Silva, Bradley, and Burrell
So via Jayson Stark, the latest in Milton Bradley rumors:
Certainly not to Seattle, and especially not for Carlos Silva.
What about Carlos Silva and… umm… Skillet caters the clubhouse food next time you’re on a road trip in Seattle? No?
So all signs continue to point, if they can ever figure out the money disparity, toward Bradley’s winding up in Tampa Bay, in what now figures to be a one-for-one trade for Pat Burrell. The Cubs would then do their best to spin Burrell elsewhere, to a destination still unknown.
I don’t see this. It sounds like a deal someone would pitch in fantasy baseball. “Okay, I know you don’t need another first baseman, but you can trade him to someone else…”
Let’s say you’re Tampa Bay. Sure, you might like to get rid of Burrell, but you’ve just seen the Cubs weren’t just unable to move Bradley but they couldn’t even get nibbles from more than a few teams who then decided it wasn’t worth it. Say what you will about Burrell, but he doesn’t come with the complete matched baggage set. I don’t remember the last time I saw a player valued so low as Bradley is right now. And with that, everyone knows the Cubs aren’t going to get less desperate. They’re not going to bring Bradley to spring training and try and spread the good news about how they’ve reached an understanding and Bradley’s healthy and re-dedicated, so anyone who needs an outfielder/DH should certainly not call them, that’s how excited they are.
Well, not with any sense of pride or credibility.
If you’re any team that might be considering trading a contract sink (like Silva!) for him, you’re probably demanding so much the Cubs would rather buy out the remaining years and be done with it. And good for you.
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Citing an ESPN reference is below you Derek.
It’s like the New York Times citing TMZ or the National Inquirer.
Just following the trend. MSNBC is citing Twitter.
Oh come on. ESPN has its problems but to put it at the level of tabloid journalism is ridiculous. Besides, it’s not like Jayson Stark is the only one reporting the Mariners having a lack of interest in Bradley. Is ESPN perfect? No, of course not. But the reputation they have amongst a large part of the population is simply bizarre.
As far as Bradley is concerned; yeah, it’s nuts. He’s certainly not all sunshine and sprinkles, but there are plenty of players with poorer attitudes and less value than Bradley that have jobs. I just don’t get it.
So is the report saying that potentially the Cubs could then flip Burrell to the M’s for Silva? I am sure the M’s would have to eat some money on that kind of swap but Burrell could be a nice righty platoon DH partner.
The original rumor was Bradley for Silva+. The Rays might not be too high on Burrell, but they’re way too smart to trade Burrell for Silva+anything reasonable.
No, I was saying if the Rays send Burrell to the Cubs for Bradley, and the Cubs got Burrell and want to flip Burrell…
Would the CUBS then flip Burrell potentially in a Silva deal?
Cubs don’t want Silva, nobody does. Its just a question of how big a bag of shit they have to take back for Bradley. Burrell was worth -2.7m for the Rays last year while pulling down 8m. That’s bad. Silva of course is worse, but actually I think Silva would have a better chance of bouncing back and being useful than Burrell would, at least in the NL. But obviously I think we would have to ship at least a serviceable bullpen arm to the Cubs with Silva. When the Cubs get more desperate.
As to whether the M’s would want Bradley is another story. It’s just a matter of whether they think he would continue his role of designated clubhouse cancer. Bradley would be great as a DH, and despite the fact that he is getting a lot more than DH money shouldn’t matter so much because its money we would have been paying Silva, so it’s worth a lot less than money we don’t already have committed.
Hmmm…sounds a little like one of those ambulance-chasing legal firms…as in, “Friends, if you’ve been injured by a crazed bat-wielding teammate or hit by a flying burger patty gone awry, call the law offices of Silva, Bradley and Burrell today and we’ll fight for your settlement!” 🙂
Is Milton Bradley at a Barry Bonds level of radioactivity or did the Cubs going 83-78 after finishing 97-64 the year before have anything to do with it?
TMZ gets thngs right a lot of the time. They broke the Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods car accident stories. And they were right.
The potential “flip” of Burrell also seems like an NBA type trade. If this happens maybe it would start a new trend?
