|
|
|
CHAPTER ONE
NEWSLETTER To: Salem Cowtippers fans It's time for another installment of the "Mitch and the Mad Cow" show. Warmest regards, Mike Glander TRANSCRIPT: MAD COW: Goooooood afternoon, everybody! How are you todaaaaaaaaay?? Chris "Mad Cow" Rizzo here, with my good pal Mitchy Francisco. Mitchy, I'm looking out the windder here, and I'm seeing three feet of snow on the ground and an icicle hanging from the roof that's the size of my Johnson. You know what that means. MITCH: You have an unbelievably warped self-image? MAD COW: No, silly! It means it's time to talk some baseball! And right on cue, here in our studio is our beloved leader, Mike Glander. Good to see you, Mikey! MIKE GLANDER: Mad Cow, Mitch, how have you been? MAD COW: Oh, you know how it goes, Mikey. Every Halloween, we invite you here in the studio to tell us how you're going to lose another championship, and you never fail to meet our expectations. GLANDER: Well, when you set the bar low, fellas, it makes it a lot easier to trip over. MITCH: Well put, Mike. So...I guess there's no need to recap what happened last November. We all were there. GLANDER: Same old story, Mitch. Nothing new ever happens in this league, we all know that. We just keep repeating the same endless loop forever and ever, and it never gets old. MITCH: Okay, then why don't you fill us in on what you've done with this team this winter? Let's start with the big Teixeira trade. How did that come about? GLANDER: Well, we have a history of making some huge blockbuster trades with the Chicago Black Sox, and like all the others, this one started small and grew into a monster. I identified Chicago as a trading partner very early on -- before the playoffs even began -- as we needed a third baseman with Miggy Cabrera shifting to first, and Chicago had two quality third basemen in Melvin Mora and Evan Longoria. MAD COW: And you decided Melvin was the one you wanted to target out of those two?? GLANDER: Well, needless to say, we didn't even ask about Longoria. Instead, we saw that Chicago needed a third outfielder, and we had a spare in Alex Rios, so we offered a straight-up swap. But there was about $1 million difference in salary, I believe, and John Gill wasn't willing to eat that salary. The next thing I know, we're discussing a much bigger deal, and after several days of excruciating waffling from both sides we agreed to the deal. MITCH: So Teixeira returns to Salem, where his BDBL career began, and Cabrera goes to Chicago. We also lose Rios and Cameron Maybin, and get Mora, Manny Delcarmen and Aaron Hicks in return. Why deal Cabrera when he's $1.5 million cheaper than Teixeira, and signed for four more years? GLANDER: That was the part of the deal I wrestled with most of all, Mitch. In the end, we liked that Teixeira could hit from the left side, and we liked his glove, and those two things made him worth the extra money to us. We also have a very good first baseman -- Eric Hosmer -- on the way, and we didn't want him blocked through the 2015 season. MAD COW: You know I've always been a huge fan of T-Rex, Mikey, so I'm good with that deal. And we plugged two holes for the price of one. Now, what about your next trade, though? You've been whining about not having a franchise shortstop since 1999, and yet here we finally had one in Stephen Drew, and you gave him away! What gives? GLANDER: Again, it wasn't my original intent to deal Stephen, but it just sort of worked out that way. Our original plan was to trade Derek Jeter, and hand over the full-time shortstop job to Drew. But we couldn't find a taker for Jeter, and paying $5 million to dump him just didn't seem to make a lot of sense. We love Drew, but he just wasn't a good fit for our ballpark at all. We looked around the league, and Kinsler was a perfect match for us. We needed a second baseman, and South Carolina needed a shortstop. We needed a right-handed hitter, and the Sea Cats needed a lefty. They're both roughly the same age, and only about $1 million difference in salary. You couldn't have asked for a better match, really. And we got Boof Bonser to make up for the difference in salary. We're hoping for a breakthrough year for him this year. MITCH: Now, you say we needed a second baseman, yet he had one in Orlando Hudson. GLANDER: Also, not a good match for our ballpark. MITCH: Okay...so now you've got two second basemen, but you're able to trade O-Dog for Grant Balfour. Nice deal. GLANDER: We thought so. Balfour had some really good numbers in MLB last season, and we think he'll perform well for us. It cost us a bit of salary, but to fill that closer's role would've cost us more on the open market. MAD COW: Okay, the next deal: Dustin McGowan and Erik Bedard for Brett Myers. I gotta tell you, Mikey, I just don't get this one, either. Myers was just awful last year. Awful. GLANDER: