16
2011
Realizing It’s Time To Rebuild
An article by 
I’m not really a negative fan, at least I’d like to think so. I never booed Oliver Perez or Luis Castillo, and I never called for Omar’s firing. I don’t think I’m smarter than the people who run a professional baseball team, and I try to recognize there’s always more to a story than we know.
Now yes, it’s early, and anything can happen. However, you don’t win games with a lack of talent. The Mets have no bullpen, and without diving further into their problems, that alone is going to make them an under .500 ball club.
I’m a very pro-Alderson guy right now, and its not because I read Moneyball. It’s because I think he’s the right man for this job right now and the alternative is what created this mess. Minaya was great from 05-07 but he lost control of the team and totally ignored the minor leagues. You can’t sustain a winning franchise by depleting the minor leagues.
With that said, I think we as a fan base need to start coming to the realization that blowing up this entire team may be the best thing for the future of the franchise.
It wouldn’t make me happy, but it has to be the wisest plan imaginable for Alderson and the Wilpon’s moving forward doesn’t it?
Look, nobody reading this has any idea what the financial status of the NY Mets is or will be. We have to at least consider it to be “not good.” After all, when the owner of your company is or will be involved in a heavy financial lawsuit (guilty or innocent), its never good for business.
In 2007, WFAN’s Mike Francesa suggested the team get blown apart after the epic collapse. I disagreed then, because they still have enough talent to win a division and had the team filled in some depth for the 2008 season, they would have made the playoffs.
With all of that out of the way, the Mets have to look at the franchise from afar and see what everybody else sees.
They have no farm system; literally they have nothing. I can’t think of another MLB team who doesn’t have a single prospect everybody is waiting on. More so, I can’t think of a single last place caliber team with nothing in the farm.
When you’re in last place, and you have over $100m in payroll and not one legitimate prospect in the farm, you are in a heap of trouble.
If the plan is to rebuild the franchise, the only way to do it is to start dealing away veteran pieces. They aren’t going to revamp the franchise by waiting for June to roll around and drafting a few long shots.
It has to be done right, and the only way to rebuild correctly is to do it with depth. You not only need a few highly touted homegrown guys but you also need a successful young bullpen. Bullpen’s are not purchased, they are grown. All of this cannot be done over night.
David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay, Johan Santana (when healthy), Mike Pelfrey and Francisco Rodriguez could net this franchise some good young players. Do I know which? Of course not, none of us do and to start listing off names is pure guess work.
The point is, the only reason to not totally blow up the team is fan backlash. Something tells me the fan backlash is only going to get worse and nothing gets done and the team falls into a permanent last place team with a 10 year waiting period for the farm system to rebound.
It won’t be pretty but I think fans would appreciate it more in the long run if we knew what the plan was earlier rather than later. If you want me to buy into a complete overhaul, start selling it to me now, not at the last minute.
If the Mets management came out and told the fans that the focus will be on the future, and they are open to dealing the players listed above, how would you react?
About the Author: Michael J. Branda
My time with MMO began in July of 2009 when I wrote a Fan Post defending Omar Minaya (before it was cool to do that.) I grew up a Mets fan with the mid 1980's teams. My favorite Met of all-time is (and was) Wally Backman. When it comes to sabermetrics versus old school thinking, I like to think I meet in the middle. I believe thinking of new ways to get answers is helpful, especially when the same way has not produced results. However, I think over-thinking certain situations can get you into trouble. I'm excited for the new regime, because I believe they have pieces in place to focus on several aspects of the Mets organization. I've waited this long for a World Series, waiting a few more years for another chance isn't going to kill me.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 42 | 30 | .583 | - |
| Phillies | 35 | 37 | .486 | 7.0 |
| Nationals | 34 | 36 | .486 | 7.0 |
| Mets | 27 | 40 | .403 | 12.5 |
| Marlins | 22 | 48 | .314 | 19.0 |
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This is a very sane post, but “not one legitimate prospect on the farm” is a vast overstatement. Flores, Mejia, and Harvey are players that most teams would love to have in their systems. These guys are all on most of the “top 100 prospect” lists. There are probably half a dozen others who have at least a chance to be a contributor at the major league level at some point with some team. The Mets farm system is considerably below average, but there are several that are far more barren of prospects at the moment.
