Every offseason yields a handful of players signing contracts for far more money than they deserve (*cough*Rafael Soriano/Jayson Werth/Carlos Pena*cough*). But for every five guys who have a Brinks truck back up to their front door, there’s a guy who slipped through the cracks and just might be able to help a team in a big way for pennies on the dollar. The following guys could very well be diamonds in the rough…
Manny Ramirez
The guy’s a head case and everyone knows it. But the Rays may very well be his last shot at a 3rd World Series Ring. Despite being in the toughest division in baseball, and having a payroll a small fraction of their nearest competitor, the Rays have been able to compete in recent years due to their development of high round draft picks. Guys like Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, and BJ Upton are All Stars capable of carrying any team. But with Crawford leaving town, and Longoria and Upton just hitting their prime, The Rays are looking at an influx of new highly touted prospects. Desmond Jennings and Jeremy Helickson are predicted to be two of the front runners for AL ROY this coming season. Add to that mix post season veterans like Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez and you have a team primed to compete with the best in the division. And for a base salary of $2M? Manny has made over $240M in his career so you have to assume he’s not hard up for cash. Maybe he’s actually interested in winning? If he can project his .298/.409/.460 over a full season, you could be looking at 20 HRs and 85 RBI… for 1/8th what the Mets are paying Jason Bay.
Jim Thome
Why more teams weren’t in the race for this guy amazes me. Assumed to be a bench player past his prime coming into the season, Thome forced Ron Gardenhire to play him every day with a BA of .283 and 25 HRs (lead the team!). An OPS of 1.039 from a 40 year old is nothing to turn your nose up at, either. It’s very likely that this soft spoken guy from Illinois will crush his 600th HR this coming season, a feat only accomplished by 7 other guys (2 of which will have asterisks next to their name). So what’s his reward? A measly $3M deal with offers from only one other team. Sure, he has tons of incentives loaded into the contract, but in all honesty most of them are unreachable. He won’t win and MVP and he probably won’t be an All-Star, but as a left handed bat off the bench, he’s got to be worth more than 1/4th of what Milton Bradley makes!
Chris Young
There was a time when I had to watch my baseball on standard definition television. Chris Young would never fit on my screen. The Mets made perhaps their only decent move this offseason by taking a flyer on Chris Young. The 6’10” former Padre has been plagued by injuries the past few years, but when healthy he’s as intimidating as they come on the mound. In the three starts he made at the end of 2010, he threw 14 innings of 2 run baseball to a record of 2-0. Small sample size, but worth a $1.1M guaranteed risk. The Padres made the right move in declining his $8.5M option for 2011. He hasn’t shown he’s worth that much money anymore. But the former Princeton grad could slot in nicely in a Mets rotation that is abysmal. Mike Pelfrey, RA Dickey, Jonathan Niese, and Chris Capuano are your other 4 pitchers in that rotation until Johan Santana comes back. A team full of #4-5 starters. Chris Young fits in nicely here. Batters tend to hit a lot of fly balls on him which is well suited for Citi Field (stay away from Utleys short porch in right!).
Bartolo Colon
If you asked me a week ago that Bartolo Colon would be competing professionally again, I would have assumed you were referring to next week’s Wing Bowl. But no, the Yankees have offered him minor league deal worth $900K, which is about what the Steinbrenners spend on lunch every day. My initial reaction to this story was to laugh out loud and send text messages to Yankees fans mocking them. But upon further review, it’s really the ultimate low risk, high reward situation. This is a guy who was once so highly valued that the Indians traded him away and got Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips in return (I’ll bet the Expos/Nationals would like that trade back)! Since then, he’s been tossed around a handful of organizations never really settling down in one place for too long. His last passable year was during a 7 game stint with the Red Sox at the end of 2008, but this is still a guy with Cy Young caliber stuff. Maybe a year off is just what his 250+lb frame needed. Also noteworthy, he’s only had 9 post season starts and has never seen a World Series. With a Yankees rotation that consists of CC Sabatthia, Phil Hughes, and a whole lot of question marks, Colon will probably have every opportunity to make the team coming out of spring training. If not, he’s earned the right to be released and try out with another team. There’s really nothing they can lose here.
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