Those Philadelphia Rumors
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But don’t be fooled by smoke and mirrors.
These two warring cliches apply directly to recent trade rumors involving the M’s and Phillies. When multiple sources are emitting similar signals, as is the case here, there’s usually something to it. Whether that something is wheat or chaff can be tougher to determine.
The Philadelphia Daily News claims that there is mutual interest in a swap of Pineiro or Moyer. The Times’ Michael Ko bolsters this with a notebook report of the Phillies scouting Pineiro. The Philadelphia Inquirer says there have been discussions on Gil Meche, too.
The Phillies are pretty open about wanting to acquire a starter. From the Daily News:
Pineiro is an intriguing name. The Phillies made inquiries about him at the 2001 winter meetings, partly on the recommendation of new manager Larry Bowa, who had been Seattle’s third-base coach the year before. Pineiro appeared to be on the verge of stardom when he went 14-7 with a 3.24 earned run average in 2002 and followed that up by going 16-11, 3.78 in 2003.
This is exactly the type of line the Mariners should be pushing on Pineiro. He was on the verge of stardom, and golly, we don’t know why he regressed … maybe he just needs a league switch and/or a change of scenery to, say, your team.
That’s the easy part. Everybody’s looking for pitching, especially with the offseason free agent market so thin.
Who are the M’s asking for? We don’t know for sure, but these articles say they’re primarily looking for young pitchers that are close to major-league ready. The Inky reports that when the Phils try to add an arm teams have been asking for Ryan Madson, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Gavin Floyd or Dave’s personal anti-white whale.
The Phillies are loath to give up any of these players, with good reason. To give up any of them (the latter aside, perhaps) for Joel Pineiro would not just be folly, it would be off-the-meds level shenanigans. Don’t get your hopes up, and watch those mirrors.
If only to save salary next year, though Pineiro should be moved. There is a history of teams doing foolish things at the deadline, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they’ll get a useful piece back — but that should be the icing, not the cake.
The team should leverage Pineiro’s reputation from years past to maximize any potential return. With less than 100 hours to go before the non-waiver deadline, it’s time to watch for those smoldering fires to heat up.
Comments
87 Responses to “Those Philadelphia Rumors”
On Drew: “USSM said” is pushing it, on this and many other topics. I wasn’t a fan of Drew, for instance.
Your claim was that teh USS Mariner crew does not hesitate to question other writers. If you’re not a writer yourself, you cannot bring this to bear against them. Only another writer who has had this happen to them can.
So, in short, the comment you made was a blatant ad hominem attack and had no relevance. I gave you one back.
I never said anything about Sexson personally, unless you want to mention his embarrassing DUI earlier this year. Sexson as a player was what was coming into discussion, and especially his previous injury. They also took into account other things about Sexson, players like him, etc, when evaluating whether or not the contract that he was given and the decision to grab him was a good one.
Who brought up anything on Sexson on a personal level?
An inane arguement is an inane arguement, regardless of whom the subject is. I’ve gone toe to toe with other people on this board and the USSM crew themselves about things that I thought were inane and stupid. So, in short, it’s not them, it’s just your arguement that I am taking issue with.
And the rabid pittbull way you seem to be going about it.
Yeah, that shut up thing kinda came out of nowhere.
Fair enough, Jeff. Good stuff.
My own view is that bloggers miscast themselves with their medical opinions in opposition to the doctors’ — who were optimistic at the time (as were 4 MLB teams).
But as to Sexson’s health as it stood pre-season, that is a debate on which both sides have merit.
The CLEAR re-cap would be this: YES, ABSOLUTELY, we WOULD give Richie Sexson his contract as of July 28, 2005. The contract now stands as a good one.
My own view is that bloggers miscast themselves with their medical opinions in opposition to the doctors’  who were optimistic at the time (as were 4 MLB teams).
On this, you can go back: we said we were worried about it, and that everyone — even the doctors — wouldn’t know what happened until he got out there and played for a while. We didn’t claim medical knowledge. We were worried.
The CLEAR re-cap would be this: YES, ABSOLUTELY, we WOULD give Richie Sexson his contract as of July 28, 2005. The contract now stands as a good one.
No, that’s not clear, and no, I’d still argue that at the time, it was too much money given the risk and Sexson’s age and skills — it was the end of the contract I thought was overweighted, not this year.
Fine, DMZ, which brings us back to square one.
YOU would deal Sexson for a scrub prospect? Or YOU would KEEP him?
