For the first time in about a year, FireFox ate one of my posts. I think it's a sign that I should finally ugrade to 2.0-whatever. I don't know why, but it's always the long posts that get chewed up, never a quick link post.
Anyway, I'm just going to quickly touch on the things I had to say in the rather long post that none of you got the chance to read.
- The Podsednik signing doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. He'll probably be back, though if Kenny's smart, he'll easily be able to rid himself of the Adveture for something more useful. All he has to do is tout Podsednik's relatively light contract of 2-years/$8M (he'll earn about $5M in '08) against Juan Pierre for $44M or $5+M for age 37 Dave Roberts, and he should have some suitors.
- The $2.9M might actually be a $100K cheaper than what Pods would have received at arbitration. I suspect that KW called up Pods' agent and asked what figure he would have submitted at arbitration, told him the Sox figure, and they split the difference. Not a dumb thing to do if you're going to shop somebody at the winter meetings, and you want to be able to sell his cost certainty. There's really no reason to be upset about the money. Pods was going to be paid essentially the same thing no matter what. The only reason you can be mad is if you thought the Sox should have let Pods go for nothing in return (non-tender). And in the current marketplace, I don't see why you wouldn't at least try to get something in return.
- If I was Kenny, the first thing I would do upon landing in Orlando is find my good friend Jim Bowden and buy him a few J?ger Bombs. Bowden lost both his leadoff man and his left fielder to free agency, and finished the season with Nook Logan in center field. His 2007 outfield looks like this; Austin Kearns in RF, with Logan, Ryan Church, and Alex Escobar (with whatever injury he has at the time) battling it out for the remaining two spots.
- Church is in Bowden's "doghouse" and won't be with the Nationals at this time next week. He's a lot like Rob Mackowiak, if Mackowiak could hit LHP and play CF. I'd send Pods, plus one of the AAA arms (Tim Redding would currently be in the Nats rotation) for Church. Or you could even send Mack with some cash and a better prospect to get the deal done.
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David Riske was not offered salary arbitration, immediately making him the most attractive free agent reliever in a market where LaTroy Hawkins just received $3.5M offer. It's a big miscalculation by Williams who seems to be saying one thing, "we have to rededicate ourselves to the foundation of every organization, which is scouting and player development," while doing another. I know one thing about player development: extra picks before the second round are very valuable. (See: Gonzalez, Gio; Lumsden, Tyler, obtained by offering arbitration to Bartolo Colon and Tom Gordon, eventually turned into Jim Thome and Mike MacDougal)
I expect him to sign with the Red Sox, Yankees, or Indians by the end of the weekend.