Hoffman about to hit open market
11/10/2005
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- The free agent signing period opens on Friday and Trevor Hoffman is about to discover what he's worth on the open market.
Based on the gap between what the Padres have offered and what he's asking, the potential Hall of Fame reliever is starting to prepare for life after his stellar career closing games for San Diego. And the Padres, who must fit Hoffman into their $70 million budget, may be beginning to prepare for life without him, too.
"I don't need to be the highest-paid reliever in baseball, I'm just looking for fair market value," Hoffman told MLB.com when reached via phone from San Diego this week. "But they're not even being fair. To me, that's the writing on the wall."
About a week ago the two sides exchanged figures. The Padres' first salvo was for two years at $10 million, and Hoffman countered at three years for $25.5 million, general manager Kevin Towers said. The breach is now as wide as the outfield gaps at spacious two-year-old PETCO Park, and the two sides haven't talked since then.
The Padres have three key free agents to sign this offseason: Hoffman, right fielder Brian Giles and catcher Ramon Hernandez, who is probably out of the picture. But Towers said this week as the general managers meetings played themselves out here that Hoffman is the team's top priority.
"Based on what he's done for this organization for almost 13 years," Towers said. "It's very important to have a closer to shut things down at the end of the game."
A case can be made that the Padres wouldn't have won the National League West this past season without the now 38-year-old right-hander coming out of the bullpen to close games. The Padres won 82 times, tied for the fewest ever by a playoff team with a 162-game schedule, and Hoffman saved 43 of them. The Dodgers, who virtually lost Eric Gagne for the entire season, and the Giants, who lost Armando Benitez for a sizeable portion of it, would have loved to have had Hoffman.
And that's what the Padres are about to find out. Who wants him and at what price?
"Once he gets out there and starts talking to other ballclubs, that could either help us to make our numbers seem more fair or it could hurt us," Towers said. "He needs to find out what the interest level is and what the market is."
There's certainly a high premium on closers, particularly one who has saved 436 games over the course of his career and is as well-conditioned as Hoffman, who bounced back from right shoulder surgery in 2003 to save 84 games during the past two seasons. The total saves figure is the second highest in baseball history behind Lee Smith's 478, but it should be noted that all except two of Hoffman's saves came for the Padres.
The Mets, for one, have prioritized signing a closer, said Omar Minaya, their general manager, who opted out of a contract recently with Braden Looper. And although their first choice may be Phillies left-hander Billy Wagner, the Mets believe that Philadelphia will make a concerted effort to retain their free agent. If that happens, the Mets will take an alternative route.
"We'll go to Plan B," Minaya said, indicating that the world of relievers out there would certainly include Hoffman.
The fact that it has to come to this seems to have saddened Hoffman, who brings more to a team than just his able right arm, but adds a very high quotient of leadership.
"It makes me upset and very frustrated," Hoffman said. "I don't even like the idea of going out there and talking to other teams let alone thinking about playing somewhere else than San Diego. But if that's the reality of the situation that's what I'm going to have to do. They keep taking about my age and that Dennis Eckersley is the only reliever in history who was effective after 38. But that has to be only part of the equation."
In essence, it's the wrong year and the wrong offseason for Hoffman to be out on the market a far as the Padres are concerned. About $30 million of their $70 million payroll is already committed, with Ryan Klesko and Chan Ho Park accounting for $18 million of it.
Heading into 2007, only Jake Peavy is under contract, giving the team a lot of wiggle room a year from now. But this year they're going to have to make some tough choices.
"We've got to look at our budget," Towers said. "We want to put a competitive team on the field that can compete for a championship, and we need a few pieces. We don't just need a closer. There are other things we're going to have to do, so we need to decide where we're going to allocate our dollars.
"If the bidding is too high on Trevor then we might have to go with a [Scott] Linebrink or an [Akinori] Otsuka to close. We might not want to do that, but if we want to field a competitive team we might have to."
The two aforementioned setup men have been effective for the Padres during the last two seasons, but they only have four career saves between them. No one knows whether the psyche of a pitcher is strong enough to make the change from setup man to closer until he is placed in that role.
Hoffman, for one, thinks Linebrink has the ability to do it, but he's a right-hander whom the Padres acquired on waivers from the Houston Astros a little more than two years ago. Otsuka, a Japan League product, was signed in 2003 as a free agent.
It's a bridge that neither the Padres nor Hoffman want to cross, but it is obvious that both parties are preparing to make that journey.
