It's official. Cliff Lee is coming to the Mariners in exchange for Phillipe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, and JC Ramirez. Interestingly, the Halladay deal is yet to officially be announced. Small roll of the dice by the Phillies (seems to indicate to me that the rumored failed physical might be holding things up a little). That also puts to rest any other pieces coming to the Mariners.
Not that anyone could ask for anything else. Cliff Lee is a gift that will keep on giving.
The more I've thought about the deal, Jack Zduriencik is Santa Claus. This is the perfect gift to all Mariners fans. Who would be better to get?
John Lackey? No way. He's not as good as Cliff Lee, and costs about $8 million more per year.
Jason Bay? Not a chance. He's also more expensive, and his best attribute (power) is likely to decay in the near future, and will be swallowed up by Safeco's spacious left field.
Matt Holliday? Maybe...but he would be so expensive, and he struggled in his short stint in the AL. I'm willing to gamble that it was a bit of an aberration, but why gamble when you can get someone who won the AL Cy Young only two years ago, and far from struggled last year?
Merry Christmas to all, and have a good night.
However, while all of us have visions of Cy Youngs in our heads, Santa Claus will be hard at work. There are 12 days to Christmas, after all.
I'm going to put this out there right now. Adrian Gonzalez rumors to the Red Sox are heating up. However, Larry Stone tweeted that the M's "won't let him go without a fight." A couple weeks ago, Shannon Drayer wrote a blog post about how the M's and Padres match up. The centerpieces to a potential Adrian Gonzalez deal? Brandon Morrow and Jose Lopez. They are still around. So are Michael Saunders and Carlos Triunfel.
How would Adrian Gonzalez look batting behind Ichiro and Chone Figgins? That's a "what if" that would keep me up all night if I weren't already up psyched out of my mind for Cliff Lee.
Maybe he is the one guy that would be a better gift than Lee. I want to have that debate over which player is a better acquisition for the M's. That would be a nice "problem" to have.
Santa Claus has come to town.
Would we worry about Gonzalez's transition to the AL, too? And would we look at him at DH, 1st or both?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I could call this the biggest trade in M's history, but possibly the best (Buhner and Johnson are up there). I'd say the bigger trades have been the bad ones - Slocumb, Bedard).
Lastly...just...what if...we did sign Bedard again. How'd that be?
Personally, I'm not too worried about Gonzalez's transition to the AL. It would be more difficult pitching, but he's put up big numbers in San Diego despite playing in an even more pitcher-friendly park than Safeco, and an even worse lineup than Seattle's. I think an improved lineup and more favorable ballpark would counteract the league switch, lowering the impact.
ReplyDeleteI can't really argue with the other trades you threw out there. All of those deals had huge impacts (positive or negative). I'd still say the Lee deal is the biggest in team history because his current stature in the league is higher than any of those players acquired in trades at the time we got them.
I'm in favor of re-signing Bedard, but probably at terms too low for him to consider. For all his problems, he was productive when he took the mound. Those times were just too short, and too few and far between.