And… that’s it
The trade deadline has come and gone, and it looks like the only move the M’s made was the high quality Rhodes-for-Hernandez swap this morning. They didn’t budge on their ridiculous demands for Jarrod Washburn, so he’s still here, and no one was willing to offer a package that could compete with the draft picks they’ll get for letting Ibanez walk at years end.
Pelekoudas gets an A for the Rhodes trade – he did quite well. He gets an incomplete for the Washburn and Ibanez situations, as both are still somewhat unresolved. The Mariners need to keep trying to move Washburn, putting him on waivers tomorrow and lowering their demands, now that the Yankees called their bluff. If they can dump him before end of August, not dealing him today won’t matter. If they keep him for the rest of the season and risk getting stuck with him, he gets an F for not taking advantage of dumping Wash when he could.
Overall, we have to be happy with the Rhodes trade, fine with them not trading Ibanez in lieu of getting the picks instead, and rooting like crazy for them to dump Washburn in the next 30 days.
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Totally ok with the M’s not dealing Ibanez. The post about his value by way of draft picks was very insightful and I’m glad we didn’t deal him. I think Washburn is still likely to be dealt, I just can’t believe the absurd demands we made for him.
I do have to applaud Pelekoudas for turning Rhodes, a castoff before the season began, for a potential major league arm. Nice work.
Remember when Rich Amaral made his major league debut and got three hits? And then spent the rest of his career being Rich Amaral?
Hopefully Pelekoudas can be the FO version, get us three good hits in his debut, and we can replace him before he spends the rest of his career being Lee Pelekoudas.
Some thoughts/comments:
* I have a feeling that the Hernandez acquisition may end up like the Yorman Bazardo acquisition a few years back — seemed like a good prospect acquired for an aging veteran but never really panned out. I hope I’m wrong (not that it would be a big loss, anyway).
* I do worry about Ibanez either (a) signing an extension or (b) accepting arbitration. In either case, we would have been much better off taking whatever the Jays were offering.
* Does anyone know what the alleged two-for-one deal was from the Jays? (My guess, McDonald and Overbay.)
* I was hoping Betancourt would be moved to LA, but I never really heard any rumors surface in that regard. Too bad — the M’s really need to get a new SS.
Anyone have any idea who the rumored players were from Toronto for Ibanez?
Jason Stark reported that it was going to be a “2 for 1 deal with the Mariners getting major league players from Toronto.” Would be very curious, if that was true, to know who the supposed players were.
From Jayson Stark:
“Looks as if Raul Ibanez is staying in Seattle. Just when it appeared that the Blue Jays and Mariners were close to a trade for the Seattle outfielder, the Mariners apparently had second thoughts. According to an official of one team that spoke with those clubs Thursday, this would have been a 2-for-1 deal involving all major league players.”
I would be VERY curious to know what major league players would have been coming from Toronto. Anyone have any rumors?
Hey Dave,
Quick question for you. What would your reaction be if Raul accepts the arbitration we have to offer him in order to receive the draft picks?
I’d be interested to hear who those two ML players were who the Mariners turned down for Ibanez.
And we still have to hope Raul rejects arbitration.
I will come down off the ledge for now about Washburn thanks to this post…but I am disappointed he’s not already a Pinstriped Weasel about to get repeatedly booed off the mound in NY. I will probably never understand how getting him completely off the books for ‘09 wasn’t enough to get us to pull the trigger.
I’d be interested to hear who those two ML players were who the Mariners turned down for Ibanez.
And we still have to hope Raul rejects arbitration.
Overbay makes 7 mil next year and in 2010..but I like him…good OBP guy and hits for a good average, left handed and 31 years old so he is not over the hill and would be a good stop gap option at 1B for a couple years. McDonald would have been a good defensive upgrade at SS but he can’t hit.
The Washburn deal got me really excited. Not because I wanted anything from the Yankees but I wanted to openly root against Washburn.
Seems we missed the turn off for “The Bus”.
I’ve read that one player might’ve been Lind.
what was Drayer’s line, something like Lee would rather make no trade, than a bad trade…
Manny to Chavez Ravine
Boston sends Manny to the Dodgers in a three-way trade with the Pirates. Boston gets Bay, Pirates get a load of prospects.
