The Mets just can't catch a break

• Will there ever be a rainbow?
  

First, there was the collapse at the end of the season in which they squandered a 3.5 game lead over the Phillies with only seventeen games left to play.  Then, owner Fred Wilpon got taken for a ride by a smooth-talking conman (not named Luis Castillo for once).  If that wasn't bad enough, Citigroup is mulling pulling out of its $400 million deal for the naming rights to their new ballpark due to public outrage over all of the government bailout money they have received.

And then there is the hideous new logo of said ballpark:



Yuck.

And now Ambiorix Burgos is apparently making a name for himself as the worst human ever.  Between all of the injuries and legal problems, one wonders if Burgos will ever set foot on the pitching rubber again.  The Royals' front office took a lot of heat when they traded him to the Mets for Brian Bannister.  Usually it's the other way around: a team gets criticized for trading a middle reliever for a starting pitcher.  But Burgos had a filthy, 98-mph split-fingered fastball that made the AL's best hitters look like fools.  Most scouts weren't too impressed with Bannister's stuff, and thought the Royals were making a huge mistake.  Nobody could understand why they were so eager to get rid of Burgos.  Well, now we know:  clearly the man is insane.  This is also why I'm not so quick to criticize the moves Dayton Moore has made this year.  On paper. the deals for Coco Crisp and Mike Jacobs look horrible.  But who knows?  Maybe there's something we don't know about Leo Nunez and Ramon Ramirez; maybe they're both injury-prone and/or crazy, too.  Only time will tell if we will be laughing with the Royals, or at them.

• Twins reach agreement with Matt Guerrier, avoid arbitration

Matt Guerrier and the Twins organization have reached an agreement on a one-year, $1.475 million deal and will avoid an arbitration hearing.  Now that Guerrier has signed, the Twins have once again avoided going into arbitration with any of their players (Jason Kubel was the only other arbitration-eligible player they had).  This is probably more money than Guerrier is actually worth considering the season he had last year, but he's been reliable for the most part and is worth keeping around.

I think Guerrier is certainly a better pitcher than his numbers last year would indicate. Although at 31 he isn't likely to repeat the stellar numbers he had in 2007, he will probably bounce back from his mediocre 2008 campaign in which he posted an ERA+ of 78 and an FIP of 5.08 (and had 4 blown saves on top of it). Fatigue definitely played a role in his decline, as he was much better before the All-Star break than after.  Another part of the problem is that he tends to struggle in big spots, and just isn't cut out to be the set-up man.  When Pat Neshek went down with an elbow injury, Guerrier was kind of thrust into the eighth-inning role and he struggled mightily down the stretch.  However, it looks as though other options for the set-up job are starting to emerge from inside the organization, so I don't think Guerrier will have to shoulder so much of the burden.  If this is the case, Matt Guerrier should bounce back nicely and will probably put up numbers similar to those in 2005 & 2006.

• Ok, so maybe Bill Smith isn't that dumb after all

Yeah, remember that trade for Jarrod Washburn that I was so upset about?  Never mind.  It looks like Bill Smith actually has some sense after all.  But I had a good reason to be concerned:  the trades Smith has made haven't been very impressive so far.  And all the talk that the Twins were interested in acquiring a veteran presence on the mound worried me; apparently they hadn't learned their lessons from Sidney Ponson, Ramon Ortiz and Livan Hernandez. I know that it's unrealistic to expect that all of the kids are going to perform as well as they did last year, and at least a couple of them are going to come back down to earth.  Still, the Twins already have a number of cheaper, and better, options within the organization should one of the starters fail.  Boof Bonser and Philip Humber, who are both out of options, could fill out a spot at the bottom of the rotation if necessary.  Heck, calling up Anthony Slama or Rob Delaney would even make more sense than acquiring yet another washed-up veteran pitcher.

There is a misguided tendency for a lot of organizations, not just the Twins, who have a very young team to go out and get cheap veteran players for the sake of having a veteran presence in the clubhouse. Unless these veterans are any good, though, this is simply a waste of valuable resources.  The Twins wasted a combined $17 million on the likes of Livan Hernandez, Mike Lamb, Adam Everett, and Craig Monroe last season.  None of them, with the exception of Everett who had to replace an injured Alexi Casilla, were with the team anymore by the end of August.  That money could have been better spent upgrading the injury-plagued bullpen, or even on long-term deals for some of their young talent.  An organization that has limited financial resources like the Twins cannot afford to fritter them away on players who offer little else other than "leadership" or a "veteran presence".