Is There a Free Agent Market For Cliff Lee?

One of the biggest off-season moves of this past winter was the Seattle Mariners acquisition of Cliff Lee from the Philadelphia Phillies. With one year left on his contract, Lee was deemed expendable by a Philadelphia team that didn’t think they could resign him once his contract was up. The Mariners had dreams of pairing Felix Hernandez and Lee together for one season and seeing what they could do in the spacious confines of Safeco Field.

Well, it may only be one year that they have together. Lee’s agent, Darek Braunecker, told ESPN’s Buster Olney that Lee will be testing the free agent waters in five months. With Josh Beckett locked up, Brandon Webb injured and Javier Vazquez having a rough go of it in the Bronx, Lee is definitely the cream of the free agent pitching crop.

But what type of market awaits Lee? Which teams will be involved in the bidding? While 5 years ago, Cliff Lee would be looking at a huge contract deal, in 2010 with a depressed economy, sagging attendance in some parks, and teams looking to be more fiscally responsible, it seems like Lee’s prospects are drying up in certain areas. So will Lee get a CC Sabathia-type contract or will he be left disappointed after the off-season is over? Let’s take a look at the possibilities (with thanks to Cot’s Baseball Contracts on the salaries):

Seattle Mariners: The Mariners traded away some of their best prospects to get Cliff Lee so it would make sense they would keep him, right? Well some of thought behind acquiring Lee was that they would keep him for a year and try to recoup the prospect loss in draft pick compensation for Lee signing elsewhere (Lee should be a Type A free agent). And since the Mariners are yet to approach Lee about a contract, that draft pick grab may be the path they are going to head down. If Lee has a huge season in Seattle, though, the Mariners will have a lot of incentive to resign him. If the team struggles, however, they may have to trade him and The News Tribune says they should think about doing that now, rather than later. The Seattle P-I says that the Mariners haven't really been showing much love Lee's way (picture to the right from that article).

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NYaT's Expert MLB Predictions for 2010

We're not really experts--but we're really doing our predictions. Last year I did pretty well. Not great. I had the Yankees and Phillies in the League Championship Series. So, hey, I did OK. But let's get ready for 2010 with some more "expert" predictions. Here's my predictions with the rest of the blog writers chiming in:

AL East
1. Yankees
2. Red Sox  (Wild Card)
3. Rays
4. Orioles
5. Blue Jays

This is a three team race with a third team (the Orioles) who have an up-and-coming team. The Blue Jays have some good young players but are probably a few years from competition. The Orioles have one of the best young outfields in baseball (Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Nolan Reimold) but their starting pitching and bullpen may be too raw to compete in 2010. So that leaves the big three. I love the Rays team, but while everything came together for their bullpen in 2008, last year we saw what happens when that bullpen implodes. They will hit and they will field, but can they protect leads? I'm not confident in that. That leaves the Yankees and the Red Sox. The Yankees were 8 games better last year. While the Red Sox probably improved 8 games with their pitching and defense, the Yankees improved as well, basically replacing Chad Gaudin/Sergio Mitre in the rotation with Javy Vazquez (the only guy to throw 198 innings every season of the past decade). It's going to be closer, but I still think the Red Sox are an acquisition or two from beating the Yankees. While the Yankees could be undone by injuries, the Red Sox injury risks (John Lackey, Josh Beckett, Dice-K, J.D. Drew, etc.) are equally as present. What remains to be seen if Jonathan Papelbon has any ill effects from his implosion in last year's deciding game of the ALDS. The Fenway Faithful may not be too forgiving if he blows a game or two in the opening series vs. the Yankees. The Yankees fans will probably feel the same way if Javy Vazquez starts off slow as well. Ben and Ari took the Yankees with the Red Sox as Wild Card as well. Jay took the Yankees winning the division with the Rays as the division winner. Sarah has the Red Sox winning the division with Tampa winning the Wild Card. (picture from the New York Daily News)

AL Central:
1. White Sox
2. Twins
3. Tigers
4. Indians
5. Royals

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A Brief History of One-Game Playoffs

Baseball-Reference has a list of all-time tiebreaker playoff games (* = Division Tiebreaker, ** = Wild Card Tiebreaker). The National League, for some reason, used best-of-3 tiebreakers through 1962. The only one-game playoff in that period was in the AL when the Indians beat the Red Sox in 1948. But below are the 7 one-game playoffs since 1962. Tomorrow the Twins and Tigers will make it 8.

Year	Lg	Date	Winning Team		Losing Team	Score	Winning Pitcher	Losing Pitcher
1978*	AL	10/2/1978	Yankees	@	Red Sox	5-4	Guidry	Torrez
1980*	NL	10/6/1980	Astros	@	Dodgers	7-1	Niekro	Goltz
1995*	AL	10/2/1995	Mariners		Angels	9-1	Johnson	Langston
1998**	NL	9/28/1998	Cubs		Giants	5-3	Trachsel	Gardner
1999**	NL	10/4/1999	Mets	@	Reds	5-0	Leiter	Parris
2007**	NL	10/1/2007	Rockies		Padres	9-8	Ortiz	Hoffman
2008*	AL	9/30/2008	White Sox		Twins	1-0	Danks	Blackburn

Analysis: No team in the past 30 years has won a tiebreaker playoff game and won the World Series. The only team to make it to the World Series after the one-game playoff in the past 30 years was the 2007 Colorado Rockies.

The 1978 Yankees-Red Sox game is the most famous as it featured Bucky Dent's home-run in Fenway (or the infamous Bucky f@$ing Dent, as he's known in New England). The 2007 playoff ended after Trevor Hoffman blew the save and Matt Holliday slid just past the catcher's tag (the Rockies would sweep their way through the next two rounds before getting swept by the Red Sox). Randy Johnson pitched a complete game, 3-hitter with 12 Ks in 1995 (and then went 2-0 against the Yankees in the ALDS). The Mets won the ALDS before losing the ALCS to the Braves on a Kenny Rogers walk-off walk. The 1980 Astros, the 1998 Cubs and the 2008 White Sox wouldn't make it out of the first round of the playoffs.

So since the Yankees won the 1978 World Series, the winning one-game playoff winners are a combined 4-6 in their following playoff series.

Not a Good Way To Start a New Year

L'Shana Tova to all our Jewish readers. I saw there was a sign behind home plate at the Yankees game last night wishing everyone in Seattle the same but I figured I'd add my wishes.

Last night's game, however, did not end well for the Yankees. Mariano Rivera blew his first save after 36 straight conversions. Rivera got two easy outs with a one-run lead but allowed a double and then a two-run home run by Ichiro.

(Side Note: For those panicking about Rivera blowing a save, know this: let him blow it now and get it out of his system. Besides Brad Lidge last season, no one who goes into the playoffs with save streaks seems to make it out of it alive. Better he blow it now than Game 7 of the ALCS vs. the Red Sox.)

I have to disagree with Peter Abraham who says that Joe Girardi made the right decision not to walk Ichiro in the 9th. Ichiro has more hits than anyone over the past decade, has set the record for hits in a season and has set the record for consecutive 200-hit seasons all to start his career. There's a runner on second. Most of the time, you don't want to put the winning run on base when that person is as fast as Ichiro. And I know that Mo doesn't like to issue intentional walks...

But a single in that situation ties the game. The rest of the Mariners' lineup is atrocious. Ichiro had been hitting great in the game but made two huge baserunning mistakes that you knew he needed to make up for somehow. You need to walk him in that situation. Put him on base. Let someone else beat you. Normally I'm not a fan of intentional walks at all, but this was one situation that seemed to dictate it.