So now that the Dodgers have 2.48 billion outfielders…
Long as those 2 major leaguers from Toronto didn’t include Adam Lind, and they likely didn’t, then I’m okay with them keeping Ibanez.
If one of the players was Lind, the Mariners are dumber than the reputation that precedes them.
well at least now Andy LaRoche and Adam LaRoche can stike out constantly together
But it might have been Marco Scutaro and Brian Tallet, and that would have been kind of pointless.
it’s completely evident that pelekoudos was playing it safe for the next gm..
Eh I’d rather have Travis Snider anyway
If it was John McDonald being one of those Toronto players, I’d have second thoughts, too. He’s not even as good as Yuni defensively (a very cursory look at Baseball-Reference, I’ll admit).
He has more MLB years than I thought…I think he was the one who flinched when A-Rod shouted “I got it!” last year running from 2B to 3B, and a few people said McDonald hadn’t been with the club all that long. I thought he was a rookie from what people were saying last year.
Andy LaRoche >>>>> Adam LaRoche.
David Purcey and Brandon League were names also thrown around in the Ibanez deal. That’s not a horrible package for Raul, but I guess I can’t blame Lee for saying no.
Lind by himself should have been enough to pull the trigger.
I’m more depressed about the situation, I guess. I look at it as another half-season wasted, waiting for better rewards that may never come.
If a team ever needed to get rid of deadwood it was this one.
The Rhodes move was good in it’s very small context. The best this team can do is move a single middle reliever? Really? Then they suck at GMing.
Whatever, Mariners. Keep putting Raul in left and Vidro at DH. Waste more time. No hurry, right?
Felix is going to have the same career arc as Jason Taylor.
Good thing we moved Wash – just came across a great 2005 article.
SEATTLE–Upon inking a four year, $37 million contract with the Seattle Mariners, pitcher Jarrod Washburn immediately called his wife, Kristin, to tell her the news. Two hours later, he was finally able to convince her that he was not joking and that he actually received that amount from the Mariners.
“No, seriously, honey. I’m not kidding. I got 37 mil,” Washburn told his wife after he signed the contract. “I’m serious! Yes, 37. Three-Seven. Over four years. Uh huh. Yes. I was 8-8 last year. I know, it’s fucked up. You should’ve seen me trying to keep a straight face in that room. I was like ’37 million. Hmmm…let me weight the pros and cons.’ Then I went into some stupid bullshit about how Seattle is a great place to raise a family and I signed the thing before they could change their minds. Jackpot!”
Over at ESPN, Peter Gammons called the Mariners “the big losers at the trade deadline, saying, “The Rangers and A’s have both picked up a ton of good young talent in the last year. I don’t think Seattle realizes just how far behind the rest of the division they really are. It could be a long four or five years in Seattle.”
I’m more depressed about the situation, I guess. I look at it as another half-season wasted, waiting for better rewards that may never come.
That’s understandable. On the other hand, the M’s at the trade deadline did not make an unspeakably stupid move. For this organization, that’s a major step forward.
FWIW, Baker on the purported Jays deal
and we should care because why?
If Washburn is on the Mariners roster next year, failing to dump him was an unspeakably stupid move.
Peter Gammons should concern himself more with what’s happening with the Red Sox (20 years ago and more he started out his career with the Boston Globe doing a gossip, er, baseball report page in that paper. It was before the Internet got facilitated by Windows browsers and caught on with the general public).
The only hope is that this inactivity was a strategy to let the next GM blow things up…
Given that the M’s apparently were seriously shopping Raul, I don’t see them offering him an extension.
Given that Raul was getting serious interest from other teams, I don’t see him accepting arbitration. Stick with the M’s, or accept more money to go somewhere with almost certainly a better chance at the postseason in ‘09? Hmmm, how to choose? Unless Raul is seriously drinking the “quality of life” kool-aid or addicted to Ichirolls or something, the M’s are getting the draft picks.
(And yes, it’s possible the off-season market for Raul’s services will be much weaker than it was a few hours ago, but he can’t discover that for sure without first putting himself on the market by declining arbitration)
Two excellent points. Wackier things have happened, but logically, he walks.
Wow, bashing Gammons…too bad he’s right! I’d say the likelihood is pretty darn high we don’t sniff the playoffs in the next 4-5 years, largely because the rest of the division is getting better as we (at best) tread water. Worst franchise to root for in the game right now. We have the money, just not the brains.
