Stove Finally Turns On
Matt Mantei was signed today for a one year, $750,000 contract. His line for the 2004 season is awful, but he only pitched 10 and 2/3 innings because of tendinitis in his pitching shoulder. He was also coming off Tommy John surgery in 2001. In my opinion, this is a good, low risk pickup that won’t cost any draft picks. His (hopefully still) 96-97 mph fastball will contrast nicely with Foulke’s style. With Scott Williamson gone, and Alan Embree and Mike Timlin aging, Mantei will fill the need for a reliable strikeout hurler. Remember when Mantei lost his job as closer to Byung-Hyun Kim at Arizona? Seems like Boston is the reclamation factory for Arizona pitchers. Perhaps Kim needs more processing....
On the empire front, the Yankees opted for Jaret Wright (3 years, $21M) instead of John Lieber, who is going to the Phillies for the same value and duration. I’m happy to see Lieber out of rotation, as he came up huge against the Red Sox during the ALCS. As for Wright, perhaps the Yankees are hoping that the Red Sox batters’ scarce showings against him (61 total ABs, with 3 of them being Arroyo and Schilling) will work to their advantage. We can all recall how well rookie pitchers, or pitchers that the hitters had little exposure to, did against the Sox this past season.
