Tampering, and Throwing Away Arms

Seems there’s a little storm brewing about a chat between New York Mets GM Omar Minaya and Florida Marlins third baseman Miguel Cabrera. On the one hand, I get the whole “appearance of impropriety” thing. On the other hand, get real. These guys are in the same line of work, and it seems natural that people will talk every once in a while. This “story” strikes me as a lot of noise, but who knows.

The other interesting item here, and it’s really just a footnote, is how much pitching talent the Mets have given away over the past several months. In two separate trades this off-season, they sent Matt Lindstrom and Henry Owens to Florida for Adam Bostick and Jason Vargas, as well as Heath Bell and Royce Ring to San Diego for Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson.

Here’s how these guys are doing through games of May 1, 2007:

Bell: 16.2 IP, 6 H, 3 BB, 17 SO, 0.54 ERA
Lindstrom: 11.0 IP, 8 H, 7 BB, 10 SO, 2.45
Owens: 15.2 IP, 13 H, 7 BB, 10 SO, 2.30 ERA
Ring: 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 2 SO, 0.00 ERA

Adkins: 12.0 IP, 16 H, 4 BB, 10 SO, 5.25 ERA (AAA)
Bostick: 23.0 IP, 24 H, 11 BB, 17 SO, 7.43 ERA (AAA)
Johnson: 21 AB, .238 BA, .385 OBP, .286 SLG (AAA)
Vargas: 27.2 IP, 29 H, 7 BB, 20 SO, 4.55 ERA (AAA)

I understand that the Mets’ bullpen is stacked and they could afford to move some arms, but shouldn’t they have been able to get a little more than this in return?