Just because they were shopping him in no way implies that they wouldn’t want to sign him as a free agent. I could easily see them trading him and then resigning him to DH during the offseason.
And Raul does seem like the type of guy who just might be interested in staying in Seattle where he started his career and is beloved by the fan base.
I hope not, but I do worry about it.
Karen @30 — not quite. He started at the Globe as a baseball beat writer FORTY years ago. He hasn’t worked for the paper for 20 years.
John Macdonald is one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball. Yuni is not.
I don’t think it’s been 20 years — for a long time he was still writing a nominally-Sox-oriented column in the Globe that was not carried online at all (probably as part of some complicated Gammons-Globe-ESPN contractual issue) while writing for ESPN.
the Rangers & A’s were trading chips that could net them ‘good young talent’
@23
Raul’s worth potentially more by letting him walk compared to the offers we received. Vidro needs to be dumped, but if you’re implying that we should have traded him, I’d love to know what team needs a designated out.
It’s not like the 2008 Mariners are loaded with quality pieces that other teams cannot wait to get ahold of.
Why on earth would you bash one of the finest sports journalists we’ve seen in the last half century? Especially when he was dead-on correct about what he said? The M’s had a great chance to kick-start our rebuilding process on a few fronts and besides making one minor move for a guy that MAY wind up being a DECENT pitcher, completely and utterly flopped?
I’m nervous at best about not trading Raul, to be honest… despite what Dave said last week, I think he’d accept arbitration if he was offered it, just so he could stay in Seattle, where he’s said on many occasions that he loves playing.
Anywho, wish me luck gang… I’m off to Redmond to interview for a job at Microsoft… traffic’s gonna be FUN…
I hope that the Mariners learned from the Sexson debacle from last year’s trade deadline. They ended up keeping him (for whatever reason) and had a high paid, cranky, first baseman they had to unload this year. Now this time there was an offer for Washburn and they are playing with fire that he may forget how to throw his changeup before they unload him and his salary.
That was back when Gammons actually took the time to write instead of just step in front of a camera and spout off whatever nonsense he had heard in the past 15 minutes.
He used to be quite good, now I’d love to see an analysis of trade rumors proposed by Gammons vs. their actual completion. He’s probably batting way below the Mendoza line
Well, in this case, we should care because the Mariners were “the big losers at the trade deadline.”
Or maybe not, I don’t know. But it sure feels like just another kick in the ball bag from my seat.
Any team that still starts Vidro is failing miserably any time they are treading water.
Boo. Hiss. All that.
Yes, I know I haven’t listened to anything Gammons has said in years, because he went way downhill when he tried to cover all the Major Leagues and it is just way too much for him so he started making up rumors.
We can be sad about lost opportunities, such as not moving Washburn’s salary, but we can take solice in the fact that Lee didn’t trade away Beltre or one of our other good players for random flotsam.
Even if they traded for Jesus I still wouldn’t buy anymore tickets this year to go to Safeco and watch them. Now we’re stuck with the same crap we had yesterday, great. We suck.
Peter Gammons is a bad journalist for two reasons:
1. He’s often wrong. (I remember 2-3 years ago when Gammons was morally certain Randy Johnson was going to be traded at the deadline — something that could be done only with Johnson’s consent. Not only was he wrong, but even The Big Unit stepped up and essentially said: “Who is Gammons and where is he getting this BS? He’s never spoken to me or my agent.”
2. He works almost exclusively from anonymous sourcing. That only works if you’re credible, and you’re only credible if you get the facts right far more often than Gammons does.
I’m sure he has an enviable list of sources. I’m also sure he has terrible judgment about how to use them Sounding authoritative is a poor substitute for actually BEING authoritative.
“Potentially.” I’ve heard that a lot from this team. Funny how it never seems to work out that way.
I was implying nothing of the kind. I was implying that the people in charge of this team are so terrified of change that they still use Vidro as DH. And they are paralyzed at yet another trading deadline. Whee.
Of course they aren’t, that’s not the point.
But why, if they are so unattractive to other teams, then why are the MARINERS still playing/paying them?
