Vladimir Guerrero will be a Met.
Did that get your attention? More important, did it get the Mets’ attention? At present, they only admit “monitoring” the second biggest non-event of this baseball offseason after Alex Rodriguez not getting traded to Boston. To date they have merely been interested bystanders as the best free agent has gone unsold through Thanksgiving, Christmas and now New Year’s.
The Mets can’t be this unwise to let this continue. So my first fearless prediction of 2004 is the Mets will at least bid for Guerrero. Why? Why not? What is there to lose? By signing Guerrero, the Mets would electrify their flock and perhaps elevate to contention. If they don’t get him, but make a real effort, they engender goodwill with their currently apathetic fans.
Fern Cuza, Guerrero’s rep, has not returned about two dozen calls, so the insights offered here are from other agents and team executives. It is generally believed Guerrero is spurning his lone big bidder, Baltimore, because he does not want to go to the AL or to a city without a significant Dominican population.
Guerrero wanted to stay in Montreal, but the Expos did not offer arbitration. He would go to Florida, but the Marlins’ muddied stadium issue means they probably can’t indulge a major investment. The Dodgers, who would seem a natural fit, have an unsettled ownership and no direction. Thus, a perfect storm has formed for the Mets to swoop in and sell the NL, a large Dominican community and themselves.
Cuza apparently still wants at least seven years for his client, and Fred Wilpon smartly does not want to play in that realm. But why repeat the A-Rod free-agent fiasco when the Mets, worried about what Rodriguez might want, never even made an offer? Offer three years with the concept Guerrero can be a free agent again at 31.
Better yet, offer one year and, as one GM said, tell Guerrero “he will show everyone his back is healthy and he can thrive in the biggest city, removing the last doubts about him as he returns to perhaps a more lucrative free-agent market next year.” The Marlins won a title going one year with Pudge Rodriguez. Unlike Florida, the Mets would have the financial might to retain Guerrero long-term if a 2004 union worked for both sides.
Look this is a prediction column, which means as you read this, Guerrero just might be signing with the Orioles. But I believe the Mets, who have grown more curious with each passing unsigned day, will see a great opportunity has opened for them and will act. So let me be the first to congratulate them on signing Guerrero.
And let me be the first to fill you in on some other fearless forecasts for 2004.
(bullet) I will be the first this new year to jump off the Red Sox bandwagon. Everyone has fallen in love with Boston this offseason and the past 8½ decades scream that is a bad idea. Curt Schilling, who has yet to pitch even a spring-training inning for the Red Sox, has emerged as the team conscious and spokesman. I see disenchantment just ahead. And a whole lot less offense than last year.
(bullet) The Yanks will win the East again, but only after obtaining David Wells and Al Leiter in July to provide lefty heft to a rotation in which Kevin Brown goes down with injury and Javier Vazquez moves toward a Weaver-esque 12-14, 4.85 season. Roger Clemens comes out of retirement, but not for the Astros or Yanks. Seeing the marketing possibilities, he kisses and makes up with the Red Sox.
However, in a one-game playoff to determine the wild card he is outpitched by Ben Sheets, whom the Blue Jays had picked up on July 31. But the Red Sox only lose when Terry Francona relieves Clemens with Pedro Martinez and leaves Martinez in too long, leading to the firing of the first-year manager and the hiring of Joe Torre for 2005.
(bullet) Pete Rose is reinstated, but with a two-year probation, and before 2004 is done he is banished again by Bud Selig for so half-heartedly going from team to team to warn against the evils of gambling and so openly campaigning for the Reds’ managerial position.
(bullet) The A-Rod trade talks heat up some in spring training, but a deal gets made a year from now when both his and Manny Ramirez’s contracts have fewer dollars left on them, and Nomar Garciaparra has fled Boston as a free agent, removing complications. Yet it is not the Red Sox who get A-Rod. The Yanks trade Kenny Lofton and Vazquez and get him, move Derek Jeter to third base and sign Carlos Beltran to play center.
Thus our first fearless prediction for 2005 is The Curse still lives.