Sunday, November 7, 2010

Derrek Lee to the M's?

So Ken Davidoff is predicting that Derrek Lee will sign with the Mariners on a one year contract for $7 million dollars.

Some quick shots about this:
  • Lee will be 35 this year
  • Coming off a disappointing year by his standard with .260/19/80 between the Cubs and Braves.
  • 2009 was arguably his 2nd best offensive season
  • His batting average on balls in play was down marginally last season
  • He is generally considered to be an above average first baseman
  • His wins above replacement last year was 2.0.  2009 was 5.3
  • He would be so much better than Casey Kotchman it would boggle the mind.
There are a lot of things to like about Derrek Lee, but I can't for the life of me understand why a 35 year old would sign with a team certainly not going to the playoffs, also sign with a team certainly not going to the playoffs which plays half of their games in a park which will probably kill his value in 2011 should he wish to continue playing, AND sign with a team that would most likely ask him to DH for most of the season.  Furthermore, why he would sign with the M's for, what would probably have to be considered to be market value and for only one year defies logic.  I just don't see the fit here, unless for some reason Derrek Lee just loves him some Space Needle and traffic jams.

It would be a nice pickup for the M's, but it's probably not worth getting excited about.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The front office might feel that smoak isn't ready yet.

Michael said...

They can't afford for Smoak to not be ready yet. Oh, God - Montero is going to just rake next season, isn't he?

Danny said...

It would be fun to have him in an M's uniform. But your point is well taken: Why would he sign here? Surely some other team that has a chance to compete will be interested in tossing him a decent one year deal. He could be our clean-up hitter and get a ton of RBI chances. But Safeco may not be the place he wants to try to earn his final MLB contract. Maybe the M's should look at giving him a 2 year deal and then let Smoak play DH and rotate in at 1b when Lee is tired or hurt?