Another Interesting Trade…
Posted by ubelmann on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Lastings MIlledge to the Nationals for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church. My initial reaction is that this is a good trade for the Nationals, and not a very good trade for the Mets. The Mets Nationals got the best player in the deal, and I don't especially like Church's bat in a corner (which is where he'll be playing with Beltran around) or Schneider's bat anywhere. With Lo Duca around as the primary catcher, that would seem to make Schneider their backup catcher, doing his best Henry Blanco impression. Heck, Milledge could quite easily out-hit Church next year, is a billion years younger than him, and is under team control for longer. I don't see how this makes any sense for the Mets.
I never especially liked the Mets as a trading partner in the first place (except that having Johan in the NL would be a plus), but this makes them even less attractive.
Update: I got a good chuckle reading the sponsored ad for Lastings Milledge's baseball-reference page.
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I think you have a type-o in their when you say the Mets got the best player instead of the Nationals got the best player.
Yup, that's a typo.
And I have to point out my nice use of "their" while pointing out the type-o!
Happens to the best of 'em.
LoDouchebag is actually a free agent and the Mets just acquired Johnny Estrada as a catcher (and have Ramon Castro bumping around).
They're going to release Estrada, I think. They actually offered him to the Nats for free.
That's....well, that just seems kind of stupid. Estrada is seeming rather washed up these days, but the Mets could have him next year at what amounts to a one-year $5M with a team option to go to arbitration. Now the Mets have Schneider locked up at $4.9M/year for the next two years. I would value Milledge/Estrada higher than Church/Schneider, and I don't think it's very close.
Okay, that makes at least a little more sense that the Mets are filling starting catcher. But still, Brian Schneider? I'm down with accouting for defense and position and all that, but he hit essentialy .245/.325/.330 the last two years, and isn't getting any younger. I'm leaning a lot more towards "Mets got robbed" here.
My Mets-fan buddy is pretty furious about this one. I always thought Milledge was over-hyped in the national media, but even accounting for that it looks like Minaya got hosed.
Jim Bowden is like the kid who gets picked on by his older brothers and their friends, then turns around and takes the lunch money of the only two kids his age that will hang out with him.
Milledge hit as well as Cuddyer did last season. Would I do a Cuddyer and Henry Blanco for Milledge trade? I would probably agree so quickly that even Minaya would have second thoughts. (Church is probably a little more valuable than Cuddyer, but it's a pretty good approximation.)
This isn't as bad as Kazmir-Zambrano, but it's looking pretty bad.
Interesting note, both Schneider and Church played with the Expos when Omar was the GM