The Milledge Trade Looks Worse Today

If you haven't heard there's news from the winter meeting that the Tigers and Mets are talking about a possible trade that would send Dontrelle Willis to the Mets.

What's the catch? Well, the catch is the Tigers have found themselves with a payroll overload and need to cut back so any deal involving Dontrelle would also include taking Pudge Rodriguez and his +$13MM salary. Now Pudge has a no trade clause, but would waive it if he was offered a contract extension from a playoff team (i.e. New York Mets).

So how does this make the Milledge trade any worse? Well we now have an overload at catcher so for this deal to happen we'd either a) have to cut one of our existing catchers under contract b) find a way to package one of them in a deal for Willis/Rodriguez. The problem with option B is we just signed Castro to a contract and just traded for Schneider and are stuck with his contract. This is not about Ryan Church. Church will bat .270 for us and knock in 60 RBIs. This is about getting a middle of the road catcher early in the offseason before knowing what's really out there.

Of course hindsight is 20/20, but it just compounds the bad feeling I'm getting from the Mets this offseason. I have a horrible feeling that come April 1 we will not have acquired a top notch starting pitcher. Livan Hernandez will be in the rotation. And our bullpen will be very similar to last year.

I'd love for the Mets to make this deal with the Tigers. The Marlins were packaging Willis and Cabrera because they wanted to dump payroll. The Tigers don't really need Willis and now find themselves wanting to dump payroll as well. This is a perfect scenario for the Mets. The Mets could try and send Castro, Heilman, and Mulvey to the Tigers for Willis & Pudge. The Tigers don't need any more bats or big time contracts.

Will this happen? Who knows. But if it doesn't happen in the coming week, it will be less likely that it ever will.

Next Year's Catcher?

It's weird to even think about the roster for next year when the Mets are in the middle of a pennant chase, but Bleed Orange & Blue has made an excellent case for keeping Paul Lo Duca.

He mentions that Lo Duca's numbers are down, but Lo Duca is one of the few that desperately wants to be a Met and is willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Even cut his salary (gasp).

I know the Mets are interested in pursuing Pudge Rodriguez or Jorge Posada if either are free agents, but I'm not sure getting either of them is even a remote possibility. The other options left will probably be one of the Molinas or sticking with Castro.

I love Lo Duca's fire and energy and lately he's been getting the job done both at and behind the plate. Check out Bleed Orange & Blue's post to get some details on why Lo Duca should stay a Met.