If I could trade Richie Sexson for a Felix Hernandez type prospect, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Or, to be even more specific — at $4.5m this season, woo-hoo! What a bargain! At $11.5m next year… well, you hope he keeps hitting like this, and he’d totally be worth it. The $14m in 2007-08, when he’s 32 and 33, that’s potentially a little scary.
What I’m happy about is that say he’s the Sexson we’re seeing this year. Even an expected aging decline those 32-33 years will make him overpaid but not that badly given his production. The M’s have so much money that’s hardly going to cripple them in the way that giving (say) a Bloomquist-type player a 5y/$10m deal might (for instance, the Boone contract)
Everyone play nice. This isn’t a clear cut issue, and logical people can see both sides.
Once again: the Mets are on the phone.
They’ll take Sexson in return for a meaningless Class A prospect. You’re out of the contract clean as a whistle. Right now.
DEREK ZUMSTEG — does HE offload Sexson right now? Or does he KEEP Sexson, right now, with the money owed?
Fine, DMZ, which brings us back to square one.
YOU would deal Sexson for a scrub prospect? Or YOU would KEEP him?
No, it doesn’t. See my previous comment, or:
I want Sexson around next year for what he’s being paid, because he’s likely to be far better than any available alternative. Over the term of his contract, though, I still think those last years are likely to be ones where his performance is way below what the team will be paying him.
That’s actually a little strong there at the end, now that I read it. that should be “could be” rather than “likely to be”.
But yeah — if it’s 2007 and the Mariners suddenly have a guy who can play 1B really well, sure, you trade him for whatever you can get. Otherwise, so he’s overpaid by $3m or $5m. It’s not going to be that big of a deal unless he gets injured.
++logical people can see both sides++
Indeed.
I would cheerfully concede the worry about Sexson pre-season.
Although I wouldn’t consider it proportionate to slot the contract as the 2nd-worst of the offseason, based on a 10% injury risk.
And I wouldn’t consider it reasonable to call Sexson’s contract *far* out of line with the market now. But that’s just me.
What I *would* be interested in knowing, is whether as the GM of the Seattle Mariners, DMZ would shed Sexson’s real-life contract on July 28, 2005. He certainly can if he wishes.
I’ve now answered that question repeatedly.
We’re getting closer DMZ —
Am not trying to bulldog you here but it would be nice to resolve the point.
You have a trade deadline now. You don’t KNOW who the 1B is in 2007.
THIS trade deadline, do you shed Sexson’s contract? Or do you keep it — thereby endorsing it as it stands on July 28, 2005?
I’ve now answered that question repeatedly: no.
Sorry, I missed it. Seriously.
I can’t find where you just go “YES” or “NO”, you would or wouldn’t give Sexson away this weekend — with no crystal ball available as to who the 1B options are in the future.
OK, gotcha. Thanks.
That’s closure,
Jeff
Y’know, Jeff C, he could just close the thread. I would by this point.
Wait a sec…
Yup, I just figured something out.
I don’t really understand why Sexson was such a question mark for this season. Other than his shoulder injury, (a freak accident occuring in one and only one season) what other potential risks were we taking? What does a guy have to do to be considered the real deal. All Sexson has done is hit homers, and thats what we signed him for. He’s had over 30 homers in every season since starting in 130 games, except in ’02 when he managed only 29. Even in his injury year last year, he managed 9 homers in 90 at bats, pretty good to me. I suppose you’re saying he was a liability due to the injury, but I don’t see anywhere in his stats pointing to not knowing what we were getting, and I don’t see much of a reason to worry about him breaking down either.
Dave and I talked about that very thing in the roundtable: Dave said if he was healthy, he should be back at 100%, while I was less certain that that would be the case.
OK, got ya. I wasn’t really reading up as much when you did the roundtables. I’ve followed Sexson for a while (being a 6’6″ high school baseball player through his years in Milwalkee, he was easy to associate with). I was extremely happy with his signing at the time, and thought the question mark was more of whether Beltre would repeat. Beltre has shown a lot of signs of waking up, taking the ball the other way, getting low pitches, etc… so I think both signings will eventually work out.
As someone who has a recurring shoulder problem, I’m with DMZ. It’s never the same again. You can strengthen around it, but shoulders are never quite the same again once they’ve been out of the socket.
I want Richie Sexson to stay healthy and continue to pound the snot out of the ball, in which case you’ve got a good contract and the risk paid off. I understand where the fear on this contract comes from. There are still substantial decline risks for Richie Sexson at the back end of his contract, even assuming that the shoulder does not recur.
TIF and Jeff c are the same guy? Neither of them are me though, that’s for sure.
