No it's not Lowe, but it's not bad

He's not super-durable like Derek Lowe, or better than league-average like Derek Lowe, but for one year at $2.25 million I'm happy the Mets got Tim Redding. Giving him the ball every fifth day would not be tantamount to conceding the division to the Phillies. Heck, before the All-Star break last year he was looking downright useful, and there was a time not so long ago when a guy like that would be demanding multiple years at much more than $2 million per.

Still, he's not good. His absolute ceiling is a #4-type starter. We need one more good pitcher to make Pelfrey our #4 and make Redding/Niese/Parnell/whoever compete for the 5th/spot positions.

One more reason to get Derek Lowe: the Mets have to play the Braves 18 times a season, and the Bravos have already signed Javier Vazquez, who has become badly underrated (did you know he struck out 200 last year?). So, if they added Lowe their rotation would be Hudson-Vazquez-Lowe-Jurrjens-Campillo. Yes, the Philles would have to deal with it, too, but the Wild Card, God forbid, is not adjusted for strength of schedule.

Just give him what he wants.

The Mets need to sign Derek Lowe. It seems like it will probably happen. The powers that be reportedly talked to Scott Boras about "all" his clients, which would include Oliver Perez, and Manny Ramirez as well, but the other two are really luxuries.

Jon Niese and Bobby Parnell look like nice enough prospects, but if they're both fixtures in the 2009 rotation, it's going to be trouble. The Mets are too good in other areas, too likely to make the playoffs, to let that happen. So, more than any other team, the Mets could use a guy who is an incredibly safe bet for 200 innings of sub-4.00 ERA ball.

Derek Lowe is the only pitcher available who fits that bill (Tim Redding does not, no matter what MLB's subheadline writers may think). Paul DePodesta was questioned if not vilified for signing him to a 4yr/$36 million deal in the '04-'05 offseason, but that turned out to be a fantastic investment for the Dodgers.

Now it turns out the Braves are going to get in on the bidding. If the Mets end up getting outbid on Lowe by Atlanta, either Omar needs to go or the Wilpons lost more money to Bernie Madoff than they let on.

A word about the Mets' reliever moves

Well, I wasn't exactly lobbying for Francisco Rodriguez, but there's a big difference between the 5 years/$75 million that it was supposed to have taken and the 3 years/$37 million that it actually took. At that price it's hard to complain. The guy is pretty good, after all.

It's even harder to complain after seeing that the Indians had to go over $10 million/yr to get Kerry Wood, whose injury problems have been very real instead of just seemingly inevitable like K-Rod's.

And the 12-player JJ Putz deal seems borderline brilliant, as it appears that Endy Chavez might have been the most valuable player the Mets gave up. Heilman was going to do be assigned to mop-up duty at best, and I don't know of any particular reason to be worried that Mike Carp is the next Jeff Bagwell. Plus the throw-ins Omar got along with Putz are kinda interesting. Outfielder Jeremy Reed was once considered an elite prospect. Sure, he's not anymore, but at 27 it's not like he couldn't become a Chavez-caliber role player. And Sean Green, while unspectacular, gave up fewer home runs in 2008 than Heilman gave up in a bad inning.

I still don't like Santana, Maine, Pelfrey, ?? and ??? as a starting five, but I'm glad Omar didn't give A.J. Burnett what the Yankees did, and if he had to go out and get two famous Closers, at least he did it about as efficiently as one could hope for.

Billy effing Beane: Matt Holliday to the A's

Well that's disappointing. Billy Beane has reportedly acquired Matt Holliday from the Rockies in exchange for Closer Huston Street (whose last year sucked, as I know from bitter fantasy league experience), young SP/RP Greg Smith, and OF prospect Carlos Gonzales.

Holliday should have been made a Met this offseason, dammit. A Met! He was worth paying for in talent, and the way you know that is that Billy Beane is usually the guy who sells the star for the prospects rather than the other way around. This time he's a buyer and he did it before any of the lesser lights from richer teams, like our very own Omar Minaya, even got their acts together.

But I'm sure Fernando Tatis's bat has plenty of offense left in it. Really.

h/t Eric Simon

Brian Fuentes has his people talk to Omar's people

Via Eric Simon, who says of the 4 year/$44 million proposal (from Fuentes): "Knock that down to three years at the same annual salary and I'm a buyer. Sure as hell beats five years and $75 million for Francisco Rodriguez."

I agree completely. I wrote this past year that Fuentes was not some just some shmoe who happened to get some saves for a club that had no other options. He's good enough to be a real upgrade over Sanchez/Heilman/Feliciano/who the hell knows. But he's also 33 years old, which means the line has to be drawn at three years. No exceptions of the sort they made for Pedro (and look how that turned out).

That'd do nicely

For the record, I wholeheartedly approve of this Javier Vazquez rumor. I'm not sure what the specs are on Citi Field, but if the fences are deep it would make him an even better fit. He's capable of mowing down hitters but his mistakes tend to go a long way. And obviously he's not exactly a young man anymore so I'd like for the contract to be 3 years max, but I'd rather see Minaya put the money to work in the rotation than end up in some godawful bidding war for Francisco Rodriguez.

Phillies win the World Series

That was a good Phillies team. I thought it was pretty obvious before the season started, which helped in the end because it made the Mets post-ASB division lead seem like a flukish occurence rather than reversion to the mean.

I'm not at all happy about it, but Chase Utley is a freakishly valuable player. Ryan Howard didn't even have as good a year as he easily could have, despite all the RBIs. The pitching staff wasn't exactly deep, even after the acquisition of Blanton, but Hamels and Myers had great seasons, and Lidge was wild but still pretty dominant all year.

I think the Mets could pass them this offseason but they can't do something stupid like spending the whole wad on an Elite Closer with a Nickname. Forget that. If you're going to dig deep for a pitcher it should be Sabathia. I don't even want Sheets or Burnett for injury reasons, with the latter being on parole for his 2008 but the former still always hurt.

Whatever big name(s) get acquired, I hope Minaya takes care to avoid a repeat of some of this season's uglier scenarios like starting Damion Easley at first or bringing Scott Schoeneweis into a regular season game.