Mad Cow, without straining my shoulder too much from patting myself on the back, I've become pretty good at identifying pitchers who are undervalued, and Myers was at the top of my list this year. Even at $8 million, I think he'll be a bargain next year. And assuming McGowan doesn't recover from his shoulder surgery, it didn't really cost us anything except salary cap space this winter. MITCH: Yeah, but that salary cap space sure would've come in handy, given what happened in this auction and draft. What was your strategy heading into the draft? GLANDER: Mitch, there are very few advantages to winning 103 games in this league, but one of those few is the tie-breaker in the auction. We were hoping to use our #2 tie-breaker to bid on one of four aging left-handed outfielders: Brian Giles, Bobby Abreu, J.D. Drew and Johnny Damon. Our plan going in was to bid $5 million on each one of those guys, with the assumption that we would win one of them. But once again, we underestimated the market. When we saw where it was heading, we devised a "Plan B." Three years ago, we took a $5 million gamble on Kelvim Escobar that paid huge dividends for us. Last year, we took a $3 million gamble on Justin Duchscherer with similar results. We're hoping that our $5 million gamble on Aaron Harang this year continues that trend. MAD COW: So you blew through $5 million of your $11.2 million budget and you didn't even fill any of the team's needs! GLANDER: That is correct. MITCH: Then, you spent another $5 million on Jody Gerut in the draft. And that meant that we'd need to pick TWELVE players at $100K each. Why put all your eggs in one basket like that? GLANDER: Mitch, Gerut was the only player in this draft who is capable of making any sort of impact on our roster this year. He was the #1 player available in the draft, and we didn't consider for a minute that he'd still be there at #23. But somehow, he fell to us, and we just couldn't pass up that opportunity. MITCH: So if Gerut hadn't fallen to you, what was the plan? GLANDER: We had allocated $2 million for a catcher, $2 million for an outfielder and $1 million for a reliever. But again, we drastically misinterpreted the market, and the players we thought would be available with those picks were long gone. For example, Rod Barajas was the catcher we had targeted, and he went in Round 6 at $3 million. We're talking about a catcher who hit .249/.294/.410 last year! We had planned to take a gamble on a reliever named Ramon Troncoso with our $1 million pick, but he went in the seventh round at a salary of $3 million! People paid big money for rookies like Alcides Escobar and Taylor Teagarden. The draft pool was so horrible this year that people reacted in a way we didn't expect. In the end, I am so glad we ended up with Gerut. MAD COW: But now we have no catcher, Mikey! This is the same predicament you got us in back in 2006! GLANDER: Mad Cow, there is little difference between Rod Barajas and Javier Valentin -- who we got in the 26th round. They both sort of suck. So it wouldn't have mattered if we had that $2 million pick. And there is little difference -- in terms of 2009 performance -- between Troncoso and Scott Eyre, who we got in the 27th round. MITCH: Why not trade for a better catcher? There are several teams out there that have two -- even three! -- good catchers. GLANDER: And every one of those teams thinks they can bleed us dry to get those catchers. But we're not going to play along. We'll go with a seven-man lineup to start the season and see what happens. I'm confident we can win this division without a catcher. MAD COW: We wouldn't be in this situation if Kenji Johjima didn't suck so badly. How does a player suck THAT badly? HOW, Mikey?? GLANDER: I don't know, Mad Cow. I don't know. Kenji had two tremendous years for us, and we thank him for that. But I've never seen anyone collapse that badly, so suddenly, without being injured. It's one of those mysteries that will never be solved. We just have to figure out a way to live with it. MITCH: Now, let's talk for a minute about our bench. This is an awful bench, isn't it? GLANDER: It's a bench, Mitch. I'm not all that concerned about a bench. We have six full-time starters in the lineup, and I can think of no reason why I'd ever pinch hit for any of them. So, basically, our bench is just there for pinch hitting for our pitchers and catchers, and to fill in when we're struck with random injuries. Again, I'm confident we can win without a bench. MAD COW: So we're heading into the season with a seven-man lineup, no bench whatsoever, and crappy starting pitching after the front three. And you're confident we can win?? I tell you, Mikey, I don't have a good feeling about this. GLANDER: Well, you're entitled to your opinion, as always, Mad Cow. Listen, I gotta run, guys. It's been fun. |
