According to this report from rotoworld.com quoting a tweet from John Paul Morosi, the Mets' talks with the Mariners regarding Cliff Lee are not making much progress.
It's interesting to me that that within 24 hours, reports have surfaced that the Twins have offered Hicks and Ramos, but also that the Mets' talks aren't going very far. To me, this seems like an awful lot of posturing. While I don't believe that this is being done with the hopes that Omar will read the reports and up his offer, I do believe it's a bait to bait to bring other teams in. If the Mariners can drag other teams in, or get an involved team to up it's offer, then that would give them the leverage they need to squeeze more out of Omar.
Why do I believe that? Very simple. Two weeks ago, even as little as a week ago, there was no mention of the Mets not being able to add payroll. There was, however, reports from Seattle publications that Cliff Lee to the Mets was getting "louder and louder". Now, all of a sudden, we're hearing "no money", "not progressing", etc. Typical deadline posturing.
A final note: GMs do not leak accurate information to well known publications. They leak inaccurate info to them. The guys who have traditionally gotten the inside scoop are lesser known reporters. Ken Rosenthal was a relative unknown until a few offseasons ago, when he seemingly broke every trade/signing. Jon Heyman was known mostly in NY until he broke all the news a couple years back. Now he's known throughout the country and has coincidentally broken several false news items since gaining notoriety. My point being, if you want to take a guess at which news is the most accurate, your best bet is with the least known guy. Of course, I could be way wrong, but that's just the nature of the rumor mill.
Cliff Lee Talks Not Progressing