I agree. The farm system, while not stacked, is promising more so than it has been in the last 15 years or so.
I agree as well. No matter what you think of the overall job Omar Minaya did with the farm system in his tenure, overall it isn’t as bad as some think. On the Major League side currently reside the following Minaya era additions: Ike Davis, Josh Thole, Bobby Parnell, Mike Pelfrey, Daniel Murphy, the recently demoted Lucas Duda, the promoted Dillon Gee. On the way up via the amateur draft are Matt Harvey, Corey Vaughn, Reese Havens, Kirk Nieuwenhuis. On the international front Minaya signed the following: Jenrry Mejia, Wilmer Flores, Cesar Puello, Aderlin Rodriguez, Jeurys Familia, Juan Urbina, Fernando Martinez, Reuben Tejeda, and Jefry Marte among others. No one can know how many of these players will contribute at the ML level, let alone become stars. But there is plenty of upside to alot of these players, particularly the international players such as Mejia, Flores, Puello, Rodriguez, and Urbina.
I will grant anyone that among all the aforementioned players that only a few have true impact potential, those being IMO: Harvey, Mejia, Puello, Flores, and Rodrguez (hey, you never know, the Mets may be developing their own A-Rod! Sans the PED’s, of course!). But all of those I mentioned have the talent to one day contribute to the Mets or develop into valuable trade bait for the Mets to use to fill holes at the Major League level. Now, it’s the job of the new administration to make sure that the pipe line running from Buffalo, Binghamton, and so on, improves upon and keeps up the flow of talent to New York.
The bottom line is, as poorly as the Minaya staff is perceived to have handled the minor leagues, at the end of the day they did actually maintain a decent level of talent coming in. Who knows, if the Wilpons hadn’t handcuffed Minaya’s staff by insisting on not exceeding slot recommendations in the draft maybe the quality of the talent on hand would have been far greater than it is now. Let’s hope that changes from here on out because I absolutely agree that winning team HAVE to have a strong base to build consistent winners on, and that starts with the farm system.
You are absolutely right. Omar has added a lot of depth, most of it very raw, some of it not properly developed, most of it miles away but certainly with some upside. From that depth we could have a few true gems. If Omar’s hands hadn’t been tied by the ridiculous slotting guidelines he may very well have added a half dozen or more top shelf prospects and that would have made all the difference.
I know this. If it hadn’t been for the Wilpon short changing the Fan by drafting lesser talent we wouldn’t have gone 25 years between RFers, a decade between second basemen and 40 years between LFers and the picks used for free agents to cover those shortfalls would have almost certainly produced a couple of starting pitchers and bull pen arms.
86mets: Look, I appreciate the job Minaya did from 05-07, I really do. But you’re kidding yourself if you think people around the league are looking at Thole, Parnell, Murphy, Duda, Gee, Havens, Kirk, Vaughn and all the other guys you named and salivating.
We know their names because they are in the Mets system. None of these guys are players everybody in the league wants. They just aren’t, we can pretend that one day these guys will all be solid big leaguers but if that were the case then nobody would question how much talent we had to offer for a big time player.
I’d love to see some of these young players have a true impact but none are that caliber yet. And when you’re in last place, and the future is a bunch of mid-level big leaguers at best… that’s a problem
jessup: They do know these players. Don’t sell these players short. Everyone thinks that the Mets and fans over hype their minor league players but what actually happens is that these so called experts under value them and over value other organization prospects. They Braves freeman has done nothing, hayward had stats comparable to Ike. KC has many prospects that were hyped and are so-so major leaguers. Lowrie in boston, cleveland’s laporta, adam jones in baltimore, Yankees scrubs like hughes and chamberlain not to mention the catchers and no available relief help from their AAA team, Houston’s wallace, plus fowler, belt, bruce is so-so and other players in cincy that can’t stay healthy, beckham and a bunch of others that are out there not performing. These players are just like our own players but they have received much hype and have not performed consistently or at all in the majors. Prospects are prospects not a sure thing. If you want to rebuild the Mets fine but to move our proven players like Wright and Reyes and a few others, I don’t agree with that. Those are the type of players that we want to get. The Dodgers are just like the Mets, they haven’t won anything in a while but I don’t here anyone say lets blow up the team including their successful young players because their not winners. I don’t understand.