The problem with Sexson’s contract isn’t that it’s a bad deal this year, but that it’s a bad deal towards the end. I still think that. I also think he’s outperforming my expectations, and the chance that he’ll be an albatross by the end of the contract is lessening.
That said, I’d trade him, I’d trade ANYBODY ON THIS TEAM, for the right mix of players and prospects. Trade Sexson for a scrub, or even a single decent prospect? No. But yes, even Ichiro for the right return.
What I’d do is call the Yankees and say “you don’t want Randy Winn; you want a marquee player, an MVP, a Hall of Famer, a true Yankee. You want Ichiro Suzuki. Think about it. We’ll give you Ichiro and Meche for Pavano, Hughes, Henn, and Cano.” (feel free to substitute your own mix there).
People would freak out, and there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Cashman would say no — but George would say yes. And in a year or two, we’d be ahead on the deal.
You can’t get value without giving up value.
I’m trying to figure Jeff C’s persusing an answer other than a thinly veiled attempt at trapping DMZ.
The rest of us get Derek’s position and I for one agree with it. At the time of his signing, Sexson was all question marks and hope. There was really no reason other than a passed physical that he’d be producing as he is now.
I believe that if Jeff C took the time to read the roundtables, as most of us have, he’d see that a concern over the length of the contract, the escalating salary, the fact that larger players have skills decrease at a faster rate than smaller players and uncertainty over the sugical repair all lead to the opinion that this is not a good contract. I think it was too much for too long, I also hope that I’m wrong.
All I see is Derek being very consistent. His position has not changed since the signing nor is there any reason to chagne position. Only time passing will tell us if the contract is a good deal or not.
Answering petty questions about trading/not trading on this date is of litle value, less intersting then the silly batting order line-ups proposed by those who dream of us trading floatsam for gold.
Yeah, I’ve had shoulder problems too and I know exactly what you mean, I never really equated that with Richie though (weird, due to a lot of other common things). I guess I figured that his therapy, surgery, and what not would be the best available, and it would be back to normal. But I really see your point. Thanks a lot for clearing everything up.
Yeah but most contract are a bad deal at the end. The best you can hope for is that you underpay for the early years of a deal and it all averages out in the end. For example Boone, The M’s underpaid for his amazing 2001 season, underpayed a bit for the first year of his multi year deal in 2002 and overpaid in 2004 and 2005 in the last years of his deal.
The ultimate is underpaying for early free agent productivity and then getting another team to pay for the later overpaid years. Note that this rarely happens because even the Yankees and Mets don’t take on that many bad contracts (in relation to the number of aging players that are currently overpaid).
I got a little excited when I came back and refreshed this thread and saw that there were so many comments… I thought something must have finally happened, we made a trade.
Imagine my disappointment to find that the vast majority of these comments were because of one guy being dense and insufferable.
And, yes, I was confused by the choice of name. Totally changed my perception of Jeff for a moment. Rude.
No trade today makes me sad. 72 comments making me think there was a trade… and having that taken away and replaced with the limpest sort of internet lawyering made me sadder.
No one would trade Sexson right now for a scrub because you could get much more for him. The question is prima facia dumb.
Almost as good as a trade:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=2118993
Betancourt up, Lopez down.
P.S. I too am facing labrum surgery…thanks to football…
Is Lopez the 2b of the future or not? If he is, leave him up here to play. WTF is the point of sending him back to AAA again?
Please, whole other Lopez/Betancourt thread over and on the right.
I think maybe Jeff C is actually Dayn Perry, he created this ridiculous thread so he can use it to justify his nonsense rumor about Sexson to the Mets:-)
I don’t get the whole exchange about Sexson. Declaring the Sexson signing a success because he’s outperformed for 4 months and stayed healthy makes as much sense as declaring the Beltre contract a bust becuase he’s underperformed.
If these were one-year or two-year contracts, OK. But Sexson has played about 15% of the contract and the risk/problem is 2007/2008. I’m almost afraid to speak these words, but if Sexson pulled his shoulder out of the socket next spring training and missed 2006 and was never the same would anyone say this was a good contract? That’s not likely but there’s a 10% chance by his own assessment.
76 – I would like to point out that you CAN receive value without giving up value (see Slocumb for Lowe/Varitek). WE don’t seem to be able to obtain value for next to nothing, but others have. What I’m waiting to see is the day Bavasi (and yes, he impressed me at the feed as well)) gets us a deal like that. When he catches another GM off his meds and we end up with a much better deal than the Garcia deal, which I thought was pretty good.
Given a choice between a GM who gets fair value, one who gets screwed, or a screwer… which would YOU prefer?
Wow. No.