Does Maine Have Trade Value?
By Mike Silva ~ June 20th, 2010. Filed under: Mike Silva, New York Mets.
Jerry Manuel is rightfully questioning the value of John Maine returning to the rotation. For a team with playoff aspirations Maine has zero value working with an 88 mph fastball. His lack of command and dubious secondary pitches makes me believe he is a 4-A pitcher for the foreseeable future. There will come a time in the next couple of weeks that the Mets will need to figure out what to do with John Maine. Should they designate him for assignment? Does he have trade value?
The only way I can see the Mets deal Maine is for an expensive player that is underperforming. Remember, a team out of the race could afford to be patient with Maine and see if he could regain his fastball. Also, Maine has another year of arbitration eligibility so he could be an inexpensive option for someone to look at. I brought up Chad Qualls last week because I think they could use someone like him to potentially anchor the eighth inning. Qualls has been terrible in Arizona and making a little over $4 million dollars this year. Swapping him for Maine would actually be a cost savings for the D-Backs.
Another thought was Will Ohman of the Orioles. He is performing well in Baltimore and a swap of Maine for Ohman would give the O’s a pitcher that could be part of the solution next year. The Mets desperately need a legitimate second lefty to help Pedro Feliciano. Eventually the O’s will deal Guthrie and Millwood so the need for a starting pitcher is there as well.
This is best case scenario for the Mets since most teams probably believe they will DFA Maine and be done with him. In that case 29 organizations can get him for nothing and hope he finds his fastball on the way out of Citi Field. A shrewd organization would try to leverage any positives from a Maine rehab start. Perhaps it will begin with muting Jerry in the postgame press conferences when asked about his future with the club. Maine’s only value is prior results and cost savings since his current repertoire is unimpressive. Unfortunately, that is probably why this is all a very well thought out pipe dream.
June 20th, 2010 at 10:13 am
maine is not actually that cheap. And with normal arbitration raises (hey, I didn’t design the process!) he could be in the 5 mill range next year. So far from a cheap flyer guy.
But who knows, maybe they can trade him as part of a bigger salary dump deal. Someone like Qualls is intriguing, assuming they can get him to pitch better than he currently is.
They could use a lights out set up man, but hopefully an internal option (Iggy being the only one currently in the pen) steps up soon to claim the job.
June 20th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Does Maine have any options left?
June 20th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
John
Not sure on the options with Maine (depends on his contract) – now that he is being reexamined it’s a moot point – he is probably headed for the DL and, in my opinion, done for the year.