Tag: New York Mets (Page 15 of 20)

      Breaking down some Manny Ramirez odds

      January 27, 2009 /

      With pitchers and catchers set to report soon, the MLB free agency period has essentially cooled off. In fact – it’s over unless your team signing Bobby Abreu, Adam Dunn or Pudge Rodriguez gets you all hot and bothered. Of course, there is one name remaining on the free agent list that could instantly turn an average team into a contender.

      All has been quiet on the Manny Ramirez front of late. For the most part, nothing has changed, yet every day the 2009 season inches closer and closer and one of the best sluggers in the game remains teamless.

      So which team will eventually sign Manny? Let’s break down the odds.

      Los Angeles Dodgers: The boys in blue still seem like the best fit for Manny. The Dodgers would once again be the instant favorites to win a weak NL West and with Man-Ram in the lineup, they could challenge the Phillies, Cubs and Mets for the NL Pennant. But length of contract has been a sticking point between the two parties and neither seems willing to budge. Ramirez and Scott Boras want a five-year contract, but the club’s only official offer came 80-some days ago, which was for two-years and $45 million. With no other real competition in the mix for Manny, the Dodgers don’t have to blink first. But considering how stubborn Ramirez and Boras have been to this point, it looks like L.A. might have to bite the bullet and up the years of their offer. The stare down continues, although the Dodgers still appear like the most logical fit in the end.
      Odds Manny signs with the Dodgers: 3/1.

      San Francisco Giants: Depending on which report you believe, the Giants are anywhere from “highly” to “not a chance in hell” interested in Manny. Some believe that Boras made up the rumor that San Fran was interested because he wanted the Dodgers to panic and slap another year or two on their initial offer. But others truly believe the Giants are one big bat away from at least competing in the NL West and they’ll eventually break down and trump the Dodgers’ offer. But the reality is that the Giants don’t necessarily need Manny. Sure, their offense needs him, but Fred Lewis is younger, plays better defense and finally showed some potential last season in all facets of the game. And when you consider the Giants are still paying dearly for their Barry Zito gaff, offering Ramirez a huge contract would be foolish considering they’re still years away from competing for a World Series. Plus, Ramirez reportedly doesn’t want to play in San Francisco, although if the money is right than we all know he’ll play anywhere. The Giants will probably stay the course with their rebuilding plan and pass, but it wouldn’t be a shock if they made an offer.
      Odds Manny signs with the Giants: 12/1.

      New York Mets: The Mets seem to be the sleeper in the mix for Manny. They certainly have the money to throw at Ramirez and they would love to make him one of the attractions to go along with a brand new ballpark. Ramirez is also from the New York area and it’s now or never for the Mets to compete. They’re built to win now, so it would be a shame if didn’t do everything they could in order to compete with the Phillies in the NL East. Still, Manny to the Mets remains a long shot. They haven’t made any official offer and unlike the Giants, there are minimal rumors that the Mets are even interested.
      Odds Manny signs with the Mets: 20/1.

      MLB, Rumors & Gossip

      Why are MLB owners so scared of Mark Cuban?

      January 23, 2009 /

      Long-time Cubs fan (and billionaire) Tom Ricketts is the winning bidder for the Chicago Cubs and if the sale goes through (which would also include a 25 percent interest in a regional sports network), he would buy the club from the Tribune Co. for around $900 million.

      Woo-ho.

      Ricketts seems like a solid choice considering he’s a long-time fan and would likely try a hell of a lot harder than the Tribune Co. did in putting a winner on the field. (Outside of the years when the Tribune spent money on free agents in efforts to up the value of the club so they could eventually sell it, of course.)

      But Ricketts is not Mark Cuban.

      Had Major League Baseball allowed Cuban to buy the Cubs, he would have stopped at nothing to put a winner on the field. He wouldn’t have gone through years of mediocrity before trying to build a World Series contender – he would have tried to win from Day 1.

      So the question becomes: Why are baseball owners so petrified of Cuban? He would presumably bring excitement to the game, he would challenge the Yankees in terms of spending and he would be a hero in Chicago, which oh-by-the-way is the type of big city market that baseball would love see make the World Series on a consistent basis so TV ratings would skyrocket.

