Snake Bite: The Tony Clark situation

So for the first edition of the Snake Bite we will explore the Arizona Diamondbacks free agents. Jeff Cirillo, Tony Clark, Livan Hernandez and Bob Wickman are the players who finished the 2007 with the D-Backs and, who, have since filed for free agency. Of these players the most likely to return or at least the biggest priority to bring back is Tony the Tiger who is the clubhouse leader and has proven that he can still produce pounding out 17 home runs in a limited role. But before we talk about why mister Clark needs to come back let’s talk about the other three hired guns.

Tony has lead the Diamondbacks to many a victory

Jeff Cirillo came to the Snakes after he was claimed off of waivers from the Minnesota Twins in early August and preceded to hit .200 in 40 AB for the Backs. Jeff served as a veteran bat of the bench and when Orlando Hudson went down he served as one of the veteran back up infielders even starting game four of the NLCS at second base, Cirillo even had a no-hit inning (his first in the bigs) for the D-Backs. Truthfully I don’t know the likelihood of the USC alum returning because as I said he is not the main priority but my guess would be that he will not return since he is mainly a corner infielder (though he can play second) and Arizona has plenty of corner infielders and even then back ups are basically set with Augie Ojeda and Alberto Callaspo.

Livan Hernandez has all but been shown the door and there is basically no way in hell that the Cuban expat will be back since there is such a weak free agent market even Hernandez is expected to command a high price and the organization feels that they can replace him with a farm hand or someone acquired through farmhands.

Bob Wickman, who was signed for the stretch run but was ineligible for the postseason roster, again has had little discussion about him. Wickman pitched six and two third innings and allowed one earned run with the Diamondbacks in 2007. If Wickman is resigned or if he isn’t it doesn’t really matter he was not an integral part of the NL’s winningest team if he comes back the ‘pen is that much stronger if he doesn’t no big deal.

Now to the main attraction: Anthony Christopher Clark. So for those of you who don’t know about mister Clark, ever since he joined the Diamondbacks Clark has been one of the team leaders both on the field and in the clubhouse serving as a vocal leader and providing maturity to a young club especially with the departure of fan favorite Luis Gonzalez. The SNAFU with Clark is his playing time and more importantly the amount he is paid to play. While he can only talk contracts with the Diamondbacks right now other teams can express their interest in him and they are offering him somewhere around 400 AB which is something that the Snakes can not offer him yet. With those 400 AB come a salary to boot and if Arizona can’t offer him the 400 AB then it wouldn’t make any sense for them to offer him the amount of money that another team looking to give him that amount of ABs would. The D-Backs, how ever, might be looking to trade Conor Jackson which coupled with Chad Tracy’s injury would makes it much easier for the snakes to give Tony a guaranteed amount of ABs and as such a guaranteed amount of money.

So now for your edification I would like to present to you why Tony Clark is so important.