Mets get Delgado
BY JON HEYMAN
STAFF WRITER
November 23, 2005, 8:13 AM EST
The Mets have reached an agreement for a trade to bring Carlos Delgado from the Marlins, Newsday has learned. The trade won't be finalized until medical examinations of the players involved are complete and commissioner Bud Selig signs off on the deal.The Mets have agreed to send righthanded pitching prospect Yusmeiro Petit and young first baseman Mike Jacobs to the Marlins for Delgado, according to someone familiar with the deal. As part of the deal, the Marlins will send $7 million back to the Mets to cover part of the $48 million remaining on Delgado's contract.
Delgado, 33, does not have veto powers over a trade. The lefthanded-hitting first baseman batted .301 with 33 home runs and 115 RBIs last year with the Marlins.
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Jacobs, 25, batted .310 with 11 homers in 100 at bats with the Mets after being called up in mid-August.Petit, who turned 21 yesterday, is considered the Mets' top pitching prospect. He was 9-3 with a 2.92 ERA last year at Double-A Binghamton.
You have to give Omar his due. He finally got his man…at least this man. I think it’s fair to say that with Delgado in the fold, Ramirez will not be playing left field for the Mets next year. Beyond the money, having dealt Cameron to the Padres and now brought in Delgado for Jacobs and Petit, the Mets certainly don’t want to give up too many blue chip prospects at this point. After Jacobs, I suspect that Milledge is the next top prospect in the system and given the likelihood that he is just about ready to play right field for the major league club, it would make no sense to move this type of talent (supposedly at a David Wright and Jose Reyes level) even for the likes of Alphonso Soriano though admittedly if Soriano were made available, it might be in the team’s best interest to part with Milledge and take a shot at building something that may become a force this year and for a while to come. As for Delgado, that type of talent doesn’t come along that often, either, and given that he is only 33 years old and plays first base, it is likely that he will be a force for the Mets for years to come, assuming, of course, that he enjoys himself in New York and doesn’t ask out next November as would be his right as a 10/5 player traded in the middle of multi-year contract. Of the two players sent in return, I was high on Jacobs after watching him play last year, but given that the best he could become is likely something less than Delgado, it obviously makes sense to bring in the man himself. It is Petit, however, may prove to be the bigger and biggest loss. While he had three shaky outings after moving up to Triple A last year, one only had to watch him during Spring training last year to realize how up his upside is and will be. Again, however, you have these types of players in your system in order to bring in a talent like Delgado and, assuming he stays with the Mets beyond 2006, the trade will prove to have been as good as the one that brought Piazza to the Mets in ’98.
One other point about Minaya…the man’s no idiot. I have no doubt that he had this deal on the table by the end of last week, but held off closing the deal until after the Wagners made their visit to the New York area. Having spent two days with Billy and his wife and then making a 3 year/$10-$11 million/yr offer (likely with indications of their willingness to go to four years if that would close the deal), what better way to show Wagner that team officials meant what they said when they told Wagner that they were building to win now than to close the Delgado deal just as Wagner is arriving back home in Virginia. The trade might actually convince Wagner to accept the 3 year deal instead of pushing for a fourth year simply because he realizes that the Phillies will not be able to match the Delgado trade (Ramirez will not agree to go to the Phillies) and that his best chance of winning now and for the next year or so is with New York.
