Winning the West

Nice recap by Tracy Ringolsby on how the NL West rosters have changed (or not changed with re-signings) as a result of the activity during or before the Winter Meetings. Clearly, the Dodgers are in the driver's seat at this point with the addition of two starting pitchers and re-signing Takashi Saito. Of course, they'll have to contend with lots of outs in the first inning (Grady Little said on MLB.com that Pierre would hit in the first inning batting either first or second) with the addition of Juan Pierre. Nomar Garciapara will continue to be an injury risk as well. The loss of Jason Schmidt and Moises Alou loom large in San Francisco but the addition of Greg Maddux should be an excellent one for the Padres.

Winter Meetings - Day 4

If you haven't been paying attention to the winter meetings and the free agent market that has skyrocketed by as much as 70% according to Nate Silver at BP, here's a quick recap of the transactions (so far) from today.

Atlanta Braves - Acquired RHP Rafael Soriano from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for LHP Horacio Ramirez.

Chicago Cubs - Acquired RHP Kevin Hart from the Baltimore Orioles as the player to be named later in the December 6th trade of INF/OF Freddie Bynum.

Chicago White Sox - Acquired LHP Gio Gonzalez from the Philadelphia Phillies as the player to be named later in the Dec 6 trade of RHP Freddy Garcia.

Cincinnati Reds - Acquired OF Josh Hamilton (Rule 5 Draft selection) from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for cash considerations.

Detroit Tigers - Acquired LHP Edward Campusano (Rule 5 Draft selection) from the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for cash considerations.

Kansas City Royals - Signed RHP Gil Meche to a five-year contract.

Oakland Athletics - Acquired OF Ryan Goleski (Rule 5 Draft selection) from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in exchange for LHP Jay Marshall (Rule 5 Draft selection) and cash considerations.

Philadelphia Phillies - Acquired RHP Alfredo Simon (Rule 5 Draft selection) from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for C Adam Donachie (Rule 5 Draft selection) and cash considerations.

Seattle Mariners - Acquired RHP Sean White (Rule 5 Draft selection) from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for cash considerations.

Texas Rangers - Acquired C Salomon Manriquez (AAA Phase Rule 5 Draft selection) from the Colorado Rockies in exchange for cash considerations.

As you can tell, the Rule 5 draft was held today and there were some interesting names in the mix including Josh Hamilton going to the Reds and, for Rockies fans anyway, Jason Smith heading from the Cubs to the Blue Jays. Kevin Goldstein breaks it all down as does Baseball America.


The signing of the day, however, was clearly the Royals hitching their wagon to Gil Meche. At 28, he's an interesting signing but any contract of more than about three years is probably based more on hope and faith than anything else and his major should surgery of 2001 has probably limited his upside and shortened his horizon. In addition, for the Royals to spend $10M on any single player that does not get them over the hump and into the post season is probably a mistake. In monetary terms he simply can't be worth that much to a small market team like the Royals. Moving from 85 to 95 wins is the sweet spot, not from 65 to 75 (although I'm certainly not saying Meche will improve the team by 10 games). Vince Gennaro has another interesting essay on this topic in the THT 2007 Annual where he shows that even a 95 win season would yield the Royals the second lowest amount in terms of local revenues (the Twins were last).

MLB.com is reporting that the total outlay at the Winter Meetings thus far is $433M. Ouch. Maury Brown also has a nice list of the free agents, their ranking (A, B) and who they signed with along with the compensation the team gets who lost the free agent. Fortunately for the Royals Meche was a type B free agent and therefore won't cost them a draft pick.