chinorules: Thanks for reading but all due respect… you are nuts if you think Jason Heyward and Freddie Freeman are overrated. Freeman and Heyward are both 21 years old. Twenty One! Ike Davis is 24 years old, and so if he’s playing at the level a 21 year old is as you describe with Heyward than that is a positive for Heyward, not a negative.
David Wright is 28 years old, and in a contract year next year right? So what’s he going to want on an open market? He certainly isn’t dumb enough to sign a 4 year deal… so is signing Wright to a 6-7 year deal a wise move? No… the team as presently constructed both on the field now and in the future is not built to win within 3-4 years, and then at that point you have an “out of prime” player in Wright. Deal him this year when his stock is higher than when he’s a free agent.
Now age means everything. When we talk about Fernando Martinez doing it at his age people think he’s washed up. When Fernando got to a slow start everyone said that he wasn’t ready. Freeman hit .167 in 20 games last year and is still just hitting .227 this year in 44 at bats. Now i’m not saying that they are overrated but give me a break. The young Braves relievers get credit for doing good so far this season and the young hitters get credit although they have not performed. What I said when I made my original statement is that these projections for young players throughout the majors are just that projections. There are far more failures that successes but no one considers our players successes. We as fans should be more supportive to our players than any other players.
What is wrong with signing Wright for 7 yrs. 35 is not over the hill and Wright has given them great production at a discount thus far. Lock up the franchise players that means Reyes also. Many teams are doing that.
chino: This isn’t a steroid era anymore… 35 years old are not worth collecting. Teams are signing their young guys like Tulo long term because its realistic during that time they could win a championship.
In the NL, Aubrey Huff was the highest OPS hitting player between the ages of 31 and 34. If we’re talking about a 33, 34, 35 year old in 2001… I agree with you.
But David Wright isn’t exactly Alex Rodriguez with or without steroids so assuming he’ll be worth a massive deal at age 32, 33, 34 is a nice sentiment but you have to assume he’d decline from where he is now… and if that’s the case, how can you justify that?
And look don’t take this as I hate Wright etc. I love having the guy on the team but the fact is he holds the most value and is the most tradeable asset the Mets have to try and spark a true rebuild project that doesn’t have to take 10 years.
jessep: I’m putting this here because I can’t reply on your other comment below.
ok, let me get this straight. What you are saying is that we should not sign Wright or Reyes or any player at or around the age of 28 to a long term contract because this isn’t the steroids ERA and they wouldn’t have value at the end of their contracts, right?
Therefore, The following list of players that have recently signed, will sign soon or will be free agents are not worth it and should not be signed by any team to any contract that takes them past age 31. Hmmm…Here it is and it’s just a few.
Tulo, Braun, Fielder, Howard, Uggla, Pujols, Kemp, Cano, Tex, Cargo, Cabrera, A Gonzales ETC…..
You make it sound like before steroids no one had 20 year careers with production throughout. For some reason Griffey come to mind.
To me it seems like you’re eager for the Mets to cut their losses and rebuild the team. I don’t mind the idea of rebuilding while still being competitive and exciting but it is easier to do this when you have core guys. Go ahead and trade KROD and Bay. KROD could go now Bay would have to produce first and as much as I like Beltran because there aren’t too many center fielders that could bring that production, i wouldn’t mine letting him go also. That should bring us something.
KROD and Beltran could bring us picks if they become free agents also if they decide to go that route which I prefer.
By contract we can’t offer Beltran arb. No picks. Trade him for something he’s not coming back.
Position players peak years are 24-31. Structure the contract to leave a year or two so you can recycle them with two first round picks. The “value chain” of all these guys we have signed just ends when they go. That’s a huge reason why we always have such an incomplete team.
What did we get for Alou, Delgado, El-Duque, Pedro, Perez, Castillo, Wagner (Carter but he’s gone) All those draft choices gone and we have nothing left going forward.