Not that it ever would, no team in their right mind would ever want Silva. His contract plus the increased catering costs, that’s half a small market team’s payroll.
Barry Bonds was never the attitude problem and clubhouse cancer that Bradley has been at times in his career. While Bonds will never win a Mr. Congeniality, award that is not why he couldn’t find a team to sign him. He is under indictment by a Federal grand jury for perjury, that is enough to scare everybody off. But he didn’t do anything that Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmiero and lots of other did: take steroids and then lie about it.
This, especially the part about the “increased catering costs,” nearly had me spitting a mouthful of beer at my monitor in a fit of convulsive laughter! 🙂
I am an A’s fan and had season tickets from 2003-2007. Milton Bradley was my favorite non-pitcher on the A’s.
The A’s teams were always far too laid back and Milton is someone who just had a huge competitive fire.
It is really frustrating and sad to see him struggle everywhere he goes and I would encourage you to try and find a longer form interview with him. He really comes across as thoughtful and is much more soft spoken than you would ever imagine.
But… the one consistent factor in all of his failed relationships is… himself but I don’t see him as a Jose Guillen-level cancer. He just seems a guy who is desperate to succeed and when he struggles he lashes out.
And by now… he has a target on his back and people are never going to stop poking him with a stick and hope they can get him to blow his stack.
I thought Oakland would be a nice relaxed place for him to shine and that didn’t work out but maybe he can become Ken Griffey’s tag team tickle partner in Seattle.
Jose Guillen seemed fine the year he played here and I think it was Shannon Drayer who raved about him.
Moving Silva seems to be all about moving payroll.
He is owed $12.75 M in 2010 and 2011, per Cot’s.
A Silva trade now that results in marginally more talent but a similar club payout over the 2-year period, may not be the Ms best deal.
As crazy as it sounds, maybe the Mariners play Silva in enough select situations in 2010 so our world-class defense makes him look good.
Then we trade him for talent, salary dump or some cost/benefit hybrid later.
Silvia’s future isn’t going to manifest just yet. We should be patient and focus on the team’s priorities, Felix and directing resources to the 2011 FA class.
Apologies for mispelling Silva’s name.
They tried that last year.
So you’ve already given up on 2010?
Silva officially threw 30 innings last year. He sucked. But if we want to sell him as someone with value, he has go out there at some point. I say try it because our D is the best.
Never. By priorities I meant filling this season’s obvious needs like 1B and SP. By Felix I meant extending him. And by 2011 FA class I meant payroll could be better spent there than this year, if FA thinks so.
Only someone who doesn’t know this team would ‘give up on 2010.’ To be sure, I am not in that camp.
You can definitely count me in that club… I want nothing to do with the Cubs trading Bradley and getting a horrible contract in return. I would much, much rather they just cut him. They’re going to have to eat the $20 million no matter what. So, they can either just eat it outright or eat part or most of it and acquire a negative value player on top of that… sounds worse to me, which is why I expect the Cubs to eventually do just that. Vernon Wells, Carlos Silva, Pat Burrell, Luis Castillo… no thank you. Just cut him and be done with it.
Couple other things.
(1) The group-think hate on Carlos Silva is getting crazy. Yes, he is overpaid. Yes, he is overweight. Yes, his contract is an albatross. But a lot of you are acting like he was never any good and/or has zero chance of returning to what he was. He put up a WAR over 3 in 2004, 2005, and 2007. Since becoming a SP in 2004, he has 11.2 WAR, which makes him just below league average in a 6-year span.
I don’t like him and I don’t like his contract, but he certainly has a non-zero chance of returning to form as an overpaid, strike-throwing, OK groundballer. I doubt everyone in baseball has so given up on Silva that no one would take him under any circumstances, which seems to be what 1/2 of the posters believe.
Just because he was completely worthless last year doesn’t make him worth less than a generic AAAA arm in a revenue-neutral transaction. AAAA arms can’t put up 3 WAR seasons, which Silva has. AAAA arms will never be good enough to throw 150 major league innings in a season, which Silva has done 5 times. So please, just be reasonable in your hate. He isn’t good and his 2009 was almost indescribably bad. But he probably isn’t as bad and/or hopeless as many people seem to think.
