some sunday baseball blogging

- The NY Daily News reported this morning that the Yankees will be tens of millions of dollars in the red when MLB's accountants put 2005 to bed. And the back page cartoon heavily implies that commissioner Bud Selig has finally succeeded in his apparent Inspector Javert-like quest to "get" George Steinbrenner.

My only thought? If Yankees execs and their mouthpieces in the media for years have said that the team is "only playing by the rules" regarding its 800-lb gorillaism and its massive spending, they can't whine that big bad Bud Selig is picking on them when "the rules" suddenly have negative consequences.

Well, I guess they can (and apparently are), but that would make everyone parroting the company line ginormous hypocrites. Which, I'm sure, doesn't bother any of the big players in this little drama in the least. But it still needs to be pointed out.

- I have no idea why people don't think Javier Vazquez would look fine and dandy in a Mets uniform. His 2005 VORP is nearly identical to that of Kris Benson, but given Benson's and Vazquez's respective ages, injury histories and career tracks, tell me you wouldn't want Vazquez over Benson any day of the week (and, more importantly, over a long season) - especially in a power pitcher's park like Shea, with a coach like Rick Peterson (who excels in getting pitchers not named Victor Zambrano to be more consistent with their mechanics).

- On a somewhat similar note, the Mets - considering all that they'd be giving up - don't need an aging Manny Ramirez clogging up the payroll for (at least) the next three years.

I felt OK about trading young guys for Carlos Delgado because I thought the Mets had gotten their big bat without surrendering their best prospects (opportunity cost-wise, it was like Yusmeiro Petit, Mike Jacobs, Grant Psomas and Manny for Delgado, Lastings Milledge, Aaron Heilman, probably Cliff Floyd and lots and lots and lots of cash).

But now they're going to trade their best prospects anyway, for another big bat - Manny's, which comes with even poorer defense than Delgado's. The Mets need a horse in the rotation (whom I hope is Vazquez - or even better, Barry Zito), a catcher, a second baseman (though I'd love to see Andy Hernandez given a fair shot next spring) and some arms for the bullpen - which means trading their only remaining chips for Manny makes absolutely zero sense (in the vast majority of cases, trading a chip like Milledge makes little sense to begin with).

Plus, with an aging Manny and an aging Delgado in the middle of the lineup, the Mets stand a better chance of ultimately regressing back towards the bloated, awful days of 2002/03 than actually progressing towards the type of long-term success their fans deserve.

For what it's worth, Ricardo over at Metsgeek details why trading for Manny is unnecessarily silly.