Is it so bad to keep Washburn through the season? Aside from occupying a rotation spot and not allowing one of the youngsters to get a longer look at it, it shouldn’t be so difficult to move him in the winter. There are always teams set to contend with rotation questions and spare payroll, and we’d be able to get something in return that doesn’t have to pass through waivers. Then again, His value may be at its peak right now… In any case, I don’t see how Pelekoudas won’t be able to get the same return for him this winter.
Peter Grammons told MLBTR that that is his one of his superior sources…yeah, I’m not joking.
On a more Mariners oriented note…can we break-up with Vidro’s slim, fast, power hitting ass now.
Jim’s right; Gammons has tons of connections, but I honestly think teams use him now to just float wild things out there and see what the reaction is.
He seems to not recognize himself that some of his sources are better than others, so it all gets presented as if it were gospel and makes him look bad when it doesn’t turn out to be true (which honestly is the majority of the time these days).
Peter Gammons is a bad journalist for two reasons:
1. He’s often wrong. (I remember 2-3 years ago when Gammons was morally certain Randy Johnson was going to be traded at the deadline — something that could be done only with Johnson’s consent. Not only was he wrong, but even The Big Unit stepped up and essentially said: “Who is Gammons and where is he getting this BS? He’s never spoken to me or my agent.”
2. He works almost exclusively from anonymous sourcing. That only works if you’re credible, and you’re only credible if you get the facts right far more often than Gammons does.
Being “wrong” about trade rumors does not make someone a bad journalist. If that were the case, there would be no such thing as a good baseball journalist.
Gammons gets told a lot of information, probably as much as anyone else in the business. When he is told that something can or will happen, it is his job to report it. He does that and he does it very well.
His job isn’t to be “right”, it’s to pass along the information he gets from being in the upper echelon of sporting journalists. Hating on Gammons is stupid energy.
Are we seriously arguing about Gammons journalism? He is old and often senile, and he’s not a good journalist, most of the journalist working for ESPN are not good journalist.
Lets stay on topic if we can (not my job to moderate, but still)
Way to insert your Gammons opinion into the “come on guys, stay on topic” post.
Aside from occupying a rotation spot and not allowing one of the youngsters to get a longer look at it, it shouldn’t be so difficult to move him in the winter.
Not really, because you can sign as free agents or acquire players in trade lots of players comparable to Washburn.
Then again, His value may be at its peak right now…
… and that’s the thing.
I don’t see how Pelekoudas won’t be able to get the same return for him this winter.
If Pelekoudas is still the GM this winter… well, abandon hope. Let’s face it, he’s been part of the Mariner Insult Your Intelligence and Stay Stuck in Twentieth Century Baseball Thinking clique for his career as a Mariner, and I imagine he’s going to be NO check on the bad urges of Lincoln/Armstrong and the rest of the front office.
If Pelekoudas is the GM, I’d suspect Washburn stays on the roster, the roster housecleaning is generally postponed except for Bedard (who, unlike the other veterans, actually won’t hurt the team by playing injured), and the team makes some dumb FA acquisitions while making the usual bleating noises about competing…
Hello Mark Teixiera!
and Baker expands on the talks with the Jays
When he is told that something can or will happen, it is his job to report it.
No it’s not, at least not if he considers himself a journalist. Journalists get told all sorts of shit by all sorts of people with all sorts of agendas, much of which isn’t true. A journalist’s job is to consider the source, check the facts, get a confirmation from a second source, and generally do everything in his/her power to avoid getting spun. Journalists who do their jobs only publish things they can verify.
Of course you could say that Gammon’s job is to publish every bit of random crap he hears. Which is fine, but then let’s call him “Peter Gammons, professional source of random crap.” And ask ourselves why anyone pays him any attention.
He could be the worst journalist on Earth but it doesn’t make a true statement false. The 2008 M’s are losers.
Let me clarify.
joser, you’re totally right that if a journalist reports everything he hears, he’s not being responsible. As a Journalism major, believe me, I know — we got killed in class if we couldn’t verify sources. That’s not my point.
My point is that Gammons has established himself as reputable baseball journalist, regardless of how we think of him personally. As such, I have faith in the process he goes through to get his information.
ESPN is the mecca of sports journalism careers right now and they aren’t going to employ, much less focus on, journalists who aren’t reputable and don’t have good sources. Maybe I just have a little more faith in the system than the people that hate on Gammons.
I just don’t get the point of bashing him.
Don’t confuse journalists with sportswriters.
