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Monday, November 14, 2005
Furcal talks to heat up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
GMs and agents, start your BlackBerrys.
Now that baseball team officials and player reps have had the weekend to recover from last week’s meetings and hotel lobby loitering in Palm Springs — OK, that doesn’t sound rough — negotiations figure to begin in earnest for key free agents and for the many teams looking to improve via the trade route.
Braves shortstop Rafael Furcal is in one of only a handful of premier free agents, and he has the good fortune — soon, literally — of having not one, but two big-market teams ready to bid for his servives (and that’s not including the Braves, who are no longer a big-market team in terms of payroll, and also aren’t ready to get into a bidding war for Furcal if the price goes where his agent hopes it’ll go).
Agent Paul Kinzer, after a weekend spent like many other dads — watching college football on TV with his son — will get down to brass tacks, or something like that, beginning today. He plans to talk to the Cubs and Braves, and perhaps the Mets and another team or two, and possibly listen to the first true offers for his client Furcal. So far, he’s only talked parameters and has a good feeling about the possibility of getting the five-year deal he hopes for the 28-year-old leadoff man/shortstop who’s coming off an impressive season and is the only free agent of his billing on the market (both a strong shortstop and leadoff man).
Forget anything you read about the Yankees and center field. That was a joke taken the wrong way by a reporter at the GM meetings. Yanks aren’t interested in Furcal playing CF for them.
His most likely destination, in my view, remains the Cubs, only because they seem most likely to give him a five-year deal and pay him $9 mill or more to play his preferred SS. As hopeful as they’ve gotten their fans about Furcal, it’d be hard to explain to them how they lost him because of a $1 mill or so a year and because they wouldn’t go five years, only four. In other words, the Cubs need to sign Furca after identifying him as their No. 1 priority.
The Mets want him bad, but they want him to play 2B, and Furcal isn’t going to do that unless they pay him a lot more than the suitors who would keep him at SS. Another team or two could get involved soon, if this goes the way of so many other free-agent journeys.
The Braves would love to keep Furcal, but I strongly doubt they’d give him more than a three-year deal with a fourth-year option, or possibly, possibly a four-year deal. But not a five.
They are weary of tying up the shortstop position for so long with a few prospects in the pipeline, a one who could be ready now (Tony Pena Jr., good glove but not great offense), another in a year or two (slick-fielding and improving hitter Luis Hernandez, and dynamic talent/Cuban defector Yunel Escobar), and potentially the best of the bunch in a few years (17-year-old phenom Elvis Andrus, yet another Venezuelan glove man, this one with a first name seemingly designed for stardom in the American South).
If the Braves were to sign Furcal for, say, four years, they would either be trading him or those prospects, one by one, over the next few years. But that’s getting waaaay ahead of ourselves. As they say, these things tend to work out. Players get hurt, or switch positions, or whatever.
Point is, I can see why the Braves want Furcal so badly now— he cut his errors nearly in half last year, has the best infield arm in baseball, and the Braves simply have no other obvious, viable leadoff hitter in the organization ready to step in and do anything remotely similar to what Furcal’s done since 2000.
But I can also see why they’re reluctant or even refuse to pay him $9 million a year for more than three years guaranteed. With an $80 mill payroll, of which $30 mill is already allocated for the two Joneses, and Hampton’s full salary on the payroll in 2007 after he spends 2006 on the DL … well, there are legit reasons to not want to commit another $10 mill at a position the Braves believe they’ll have covered and covered well — not to mention cheaply — for a while after the first of the prospects is ready.
Whither Wilson Betemit, you say? Well, Betemit could be the man.
The Braves still aren’t sure he’s ready to play everyday shortstop, but he’s making a case by following up a solid season for Atlanta with a stunning season of winter ball for Escogido in Dominican Republic. Last I heard, he was hitting about .350 with five homers in 60-some at-bats, including a grand slam last week. He’s tearing it up in a league that isn’t exactly the Arizona Fall League; the Dominican parks aren’t hitters parks, for the most part, and he’s playing against plenty of past, present and future major leaguers, not kids (not to demean the Arizona Fall League, but it seemed everybody out there hit .300 with power).
But is Betemit a leadoff hitter? No. And neither is Giles. Maybe the Braves take a chance and throw one of them in there, or try Kelly Johnson or Ryan Langerhans at leadoff. But none is proven or perfectly suited for it, and Betemit hasn’t shown he can play every day, either.
Which is why the Braves have discussed possible trades for Tampa Bay’s Julio Lugo or possibly Houston’s Adam Everett. Everett isn’t exactly a pulse-raising commodity, but is solid with the glove. He’s hardly a leadoff type, however, with a .305 career on-base percentage and .248-11-54 production last year with only 26 walks in 549 at-bats. Yikes.
But Everett made only $445,000 last season and is eligible for arbitration; the Astros have offrered him, but not sure how much interest Braves have in him. They do like Lugo, however, and he’s coming off a solid season (.295-6-57) in which he posted a career-high .362 OBP, including a .286 average and .366 OBP in 217 at-bats from the leadoff spot (nearly 20 points higher than Furcal’s OBP).
One other BIG factor in Lugo’s favor with Braves: He’s only under contract for one more year at $4.95 million, which would give the Braves a fill-in SS/leadoff guy for one year without blocking the path of their shortstop prospects.
Gonna be interesting. It’ll start heating up today, and Kinzer thinks Furcal stuff could be resolved in a couple of weeks, not stretch all the way through the winter meetings into mid-December. Some agents believe there’s going to be a flurry of trades this winter, all the way to Christmas, because of the lack of top free agents on the market. Once those free agents — Konkero, Furcal, Burnett, Millwood, Damon — are slotted with teams, many other teams will try to fill their needs via trades, because there will be more quality available there rather than what’s left on the free-agent market.
Regarding the Braves’ other biggest-name free agent, Kyle Farnsworth: The Braves are interested in keeping him, but only if he’s affordable. His last team before Atlanta, the Detroit Tigers, might be the only team willing to give Farnsworth anything close to what he hopes to get, because not many teams seem to be looking at him as a closer; rather, they see him as a setup guy and possible closer.
The Tigers, though, saw him shine in the closer role for part of the summer before trading him to Atlanta when he showed no interest in the three-year offer for a little over $10 mill that the Tigers offered him.
The Tigers might be willing to go to about $12 mill for three years now, and that might be longer and more money than the Braves are willing to part with for a guy who’s been a closer for less than half a season, and came apart in the first truly pressure-filled opportunity he faced for the Braves, in Game 4 of the division series. Especially if the Braves could get, say, Todd Jones for two years at under $6.5 million total.
OK, that’s it. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll get back with a post later Monday, probably, after seeing how things went with Kinzer and Furcal’s suitors today.
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