First bit of news is that Jon Harbour declined his player option and will become a free agent. He'll probably do better money-wise elsewhere and get to be a starter, and he has a ring for every finger on one of his hands so it's an unsurprising decision.
We were given a payroll of $190M for next season, and of course I always want to come in at least $20-25M short of that so my goal is $165M.
Here's what our potential salary expense looks like for next year:
If we were to keep the whole band together, it would run $218M and some of these arb-eligible guys will likely get a little more, so to get down to $165M I'm going to have to clear about $55M. The first $15.5 is easy because I'm not going to tender Mike Robichaux as that's an absurd amount for a guy who would be a middle reliever for us. The other $40M or so is going to come from the third and fourth players on that list, Jose Mendez and Dan Robinson. Both have just one year of control left, and Mario Saro is ready to take Mendez's place while we have several options to replace Robinson such as Joel Gird, Ben Moses, Tristan Goulet and top prospect Chris Krisik. Also we're not renewing Takayuri Kawamori, whom we claimed on waivers late in the season, so there's another $6.5M saved.
So Mendez and Robinson will go on the block, and...........there they go - to the team we just beat in a hard-fought World Series:
So what are we getting in return? Duran is a stud in the making:
His ratings haven't quite translated into production as he was 284/365/385 in 148 AB with the Nats last year but I'm sure he'll be fine. Mejia meanwhile is a lefty reliever with 70 stuff, 65 movement and 45 control. He was the unfortunate victim of our 9th-inning Game 7 rally as he was thrown in when Nats closer Alex Gomez had to leave the game injured. Hopefully he won't be too traumatized to pitch in Publix Park going forward.
Awards season:
* We've never been known as an elite defensive team, but Gordie Ager did win a Gold Glove at pitcher.
* Baltimore's Brad Lange was the unanimous winner of AL Reliever of the Year. 42 saves with a 0.90 ERA will do that. Willie Minier finished 5th in the voting. Over in the NL former Ray Freddy Zamora took the award as he recorded 53 saves with a 2.01 ERA. He did that despite coughing up 13 homers in 85 innings which left him with 0.5 WAR, which shows you how much that figures into the voting.
*Luis Barela (3B), Jose Mendez (LF) and Jose Castillo (DH) won Silver Slugger Awards for their respective positions.
* And we had the Rookie of the Year:
* The White Sox' Omar Guerrero won his second consecutive Cy Young, beating out Gordie Ager 181-130 and 22 first-place votes to Ager's 7 (including mine). Guerrero was 21-8, 3.24. Over in the NL, former Ray and 2041 AL Cy Young winner with us Brad Jackson took the nod thanks to his 14-8, 2.57 season in which he led MLB in ERA and of course helped the Nats to the World Series.
* Another MVP and another close vote:
After finishing in a tie last season for the MVP and winning this year's by 1 point, I'm going to call him "Landslide Luis" Barela as the Rays' 3B takes home his fourth consecutive MVP award, third with the Rays after the first one with the Phillies. Barela actually received fewer first-place votes than Mike Collin but nosed him out by a single point. Jose Mendez got the other first-place votes as Rays hitters took 4 of the 5 top spots. Barela joins Barry Bonds (2001-04) as the only players in MLB history to win the award in four consecutive seasons.
In the NL the award went to Cuban defector Jorge Robles, who hit .311-49-121 in his second MLB season with Milwaukee. He handily beat out Cincinnati's Steve Hopfensberger.