I like dropping into the baseball boards at FanHome and ESPN now and again, if only because there's almost always one thread about trading Carlos Delgado. Usually it's along the lines of "what culd we get for Delagdo" (if you've been to these boards, you know the ones I mean), and is founded on a quick glance around baseball for a team with an opening at first base, a lot of money and some pretty good prospects. These days, those two teams are usually identified as the Indians and Dodgers.
Setting aside for a moment that each team has alternatives available (an inexpensive Ben Broussard in Cleveland, a has-to-play-somewhere Todd Hundley in LA) and that cheaper free agents (McGriff, Floyd) are on the market, these idle and ultimately harmless discussions overlook some important facts: (1) Delgado has a no-trade clause, (2) he has it for a reason and he'll use it, (3) his contract, even most of it, is virtually untradeable, and (4) Ricciardi doesn't intend to deal him.
It's this last point that's the most significant, and which is brought out more fully in a Sun column this morning. JP makes the point that Delgado is the only player in the lineup capable of filling the cleanup spot right now, and that what he brings to the table -- triple digits in runs, RBI and walks -- is not that easily replaceable. He's a pillar in the lineup around which players like Phelps, Wells and Hinske can lean and develop. The Jays are a better team now, and will be a better team in three years' time, by keeping Delgado happy and on the payroll than they would be otherwise.
Now, of course, JP would be even happier if he had Delgado's services for about $9 million less per season, and if he had the complete flexibility to trade him if a stupendous offer came along. And he also wouldn't mind if Carlos were a little more devoted to defence and baserunning. But I'd like the local Blockbuster to carry a copy of the original Die Hard, not the two execrable sequels. Life's not perfect, so you do what you can with what you have. Accepting that his salary is unchangeable and unmoveable till mid-2004 at the earliest, JP realizes that he has an asset in Delgado and he's going to make the most of it.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20021205095924999