It looks like they are all coming at the last minute. The big deal so far has Choi and Penny going to the Dodgers for Mota, Lo Duca and Encarnacion. Off the top of my head, it looks like a great deal for the Dodgers. They may be doing more, so I’ll hold off on more comments until it’s done. I like the Mets deal, getting Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir. I saw Kazmir pitch in New Britian a couple of weeks ago, and he was hard to hit. Unfortunately, this means the Mets won’t be trying to corner the market in Kaz’s. 🙂 I’m sure more will come later.
Update: The Mets got Benson, also. That gives them a very deep starting rotation. Looks like they are trying to win this year and trading the future for that chance.
Dave – you say that you like the Mets deal (Zambrano for Kazmir). Who do you like it for? I have to think that Duquette made a huge mistake here. Zambrano’s numbers have not been impressive this year (look at the BB’s!) and Kazmir is supposedly one of the top pitching prospects in baseball.
If the Mets goal is to make the playoffs this year, I like the trade. I also suspect that Zambrano will be a much better pitcher in Shea. The Mets appear to have gotten Benson as well, so they suddenly have a very deep starting rotation.
The Kazmir trade may be the worst Mets trade since the McDowell/Dykstra trade for Juan Samuel….or maybe the Jeff Kent for a bag of peanuts trade…A pitcher throwing lights out in AA with oodles of potential for a pitcher with a career K/BB ratio close to 1:1….I will now light myself on fire
As a Mets fan, this trade kills me. This team has been borderline unwatchable for the past 3 seasons. The collection of over paid and well past their prime veterans was horrendously boring to watch with little upside to look forward to. The team did however start accumulating some top shelf talent in the minors with Wright, Reyes, Kazmir, Peterson and Huber as well as Lastings Milledge and Yusmeiro Petit and for the first time since the 2000 season I actually had excitement about the team’s future, even if I knew that the team would still be resigned to a year or two more of mediocrity. Now that is all shot. They have completely gutted the minor league system on this ill-fated and short-sighted playoff push. In two years when Glavine, Piazza, Leiter, et al are either retired, on different teams or simply not performing, the Mets will have very little left. Let’s face it, Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano are not pitchers that you build a rotation around. Peterson and Kazmir at least have a chance to be special. Even if they don’t pan out, it is not as though two pitchers of the quality of Benson and Zambrano could not be found on the free agent market after the season.
The odds of the Mets winning the world series this year are extremely low. Their position in the standings is only because their division is lousy. Even if they make the playoffs, they will undoubtably be the worst team in the mix and do not have a potentially dominant pitching staff like last years Marlins squad to ride to a flag. So the team has likely consigned itself to boring, aging mediocrity over the next 3-4 years in a move with very limited short term upside.
I do have to give credit to Pirates GM Dave Littlefield. The trade he made last summer for Brian Giles looks like a real winner and he did an incredible job leveraging a very questionable chip for good talent.
What the hell are the Mets doing? With all due respect, David, after tonight’s loss the Mets are 7 games out with three teams in front of them for the division. How could they possibly get close to the playoffs? The Mets are far from being in a pennant race. Even if they had beat the Braves, they would have been 5 games out. Two 4+ ERA pitchers don’t solve any problems, but the talent they gave up for these two middlin’ hurlers showed potential to contribute for years to come. What a shame.
My deepest apologies to all Mets fans out there.
I suppose the Mutts have designs on securing Benson long-term, not just a rental. Okay, I guess – I’m not exactly seeing the second coming of Jason Schmidt, but I could be wrong.
In the meantime, I thought there was no way in hell Atlanta had a shot at the start of the season. Now, it looks like they’ve got a new crop of guys from their farm to keep things going, as well as Leo Mazzone using crazy glue, dixie cups and kite string to put together the top ERA of any pitching staff. No reason to buy or sell.
This trade dooms the Mets. I saw the news at CNNSI.com and immediately thought “what the hell are the Mets doing?!?”.
They’ve got Leiter and Glavine, pitching with ERA’s of 2.18 and 2.61 respectively, and yet neither of them have even 9 wins by August 1! Why does their GM think their pitching is the problem?!?
I understand that the rest of the starting pitching isn’t great (Seo’s got a high ERA and so does Trachsel but at least he leads the team with 9 wins), but why are they trying to improve their starting pitching when they know damn well that these guys won’t win if they give up 2 or 3 runs in a game?? They have to give their pitchers runs.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team make such a big trade at the deadline that says “We’ve given up on our year”.
I Can See It Now
Echoing ESPN’s Buster Olney, Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke will revive his Paul DePodesta smear campaign and demur the departure of Paul Lo Duca,…
Before we all applaud Littlefield just remember last year he didnt get much from the Cubs for Ramirez et.al… I dont like the Mets moves at all, but then again this organizaton hasnt developed many pitchers in the last 20 years either.
Maybe the Mets know something about Kazmir that we don’t. It’s just a thought…