Much Ado About Nothin'

In the end, no one major came over from the AL, not Soriano, not Ramirez. Who would have thought that Randy Winn would be the biggest name traded at the deadline, and that the Giants would get him? Of course, that meant that the Bums would buy him ($98), partly because they had the dough and partly because, well, he’s a Giant. And the Bums kept 5 bucks for some future pickup. Gotta love it. Though now that Yorvit is gone, they must be in mourning.

Of course, like it’s been all year, we had the 2nd Winning bid. We bid what we could, $55. He wouldn’t have helped us that much, just like he won’t help the Giants too much. We did win the Farnsworth sweepstakes (could end up the closer there, which would make sixteen bucks a bargain), and we also got Juan Padilla, another closer of the future. No one bid on Padilla in 2 weeks? We would have bid on him last week, but we were hoarding our money in case a big bopper came over. Maybe he’ll even be the closer for the Mets next year! A guy can dream, can’t he?

So the Bums are going to start to sell their pieces: Wagner, Schmidt, Wood, Byrnes and Winn. Not quite the same as …and Ramirez. Or …and Soriano. The Bums rarely are sellers, so it should be interesting to watch. I hope they will still talk to us after we traded Cabrera today. We had been talking to them about Cabrera in case they did pick up a monster hitter, Yup, done deal. Our 2 month subscription to Larry Dot Net ended at 11AM today. Actually, as I typed this sentence I got a call from Larry Dot Net congratulating me on getting Farnsworth, so I guess I’ve still got a complementary (so to speak) subscription.

Of course, everyone has been talking to Larry about Andruw Jones. We had passed on a previous deal which did not include Jose Guillen because Cabrera is just so valuable in the categories we need the most: BA and RBI’s. Finally we told Larry we had to have them both if we traded Cabrera. We tried to get Reitsma, but we agree with Larry that he’s nuts to trade him, even though he’s is really unlikely to be the closer next season. He’s just got to take the chance that he will keep the job.

We were offering Milledge for Reitsma, more or less. Of course, Milledge came awfully close to having zero value when the Mets offered him to the Bosox. He’s 20 years old, now playing in AA, with speed and power and all the tools. And he’s available to the right bidder who would like to offer what we need. As is a $3 Mike Hampton.

Now we’ve all poked fun at the Falkuhns and the apparent difficulty in making a deal with Larry. Yeah, you’ve got to carry on conversations with little Robert getting into some kind of trouble in the background, and you’ve got to discuss voter fraud in Ohio, and you have to listen to all the other offers Larry is getting for the players you want. And, most of all, you have to realize that any deal is going to move at glacier speed. But the Falkuhns have made deals with at least 4 different contenders this season, each one of them has been pretty reasonable, and none of them will have a huge effect on the race. He’s extracted some nice pieces. Of course, it’s been a seller’s market, with 8 teams in some kind of contention and no one else with many chips left actively seeking deals. (The Bums begin today.) I’d just like to say that making a Larry Dot Net deal is like making a deal with no one else, but in the end, he’s getting the job done with nary a wimper from the other contenders. Good for him.

So we’ve now got a bunch of ridiculously expensive keepable guys for next year. Jones - 36. Guillen - 29. Pedro - 30. Floyd – 26. Looper – 25. Lawton – 28. That’s 6 for 174. Clearly, we won’t be able to keep them all. Or will we? I ask the following question about my hero in BABI: What would Lou do? One thing about out team: if we decide to quit the race (unlikely), we’ve got some incredible names to trade. Of course, it’s not clear on what the contenders have left for next year that they will trade. Whatever, we’re here. And remember: we’re email guys.