213 Miles From Shea

Believe it or not, Spring is around the corner. Here’s a video to bring you back from the cold of winter…even though this winter hasn’t been cold:

When news from the winter leagues enters mainstream baseball coverage, you know its something big. A few days ago Yorvit got into an argument with an umpire. Events escalated and it ended with Yorvit butting hsi hands in the umpires face mask and striking him.

Since that altercation, Torrealbla has issued an apology statement while the Venezuela Baseball League issued a hefty, hefty suspension of 66 games.

This has nothing to do with the Mets, however Yorvit is one those names that was associated with the Mets due to the Minaya error when Omar was looking to (over)spend on a backup catcher.

Currently Yorvit Torrealba plays for the Texas Rangers (.273 BA, 7 HR in 2011) and is in the middle of a two year deal (worth around 6.25 million). In the VBL, he plays for the Caracas Lions.

Carlos Beltran agreed to a two year deal worth 26 million with the Cardinals last night, making him the third major OF to sign within the last two weeks (the others being Willingham and Cuddyer). For Carlos, he goes to a National League team, avoiding his fear about being regulated to the DH and he gets to be on a team that still has playoff hopes. For the Cardinals, they get a bat to try to fill part of the hole left by Albert Pujols.

At the end of the Beltran Derby there were several teams left out in the cold: the Indians, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Rays. But none of these teams are the real losers of the Beltran Derby. In my opinion, the losers of the Beltran Derby, using hindsight as a tool, would be the San Francisco Giants.

From a purely hindsight perspective, we can say they are the losers because they gave up a prospect, had to spend some money, only to have Beltran to come over injured and not get the team to the playoffs.

However there was something else I learned yesterday that convinced me that the Giants were the losers of the derby. Even in Beltran did nothing for the Giants, I thought it was good move for the Giants because they brought in a big player, gave up talent, but even if they couldn’t retain Beltran, they would get two draft picks in return.

WRONG.

I had no idea that there was a clause in Beltran’s old contract that says if Beltran was traded, his new team cannot offer arbitration to Carlos. The Giants have a lot of young pitchers in the system, so losing Wheeler won’t hurt them too much, but basically since they could not retain Beltran beyond 2011, they “lose” the Beltran derby.

Another major player joined the NL East today as the Nationals acquired Gio Gonzalez for A.J. Cole, Derek Norris, Brad Peacock, and Tom Milone.

For the Nationals, Gio Gonzalez represents an additional, fortified pitcher in a starting rotation that already boasts Strasburg. Gonzalez is a young pitcher with a low ERA, high endurance, and high strikeout rate. As a bonus to the Nationals, he is under team control until 2015. If you recall, the Nationals were trying to add CJ Wilson to the team.

In the past several seasons now, the NL East has added Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Mark Buehrle, Gio Gonzalez, Heath Bell, Jon Papelbon, while maintaining players like Ryan Howard, Jose Reyes, and Dan Uggla. With the power team vacuum starting to form in the NL Central (no more Pujols, and undecided Fielder) the shift of power in the National League is really in the east, and that isn’t a surprise.

Before this trade, I would have said that the order of the division in 2012 would be Phillies, Marlins, Braves, Mets and Nationals, with the possibility of the Braves and Mets flipping. Now with this trade, I would say the Nationals are now even with the Mets and the Braves, if not better. Here’s hoping we make a move soon.

I want to preface this article with this statement: Unless the Mets are blown away with a package for Niese, I am not for trading him. Young pitching is hard to come by and young pitching is unpredictable. Niese has shown that he has what it takes to bring his game to the next level, and he looks to mature at around the same time that the new young talent on the Mets emerge in 2014.

Teams seem ok with moving young pitching this offseason. The Reds have just traded Travis Wood, the Athletics are in a lot of the different talks to trade Gio Gonzalez and Andrew Bailey. It was just really made public in the last few days that the Braves tried to trade Jair Jurrjens for Adam Jones. Teams seem ok about giving up their pitching talent. If we push the clock back farther, the Giants felt it was within their means to trade Zach Wheeler to the Mets for Beltran during the season.

In a way, this makes sense because of the young arms race that has been going on for the better part of a decade. For a while now, teams would not trade their young pitching. Through the draft and minor league signings, or a few blockbuster trades, teams would stockpile young arms. Now teams have so many pitchers, that all have similar ceilings, they feel it is ok to trade these players for other pieces.

So if the Mets were looking to trade Jon Niese, that time would be now. There are some teams like the Blue Jays and Red Sox, that are really looking for a starter right now. If these teams lose out on Marquis (who is now going to the Twins). Darvish (Rangers) Gonzalez, Jurrjens or Kuroda, Niese could look like a nice option, and maybe the Mets can play their position.

Do you have a few minutes?

Good.

Check out this gallery at the Boston Globe.

The Boston Red Sox are set to open their new Spring Training complex this spring and it looks amazing. Construction is estimated to cost 78 million dollars, which is less than one Jose Reyes. Seriously, you could purchase three of these complexes and still have money left over vs. Albert Pujols’ contract. Anyway, the main field takes the idea of “Fenway South” literally. The dimensions of the stadium are exactly the same as Fenway, complete with it’s own Green Monster.

Honestly, I’m not sure why more teams don’t do this. This makes complete sense to have your spring training field be the same dimensions as your home stadium. Your players all season are going to need to get used to the quirks of your ballpark, so why not start them in Spring. Get some home field advantage going, you know?

Anyway, the pictures are amazing the stadium looks fantastic. If you ever wanted to see a mix of a modern ballpark with retro field features, or were curious what a smaller, modern Fenway would look like, check out he link above!

Well this isn’t good news for the other four team in the NL East.

The one redeeming quality of the Marlins overspending this winter has been that all of the players they signed are currently in the midst of their prime, meaning they should degrade over time.

According to MLB Trade Rumors, teams are starting to state the Marlins may be an early favorite to sign Cespedes. As the article also points out there are other teams, like the White Sox, that have strong Cuban connections.

Cespedes, correctly so, has been painted as an amazing prospect, with a huge upside coming from a very competitive Cuban system. Early estimates have his contract ranging from 25 to 45 million, however this can easily inflate as there are a lot of teams that are interested in signing him.

So why are the Marlins such a threat?
The Marlins have made it known that they are interested in not only overspending for top talent, but for talent that will bring fans into the ball park. That is part of the reason why they  signed Jose Reyes, it is a huge reason why they wanted Pujols, and it is why they did not want to overspend for Price Fielder. Signing Cespedes would bring an additional huge, market that already exists in Miami to the stadium.

For teams like the Mets, who are hoping that by 2014 when their prospects mature, the Marlins signing Cespedes would be bad news because his signing immediately counteracts the aging process of Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez.

We’ll see what happens…