Interesting story on Nationals.com today about ol' Cristian and the contract situation. I had to chuckle. Having dealt with agents a time or two in my career, the underlying message is "No, we don't want to talk about this now, we want to get it done. That's why I'm throwing it out there. YOU talk about it."
OK.
Now I'm not a certified seamhead or anything like that. I don't know VOIP, GORP, RORP or DORP or other such stuff. I just know what I see and I would not have a problem with the Nats signing up for two more years of Guzman - assuming it is the healthy, vision improved Guzman.
My reasons:
*He's only 30 and he doesn't suck. In fact, he isn't bad. He won't win a gold glove but he'll do a solid job and he'll hit some. The Nats have much bigger problems than shortstop right now. Many of them.
*Bigger reason: Who would take his place? I don't think Rollins or Reyes are going to fall into the Nats' laps. I don't see the Braves saying, "Oh, what the hell, just take Escobar." I don't think the Padres will give up Khalil Greene for Chad Cordero, if they ever would have even when The Chief was healthy. I don't see anyone on this list who makes me go, "Oh yeah." If there is a ready replacement in this system already, I have no clue who it would be. Feel free to clue me in if I'm missing somebody, as long as you don't say "Ian Desmond."
Now the question - are you OK with this, too? If not, who is next year's SS? If so, what is a fair two-year price? $16 million? I'd hate to see it go any higher than that.
I refuse to talk about yesterday's game, by the way. I refuse to make jokes about how Manning won't get his cup of coffee warmed up. If we wanted a lefty to give up long home runs, we should have just kept Ray King. Maybe there's a reason he got to 29 without seeing the majors. But I'm not going to pile on the poor guy.
8 comments:
You are absolutely right that the Nats have bigger problems than SS. And you are also correct that there's no one obviously available to take his place.
If they could sign Dimitri and Belliard for big money, they can sign Guzman for a goodly amount too.
It would be a better signing, that's for damn sure. Not that I'm down on Dmitri or Belliard or anything.
Who is the mysterious baseball source that says Guzman is willing to take a two-year deal at a reasonable price because he's been on the D.L. for a lot of his time here? I mean, I'm not saying it's not true, but why would they do that when Guzman will likely be coming off one of his better years and looking at what likely will be his best chance for a big payday? Outside of hedging his bet that he'll get hurt between now and the end of the year of course.
Here's a list of the potential free agent shortstops for this fall:
Orlando Cabrera CWS
Alex Cintron CWS
Alex Cora BOS
Craig Counsell MIL
Adam Everett MIN
Rafael Furcal LAD
Cristian Guzman WAS
Cesar Izturis STL
Ramon Martinez LAD
Edgar Renteria DET
Juan Uribe CWS
Counsell and Renteria have options for next year.
The source is the agent is my guess, assuming things still work like they did when I was in that business.
I'll bet everything I own this is a 100-percent agent planted story. Guy wants the deal done now.
Which means he's worried that Guzman will either get hurt or that his production will fall off the table.
I guess it all depends on what he's asking for over those two years. Eckstein got $4.5M for one year from the Jays last offseason, Everett $2.8M, and Izturis $2.85M.
If they stayed in the neighborhood of 2 years at $5M per season, I could see that, but I'm not sure going much higher would be a good idea.
Hell, didn't FLop go from 3.9 to 4.9 after LAST season? It will cost more than $5 mill to keep Guzman and I'm OK with that as long as it isn't too much more.
Given Edgar Renteria's track record in the NL, I would take him at 2 or 3 years at $7.5 mill. per over Guzman. But Guzman has been an average or slightly above average SS at the plate since his eye surgery. I still see Guzman as part of a Nats team that contends in the future.
I guess what I was getting at is that there isn't much difference between Guzman and Eckstein, and Eckstein was signed last offseason for less than $5M. Guzman has more power, and Eckstein has the ability to get on base better. Neither one of them is anything special defensively.
I agree that Guzman will get more on the open market, but is it worth it to the Nats to go much beyond $5M when you can probably replace(or come close to replacing) his production at shortstop for less money?
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