213 Miles From Shea

A lot of action went down today, so here are some of my thoughts:

Willis and Cabera to the Tigers.
I think my intial reaction was similar to others, which was my mouth just hanging over. This deal was really good for the Tigers. Yes in the long run Andrew Miller will be better than Willis, the Tigers do not need Willis as an ace. Due to that, I believe Willis will do better there, even though it is an American league team. The pressure of him being the ace is gone. As for Caberera, well the dangerous lineup that Detroit has just got that much better.
Honestly I shake my head at Florida sometimes. Yes it is good for them to get a new boatload of prospects, with at least Miller being major league ready, but remeber their firesale a few seasons ago? That really did not pan out for them. The two players they wanted to build a franchise around were just traded.
For the Mets, I am just disapointed that Cabera was not traded to the Dodgers, because now the Mets have serious competition for Bedard.

The Nationals have been very active. They are looking into Japanese pitcher Fukumori right now. This is a bit concerning.

Might post more later. After the winter meetings I will go back to a more statistical outlook of things and how many of these traders effected teams that way.

At 7:01, mlb.com had reported two official trades for the day. Each day at least once, I am going to try to say a little bit about each of the deals.

The Dbacks traded young Quetin to the White Sox for minor league first basemen Chris Carter. Quetin, if you didnt know, is a 25 year old OF that the Dbacks were hoping for some more power than he produced last year. His year was slow due to injuries and thus he didnt reflect his minor league numbers. Chris Carter has played in the minors since 2002, and was 24 last season. In total during the minors he has hit .310 with a .519 slugging. Currently, the Dbacks have young Conor Jackson, roughly the same age as Carter, playing at first base. He hit .284 last year, which was a slight decline from his .290 the year previous. Both years he hit 15 jacks. Barring some major event, Conor looks to be the first basemen next year, with Carter either on the bench, or still playing  the minors, we will see with time.

The more noted trade of the day was the Rays trading Dukes to Washington for Glenn Gibson. So there are a few story lines here. The first is that the Nationals now have two young, but borderline reckless, or reckless in Dukes case, Outfielders that are talented. The Nationals said that they want to teach Dukes how to be a Baseball player and a Civilian. Gibson has a two years in the minors recording a 2.81 ERA over 15 games with a 9.4 K/9 and 1.00 WHIP. Due to his expierence, I doubt he will see much action in the majors this year, although with the Rays you never know.

I love the media. I really do. For the past year or so, all we have heard different sources say is that Lasting Milledge's stock is dropping, that he won't pan out as hoped, etc etc etc.

When we trade Milledge, all we hear now is how he is going to be a superstar, he's another Kazmin, what were the Mets front office thinking, etc etc etc. In fact one of the Headline feature articles over at foxsports.com is a picture of Milledge under the words “Another Mistake?”.

This is how I explained my thoughts on this yesterday. In the long run, Milledge will pan to be a better player than Schnieder and Church, however at this current moment, the Mets cannot be thinking of the long run. We still have Beltran for 4+years, and even with trading Gomez this winter, which seems like it will happen, the Mets still have other young talent in OF like F-Mart. The Mets are looking to win next year. They wanted to get a right fielder that was increase over Green which is what they got. They never really have had great defense catchers, I am not saying Schnieder is great but he is an above average catcher. I still have faith that the Mets will get either a Bedard or a Haren or a Blanton and that their rotation will be stronger, which naturally makes your pen stronger.

We have been, and will continue to be bombarded with trade rumors about Bedard, Haren, and Santana, so lets take a look at some of their stats:

Bedard:
2007: 28 Games, 182.0 IP, 3.16 ERA, 221 K, 57 BB, 10.93 (K/9), 1.09 WHIP, 13-5
Carear: 114 G, 658.0 IP, 3.83 ERA, 639 K, 254 BB, 8.74 K/9, 1.34 WHIP, 40-34

Haren:
2007: 34 G, 222.2 IP, 3.07 ERA, 192 K, 55 BB, 7.76 K/9, 1.21 WHIP, 15-9
Carear: 130 G, 781.1 IP, 3.82 ERA, 606 K, 192 BB, 6.98 K/9, 1.24 WHIP, 49-44

Santana:
2007: 33 G, 219 IP, 3.33 ERA, 235 K, 52 BB, 9.66 K/9, 1.07 WHIP, 15-13
Carear: 251 G, 1308.2 IP, 3.22 ERA, 1281 K, 364 BB, 9.50 K/9, 1.09 WHIP, 93-44

Stat Notes:
Bedard's ERA and WHIP have decreased every year he has pitched, his K totals have increased every year he has pitched. You also have to imagine his stats higher than this because he missed all of September due to injury, and with the Orioles going no where, there was no point in bringing him back. I feel he would have been the AL Cy Young if he pitched in September, he still finished 3rd of 4th in the league in K totals although he missed that month. I do not have the number stat, but it felt like the Orioles bullpen blew a good number of Bedard's games.

Haren's K/9 has increased every year that he has pitched. I know that Mets have no chance of getting Santana, but I put his stats up there to show difference of Bedard/Haren and Santana.

Out of these three, I would love to see Bedard. If you have gotten this sense over the last week or so, I am very Pro-Bedard. He is a power pitcher, pitches for strikeouts, which is exactly what this team needs to add more balance to the starting rotation, and to make pitchers in the bullpen that are not Billy Wagner more effective because of the change of speeds during the game.

I like reading about new ballparks. To paraphrase Tim Kurkjian from Is This a Great Game, or What?, Baseball really sets itself apart from the other sports because every ballpark is substantially different from other ballparks, the field has different dimensions and people will actually travel to see the other parks. That really doesnt happen in the NBA and NFL.

