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Back then, it all seemed so straightforward.
During the November/December '97 time frame, Andy Benes and Scott Boras (his agent) were trying to put a price tag on Benes' purported love for St. Louis and all things Cardinal.
And Cards GM Walt Jocketty, working with manager Tony La Russa and principal owner Bill DeWill, was himself trying to put a St. Louis-based price tag on Benes.
The negotiation went back and forth...back and forth...and got real complicated even after the two sides seemed to reach an agreement on a five year contract for Benes.
In the meantime, Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty went out and signed free agent pitcher Kent Mercker.
In the days that followed the Mercker signing, Jocketty attempted to disabuse Cardinals' fans of the notion that Mercker was Benes Insurance...saying that "you never have enough pitching" and "I can envision Mercker and Andy Benes on our club in '98" and "I think Mercker, after he works with [pitching coach] Dave Duncan, can get back to his Atlanta days as a pitcher".
By all accounts, the Mercker acquisition looked, at worst, like another reasonably good gamble.
Then, after Benes inked a three year contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Mercker signing, and Jocketty's foresight, looked shrewder than ever.
Looking back, though, it's not crystal clear that Kent Mercker was ever viewed as Andy Benes insurance.
After all, Benes' contract with the D-backs calls for paychecks, on a yearly basis, more than twice as rich as Mercker's St. Louis pact.
And Mercker, in his eight-plus year big league career, has never logged more than 145 innings in a single season.
Contrast that with a 200+ yearly innings-pitched AVERAGE posted by Andy Benes in his eight-plus year career.
Say what you want about the workhorse Benes...but he did take the ball nearly every fifth day.
So, perhaps, in the baseball world of high finance, you get what you pay for (except in the case of Danny Jackson).
So exactly why did the Cardinals go hard after Kent Mercker?
After all, the Cardinals already have lefthander Donovan Osborne, a hurler that pitching coach Duncan has claimed may have the best stuff on the staff.
Well, here it is near the start of spring training...and a look at the career achievements of Mercker and Osborne are worth talking about:
Mercker Osborne wins 43 41 losses 42 38 ERA 3.91 3.84 G 285 123 GS 91 118 CG 2 3 IN 730 727 H 658 733 HR 78 81 BB 342 199 SO 530 452 AVG .241 .263 AGE 29 28
The similarities between the records of the Redbirds' two starting lefthanders are remarkable. Other than his apparent control problems (over four walks per nine innings pitched), Mercker's career numbers compare favorably with those compiled by Osborne.
So either Jocketty got a bargain when he signed Mercker...or overpaid for Osborne, who is entering the second year of a three-year deal at $4+ million per year.
1998 will go a long way in determining Walt Jocketty's shopping ability as far as lefthanded pitchers are concerned.
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