Ken Davidoff in Newsday writes about the value of Fernando Martinez who once was deemed ‘too raw’ by Oakland in return for Barry Zito.

The Mets offered him instead of Lastings Milledge, who the Mets felt was too good to give up at the time.

Milledge, as we all know was traded for far less than the bounty of Zito this offseason. It is a difficult game to know when and if it makes sense to trade prospects for known entities.

Martinez has had another year under his belt and with the Yankees and Red Sox not particularly putting a full court press on the Twins, the Mets have the luxury of waiting for the Twins to blink.

I don’t know that Martinez’s value has risen so much as it doesn’t appear they have much competition. The Red Sox and Yankees seem to be sitting on the sidelines, which leads the Mets to believe they can get Johan for a smaller package.