Teams looking for 'next' Lee after original snares Cy
The timing is purely coincidental, which doesn't make it any less interesting.
The day before the open bidding begins for CC Sabathia -- with one executive predicting that he'll end up with the Yankees for $150 million over six years -- the American League Cy Young Award was presented to Cliff Lee.
Anyone who could afford him would want Sabathia, and understandably so.
Almost no one wanted Cliff Lee -- at least not last winter, when he could have been had if someone had made the Indians a decent offer. While Cleveland wasn't willing to give him away, the biggest reason Lee wasn't traded is there just wasn't that much interest in him.
Asked how far Lee had fallen in the Indians' estimation, general manager Mark Shapiro simply said: "Not as far down as the rest of the league thought he was."
The Indians, after all, chose to keep Lee. All those other teams chose not to trade for him.
Now many of those other teams -- especially the ones that can't afford to bid on Sabathia -- are sitting in meetings asking their scouts to identify the next Cliff Lee.
In other words, is there a 2009 Cy Young winner out there to be had, for something less than $25 million a year.
"If there's one out there, it's my job to find him," one scout for a mid-market team said Thursday. "And I haven't found him yet."
In interviews over the last few days, other scouts suggested there could be a "next Cliff Lee." They suggested looking for someone who has had some success in the past (Lee was 14-11 in 2006), is coming off a trying year (Lee's ERA soared from 4.40 to 6.29 in 2007, and he was sent to Triple-A Buffalo), and has enough stuff to make you believe he could put it back together.
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| Cliff Lee didn't look like a Cy Young candidate after a 5-8 mark in '07. (Getty Images) |
Or maybe someone like Zack Greinke, who wasn't bad in 2008 (13-10, 3.47), but could be on the verge of becoming a lot better.
"He's got a chance to win 20 games," one scout said. "Zack Greinke has a chance to emerge as a Cy Young winner."
The same scout also suggested Scott Olsen, the left-hander the Nationals acquired from the Marlins in a trade just this week. Olsen was 8-11 in 33 starts in 2008, but some believe he could be on the verge of putting it together.
None of those guys exactly fit the Lee profile, if only because Lee was an 18-game winner two years before his 2007 fall. At one time, Lee was a promising enough pitcher that the Indians rewarded him with a $15 million, four-year contract (which runs through 2009).
He was never Sabathia, a first-round draft pick with overwhelming stuff. Lee was a fourth-rounder with good enough stuff to win in the big leagues, but not good enough to light up scouts' eyes.
"He's not a guy with a 95 mph fastball," Shapiro said. "He's 91-92, with a nice curve and a nice changeup."
And, obviously, with the ability to go 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA in one incredible season.
"He pitched at an elite level all year," Shapiro said. "His year was exceptional."
And because of where he came from, all year Lee kept getting asked how he was doing it.
"The main thing was kind of just putting (2007) behind me," Lee said Thursday. "Obviously, I used '07 as motivation in the offseason, to make sure it didn't happen again."
Lee was so good in 2008 that he would have been the Cy Young favorite even if Sabathia had stayed in the American League all year. Roy Halladay had a great season with the Blue Jays, but in voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America, Halladay received only four first-place votes.
Lee got the other 24.
It's enough to make you wonder if there is another Lee out there. The Yankees can throw their huge money at Sabathia and see if it's enough for him to abandon his preferred league (the NL) and preferred coast (the West), but maybe the 2009 Cy Young winner is someone whose stock has fallen, just as Lee's had.
"I just don't know who it would be," one scout said this week. "I wouldn't bet on (Carl) Pavano. I don't think I'd bet on Dontrelle (Willis). I wouldn't bet on Rich Hill.
"But I wouldn't have bet on (Ryan) Dempster having the year he did this year."
And no one would have bet on Cliff Lee.
