Making The Call: The Locals Win At The Deadline

Lance Berkman with reporters yesterday (AP)

The MLB trade deadline has come and gone and it seems pretty clear that both New York teams walk away from it as winners. The Yankees for what they did and the Mets for what they didn’t do.

The Yankees half is easy to evaluate. They added three pieces that make them a deeper and more dangerous team while giving up little more than money. Lance Berkman may be having a down year, but he still has a .372 OBP and is still incredibly patient at the plate, seeing 4.13 pitches per plate appearance. He makes up for the mistake of signing Nick Johnson over Johnny Damon this offseason.

Austin Kearns provides a righty bat that can play the outfield and Kerry Wood represents a roll of the dice. Maybe he will recover his old from, probably he won’t, but it will only cost the Yankees about $1.5 million to find out.

The Mets are being panned in the press today for their lack of moves, but they were smart to sit out this trade deadline. Sitting 6-1/2 games out of the wild card and division is a big deficit at this point of the season. With the Braves and Phillies already ahead of them and both upgrading their teams, the odds of the Mets reaching the playoffs seem a lot smaller than 7 percent.

The Mets could have traded away some prospects for a veteran to make a splash and sell some tickets, but they have been down that road before. It may cost them in attendance this August and September, but it will prove to be the right move heading into 2011 and beyond.

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By Peter Trinkle in News on August 1, 2010 4:05 PM

Comments [rss]

whitecastlerock

Minaya is a terrible GM. He has repeatedly given out bloated contracts to mediocre players. He should have been fired last year.

jaycjay

Saying the Mets were "smart" not to make any moves is like saying that a guy who intentionally chopped off his fingers was smart to leave his thumb in place.

The Mets dug themselves into a hole with their roster moves over the past three seasons. They have no flexibility now to make any significant trades.

The best analysis I've seen of the Mets situation is here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=5427066

farkas

The yankees are all about money. They are not a team, they are a salaried all star team.

jaycjay

Facile, simplistic, and easily dismissed. Where did the Yankees "money" come into play in the moves they have made in recent days?

Houston's paying part of Berkman's salary, bringing it to a level that any club could afford. Same with Wood, the Yankees are only paying about $1.5 million of his salary, dependent upon his performance. Kearns' total salary for this year is only $750,000 so they'll pay a pro-rated portion of that.

None of these guys are superstars. If money really allowed the Yankees to get anyone they wanted, they'd have picked up both Cliff Lee and Joakim Soria.

And what's worse? Ownership that's willing to spend the money fans and advertisers are paying, to build a winning team, or ownership that will not? The Mets will likely find attendance dropping the rest of the season, so will be less likely to spend in the off-season. They Yankees will continue to have strong attendance, and will be ready to spend again. Around the league are plenty of teams where ownership's priorities are to siphon money off the team to fund other things, primarily their own lifestyles. Yankee fans see the results of what they spend -- at the same time that through revenue sharing they're also funding teams like the Marlins, who pay less in salary than they receive through that process.