      I’ve always been under the assumption that owners didn’t want Cuban the owner because he would challenge the Yankees and therefore, smaller market teams wouldn’t make as much off the luxury tax as they would if the Bombers spent big all the time. But thanks to TSR teammate John Paulsen (who did a quick Google search because my dumbass didn’t think to), I realized that the money from the luxury tax (also called the ‘Competitive Balance Tax’) isn’t distributed to smaller market teams to promote competitive balance.

      So therefore, it doesn’t matter if Cuban came in and spent as much as the Yankees because smaller market teams get paid from baseball’s revenue sharing program, which is completely independent from the luxury tax. (In fact, it would help smaller market teams if the Cubs’ revenue was close to the Yankees’ because they would get a bigger cut from the revenue sharing program.)

      If owners keeping Cuban out has nothing to do with the luxury tax payout, then again – why treat him like the Ebola Virus? Below are two opinions as to why. There are probably more, but in my opinion, none bigger than the two below.

      1. Baseball has become the “good ol’ boy” network in terms of its owners. Change is bad. And Mark Cuban owning the Cubs would be the epitome of change – radical change. He does everything first class with the Mavericks and he would presumably do the same with the Cubs. He would upgrade Wrigley Field, treat the players like kings and probably sit right behind home plate so he’s within earshot of the umpire. Baseball owners don’t want a young, hip outsider coming in and having the media focus be on him and the way he does things. He would rock the boat every chance he got, just like he does now in the NBA. Owners are supposed to sit in their seats or boxes and watch from afar. They’re not supposed to be in your face and as recognizable as Cuban is in the NBA.

      2. MLB teams already have their hands full trying to keep up with the Yankees every offseason. If Cuban buys the Cubs, he would compete with the Evil Empire and drive up the price for free agents even more. The player’s union would love for Cuban to buy the Cubs, but the owners would rather deal with one monster than two. (Granted, the Mets and Red Sox compete with the Yankees’ spending on a consistent basis, too, but nothing compared to what Cuban would presumably do.)

      Some might note that the owners also don’t want to be associated with someone, who, in November of last year was accused of insider trading. But don’t forget that Cuban was being turned away by MLB owners well before the SEC report came to light. And by the way, Cuban would have paid $1.3 billion for the Cubs, which is a good bit more than the $900 million Ricketts is ready to dole out. So it has nothing to do with money.

      The bottom line is that baseball is seemingly making a mistake. Cuban would do a lot for the Cubs’ organization and baseball on a whole, but for whatever reason he’ll never have the chance to become an owner. It’s sad really, because in the end, baseball fans are the ones who suffer the most.

      MLB, NBA

      Hot Stove League: Pitchers Flying Off Shelves

      January 17, 2009 /

      This past week, John Smoltz officially signed with the Red Sox and the Braves inked Derek Lowe to a four-year, $60 million deal, something Atlanta’s rival New York Mets could not match. Imagine that. But what runs deeper here is that the second and even third tier of pitchers continue to be signed and many position players remain team-less.

      Less than a month before pitchers and catchers report, here are some of the big names still available: Manny freaking Ramirez, Adam Dunn, Bobby Abreu, Ken Griffey, Orlando Hudson, Frank Thomas, and to a lesser extent, Kevin Millar (20 homers last season) and Orlando Cabrera. To put this in perspective, the Astros signed pitcher Russ Ortiz to a minor league deal a few days ago, the Dodgers signed reliever Guillermo Mota, the Angels inked Darren Oliver for one year, and the White Sox brought back a Bartolo Colon who is on the downside of his career. Clearly, it’s a pitchers’ market this off-season, and it’s almost mind-boggling that Ramirez has gone almost three full months without being signed.

      Part of the problem here is that the big spenders (ahem, New York teams) have blown their collective load on the likes of CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Mark Teixeira, Francisco Rodriguez, etc., leaving a team like the Dodgers the likely scenario for Man-Ram in 2009, which at the end of the day is probably best for both sides anyway. But some of those other guys are going to have trouble finding work, or they are going to take a recession-friendly deal from a team they wouldn’t have signed with otherwise. It’s already happened with Pat Burrell in Tampa and Jason Giambi with Oakland.

      In other more recent news, the Red Sox avoided arbitration with Kevin Youkilis on Thursday, agreeing to terms on a four-year deal. And the Dodgers finally released beleaguered outfielder Andruw Jones, who the Braves are considering bringing back for the league minimum salary. The Braves are also mulling over whether to bring back injury-plagued LHP Tom Glavine for one more season.