Anyway, the Rays announced plans yesterday for a new stadium. Tropicanna is not that old, they have been playing there for 10 years. The new stadium opens up on the water, and through the graphics that have been released, very pleasing to the eye. It is open air with a retractable roof and feels like it has a sail theme, check it out on their site.

milb.com is counting down the top 50 prospects now, with the top 10 still a secret, so far Fernando Martinez for the Mets has been ranked at #17.

On the Twins website, you can view their new stadium. It looks very nice and seems to go over a freeway of some sort. The stadiumd design was approved recently.

The real nature of this post is a look at Dan Haren. In 2003 he pitched agaisnt the Phillies twice, which resulted in this line:
0-1, 2 G, 12 IP, 5.25 ERA, 7 ER, 8 SO, 2 BB
His ERA in 2003 was 5.08.

In 2004 and 2005 he pitched agaisnt the Braves twice. The line is:
2-0, 2 G, 11.2 IP, 5.40 ERA, 7 ER, 8 SO, 2 BB
His ERA in 04 was 4.50 and his ERA in 05 was 3.73.

He pitched for the Cards in 03 and 04 playing in 14 games each year, and only starting 5 of those games in 2004. His strikeout count for his seasons starting in 03 and going to 07 have been 43, 32, 163, 176, 192.

This data can bee found at baseballreference.com

The reason I feel that he would be great for the Mets is his IP totals. Since going to Oakland, he has had 3 years of over 200 innings pitched, 217, 223, and around 222. Thats really amazing.

Everyonce in a while, a strange object finds its well to MLB auctions.

http://auction.mlb.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=88837013&prmenbr=33072944&aunbr=89183723

This is one of those objects. Any of you who watched the Indians and the Yankess int eh ALDS will probably remeber the bug problem during game 2. Joba was having a lot of problems with them and this is the can of OFF from the game that the players used.

I read in The Record a few days ago that this item would be going on sale, but the craziness doesn't hit you until you actually see the object up for auction.

Peter Schmuk wrote an excellent editorial today in the Baltimore Sun, about how a combination of Hunter sigining and Miguel Cabrera on the market will effect the trading market, especially for Oriole players. To summarize in brief, the Orioles cannot trade Tejada at this moment since Cabrera is higher on the chain than Tejada. The Cabrera possibly trade is effected by the Hunter signing because the Dodgers were supposed to be big players for Hunter, and now they need to make a big splash to go along with new manager Torre. In the long run, this still means that Tejada will be traded, just it will happen after Miguel is traded.

How does this effect the Mets? In terms of a possible trade with the Twins for Santana, the Twins have to wait and see if the Dodgers trade all of their chips for Miguel, if they dont, then it will be easier for the Mets to make a move. Regarding Bedard, Oriole fans are getting frustrated and they want something to happen. The waiting will make deals that the Mets propose seem better. Also, if the Dodgers trade for Miguel Cab. that means Tejada will most likly go to the Angels. The Angels will most likely trade pitching, which means the Mets can offer Outfielders.

Now if the Doders do not get Cabera, then they will probably offere big chips like Matt Kemp for Bedard. This in turn would hurt the Mets chances for Bedard, but maybe could help their chances for Santana.

This is going to be a craz winter trade rumor wise.

Continuing the watch on Hunter, mlbtraderumors.com has a good list of contracts that have been offered to him. Five teams have offered contracts to him, not including the twins and you can check out those teams at www.mlbtraderumors.com

About Bedard, I feel that this trade my work:
This is not a rumor this is not a fact, this is just an IDEA that I thought of, so there is no basis behind it.

The Orioles need two broad categories: position players (non catcher) and people for the penn, they have a superfulous amount of young starters.
I feel a trade of Milledge, Gomez, A. Hernandez and Heilman might work to get Bedard and Bradford. The only player the Orioles have in the Outfield is Markakis, who plays rightfield, Milledge can play left and Gomez seems destined one day for Center due to speed, that would help the Orioles by giving them a young talented outfield.
The Orioles pen really took a hit with Ray and Baez both being DL'ed for all of 2008 and part of 2009. Chad Bradford is not popular down here either, partally he went from being a specialist, which he excelled in  with the Mets in 2006, to being a setup in 2007, which he really couldn't execute in. The Mets could use him again. Heilman would probably be a closer with the Orioles or even possibly a starter, so that works for both sides.
The Orioles are going to trade Tejada this offseason, they are going to need a shortstop. They have brandon fahey, but he really cannot play everyday. A plattoon of Hernandez and Fahey might actually work.

For the Mets, its pretty obvious. They get Bradford back as a specialist and they get a Cy Young canditate pitcher who is a power pitcher. Bedard goes for strikeouts, which will really revolutionize the rotation on the Mets.

I really have not been paying much attention to Tori recently, partially because I know he has no interest in the Mets and the Mets really have no interest in him.

As much of a soap opera as Arod was, Tori is beginning to become a soap opera as well. I was reading some of the articles about him today over at mlbtraderumors.com.

Apparently, the Chicago Tribune reported that Hunter would sign with the White Sox this week. He claims that he never said that. He was actually having dinner with the Rangers last night, who have made it known to Hunter and the rest of the league that Tori Hunter is the top priority. According to mlbtraderumors.com, they have been talking a five year deal.

The dodgers are not out of it either for Hunter. The dodgers can make a splash with Cabera at third base OR Bedard as a starter (even with their superflous amount of talent to trade, I really doubt they have enough to trade for both), and they are lookign to add a big name FA in centerfield.

The Oriole fan in me is biased here because the Orioles NEED Bedard for people to come to the ballpark. At this point, they have to construct a team around Bedard and Markakis. I feel as though the stock for Tejada is even falling now during the offseason and they have to make a trade.