SINCE YOU’RE GONE; Part TWO

So, we had our tentative 40 man roster to work from and the list of minor league free agents we could convince to stay in purgatory. We had a short list of possible free agents to sign. But, in reality, we could not hope to get permission to sign ANYONE without dumping salary first. And in order to do that we needed to get the contract status of the 40 man roster…where else would we turn but the blumanc site?

Some chap takes the time list the salaries for current players over the life of their respective contracts. Sure, there are a few holes here and there, but for the most part the information you need is going to be at the bluemanc site. Once we had a general idea of the payroll went to work on the other billion or so minor leaguers, independent leaguers and international players available.

We got a bit of a lift when Jonah Keri went and did that thing he does where he takes a topic and makes sense of it. Jonah laid out the curious case of les Expos de baseball and life after Vladimir Guerrero in Montreal at Baseball Prospectus and at ESPN.com. Kerri points out the particulars and does the nice touch of not hammering Omar Minya for not offering Guerrero arbitration. Minya needs to be beaten about the head and shoulders with more than the kid gloves the rest of baseball has been showing him as he has very little clue what the hell he is doing.

Minya is not the brightest of minds in baseball and he clearly shows that on a daily basis. Everyone loosely associated with professional baseball knows the score when it comes to the Expos. If Fidel Castro came up with enough Cubans (cigars, not people) Havana would be hosting Los Expos de Cuba come April. Minya has been unable to make any trades that actually help the Expos for longer than a multi-city road trip or weeklong home stand (wherever that may find the Expos). Minya has gift wrapped several good prospects to end up not getting a stick but something very small that was once attached to said stick.

Minya can make excuses that he has to work under a stranglehold payroll threshold.

So?

Doesn’t every team outside of New York and Boston have a budget to consider? They certainly do and most have made mistakes, too, but Minya has an opportunity most other teams don’t. Minya can completely jack things up in Montreal and he would still come out smelling like a Rose (insert your own MLB allowing Pete Rose back to manage the Expos in 2005 joke here). Minya can go completely mad and serve up an all AAA All-Star team or he could load up on prospects and hope for the future.

Or he could savagely negotiate with free agents and have flocks of his ducks lined up and ready when teams start announcing their non-tenderings next week. Minya had the opportunity last year and non-tendering time and he flocked himself over. There were a dozen or so proven minor-leaguers or tweeners that could have been considerable producers for the Expos and Minya largely let the market work him. The rest of the free world knew about Billy McMillon, Adam Melhuse and Josh Towers – how did Minya not know?

Further Minya has access to rumors and innuendo like no other GM, being the right toe man of Bud Selig and all. Oh, wait, Selig is not involved in the day to day operation of the Brewers or the Expos. Please.

The Brewers and Expos have gone out of their way to interview and hire minority candidates, and in the case of Frank Robinson, went frantic to keep minority personnel in critical positions. This is not a racial argument in any way shape or form; rather a light bulb should be going up that the franchises are eerily similar.

Frank Robinson, the manager of the Expos, is the guy to blame for Team USA not making it to the Olympics for 2004. Team USA was sabotaged by a ridiculous tournament concept, but they really shot themselves in the foot when Robinson, the manager, had their best hitter – Joe Mauer, bunting runners over it the top of the 9th inning with nobody out (where have we seen this unfold before?) and not score only to watch the game slip away with a walk off homer in the bottom. However, the resounding silver lining here is that now the USOC will not have to slap MLB around when more than half of TEAM USA flunked their Olympic drug test, arguably the most stringent tests in athletics.

The Expos are being run as a mirror image of the Milwaukee Brewers and everyone turns a blind eye to the abuse. But here’s a little bit of a brainteaser that needs immediate attention. Remember who the former owner of the Montreal Expos was? Where did he go? Recall the gutting the Expos took at the expense of, what appeared at the time, a lesser team in Florida. Now, look who is the World Series champion.

Obviously the Marlins 2003 was not exactly what any analyst would point to and predict as championship caliber. Then again, neither were the Angels off 2002. Or the Diamondbacks of 2001. Someone correct us if we are wrong, but the Wild Card team seems to be winning a lot in the post season, lately. Don’t look now, but MLB is gaining that parity crap that the NFL and NBA have been driven to emulate of each other.
Why would the Brewers have trade away Richie Sexson at a time when free agent salaries are being suppressed? Neither the Brewers nor Expos have made any inkling to sing even a marginal free agent in the last few weeks. Both teams are dumping salary and neither seems to be doing anything substantial to stave off future debt by, you know, having a plan.

Minya has more information by 9:00 am (EST) on any given day than Dick Cheney had in the months before Halliburton declared war on non-bid contracts. Minya had the opportunity to trade Vladimir Guerrero last year to every team but the Expos, and we’re pretty sure Selig would have worked a deal to find out how to make a profit for the Brewers in such a deal. Guerrero would have fetched more than a prospect or two, he would have garnered a lot of cash. Cash that could have kept the Expos form looking like the Washington Generals when it came September and MLB refused to allow call-ups.

NOTE: “If anyone is looking for collusion evidence – look no further. MLB specifically disallowed the Expos from bringing up players from the minor league system in order to keep players from initiating service time for players that are ‘jointly owned’ by the rest of MLB owners. You can hear the argument from around the cigar clenched in the stereotypical owner’s teeth– ‘why should I allow this guy to make his debut when I don’t benefit? Why should he get an extra few bucks and a big league paycheck for 30 days when he can just as well be the second baseman in Edmonton for a few more weeks? The moment that kid step on the field his big league clock starts ticking and every second is one less I could have stashed him in AAA in my own organization when that fire sale and auction comes around."

Then again, there are those who looked at the Expos minor league system for major league caliber players and then looked again for possible extras for a baseball movie. It was not until the September Wait List incident that a lot of people realized that Minya had double pumped the Expos right out of contention for the next 18 months.

Which (finally) brings us to our analysis of the players we were going to target for acquisition.
Minor League Pitchers:
Edwin Hurtado
Francisco Campos
Matt Miller
Jesse Carlson
Kazuhito Tadano
Jose Vargas
Brad Clontz
Mike Lyons
Carlos Almanzar
Jason Frasor
Major League Pitchers:
Chad Bradford
Miguel Batista
Jeremy Fikac
Randy Wolf
Matt Kinney
Minor League Catchers:
Kit Pellow
Guillermo Quiroz
Kevin Cash
Mike Rivera
Pete LaForest
Andy Dominique
Major League Catchers:
Mark Johnson
David Ross
Minor League Infielders:
Garret Atkins
Simon Pond
Aaron Miles
Major League Infielders:
Frank Menechino
Mark Bellhorn
Minor League Utility/Hitters:
Luis Gonzalez
Tim Hummel
Olmedo Saenz
Eric Crozier
Chris Donnels
Billy Martin
Major League Utility/Hitters:
Mark Ellis
Mark Loretta
Chris Stynes
Minor League Outfielders:
Alexis Rios
Selwyn Langaigne
Edgar Clemente
Jayson Bass
Ross Gload
Peter Zoccolillo
Cody Ross
J.J Davis
Jason Tyner
Major League Outfielders:
Eric Byrnes
Adam Piatt
Matt Stairs
Jose Guillen


Players in bold we REALLY went after and wanted badly.