Francisco Rodriguez, Damaso Marte and the Managers of the Year
Here's what Angels owner Arte Moreno said today on The Sports Lodge, a popular radio show on a radio station owned by Moreno, concerning Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez:
"Believe it or not, we really spent a lot of time and effort trying to re-sign Frankie. In fact, I think there were six different offers on the table, at different times. At about this time last year, we thought we had him signed. Rivera got the three-year, $45-million deal from the Yankees. I was at the owners’ meetings in Florida last year where Tony felt that we had him signed. We had an agreement and he didn’t sign it.
"I think as a whole, we’re probably turning the page on this one. I think that we as an organization made this decision. And I’m not one of these ‘never, never’ people. I’m saying, I think as a whole, it’s important to turn the page and move forward, and get prepared to do some of the other things we want to do."
I don't think this is much of a bluff by Moreno. The Angels have Scot Shields and Jose Arredondo to man the back of the bullpen, and as Moreno alluded, they're going to be going hard after CC Sabathia while staying in the mix on Mark Teixeira.
It's another encouraging sign for the Mets, who just might be able to get K-Rod for four years. I just don't see who's going to be offering this guy five years.
If they thought that highly of Marte, the Yankees should've just exercised the $6 million option on him for 2009, then re-evaluated him again a year from now. Instead, they get a short-term, $2-million savings on a guy who pitched well for them only after the Yankees were virtually eliminated. When the Yankees were sort of still in the playoff race, Marte posted a 7.72 ERA, in his first 16 appearances (through Aug. 30). After that, he was money. Small sample sizes on both ends, I agree...
The Yankees made a similar mistake, albeit it with a different result, with Jon Lieber in the 2004-05 offseason. Remember how well Lieber pitched for the Yankees in '04? He was a crowd-pleaser; he worked quickly. He even outpitched Pedro Martinez in 2004 ALCS Game 2.
The Yankees had an $8 million team option on him for 2005, but they decided it was too high an annual average value. They tried instead to sign him to a multiple-year deal - if I remember correctly, they offered three years and $18 million - and Lieber wound up accepting a three-year, $21-million deal from the Phillies.
The Phillies didn't get clobbered on their three-year agreement with Lieber, but it wasn't tremendous, either. Lieber pitched quite well in '05, however, and the Yankees sure could've used him in '05, particularly in the playoffs.
I just don't understand why the Yankees don't consistently value the years over the dollars. Look, say what you want about the Dodgers and Ned Colletti, but with one horrendous exception, they have minimized their risk by not giving out long-term deals.
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Comments (28)
The way everybody is dissing him, KRod might have to resort to declaring himself a bank holding company if he's ever going to get big money.
While we don't know how either will fare, it sure looks like the Mets are going to find Fuentes or KRod dropped into their laps at a decent price.
Ken, keeping Marte for three years at $4M per season is another WTF moment. If this deal is not Cashman's doing, then please explain to me again why he bothered to re-up with the Yankees.
I'm running out of explanations, JE. Doesn't make sense at all to me...
I heard K-Rod agent, Paul Kinzer with Boomer and Carton on WFAN yesterday. He said K-Rod will sign in the next 2-3 weeks and the Mets would be a good fit but he still said 5 years is the starting point.
Cashman had a chance to leave the Yanks. Instead he stay for 3 years and is now stuck with dealing with Hank and Hal. Cashman probably like Marte and thought he might lose him. But the fact he gave his 3 years $12 million with a club option for 2012 is insane.
Ken lets see if Omar can stop himself from Omar being Omar and bid against himself against K-Rod. If he shells out five years, it will prove my point that he has little negotiation skills and just bowls over people with money.
As for the Lieber signing, that too was Omar and Duquette's fault. If you look at the free agents the year before, baseball started to settle down and decrease contracts. A guy like Lieber was not going to make 8 milliion which is why the Yanks did not pick up his option. But then Omar felt obligated to overpay for Kris Benson because of Duquette, and gave him 21 mil for three years (doint it on memory but I think thats what it was). That signing started a domino effect and the Phillies overpaid for Lieber and the Yanks overpaid for Jared Wright. Again, doing this on memory so I could be wrong. Dont have time to look up.
You were way off with Marte Ken. And you know what that proves?? That you have common sense. I would say its unbelievable, but overpaying for pedestrian players is very believable these days. Latroy and Marte are proving the economy will not affect anyone in baseball.
You have your details exactly right on Lieber//Benson, Richie, but my point was that the Yankees didn't have to worry about the Benson deal if they had just exercised their option on Lieber and paid a little more for the one year.
I was way off on Marte? You mean with my opinion that they should let him go?