(2) Maybe this is just anectdotal or bad memory on my part, but in the past I seem to remember some of Bradley’s teammates speaking out on his behalf. Maybe they were just doing it for posterity or to preserve some semblance of clubhouse order. But my impression has been that Bradley has had a terrible relationship with the media and umpires, a mediocre relationship with coaching staffs, and an OK relationship with his teammates. He is certainly in the lower tier of personalities you want in your clubhouse, but he hasn’t tried to choke anyone in a front office, beat up his wife (so far as we know), murdered anyone, thrown a ball at a fan, thrown a bat at an umpire, or any of the other even worse things that baseball players have done.
I’ve got to say, I don’t understand your logic at all. I think Bradley has more value than Silva at this point, so consider the following scenario. The Cubs trade Bradley ($9 M in 2010, $12 M in 2011) to the Mariners for Silva ($11.5 M in 2010, $11.5 M in 2011, $2 M in 2012), but because of salary differences and the fact that Bradley is a better baseball player, the Mariners pick up $3 M of Silva’s 2010 salary and $2 M of his 2011 salary, and $1 M of his 2012 buyout. So the Cubs get rid of Bradley and shed $0.5 M salary in 2010, $2.5 M in 2011, and take on $1 M in 2012. The Cubs would shed $2 M salary and could then cut Silva. This saves them $2 M over just cutting Bradley.
So taking on another bad contract under the right circumstances is much better than just cutting Bradley, because you might be able to cut the bad contract you take on for less than Bradley.
I don’t know why any Mariners fan wouldn’t want Bradley wearing a Seattle uniform in 2010. Isn’t it clear by now that the one thing he lacks that keeps him from being a productive, well-adjusted player and a great teammate is a “belief system?”
I find it surprising that we’re actually discussing trade possibilities involving Carlos Silva. The guy is two years removed from being a productive MLB pitcher and has perhaps the worst contract in baseball. I don’t see any team taking a chance on him, no matter what kind of baggage they might want to unload themselves, until he shows some evidence he can still pitch.
Zito, Wells, and Soriano are all worse contracts than Silva’s, and I think you could at least make an argument that a few others are worse.
Also, Silva was basically the same pitcher in 2008 as he was with the Twins. His FIP was a mediocre 4.63, but he was really killed by a .347 BABIP (nothing like Betancourt, Lopez, and Ibanez to increase a pitcher’s BABIP) and his LOB% was 61.1%. His xFIP and tRA were both in line with his career norms. The real drop-off in 2008 is that he only threw 153.1 IP (28 starts).
I’ll put it this way. If Silva was a free agent this year and some team was in search of a back-end guy to munch some innings, I might tout Silva as a good low-risk move at a couple million bucks.
I mean, the gap between an average Garland / Looper / Marquis season and the average Carlos Silva season isn’t that big. Carlos Silva just had bad luck in 2008 and was injured and sucked in 2009. He’ll never be great, but he could be servicable again.
re: mymrbig
This is not the case in Chicago. He has nobody speaking out on his defense. He alienated everyone in that clubhouse from the start and then threw them under the bus when his actions and relationship with the media and fans got out of hand.
Is it hard to imagine Carlos Silva being worth -$2M vs one of the Cubs young pitchers from AAA such as John Gaub, John Stevens, Justin Berg or Mike Parisi? The only way I want any piece of Carlos Silva is if he comes at such a discount that he’s then flippable. Your scenario doesn’t accomplish that. $2M in cost savings isn’t worth it to me, especially when the Mariners would be getting much, much more value out of it. I think the Hendry already helped out the Mariners enough in the Heilman deal. I’d rather he didn’t just hand them a productive DH AND take your problem pitcher off your hands, for a measly cost savings which is a drop in the bucket to the Cubs.
Pat Burrell is close, but then I need confidence Jim Hendry can turn that into some real value for the Cubs… and right now, I don’t have that. So, he’ll most likely waste a spot on the bench. The nightmare scenario is getting hooked into a player such as Vernon Wells. Even at a cost savings, it’s extending the money into the next GM’s tenure… and I really don’t want that.
I don’t want the Cubs to replace a problem with another problem. I just don’t see the point.
Didn’t really know where to put this, but [OT]