At Home Plate - Point/Counterpoint: Worst Offseason Move

At Home Plate

Point/Counterpoint: Worst Offseason Move

Written by At Home Plate Staff (Contact & Archive) on January 06, 2010

Mets Make Boneheaded Move with Bay

By Jon Leshanski

So what is the worst move of the offseason? In my mind it has to be the boneheaded signing of Jason Bay by the New York Mets. Bay was exactly what the Mets don't need, another high priced aging player who struggles in the field and demanded a guaranteed long term contract that could pin him in left field for four to five years.

Will Jason Bay flop in New York?

Photo by Keith Allison, used under creative commons license.

Sure you can argue that he's a career .280 hitter with legit 30 home run power, but Bay is 31 and has defensive abilities better suited to a designated hitter. Playing in cavernous Citi Field his defensive shortcomings will be highlighted while the major effects of his power will be somewhat blunted. Giving him a Gary Matthews type contract at this point in his career, especially when he's better suited to the American League, was a foolish move, especially when a better athlete with more upside like Matt Holliday is on the market.

The truth is this move didn't make baseball sense. It was a desperation move made by a team driven by media pressure to compete with the Yankees and Phillies even though they are not in any shape baseball-wise to do so. And the Mets thinking apparently is that if you can't compete with those teams on the field, they'll at least throw their fans a bone by signing an expensive big name free agent, even if he doesn't fit the mold of what the Mets truly need.

That's the big truth -- Bay doesn't make the Mets much better. Maybe not even marginally better and he's totally irrelevant if the big bats on the team -- Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran -- don't bounce back big after the ugliness last season.

Perhaps even worse than that, Bay doesn't add to the core this team is built around. The best fans can hope for is that he won't just be another expensive albatross a year or two into his contract.

Diamondbacks Trade Worst Move of Offseason

By Daniel Paulling

It's difficult to spin this trade positively for the Diamondbacks. They dealt Max Scherzer, a developing starting pitcher with more strikeouts than innings pitched in his Major League career, and Daniel Schlereth, who could be a decent relief pitcher in the future, for two pitchers of questionable upside.

Edwin Jackson is the centerpiece of this deal for the Diamondbacks. He looked superb last season, earning his first All-Star berth and making good on the promise he showed as a top-rated prospect coming through the Dodgers farm system. However, Jackson stumbled greatly down the stretch and finished with a 3.62 ERA with the Tigers.

He is going to a weaker league, but the Diamondbacks would be foolish to expect him to out produce Scherzer's 2009 season (9-11, 4.12 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, nearly 3:1 K:BB ratio).

The Diamondbacks also acquired Ian Kennedy, a former Yankee who wasn't given much of an opportunity to stick with the Major League club. (To be fair, the Yankees can't give their young prospects much time to develop at the Major League level. Kennedy didn't produce, so he had to be sent down quickly.) There is some hype bubbling around Kennedy in that he has worked on his two-seam fastball in the Arizona Fall League, which could greatly improve his chances for success in 2010. I wouldn't buy too much into it.

The Diamondbacks made themselves noticeably weaker in this trade. They replaced Scherzer with an older pitcher who costs more and has less upside, while exchanging Schlereth for a starting pitcher who may or may not become a No. 5 pitcher in the future.

Seems like a lose-lose proposition to me.

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