Zito

Why the simple title today? No attempt at a lame joke, nothing deep. Just one single word. Well, it's quite simple, what else is there at this point?

A story on MSNBC this morning says that Omar has made an offer to Boras for Zito. Reportedly 6 years, $105 million. IMHO, if Barry does not accept this, he is a schmuck. Yeah, he might be able to get more out of Tom Hicks in Texas, who Boras has made into his bitch (A-Rod, Chan Ho Park). But then he would have to play in Texas, which has little to no shot of winning.

*UPDATE - MSNBC has revised the headline, and is no longer stating the Mets have made an offer. So, silly me for believing the media I guess.

Now, many Mets fans are in favor of Zito to the Mets, and still others are against it. I am abviously in the former camp, as I feel Zito in NY equals 20 wins. Look at what other pitchers who have moved from the AL to the NL have done. Clemens. Pettitte. And they were on light hitting teams. Chris Carpenter is another.

Yeah, Zito's number have increased, but the bottom line is he is a guy who wants the ball every 5th days (note to Steve Trachsel, teams like this in a starter). He goes 200 innings each year. He won 16 games last year. He has done this in Oakland, which sees guys move pretty much every year. Oh, and for those who say Oakland is a pitchers park, given its generous foul territory, his splits look like this:

Home - 109 innings, 4.71 ERA, 6 W 7 L, 275 BAA

Away - 112 innings, 2.97 ERA, 10 W 3 L, 240 BAA

Major difference. Now, we all know Shea is a pitchers park, and Citi Field is designed to be the same.

One thing the rotation has lacked for years is an innings eater. Pedro, not so much. Glavine, yeah, but he has his times where he goes into funks. El Duque, um, not really. As it stands now, the Mets rotation for 2007 looks like this

Glavine
Duque
Perez
Maine
Williams
Pelfry
Bannister

Zito at the top of that rotation will make it one of the top rotations in the NL. Without him, not so much. Yeah, Pedro might be back in July, but what can we expect from him? Same goes for Mark Mulder, who some fans want. He is out until around the same time.

So Omar, you have fired a nice opening salvo. I for one do not see this as overpaying. Yeah, $17.5 million a year is a lot, but the guy is under 30, and (knock wood) is not injury prone. The team has $20 m a year coming from Citigroup, as well as revenue from the new park and SNY.

Get it done Omar. I want Zito under my Christmas Tree. I'll take an early gift.