213 Miles From Shea

The last major free agent to yet to be signed is Prince Fielder. There has been a lot of talk recently about the length of Fielders contract, and how a lot of teams may not have the money or the desire to sign the first basemen for that long. Publicly, the Nationals have stated that unless something extraordinary happens, LaRoche is their first basemen next season. Something extraordinary could be signing Fielder, who a Player on the Nationals said that the team is in on the market for Fielder.

Fielder to the Nationals makes sense because the two areas Washington is the weakest is at 1B and in CF. The team could use someone strong in the lineup to pump it up. The Nationals won’t make a CF move this year, because of all of the free agent CF that will be on the market next year. The second reason Fielder makes sense is judging by the names the Nationals were involved with earlier this offseason, they could afford Fielder and a CF next season as well.

Fielder to the Nationals doesn’t make sense later in his career, Fielder could become a defensive liability. A long term deal looks more attractive when the idea of being a DH is thrown into the mix.

Other teams that could pursue Fielder include the Mariners, Orioles and Cubs.  The Cubs were once considered to be strong suitors for Fielder but have backed off as they are going into a rebuilding mode (however maybe not entirely). The Mariners were very interested in Fielder at the start of the winter and the Orioles are interested in Prince but his price is way too high right now.

For the Mets, if Fielder does go to the Nationals, this is just bad news. The Phillies are already stocked for next season, the Braves look to be solid again, the Marlins have a bunch of new pieces and the Nationals will have a couple of new pieces to go with their emerging talent. Fielder to the Nationals might be the straw that breaks the optimistic horse’s back. For example, this would be the straw that could really hurt my optimism for next year.

I saw this video earlier today, and could totally see myself doing this. I’m already a Troll Teacher, so I know I would probably end up being a Troll Dad when I have children. Anyway the intersection of being a parent with a sense of humor and raising children in a two team household is the following:

Yep. I would totally do that. Happy Holidays.

I was in a Modell’s in Kearny, NJ last week when something caught my eye:

If that slogan sounds familiar to you, then you remember the 2006 slogan! That was the year of, “the team, the time, the New York Mets”. For some reason this store had a boatload of these flags. I thought about buying one but then decided there was about 3.56 million other things better I could spend 5 bucks on.

The Athletics continued to dismantle their establishment yesterday by trading Andrew Bailey and Ryan Sweeney to the Red Sox for Reddick, Head and Alancantara. This trade has extreme importance for the Red Sox who have been in trouble in the last few months. They had a historic collapse, which led to a new manager and GM. During that time, they lost their All-Star closer to the Phillies in free agency.

Where money failed to maintain a player, the Red Sox ended up getting a young, star closer who could contribute the Red Sox for many seasons. However the Ryan Sweeney portion of the trade is interesting as well. Sweeney has been linked to the Red Sox before, is young and could easily compete for an OF spot.

The Athletics received some big names as well, but what this trade shows what we all knew about Oakland. They are starting to rebuild again. This year they have already traded Gio Gonzalez, now Andrew Bailey and Ryan Sweeney. What is different about this rebuilding is they are trading players Before they hit their prime. This is a really interesting strategy because they are commanding high prices for all of their pieces. This means in 2014, 2015 or whatever, we will see how this strategy worked for the Athletics, who will probably be the San Jose Athletics at that point.

This also sets up an interesting situation for the rest of the winter. Two of the top closers on the market, Cordera and Madson, are still without home. The Red Sox may have been the last team that could handle Madsons’s contract demands. The other way to look at this is that maybe with the Bailey trade over, teams may want to make a move on these remaining closers. Honestly, I don’t know.

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.