      Bullz-Eye Sports Channel, Fantasy Baseball, MLB, Rumors & Gossip

      Yankees want taxpayers to chip in for new stadium

      January 16, 2009 /

      The Yankees are reaching out to New York tax payers to help cover the cost of their brand new stadium, which is set to open this season.

      New Yankee StadiumBut the same team that was so generous with its players now wants New York taxpayers to be even more generous than they already have been in helping fund for a stadium built for the singular purpose of making the Yankees even more money.

      The Yankees are going back hat-in-hand this week to ask the city for another $259 million in tax-exempt bonds on top of the $940 million in similar bonds they’ve already gotten for the new stadium, saying the extra money is needed, among other things, to pay for a state-of-the-art big screen and to properly finish off the stadium’s luxury suites.

      Now I’m no economist, but doesn’t something seem a little off here?

      Just weeks after committing some $423.5 million for Sabathia, Teixeira and A.J. Burnett, the Yankees need to float nearly that much in bonds at taxpayer expense just to finish the stadium? Couldn’t they reach out to their new players and get a loan from them instead?

      Yankees president Randy Levine insisted Wednesday in a contentious hearing that the team is paying for its own stadium and that grandstanding politicians are to blame for even making an issue out of the latest request. Although he’s right about the issue becoming a political, er, football, the fact remains that the city of New York and its taxpayers are heavily subsidizing the stadium, too.

      They’re hardly setting a precedent. Since the Baltimore Orioles soaked taxpayers for the first retro stadium, Camden Yards, in 1992, baseball owners have managed to con the public in 17 other cities for new parks of their own. In almost all cases, the majority of the money spent on these new stadiums has come from taxes or fees imposed for just that purpose.

      In the case of Yankee Stadium, it will be the Yankees paying off the bonds. But because they’re tax free, it means the bonds will carry lower interest rates and the team will avoid spending tens of millions of dollars it would have otherwise had to pay on the borrowed money.

      When everything is included, it adds up pretty quick. Figures released by the city’s Independent Budget Office tallied a whopping total public subsidy at more than $500 million, with another quarter billion dollars or so for the Mets’ new stadium in Queens.

      Like the writer, I don’t live in New York so I can’t be outraged over the fact that taxpayers have to chip in to help with the cost of the Yankees’ new stadium. And it’s hardly fair to criticize only the Yankees for doing this when 17 other teams are doing the same thing.

      But in a time of economic hardship, this doesn’t seem right. Baseball needs a cap. If teams like the Yankees didn’t spend millions of dollars on free agents every year, maybe they could foot the entire bill for a new stadium.

      MLB

      This is the best the Mets could come up with?

      January 13, 2009 /

      So the Mets unveiled their new uniform logo to celebrate the team’s move into Citi Field next season and not surprisingly, it’s taking some heat:

      At its best, it’s being said to resemble the logo of a certain pizza company that once featured the ‘Noid. At its worst, it’s being categorized as the biggest affront to Mets fans since John Rocker’s sermon in SI.

      Here’s what UniWatch’s Paul Lukas, a lifelong Mets fan, had to say:

      “Compare (anything) to this, and the Mets’ effort comes off looking like amateur hour. Or maybe amateur minute. It looks like one of those cheapo generic marks you see in commercials or movies when the producers couldn’t afford the licensing fees for the real logos.”

      Though some conspiracy theorists are saying that this is the Mets way of distancing the team from CitiGroup, that isn’t the case here. MLB doesn’t allow commercial logos on uniforms, so that wouldn’t even be an issue. More likely, it’s a case of the Mets being as dull and uninspiring as their ’08 bullpen. They could’ve held a coloring contest among preschoolers and still ended up with a better design than the one above.

      It’s almost like the designers were told they had a month to come up with the logo and instead of working on it, they got hammered drunk every night, came in the day the design was due and scribbled something really quickly on a piece of paper. Then the people that were in charge of approving the design (also hammered drunk the night before) passed it through because they wanted to get home as fast as they could to sleep off their hangover.

      Either that, or some first grader made the design out of Legos and the Mets’ brass went, “F*&k it – let’s go with the kid. Nobody’s going to care anyway.”

      MLB

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