Also, Gammons hasn’t been the same since his stroke.
Baker’s comments on how Toronto operates ring true to me. Toronto has the largest media market of any team in baseball, being basically all of Canada, and the press works differently there than here. If perception still matters more than reality to the Blue Jays, that’s fine, though what a waste of J.P. Ricciardi’s talent to operate that way.
As a Yankee fan, I’m so glad that Washburn was NOT traded to the Yankees.
Seattle is dealing from a position of great weakness but acted otherwise. They’re on track to be the 1st team to loss 100 games with a $100 million plus payroll.
But, you already know this.
The Mariners have already had to suck it up & eat the rest of Sexson’s ludicrous contract. What happens now that they have stubbornly decided to hang on to Washburn? What happens if he gets seriously injured? What happens to his value then?
Like that never happens to a pitcher…
That’ll be another $14 million that won’t be available for the Mariner farm system, scouting, & player development.
$14 million is about how much my Yankees spent this year in signing drafted players from the 2008 amateur draft, international free agents, & bonuses paid to over-slotted premium talent.
As for playing a game of chicken with the Yankees, the Mariners seriously miscalculated & Yankees GM Brian Cashman did not flinch on Seattle’s crazy demands. Read the following article from below from last year & find out why…
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2007/03/27/cashman-were-not-going-to-be-anybodys-sugar-daddy-anymore/
The Yankees realized a long time ago that no one is going to help them. In turn, they have made it abundantly clear that they will no longer be the white knight riding in to relieve other teams of their bad contracts & expensive mistakes. Mistakes such as Seattle’s.
The Yankees will no longer be ANYONE’S Sugar-Daddy.
The 2008 Mariners… 100 losses for +100 million.
Amen.
I don’t read Gammons, so I can’t speak to his competence.
I would wager that however low Gammons’ competence level may be, the Mariners’ is lower.
great gonzalez, they’ve been losers all year. THAT’S not news. It’s the implication that just because the Mariners chose to not do business with with the Mighty AL East, they’re even worse losers. Gammons isn’t exactly a paragon of neutrality/objectivity.
Yeah, I was just taking the opportunity to be snarky.
[no]
Gammons didn’t need anonymous sources (or credited sources) to know that the Rangers and A’s have picked up a ton of talent in the last year. Texas has picked up Josh Hamilton, who looks to be a perennial All-Star, Max Ramirez, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Chris Davis, etc. Oakland has picked up that bundle of talent for Harden and Blanton (plus others).
What have the Mariners done of late? They made a good deal for Rhodes and got a potentially good arm, but what of the lost opportunities for draft picks (not offering Jose Guillen arbitration when they knew he wouldn’t accept) and giving up draft picks for signing Ibanez before the arbitration deadline (even though the Royals made it clear they wouldn’t offer him arbitration) and for signing Greg F Colbrunn – the D=Backs picked Conor Jackson with that draft pick…
Gammons was just saying something that should be clear to anyone who’s followed this site for a decent length – not only are the Mariners misguided, but all three teams in their division are better equipped for the future, not just with young talent, but with competent, forward thinking management.
[no, and you're lucky I'm not deleting your entire post; personal attacks aren't going to be tolerated]
The Guillen thing didn’t even need forward thinking; it was straight out being efficient. The Ms flunked at that.
I’m just hoping we get better at that, and HowChuck, those asshats, stop interfering with basic GM decisions.
I can’t find the Gammons article in question, so I can’t figure out where the Al East implication comes from, but the Mariners aren’t in the AL east, so what should that have to do with anything?
If the rumored trades had been with AL Central teams, would that make everything ok?
How does any of that make what Gammons said not true?
@ #46 GoFelix
You realize that there was absolutely NOTHING they were going to do at this trade deadline was going to improve the team for this season, right?. Every trade they had considered was about trading existing major league players for either nothing (salary dumps), or prospects for the future.
If we had given up Ibanez, and/or Beltre, and/or/even Washburn, it wouldn’t have made watching this years team any more entertaining (at least from a win/loss persepctive).
The Angels are the best team in the division and still have guys like Brandon Wood, Nick Adenhart, Hank Conger, and Kendry Morales in the minors.
The A’s have pitchers Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson, Henry Rodriguez, Vin Mazzaro, Gio Gonzalez and James Simmons with hitters Adrian Cardenas and Chris Carter close to the majors.
