Does Spending Big Equal Winning Big?

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• t agee January 28, 2011 at 11:22 am

  Signing or trading for so many big money dinosaurs is what has crippled this team since the early 90′s. What looks good on paper if so and so can do what he did 3 years ago or this other guy has averaged in his career NEVER works out.

  You’ll never find the young players playing cards in the club house during playoff games. The older, on their last contract before retiring player just doesn’t care as much. Being in the Big Leagues just isn’t as much of a thrill as it was when he was trying to establish himself up here.

  The older position player doesn’t play defense or run the bases as well as he did before.

  If it was only a question of money it wouldn’t matter but it takes money away that could be spent elsewhere on the roster and takes away from the future as well by handing over high draft choices. Not only that but it actually takes away from the present in bad or indifferent play by more injury prone type players.

  There is no way for a free agent to devote himself to a workout regiment like he went through the off season BEFORE he became a free agent because the off season in which he signs the big deal is the culmination of what he has been working toward for the last 10 years. Getting the big deal. That’s a completely different mind set than trying to live up to the new contract.

  The environment in which he thrived with his old team is all gone, his off season has been one of uncertainty with where he’s moving his family, what different offers are out there, who he’s gonna sign with, where are they going to live, schools for the kids, press obligations with his new team. The two off seasons could not possibly be more different.

  Who’s going to handle it well and who’s not is impossible to tell but one thing that is very easy to see is that mentally and physically he cannot be the same player in the first year because of all the decisions and distractions of the off season.

  Players always play better when there is a good chance of getting another contract after their current one expires. One of the best free agents we ever had was John Olerud. His value was down, we signed him for 3 years after which he signed his final long term contract with Seattle and started his decline. Had we combined the great sign by Mcillvaine of Olerud with offering arb we would have had the best of both worlds. Three great years and two high draft choices when he left.

  That’s the way to approach the free agent or trade of an established player. You only want to make that move if he’s going to have something left at the end of his contract.

  All the dinosaurs that we have signed through the last 25 years have been immediately moved to the Smithsonian leaving nothing behind but memories of their crummy play and fresh prospects for their original teams.

  It is high time for this organization AND it’s fans to realize that we should be putting our resources into assets that appreciate instead of depreciate, or even worse, disintegrate entirely.
  • stick January 28, 2011 at 11:38 am

    so I guess you agree with some of us that signing bay was a conceptually poor idea at the time?
    • Berbalerbs January 28, 2011 at 11:59 am

      I agree with that, stick.
    • t agee January 28, 2011 at 12:01 pm

      I certainly agree Bay was not the perfect fit free agent for us. I don’t see why we only look type A (or occasionally type B) free agents anyway.

      The way Citi plays the pure professional line drive hitter back to back to back in the line up and young guys who take the extra base and play great D is the way to go.

      Counting on getting anything from Ollie last year was a collosal blunder. Joel Pinero, after 2 seasons with Dave Duncan had really figured it out and would have been next to impossible to hit HR’s and the gaps at Citi field. Anaheim got him for 2/16. Even if we had to go 2/18 or so that was much less of a gamble than Bay at 5/80 and we wouldn’t have given up a 2nd round pick either.
• Mr North Jersey January 28, 2011 at 11:26 am

  1st off I hope your feeling better Joe. Now as to this post I think you are taking the right approach in my opinion on how your approaching judging this off season.
• Metsie January 28, 2011 at 11:31 am

  It’s not about how much you spend but HOW you spend it!

  People make the simple correlation to Team Payroll and Success using backwards logic.

  They see high payroll and believe that is what caused the success when in reality it was the Success that caused the high payroll because you had to pay to keep the players that made you successful. And then added to it to get a few FA’s to complement them.

  Phillies didn’t buy their way to success but now their payroll is in the top of the league because they had to pay their core homegrowns to keep them and then went and added pitching.
  • Mr North Jersey January 28, 2011 at 11:41 am

    “it was the Success that caused the high payroll”

    - Well said.
    • stick January 28, 2011 at 11:44 am

      I agree. I have made that point before about the Phils. Actually, the 2006 mets were in the same situation. if you graph success vs. payroll, payroll usually lags by a couple of years.
    • LAMetsFan January 28, 2011 at 12:08 pm

      I agree, it’s true. I think that once Omar tasted success in 2006 he just went all out trying to maintain it and it led to exorbitant spending on the wrong free agents and re-signing part time players for far more than what they were worth.
  • t agee January 28, 2011 at 11:52 am

    Right. We went big payroll first hoping dinosaurs like Pedro, El-Duque, Castillo, Alou, Wagner, Green, Valentin, Delgado could get us to the kids but in doing so cost ourselves numerous high draft choices and caused us to look for quick help from the draft when we did keep the pick. That combined with IFA stagnation put us in the hole we’re in right now.
    • Metsie January 28, 2011 at 12:53 pm

      I believe when Omar started he went and bought talent so he could try and rebuild and retain the Farm system. I believe the plan was to get some players in here that could hold us until the Farm was replenished. By buying them he didn’t have to give up what few prospects he did have.

      But then he made some headlines, and then we started winning games.
      So he went and got some more FAs hoping to make a quick score.

      As a result we lost a ton of Picks that were needed to rebuild the farm.

      And we never bought enough talent (most notably Pitching) to get the job done!

      Truth is if you look at all the teams who are successful and have high Payrolls, Look at what they buying most frequently…PITCHING!

      If he had bought Pedro and another Ace or added an Ace to go with Santana the buy a championship thing might have actually worked for a year.

      But then we would be in even worse shape than we are now in the farm system.