Good point jessup. Its funny how the mets have to have their star closer of tomorrow struggle and evelop for years while the Braves have 2 kids dominating the 8th and 9th innings. Even Niese, the league took a bit to figure him out but now they have and he’s the 4 or 5 guy he was scouted out to be. yet, the mets want him to be a 2 or a 3. Pelfrey… how many guys around the bigs have proven their stuff at a younger age than this head cas whom we ares upposed to wait forever to become one?
It is simply amazing how the Braves scouts just run rings around every other team when it comes to identifying and drafting players, to say nothing about how they develop them.
They even have an IFA they pulled off the Australian Baseball team from the WBC. I’ll tell you there are no flies on the Braves FO.
Venters was a 30th round pick in 2003. He was probably available at some point in the rule 5. Kimbrel got drafted by the Braves TWICE. Didn’t sign the first time in 2006, they came back and got him in the 3rs round in 2008.
If I was a scouting director the first thing I’d do every year is follow whoever the Braves don’t sign and try drafting them myself.
And you think this is possible because, why? The Wilpons have been so forthcoming over the years? Remember, 7 years ago the cupboard was just as bare. If not more so. It won’t take 10 years. If relative morons like Steve Phillips could build an NL pennant winner in 3 years and Omar got to one out of a pennant in 2, I would bet on relavancy sooner than later with Alderson and Company. The problem is that once the Mets got to the doorstep in 1999 and 2000, and then again in 2006, there was no means to sustain it…no farm system from which to supplement or leverage. This needs to change.
That’s exactly right. Even a moron should be able to understand that if you trade your prospects for “right now,” fork over your draft choices on “right now,” you better make it payoff because your definitely crashing when your brief window is over.
Our severe talent shortage can be laid entirely on these two things plus 15 years of drafts that produced Ike Davis, Angel Pagan and Mike Pelfrey as the 2nd 3rd and 4th best players drafted during that time frame.
I can’t understand why we hire GM’s who can’t put out a coherent team AND build for the future. Hunsiker built the “worst team money could buy part 1″ but he still found time to draft Isringhausen, Pulsipher, Bobby Jones and sign Edgardo Alfonzo. It wasn’t a total disregard of the future.
Mcilvaine took us from the wreckage of 1992 and 1993 to 88 wins in 4 years despite the disintegration of Generation K, Doc Gooden’s final drug suspension and the players strike effecting parts of two of his four seasons and an entire off season and he did it while building up the farm and adding to the prospects he inherited, not dealing them off.
Why the naive and impatient Wilpon got rid of Mcilvaine for Steve “Prospects will get you fired” Phillips is beyond me.
If it wasn’t for the Florida Marlins giving us two of the best players in baseball (obtained for prospects he inherited) and going from 92 to 54 wins we would have been 3rd in our division again. How are you going to get a wild card when you come in third in your own division?
In 1999 we did finally get a wild card partly due to Cinn losing 3 of their last 4 and Pittsburgh allowing us to win our final game on a wild pitch walkoff and then beating Cinn in a one game playoff.
Is this the sign of a dominant team? One who has to not only rely on a division rival to furnish their two best players but then even with the highest payroll in the League has to back into a wild card.
2000 despite giving away more high draft choices, trading more prospects and raising payroll again all we could manage was a wild card so naturally we continue to spend draft choices on right now and then wonder why we have so many holes later. We trade prospects for 36 year old out of shape former sluggers and all stars and wind up with “the worst team money can buy part 2.”
2006 once again the Marlins rescue us from a shortage of talent by trading us two of our starting players (where would we be without them?) and go in the tank again. Atlanta suffers it’s first losing season in 14 years, we win a pennant but how good were we really? Atlanta was below .500 for good on May 3rd. Fla didn’t break .500 until September. Philly didn’t break .500 until August 20th and Washington was Washington. The West was won with 88 wins, the Central with 83. This was a dominant team?
So what did we do? Add more salary, trade more prospects and spend more draft choices on right now. No wonder we still have so many holes to fill.