The Rangers have their young talent already in the majors along with elite guys Taylor Teagarden, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Ian Gac, and Engel Beltre a few years away.
The M’s have maybe Greg Halman, Michael Saunders and lesser guys like Juam Ramirez, Adam Moore, and Rich Dorman close to the majors. Impact players like Triunfel and Aumont, and whoever we get in the draft are far, far away.
I’ll agree with Gammons on his bleak 4-5 years for the M’s. And it could be a bleak 4-indefinite if a poor GM is hired.
On the bright side, the M’s have the resources to turn this team around quickly if organization philosophy changes and the right minds are brought in. Those are a couple huge “ifs” right there.
How could you know that? Maybe they pick up a hitter adequate enough to force them to give Vidro the boot? Or a good-glove left fielder that does the same thing, moving Raul to DH?
Regardless, as a long term fan I am far more entertained by watching a bad team that is playing the future than I am watching a bad team that is playing the past.
I certainly don’t care if they win again this year. If I had to choose, I’d prefer they didn’t.
I’d drive down to Anaheim to see them play the young guys/new guys… but I’m not paying to see Vidro/Bloomquist/etc.
That would be Willie “with the best OBP on the team” Bloomqust, right?
Absolutely, Bremerton “stats guru” guy.
Nice comeback.
What? No. Cut it out.
Since we’re talking trades (and Bloomquist) here, Bloomquist has indicated his intention to test the free market waters himself at the end of this year, believing his skill set is better suited to the National League and because he feels he hasn’t gotten a fair shake at a starting job with the Mariners. Does he have any trade value to an NL contender that may be looking for a Mark McLemore kind of player for the stretch run? Would any team claim him on waivers if the M’s try to trade him now? I don’t expect that he would net much of a return, but isn’t any return greater than if he signs as a free agent at the end of the season somewhere else? And if the theory is you’re supposed to sell high, I can’t imagine it gets any higher for Bloomquist than right now.
Hm… anyone know enough about the free agent rankings to guess whether Bloomquist would classify as a Type B? I think a middling pick that might work out is better than a middling pick that hasn’t worked out, which is what I’d imagine the M’s would get in trade for Bloomquist.
I’m pretty convinced that past Mariner idiocy caused every potential trade partner to low-ball the Mariners on their trade offers.
I mean, c’mon, this is still the same front office who made the Bedard trade, signed Richie Sexson, etc. etc. Until we have a new GM nobody is going to offer us value for value.
Pelekoudas was lucky to get Hernandez from the Marlins. Even if we had shipped off Washburn and Ibanez for some prospects, I wouldn’t be satisfied. That kind of relief will only come when a new GM shows me something in the way of logical long term organizational thinking.
it could be– but it has little to do with today’s deals or non-deals.
Stark about the M’s on ESPN.com here. Scroll to the bottom. Not too kind words.
I agree with Stark. This was somewhat of a lost opportunity, although we will certainly see players moved in the coming months (probably after the season).
I hope they get a real GM in there asap (someone from the outside) to initiate the rebuilding process. Lee doesn’t appear to have the skills or experience to do the job.
I don’t agree with Stark at all really. Ibanez had a high cost because we expect to get two draft picks for him by letting him walk. As for Washburn if the only thing we want to do is cut his salary off the book for next season the team has an entire month to still trade him.
Beltre is undervalued and I don’t know what other conversations were in place but we didn’t hear anything about anyone wanting the other players on the team. The reality is the majority of our dead weight is nothing anybody wants.
I’m curious what the NY fans are going to think about the lack of a Washburn deal if they get swept by the Angels…
Yeah, all this doom and gloom is uncalled for. We were not the losers of the deadline. That would be the dodgers. But on top of that, Washburn will still be moved. And, hopefully we get two draft picks for Ibanez. The only bad thing is, this doesn’t open up a spot for Wlad unless they plan on DH Raul some.
#24 Bratman. Ha ha ha ha!!! Thanks for the link, that really put a smile on my face! As for Washburn, I’ve read some posts on here about ’sunken costs’, is $10 million next year too much for what he gives? With the state of pitching in the majors the last few years and contracts for some of these pitchers, I’m thinking no… but if somebody explains why I’m wrong I’d be happy to hear it, I’d rather get educated than assume anything.