As an Oakland fan, the Barry Zito sweepstakes is almost a non-event.\u00c2\u00a0 Not long after we got tanked by the Tigers in the ALCS it was basically accepted that Zito had pitched in the green and gold for the last time.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not coming back to Oakland and therefore in many respects I’m not fussed where he goes.\u00c2\u00a0 Rumours of strong interest from divisional rivals (Rangers and Mariners) as well as our Bay Area neighbours might make me somewhat nervous of our former hero joining a deadly rival.\u00c2\u00a0 But when it comes down to it, Zito’s going to be a Met.<\/p>\n
This public dating game is all very nice.\u00c2\u00a0 The Mets flying to a summit in California. Scott Boras (him again!) allegedly whispering about proposed $100 million deals from other teams.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Each side posturing and bargaining.\u00c2\u00a0 Really it’s just like two thirteen year olds eyeing each other up at a party, with everyone else in the room thinking “just bloody well get on with it”!<\/p>\n
The Mets are a strong outfit already but they need another starting pitcher and have the financial resources to splash out on the free agent market.\u00c2\u00a0 Zito wants a fat contract (which he’ll get from the Mets), a chance to win the World Series (the Mets are as good a bet as any), and a chance to boost the “Barry Zito brand” (which he’ll get from New York).\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a perfect match and both sides know it.\u00c2\u00a0 Zito in a Mets uniform is about as guaranteed as any potential deal gets.<\/p>\n
And if I’m wrong?\u00c2\u00a0 Well that will probably mean Zito’s wearing\u00c2\u00a0 a Mariners\/Rangers\/Giants uniform and I’ll be far more annoyed about that than having my prediction skills publicly squashed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As an Oakland fan, the Barry Zito sweepstakes is almost a non-event.\u00c2\u00a0 Not long after we got tanked by the Tigers in the ALCS it was basically accepted that Zito had pitched in the green and gold for the last time.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not coming back to Oakland and therefore in many respects I’m not fussed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4244,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/4244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}