Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Take Your Meager Scraps

Ah, the winter meetings! When even the lowly Royals fan feels a glimmer of hope. This it the year that Doug Mientkiewicz will lead us to victory! Why it was only last year that Nats fans had the same feeling. Even if they didn't amount to anything, those rumors sure were fun.

This year, we're getting nuttin'. The only prospect is a TRADE FOR MANNY!1!! (Except we wouldn't be acquiring Manny, and we'd be losing the Chief -- not quite what you had in mind, huh?)

Banks of the Anacostia relays one that'd involve us shipping out Cordero and getting Noah Lowry (stats) back. Laughable on the surface, but Lowry isn't completely terrible -- a league average left-handed pitcher who's under team control for four more years. As the beginning of a deal, you could do worse.

There's another crazy-talk deal that'd involve us giving up Cordero AND Lopez. That seems like a non-starter. It's not that Lopez isn't tradeable, but Cordero is marketable on his own. Lopez as well. He shouldn't be a throw-in in a trade.

Rumors are fun, and you know that Jimbo's itching to pull off another one of those "Just Damn!" deals so his rose-cheeked moonface gets on TV once more.

  • Surprisingly, the Mets turned down an offer of Mike Hinckley for uber-prospect Lastings Milledge. Do you suppose that that offer was met with 1) Silence 2) Laughter 3) Anger 4) Silence followed by laughter, then anger when Omar realized that Jim was serious?

  • Ibid. The Nats head trainer quite the team for the most Washingtonian of reasons, family reasons. That it came a day after the Reds renewed their efforts to file a grievance over MajewskiTendi(o)nGate is a complete coincidence.

  • Thom Loverro rightly says that part of the "Customer Experience" that Kasten Krows about so much involves making a minimum effort on the team the actually puts on the field.

  • 3 Comments:

    • All of this obvious cheapness should not be a surprise to anyone who was willing to read the tea leaves last summer. I pointed out back then on several blogs that Nats' fans didn't need an owner who was unwilling to spend even one penny to bring the franchise to DC while the Malek Group spent millions. There is no question that the Lerner Kasten Group is going to run this franchise in a very frugal manner. Not only will they not sign free agents, but they will likely let young players with big potential leave when it is time to pay them big bucks. This type of operation has been going on in Pittsburgh and Kansas City for years and the excuse has always been that we are developing our farm system.

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/05/2006 11:06 AM  

    • Preach on!!11!!

      ntr tea leaves

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/05/2006 11:58 AM  

    • I won't argue with your point in re: spending money to bring baseball to DC. That's a valid point.

      However, I don't think you can paint a picture of the Lerner's ownership style based on this offseason. Is there one FA contract that has been signed so far that you would be happy with? I certainly wouldn't . . . they will be albatrosses around the necks of those franchises in a few years. IMHO, the Nats HAVE NO CHOICE but to wait out the initial FA frenzy and then pick and choose the best of the scraps using the one coin they can offer that the big boys can't: playing time. Some marginal FA pitcher is going to choose the guaranteed money and guaranteed 30+ starts over an NRI.

      Both Pittsburgh and Kansas City have made horrible personnel decisions for years (Kevin Young ring a bell, how about $11 million a year for Mike Sweeney?). They tried the mediocre FA route and it left them as losers. Give that cash to a 6' 3" 120lb Dominican shortstop with a chance to be Vlad Guerrero in 2012.

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/06/2006 4:08 PM  

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