I am completely disgusted with Cashman. I am not a member of his cult and thus am not convinced he is a very good GM. Once again he is using Yankee money to make a deal - even though it is a bad deal. Maybe he has to go to a club that won't let him waste money like this for us to see if he is really competent at his job.
Marte pitched poorly for the Yankees and yet Cashman wanted him back for three more years. I thought Cashman was against multi year deals for set-up men? I have little confidence the Yankees will be going to the World Series anytime soon.
Can't blame you at all, Jack. A highly discouraging first move for Yankees fans.
Ken, are any off-season Live Chats planned?
I'd think so, Jack. I'm making a rare Melville appearance tomorrow, and I'm sure that subject will come up...
Amazingly, the folks at WasWatching are cheering the Marte deal! What do they smoke on that site? Three years?!? Again, I would have understood had the Yanks exercised Marte's $6M option, considering that he is certainly capable of having an excellent '09. I would have understood had Cashman let the "A" free agent walk and scooping up the draft picks.
OK, thanks, Ken. I'll tell my friend in sports to look for you over on Pinelawn Road.
The Marte deal tells you nobody knows who is running the Yanks. As I said before, the Yanks are running this team like a real business. Right now the Yanks seems more worry about making money with the help from the revenues they expect to generated from the new Yankee Stadium and spending it on free agents instead of developing a team that can win the right way with players in the farm system like the Red Sox have.
The New York Yankees are a real business. The goal of any business is to make money. I have no doubt that Brian Cashman is responsible for the Marte deal. I don't think Hal or Hank have anything to do with it. Hal merely gave the green light to free agent acquisitions this off-season. He probably set a general budget figure. I don't think he is getting involved in talent assessments, etc. According to today's NY Post, the Yankees are having trouble selling all their luxury suites with at least seven of the $600,000 units going unsold at this point.
I don't think this is necessarily an issue of competing philosophies. I'm not convinced that Cashman is very good at what he does.
Marte is friends with CC, Girardi wanted him back bad and CC wanted to know Bruney-Marte-Mo would be there for him. Fuentes was much more expensive and Coke (et al) isn't an option yet. If they would've picked up the option or gone to arbitration and wanted to keep him beyond next season, he would've cost far more. The contract is front loaded and in 2 years he'll be inflation cheap with only a 1/4 million buyout. Now that he locked up he's tradeable after next season and moreso in 2 years.
Hey, Jack, I read that murraychass.com story. Murray and I actually agree on something! He, like me, thinks that Chicago Sun-Times story on Cuban was meaningless!
Ken, I'm happy that they signed Marte for 3 years. His stuff is electric, he's a lefty (good ones are rare) and once he settled in he produced the sort of results that we expected when he was first signed. Our bullpen is probably our biggest strength at present. We now have 2 left handed options in Marte and Coke. Signing Marte really balances the bullpen and provides stability into the future. On another note, I realise that the Yankees will overspend for whoever they add to the rotation. I view Wang as being similar to a FA signing, as we didn't have him for the majority of last season. How has Sabathia fared in the playoffs? My recollections are that he was pretty average, but my memory is not the best. His physical condition will provide plenty of employment to the medical profession at some stage. Will that be in 2 or 3 years or 10? You do have to take some risks, but I'd be happy with this:
Wang
Chamberlain
Pettitte/Mussina
Hughes
Aceves/Zambrano/Kennedy/?????????
Ramirez for 2-3 years interests me. Texiera at 7 years doesn't.
The lineup:
Damon LF/DH/1B
Jeter SS
Rodriguez 3B
Ramirez DH/RF
Matsui DH/LF
Nady LF/RF/1B
Posada C/1B/DH
Cano 2B
Gardner/Cabrera CF
Hank and Hal wanted Cashman back. Cashman had the chance to leave the Yanks when his contract erpired. Both Cashman and Hank and/or Hal had a choice. Cashman could had bolt for another team. Hank and Hal could have told Cashman that they don't want him anymore. Instead Hank and Hal thought so highly of Cashman that they ask him to stay and Cashman decided to stay. Perhaps the people running the baseball operations for the Yanks are no good.
how is this a mistake? why do you even bother writing articles about the Yankees? If the mets signed him to the same deal you'd think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread ans that Omar should replace Obama as president. Then you compare the guy to john Lieber? are you kidding me? put down the peace pipe ken. He's a lefty with great stuff and is real tough on lefty hitters. Yes, he had a rough start with the yanks but then you justify his solid finish by saying "well the yanks were out of it".? So you say pick up his option for 6 mill, say he pitches well than we have to sign him to a multi year deal anyway cause he'll walk to another team that will if we didn't. Looks to me like the yanks lock up a solid lefty rp for 3 year 12 million and your whining, searching for reasons to bash it. Have fun watching the mets bullpen, oh wait, you don't have one LOLOLOLOL
"Well, I guess the Yankees didn't read my blog post from this morning. Three years and $12 million for Damaso Marte? Good Lord."