Source: http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- The free agent signing period opens on Friday and Trevor Hoffman is about to discover what he's worth on the open market.
Based on the gap between what the Padres have offered and what he's asking, the potential Hall of Fame reliever is starting to prepare for life after his stellar career closing games for San Diego. And the Padres, who must fit Hoffman into their $70 million budget, may be beginning to prepare for life without him, too.
"I don't need to be the highest-paid reliever in baseball, I'm just looking for fair market value," Hoffman told MLB.com when reached via phone from San Diego this week. "But they're not even being fair. To me, that's the writing on the wall."
About a week ago the two sides exchanged figures. The Padres' first salvo was for two years at $10 million, and Hoffman countered at three years for $25.5 million, general manager Kevin Towers said. The breach is now as wide as the outfield gaps at spacious two-year-old PETCO Park, and the two sides haven't talked since then.
The Padres have three key free agents to sign this offseason: Hoffman, right fielder Brian Giles and catcher Ramon Hernandez, who is probably out of the picture. But Towers said this week as the general managers meetings played themselves out here that Hoffman is the team's top priority.
"Based on what he's done for this organization for almost 13 years," Towers said. "It's very important to have a closer to shut things down at the end of the game."
A case can be made that the Padres wouldn't have won the National League West this past season without the now 38-year-old right-hander coming out of the bullpen to close games. The Padres won 82 times, tied for the fewest ever by a playoff team with a 162-game schedule, and Hoffman saved 43 of them. The Dodgers, who virtually lost Eric Gagne for the entire season, and the Giants, who lost Armando Benitez for a sizeable portion of it, would have loved to have had Hoffman.
And that's what the Padres are about to find out. Who wants him and at what price?
"Once he gets out there and starts talking to other ballclubs, that could either help us to make our numbers seem more fair or it could hurt us," Towers said. "He needs to find out what the interest level is and what the market is."
There's certainly a high premium on closers, particularly one who has saved 436 games over the course of his career and is as well-conditioned as Hoffman, who bounced back from right shoulder surgery in 2003 to save 84 games during the past two seasons. The total saves figure is the second highest in baseball history behind Lee Smith's 478, but it should be noted that all except two of Hoffman's saves came for the Padres.
The Mets, for one, have prioritized signing a closer, said Omar Minaya, their general manager, who opted out of a contract recently with Braden Looper. And although their first choice may be Phillies left-hander Billy Wagner, the Mets believe that Philadelphia will make a concerted effort to retain their free agent. If that happens, the Mets will take an alternative route.
"We'll go to Plan B," Minaya said, indicating that the world of relievers out there would certainly include Hoffman.
The fact that it has to come to this seems to have saddened Hoffman, who brings more to a team than just his able right arm, but adds a very high quotient of leadership.
"It makes me upset and very frustrated," Hoffman said. "I don't even like the idea of going out there and talking to other teams let alone thinking about playing somewhere else than San Diego. But if that's the reality of the situation that's what I'm going to have to do. They keep taking about my age and that Dennis Eckersley is the only reliever in history who was effective after 38. But that has to be only part of the equation."
In essence, it's the wrong year and the wrong offseason for Hoffman to be out on the market a far as the Padres are concerned. About $30 million of their $70 million payroll is already committed, with Ryan Klesko and Chan Ho Park accounting for $18 million of it.
Heading into 2007, only Jake Peavy is under contract, giving the team a lot of wiggle room a year from now. But this year they're going to have to make some tough choices.
"We've got to look at our budget," Towers said. "We want to put a competitive team on the field that can compete for a championship, and we need a few pieces. We don't just need a closer. There are other things we're going to have to do, so we need to decide where we're going to allocate our dollars.
"If the bidding is too high on Trevor then we might have to go with a [Scott] Linebrink or an [Akinori] Otsuka to close. We might not want to do that, but if we want to field a competitive team we might have to."
The two aforementioned setup men have been effective for the Padres during the last two seasons, but they only have four career saves between them. No one knows whether the psyche of a pitcher is strong enough to make the change from setup man to closer until he is placed in that role.
Hoffman, for one, thinks Linebrink has the ability to do it, but he's a right-hander whom the Padres acquired on waivers from the Houston Astros a little more than two years ago. Otsuka, a Japan League product, was signed in 2003 as a free agent.
It's a bridge that neither the Padres nor Hoffman want to cross, but it is obvious that both parties are preparing to make that journey.
Source: http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home