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Despite their recent hot streak, Seattle Times columnist Geoff Baker writes that it’s too late for the Mariners to keep starter Cliff Lee.
Recent play aside, Cliff Lee is likely to be shopped. The Mariners need to start filling holes for next year and beyond and the Lee trade is the best place to start since there is no way he will sign here beyond 2010. He’s in line for a $100-million contract, which he probably has a better shot at getting now than he did last off-season, and is not going to take the massive (try 50 percent) discount the M’s would need to get to keep him. Why would he give them that? He’s been here only two months. … We can dream and dream about a 1-2 punch in the post-season, but this lineup is not good enough to get the M’s there.
Coming into the 2010 season, the Mariners believed that if they pitched well enough and played good defense that they could mask their deficiencies on offense. But seeing as how they’re 13 games back in the AL West and have scored the third fewest runs in baseball, that game plan is shot to hell. Not even Lee and Felix Hernandez can save them.
Baker’s right: at some point, the M’s are going to have to go out and get a big popper for the middle of their lineup. What good is it to have Ichiro on base all the time if he has nobody behind him to knock him in? It’s hard to fault Jack Zduriencik for building the roster around pitching and defense based on the park they play in, but clearly the M’s don’t even have enough offense to be a .500 team.
They need to get a bat in exchange for Lee – that should be Zdurienkcik’s main priority as the trade deadline approaches.
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In a shocking development, Brett Favre still hasn’t made up his mind about whether or not to return for another season. But in an interview Thursday morning with the Sun Herald, he did admit that he would like another shot at the defending Super Bowl champs.
‘‘I would love to go beat the Saints. I know I can still play at a high level. Last year was a great year, but it could have been better (winning NFC Championship).’’
Favre of course won’t admit that he’s returning because wants to milk whatever attention people are still paying him for as long as humanly possible. He also hates practice, so the longer he can push off having to return to camp the better.
But there’s little doubt that he’s going to return, or else there would have been more panic in Minnesota this offseason about the Vikings’ quarterback situation. Do you think Brad Childress would have anointed Tarvaris Jackson his starting quarterback in training camp like he did back in May if he knew Favre wasn’t coming back? There’s no way, especially considering the Vikings held on to Sage Rosenfels this offseason.
Lord Favre is coming back.
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Take that, Miami!
Following in the Heat’s footsteps, the Chicago Bulls are trying to clear even more cap space so they can make a run at two big-name free agents on July 1.
The Chicago Bulls have a deal in place that would move Kirk Hinrich and the 17th pick to the Washington Wizards, freeing up enough cap space to pursue two maximum-salary players on this summer’s free-agent market, sources with knowledge of the Bulls’ plans said Thursday.
It wasn’t immediately clear what Washington would send to Chicago in the trade.
Since it’s a good-faith deal for the time being, there remains a chance it could fall apart. But according to one source, the Sacramento Kings are prepared to make a similar deal with the Bulls in the Wizards’ stead if that were to happen.
Hinrich is a good defender and is talented enough to be the fourth or fifth best player on a contender, so the Bulls are giving up a good player, even though it’s creating the flexibility to sign two max free agents.
Now the Bulls can go to LeBron James and Chris Bosh and offer to sign them both to max or near-max deals to play with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Luol Deng.
In order to get this much talent together, a team has to have plenty of cap space (check) and 1-2 budding stars that are still on their rookie contracts (check, check). The only con to playing in Chicago is the long shadow of Michael Jordan. Will LeBron want to play in a city where his legacy has almost no chance of measuring up to that of the greatest player ever to play the game?
Just a few days after saying that he can’t wait for LeBron to make a decision, Chris Bosh has seemingly changed his tune.
“Am I waiting on LeBron? Pretty much,” Bosh said. “I think everyone has to. I have to as well.”
He went on to say this:
“He’s a great player and I would be crazy to think that all the teams that are considering him, they would talk to somebody else first,” Bosh said. “I think everybody is going to be going at him first.
“They’ll probably call him at 12:01,” Bosh added. “Hopefully they’ll call me at 12:02.”
All indications are that LeBron’s camp plans to take its time with the decision and may even make a few visits to listen to pitches from front office management. But make no mistake, there will be teams that know that they are out of the running for LeBron’s services that will call Bosh at 12:01 AM.
It’s strange — there is a persistent rumor that Bosh will follow LeBron wherever he goes, yet Bosh is on the record as saying that he wants to be ‘the man’ and not a sidekick. If he’s true to his word, then he’ll have an opportunity to come to terms with a team before LeBron does, though if winning is really the most important thing (also Bosh’s own words), then it would behoove him to join forces with the self-proclaimed King (and Dwyane Wade too).
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