I bet anything you had the article "Mets should sigh Marte, 3 years 12 million" already written and saved and the fact the yanks signed him ruined your whole game plan.
Career 3.29 era, over a k/inning, lefties hit under .200 for his career of him. "good lord"? that's what i say when i see a ken davidoff article
Without getting into the economics of it, I like signing Marte.
I liked what I saw of him last year, and if memory serves me right, the only time he had issues was when PUDGE was behind the plate.
Give him Posada or Molina and those hiccups from last year will soon be forgotten.
You can never have too many pitchers....especially LH'ers.
Ken, I meant you were way off in thinking the Yanks wouldn't do those kind of idiotic signings. And your out is you thought Cashman had common sense. I dont think anybody saw this coming, not even Marte's agent who must be laughing all the way to the bank. I know you take pride in your predictions but I think we all have to cut ourselves slack on this one. Signing Marte to this contract was something nobody SHOULD have seen coming. Totally idiotic.
And I get your point on Lieber. But my point was I think the Yanks thought they could get a comperable pitcher as Lieber for two years at 9 million or something. Which is certainly more palatable than one year at 8. And I'm not sure they weren't going to bid on Lieber (though you would probably know). But when Omar blew the doors open for Benson, it blew the mediocre pitching scale out of wack and one year at 8 million which seemed laughable at the time, now was a bargain. But it was too late.
Peter Lacock: Marte's contract isn't front loaded. The salaries are $3.75, $4 and $4 million with a club option and a $250,000 buyout. If the Yankees thought Coke was ready yet, they should have given Marte one year. If it takes Coke three years to get ready, he probably won't last on the team that long.
Ken, I hear you about MC knocking the Chicago Trib story, but he made a point that Selig's friends have a way of ending up as club owners, even when their bid isn't the highest.
And I agree totally with Murray's point, Jack. My only point from the other day was not to go to town on the Sun-Times story. We're just not yet at the point where Cuban is officially out. There still could be some interesting dealings with Cuban/Zell/Selilg.
Richie, thanks for the explanation.
Jack,
3.75, 4 and 4 with a 4 million option and a measly 250,000 buyout is front loaded with inflation. Most contracts escalate as such. Lefty relievers were signing for 3 years at 12 million last year (J.C. Romero, Jamie Walker). Fuentes is reportedly looking for 3 years at 14 million and he's a year older. I think it's a great signing and Cashman has shown his genius yet again. I also believe the only reason to complain about this is because some people just need something to complain about. I'm thrilled that this is one less thing to worry about and it's minor move for chump change that solidifys the bullpen and will help attract Moose, CC and Teixeira.
Wouldn't a front loaded contract pay him $5, $4 and $3 million, for example? Marte's numbers with the Yankees were awful. Ken could have pitched better and given up less runs. :)
"Marte's numbers with the Yankees were awful. Ken could have pitched better and given up less runs. :)"
It's comment's like this that prove Ken is a Met bias homer and that most people that read his article don't know much about baseball and are also Mets bias homers.
I'll judge Marte on the 454.1 career innings not on the Yanks over the 18.1 he only pitched for the Yankes last year. Which 6.2 of those innings for the yanks were lights out at the end of the season.
Marte and Coke will make 2 nice LRP out of the yankees been for the next 3 years. To bash the signing really doesnt make much sense to me? How much would the mets of signed him for if he made himself avalible Ken? 4 years 16 million? sounds about right to me and you and all the met flunkies would of loved it.
RT, welcome to the blog! Thanks for your passion!
The Yankees have plenty of money. They don't have plenty of roster spots. So the idea is you use those roster spots as intelligently as you can. Here's what I would've done: Sign Marte for a year, with the hope that, by the end of '09, Coke can do what Marte does for a lot less. If Marte is still really good and Coke is not it (get it?), then offer Marte arbitration. Marte, having made $6 million in '09, would've been in a position to make a killer, one-year salary in '10 by accepting arbitration - which, again, the Yankees can afford.
If Marte is no good next year - if he convinces his bosses to unload him, as he did the one year he played for a playoff team ('05 White Sox) - then you can wash your hands of him without any pain.
I think that 3 year deal to Marte was a little excessive for the Yankees. Why not go shorter on the years and more on the money, If i'm the Yanks why not investigate younger alternatives like Juan Cruz. Why give 3 years to a relief pitcher whose 33 years old when they're younger alternatives like Cruz out on the market. I know the Yanks have money to burn and if Marte struggles the way he did in the 2nd half of the season last year the Yanks can absorb it. But why risk it if you don't have to? Hey Ken are you going to be making any sports talk radio appearances today or in the next couple of days? Dying to hear some hot stove baseball talk.