Gothams Latest Rumor Mill -- Milledge to Colorado

Gross. As far as spending goes, the Mets are approaching Yankees territory. One thing the Yanks pull off with much greater success is getting the most out of their prospects. The Yanks hype machine turns Brandon Claussen type players into potential future superstars while the Mets seem to wait till the prospect has the lowest possible value before they deal them away. In the last year, Milledge was the cornerstone of possible deals for Manny, Oswalt, Zito and Dontrelle. Now he's going straight up for Jason Jennings? This could be the sequel to the Kazmir for Victor Zambrano deal. Remember, the Mets could have had Soriano for Kazmir but rejected that deal only to trade him away not much later.

What? Why would the Mets do this? They refused to trade Milledge for Zito last year when they desperately could have used him for the stretch run. I would highly doubt the Mets would have dropped their thoughts of Milledge's talents that much in the span of 6 months.

I agree with Harvey the Yanks do have a solid track record recently of hyping up their prospects and keeping the right one. An additional example is along the time Soriano was coming up, D'Angelo Jimenez had equal hype. And the Yanks brightly traded Jimenez and kept Soriano.

I think the issue is that the Mets know they screwed the pooch on Millidge, now they have to get what they can for him. According to Omar, the Mets have two other OF prospects that out-project Millidge, he's become expendable. As for Jason Jennings, he's more than a weak middle of the raod SP, he's been an absolute workhorse for COL the past five years. That's not saying much but he's gotten the job done in the thin air of Coors field using his booring sinker, I'm not saying that he's a #1, but he's a major improvement over Steve Trachsel...but I digress, I agree w/ Harvey & Simon on waiting till prospects are at their lowest value to deal them...and thinking of having Soriano for Kazmir makes my blood boil...but Omar's got the ship heading in the right direction. The one thing that worries me is that w/ the BoSox out of the market for Zito, the Mets & the Yanks could kill each other in a bidding war for Zito, a durable SP but by no means Roy Oswalt.

I've heard the two other prospects mentioned (Chris Gomez I want to say is one, I'm not sure of the other), and this to me could be a little bit of creative spinning, but yes, I do think that Minaya is doing a great job over there and does have the Mets setup to be a powerhouse for the next decade.

I don't like the Jennings move. I didn't like the idea of them getting Dontrelle either, but that's another story. I still think you can get more than an innings eater for MIlledge.

With Milledge rumored on every deal the Mets are looking to make, what sticks out to me the most is that they have pretty much zero intention of keeping him and playing him, even though they are essentially now trading in Cliff Floyd's hamstring for Moises Alou ankle. Does anyone think Alou will make it through the year unscathed? Me either. But they still don't want to hold on to Milledge as an insurance policy, which makes me think he isn't the five tool specimen he's been billed to be. I'm not saying he's going to be awful, he just may not be Carlos Beltran's second coming.

The Mets are definitely in Yankees territory. Any time you spend $20 million on Moises Alou and El Duque with the idea that you'll only need them until the All-Star break when other prospects will be ready to take over, you're playing with monopoly money.

If Omar has done one thing wrong, it's completely ruining the trade value of Lastings Milledge. Here's a guy that was once 'untradable' and now they're shopping him like a $10 Santa Clause DVD. I don't care who is in your farm system, there is no reason to undercut one of your own prospects value and expose his weaknesses. I think the Mets feel very entitled to be where they are. That's kind of scary.

Great article. What about the possible Adam Dunn for Jeremy Bonderman deal?