Hope you weren't too terribly attached to Mike Jacobs or the concept of Yusmeiro Petit. They've both been traded to Florida for Carlos Delgado and $7 million, pending physicals and commissioner approval.
We're getting Carlos Delgado.
We're getting Carlos Delgado!
We're getting Carlos Delgado?
The Marlins have $7 million?
I didn't really think this was going to happen. I'm happy, I guess. I'd be happier if I thought Delgado was thrilled. Not that I'm terribly worried about the disposition of a guy who's owed $48 mil over the next three years ($41 mil of that from us, apparently). But you know the bit: didn't want to come here, didn't cotton to Omar or Bernazard, is supposedly still in a snit about us.
Ya know what? He hits like a son of a gun and for these prices, he'll learn to love being us. If he can hit in Your Name Here Stadium, he can hit at Shea. He's not much of a first baseman? Who is? Minky is, so, quite frankly, who cares that much? We got by with Marlon Anderson and Jose Offerman taking more than their share of starts at first last summer. Actually, I don't know that we got by, but they happened. The point is the guy can hit for power like nobody else here.
Hmmm…if Delgado bats fourth, Wright third, Floyd fifth? We want to break up the lefties, though, no? Beltran second? Beltran fifth and Floyd sixth? Wright's not a cleanup hitter, is he?
Wait, does Floyd stay? Is this Manny nonsense still underway? Does Wagner say, oh boy, they really do have money, I better go get me some now? To a far lesser extent, will Xavier Nady have the chance to hit 15 home runs and lead all Mets whose last name starts with the letter N in that category? (Charlie Neal has 14, Dan Norman has 9, Jon Nunnally has 2, Else Nobody has any.)
On the flip side, did we just trade a promising kid pitcher and a first baseman who hit 11 homers in a hundred at-bats? Didn't Jacobs work his ass off to get this far? Now Jakey's out of the buggy. Too bad. Isn't Petit our best pitching prospect? Why are we always sending our best pitching prospects to the Sunshine State? Is there any point in pretending that the Mets will ever build a team again under Minaya?
Does it matter if you get Delgado's bat? How grumpy could it be? Do we care that Carlos Delgado has never led or even followed his team into the post-season? Is that his fault?
It may not be what the Pilgrims had in mind, but Happy Thanksgiving.
Liked Jacobs, fetishized his Cyclones heroics, thought he had a beautiful, Olerudesque swing. Heard good things about Petit. They have potential, and giving up homegrown potential always makes you hem and haw a bit. But damn, listen to the FAN and read various comment boards and you'd think we'd just traded them for Eric Hinske. Carlos Delgado does not have potential. He doesn't need it: He's hit 30 or more home runs NINE YEARS in a row. Much as I like Mike Jacobs, it's an open question whether he'll ever do that once.
As for controversy, well, David Sloane ain't gonna be playing first base and demanding they play Joe Cocker for his at-bat music, so who cares.
Happy Thanksgiving indeed. Thanks for the nice heaping plate of Delgado, Omar! While you're carving, can I get some big slices of Wagner? And maybe a side of Grudzielanek? Tasty!
The ranks of the Mets homegrown organization (which, as you noted were already quite thin) have become dangerously thinner with this latest Yankee-esqe trade. Will we wonder in two or three year's time,
how it was that we dealt two more of our best and brightest for a quick, but demonstrably short-sighted fix? We have only to look as far as the deal that lost us Jason Bay to know that special talent like Jake's shouldn't be underestimated. I hope that we don't find that Delgado's on the downward side of his career, while Petit and Jacobs have just begun to rise.