These will be the guys who are in line for a $100,000 retention bonus and the right to opt out on June 1.



Baseball America

Betting that Aaron Cook, Jeff Francis and Joel Pineiro will be the best available pitchers from this group.

We'll see if we have a need for any of them, but if Miguel Batista is being considered to be kept in the name of having "depth", wouldn't you think a consideration of sending Gee to the minors and bringing in a veteran back-end guy, if say Francis shakes free, for at least a month or two to gauge how Santana is holding up, Pelf is performing, etc, to have that better "6th starter" option would at least be discussed at some point?

As far as position players go, Yuck - if they're talking about a RH replacement for Hairston, you're talking about Jason Michaels or Conor Jackson. Instead of Loewen (since Ankiel is likely making the Nats and Pierre almost a lock for Philly), you could maybe grab Patterson or Brad Hawpe? I think Scott Podsednick (Phillies) should be on this list, too, btw - but again, not guys I'd really be that interested in.

Francis or Pineiro would be nice starter depth; I would really like to see them grab one of those guys if they are let go. Don't forget they pushed to sign Francis before he spurned them for Cincinnati. The rest of the realistic names on the list are fairly uninspiring.

I'm a fan of Pineiro. He would not be the worst option as insurance in case of an injury

I guess I don't know exactly how the contracts would be worked in the event of a late ST release, but would these guys require the same 100K bonus + June 1 opt-out if brought in post-release?

In other words, the Phillies release Pineiro cuz they don't find a taker for Blanton, their rotation is healthy and they like Kendrick as their long man better than Pineiro for whatever reason...and they don't think paying him 100K above whatever he'd make anyway so that he'll almost surely opt-out on June 1 because they're confident they won't need him by then is worth it. Cna the Mets then pick up Pineiro on a standard minor-league deal and entice him with "No one is offering you a definitive spot at this point, but we have 0 depth and a very shaky rotation so we offer you probably the best chance of anyone to get to the majors quick" or do they HAVE to offer him the same 100K and June 1 opt-out that the Phils released him over in a minor league contract?

I believe the player would still qualify, but I'm not too sure. The rule is meant to safeguard veterans from spending all season in Triple-A when a big league opportunity may exist elsewhere.

BA says a player's contract had to expire as of last season, so that seems to mean Nitkowski, if signed, wouldn't qualify for the $100k rule. Makes sense.

Question then is, on the starting pitching front at least (the only side of this I'm interested in, unless something like Jon Rauch goes down for the year and Dan Wheeler shakes free):

Would the Mets make the 100K+ salary investment for potentially 2 months of AAA starts just to bring in depth?

Or would they consider sending Dillon Gee down/to the bullpen in the interest of bringing in depth?

Or would any of those guys (Pineiro, Francis) consider signing here as a bullpen arm?

I don't know if any of those answers are "Yes", so I THINK we may only be shopping here in case of a Santana injury (in other words, hope we're not shopping here, as much as I like those 2 names).

Thanks for the list, sluger. I've been looking for this.

About an exciting list of players as I suspected...

An additional quirk to the rules:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/pro ... contracts/

So the players had to have had a big league contract expire at the end of last year (so CJ Nitkowski, despite having the requisite service time, would not be covered) and if you wait until March 26th to sign someone, they would not be covered, which may give you incentive to wait on someone like, say, Joel Pineiro or Dontrelle Willis- at the risk of losing him, of course, to someone who doesn't mind the added stipulations.