager Buck Showalter and owner Peter Angelos would even approve of a sell-off.
LUWahooNatFan
Riggleman is a horrible manager..
frankt
Why would Reyes accept a 3 year deal. Unless he really wants to be here he will. If that’s the case why dont they offer him that now and see how it plays out.
muskyfish
VERY good point. The only leverage you have is that Reyes might take the money due to the risk of being injured again and severely limiting his negotiating power. The Mets NEED him… not want… NEED him. So why not offer it up now, every month that goes by is one more month where Jose feels more confident about the free-agent market.
$4555515
the nats are on the right track and yet they misdiganosed zimmermans injury for 3 weeks and now its reported he’s out atleast six weeks cause a specialist says it more severe than they thought and will require surgery…
mmm hmm ya
i’d like to know how you manage to mistake a strainded abdominal musle for a torn abdominal muscle
susasskuash
Pretty sure the Nats being on the right track has a lot more to do with improving the quality of talent in their farm system, developing major league players like Jordan Zimmermann and Danny Espinosa, acquiring better players through trade and free agency like Jason Werth and Wilson Ramos, and winning more games as evidenced by 10 more wins in 2010 than 2009 and currently hovering around .500 this year. Ihe comment did not say the organization was perfect, just that they are improving. They may still need to improve their medical staff and procedures, but that is a small ancillary concern for the organization who needed a complete overhaul as recent as 3 years ago and is currently taking large and effective steps to addressing their deep organizational issues.
Also, medically, a torn muscle is a difference in degree of the same injury as a strain. A bad strain will often feel exactly the same as a torn muscle. It’s not like the team diagnosed the wrong muscle or missed a disease, they under-estimated the severity of the injury. I wish they would have re-evaluated sooner than they did, but the torn muscle is not going to be something glaring or obviously different from a bad strain. It’s not a reason to overhaul the whole medical staff. See mdguidelines.com/abdominal-muscle-strain.
Camden P
How about a trade like this that includes Reyes signing a 5 year/$70 Million contract.
Twins get: SS Jose Reyes
Mets get: CF Aaron Hicks, SP Liam Hendriks, OF Angel Morales, and SP Kevin Slowey.
Twins will continue to say that they don’t have the ability to add payroll but with how successful Target Field is, has, and will be, they will be able to make moves like this.
CF- Span
SS- Reyes
C- Mauer
1B- Morneau
LF- D.Young
DH- Kubel
RF- Cuddyer
3B- Valencia
2B- Nishioka
I like that lineup a ton more now that Casilla wouldn’t be in it.
Ferrariman
reyes will get more than 5/70.
Camden P
Probably. I just made a quick estimate though. I think he will end up getting what Beltre got from the Rangers. Something like 5-6 years/$95 million.
Blue387
That sounds great for the Twins but who will be the shortstop on the Mets if Reyes goes? Willie Harris? Ching-Lung Hu can’t hit and Ruben Tejada and Wilmer Flores aren’t ready yet.
Camden P
Does it even matter? They aren’t really playing for anything this year anyway. I’d throw in Casilla/Tolbert/Plouffe for the Mets if they’re worried about having a SS after the Reyes deal.
not_brooks
A Rosenthal column isn’t complete without a little jab at the Orioles.
baseball1
aint it the truth haha
and Apparently he hasnt noticed the production Vlad has had over the past week?
woadude
Is that a ploy to say that maybe since they have Neftali Feliz, the Rangers would maybe send Michael Young to the Mets for K-Rod so they could go back on their contractual agreement they signed their name to? 17.5 Mets, deal with it, look at how much the Red Sox are paying Carl Crawford this season…
basemonkey
I know most Mets fans want to keep him at all costs, and the notion of really rebuilding in earnest goes against a Yankee crosstown rivals’ mindset, but the Mets need to deal him. There’s few moves any given rebuilding team can make, that would really add legitimately good young talent. This is one of them. Everything else is just window-dressing, and, moving parts around.
Don’t get me wrong. They have some nice young pieces right now, but not anything that you would say is a part of a future core of the next gen of young Mets stars. If Reyes could bring back, say, 3-5 strong pieces, you have to do it.