Sunday, June 27, 2004
Cold Summer Trade Winds in New York City?
Fallout from the Freddy Garcia trade is starting in New York. Both Newsday and the NY Times have stories in their Monday editions describing the Mariners contacts with the Yankees prior to completing the trade of Garcia to the White Sox. Both articles appears to be based on interviews with Cashman. Some key points from the stories: - The Mariners didn't decide to trade Freddy until the last day or two.
- By the time Bavasi contacted Cashman, Bavasi already had the White Sox offer in hand. Cashman told Bavasi to name his price, and Bavasi declined to respond. Bavasi's next call to Cashman was to let Cashman know that the Mariners had accepted the Chicago offer.
- Bavasi told Cashman that he didn't think the Yankees could meet or beat the offer that he already had. When Cashman learned of the details of the trade, he agreed.
- The Yankees next option after Garcia would be Randy Johnson. If Johnson is unavailable, Moyer would be in the next group of pitchers to consider, along with Russ Ortiz and Kris Benson. Joe Torre likes Moyer.
I think the dynamics of these deals are fascinating, and the information from the Newsday article provides some interesting morsels.
To start, if the Newsday story is correct, it suggests that the Mariners management really did believe the team could get back in the race up at least through then end of Texas' sweep of the Mariners. If so, the Mariners statements to that effect over the last several days might not have been a negotiating ploy (though the Mariners probably also realized the statements didn't hurt their negotiations).
The Mariners didn't even bother to talk in depth with the Yankees, as they apparently did with the Mets. The Mariners non-response when Cashman asked the Mariners to name their price suggests the Mariners couldn't cherry pick a package of players from the Yankees system that would be better than what they Mariners believed they were receiving from the White Sox. That shows how depleted the Yankees minor league system is after the Yankees' series of trade deadline deals in recent years.
The speed at which the deal was completed also left Cashman unable to try to assemble a three way deal, in which the Yankees could use money to obtain prospects and players to send to the Mariners. The White Sox offer for Garcia may have been preemptive – to give the Mariners a better deal than any other team could offer, and to encourage the Mariners to deal sooner rather than later. I imagine Williams also told the Mariners that if they did not move quickly on his offer, he would deal with Atlanta for Ortiz. So the reported trade discussions between the White Sox and Atlanta were likely serious discussions.
Of course, the deal with the White Sox wasn't negotiated in one day. Much work was completed before today, with Williams letting Bavasi know what he would be willing to give up when and if the Mariners decided to move Garcia. Having done the groundwork with interested parties, when the Mariners decided yesterday or today to trade Garcia, they quickly identified the White Sox as the trading partner. The parameters of the deal were finalized (probably the money component), and that was it.
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Update: Stories from various sources indicate that the deal didn't happen quite as I thought it did. When I made the post above I was presuming the White Sox had an offer on the table, and the Mariners were mulling it over before deciding the make the deal. Now it appears that the negotiations weren't quite that complete. According to Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune, negotiations had almost completely broken down, but Williams decided to make one last try before he decided to go after Ortiz instead of Garcia. The impasse broke down in that call.
What the impasse was is unclear. Rogers says that the Mariners were holding out for Crede, but decided they could take Reed instead. USS Mariner reports that their street sources say that Reed always was the Mariners primary target.
The USS Mariner slant seems more believable to me. Plus I don't like Phil Rogers.
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