The aging vet acquired by trade or free agent only has a short shelf life left and once that’s gone, that’s it. We get nothing going forward. Sometimes they only have a 100 games in them or nothing at all.
The steroid era is over, players useful part of their careers are shorter, teams are locking them up so their hitting free agency later or being traded for prospects before they hit the market. If we don’t start concentrating most of our resources on building our farm up we’ll never be able to get any players. Unless we can continue to count on our division rivals to supply the talent.
7th-13th round talent just isn’t going to get it done.
That wasn’t Hunsicker. Gerry was an assistant to Al Harazin who was Frank Cashen’s successor. Hunsicker left the Mets to build the Biggio-Bagwell Astros into a perennial contender.
Pretty sure that Hunsicker was the GM in 1991 and 1992, Harazin in 1993 With Mcilvaine taking over in 1994.
You’d be wrong. Gerry Hunsicker never served as Mets GM. It went Cashen, Harazin, McIlvaine, Phillips, Duquette, Minaya, and Alderson.
Brian, I just checked Baseball America off baseball-reference.com and it lists Hunsicker as the GM for 91-92, Harazin ’93 and Mcilvaine ’94.
It also shows Hunsicker as Asst. GM ’93-’95 followed by Astros GM beginning in 1996.
This sound like the commercial.
Well check this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_Mets_owners_and_executives
april 16th. APRIL 16th!
Whenever ballplayers put on a Mets uniform 90% of them stink! They are nothing more than a double AA club with a major league franchise. What a disgrace for the fans and New York. It would not bother me one bit if they just forfeited the rest of the season. They are that bad to watch!
Lou, are you hitting the sauce? If you’re the same Florida Lou, what happened to your enthusiasm for Ike’s long ball, the 500 feet jobs?
it is the latest and greatest wilpon hire at work. compete diagrace and unable to do anything right besides sign trash and blow out hot air, better fundmentals…lol the mets will be the laughing stick of baseball and late night tv till the wilpons go away, that simple…..
You don’t give up the ship to rebuild for next season (or worse, 2 seasons from now.) YOU . . . WIN . . . NOW. Period. A team should always be doing EVERYTHING in their power to win NOW. Not next season, well, yes, you wanna win next season, too, but NOW is what is most important. Rebuilding (for the future) is BS. Plain and simple — BS. You rebuild for the NOW.
Ditto!!!!
Zooma: If the tools are not available to you then how do you expect them to build a win now club?
What do you think we’ve been doing for the last 20 years? Recklessly going for it every year while simultaneously drafting the cheapest talent and rushing anyone who looks like they might be able to do anything up here. Not that they ever do.
At some point every business must look at their results objectively and try to determine what things they’ve done have worked out well and which one’s haven’t.
Clearly if over a 20 year period you have had the highest payroll, more losing seasons then winning one’s, have only made the playoffs three times, and only then when one of your division rivals not only gives up, but also gives you their best players, somethings wrong. Somethings got to change.
As soon as Phillips took over he started dealing from the farm, drafting like ****, and spending all our draft choices on right now. Only a moron wouldn’t be able to predict a collapse. Omar built it up on one end but took away on the other, that left us vulnerable to injury, stagnation, underperformance and caused him to get more and more desperate which in turn caused him to make more short sighted moves.
With Mcilvaine at the helm trading for pre or in their prime players, not trading prospects and not spending draft choices we went from 59 wins to 88 in four years with a firm base of support in the minors. We were named the #1 organization in baseball by Baseball America in 1995. fifteen years later we have only been to the post season 3 times and have crashed twice. We are now considered to be a complete laughing stock by all of our competitors.
What went right and what went wrong? Recklessly going for it every year at the expense of future years is #1 in my book.
No business goes and fires everyone and starts from scratch either!
Neither do they get rid of all their best employees and hire all interns if they want to succeed.
And I fail to see why you keep harping on the practices of a front office that is no longer employed by the the Mets.
There is a new FO in town if you haven’t noticed so harping on the past really is NOT relevant nor is it even factual to what is going on today.
We get the point you have made everyday for the past 3 months since your publishing debut.
NO ONE really cares to hear your theory anymore.
We have all moved onto the present!
When Sandy does the same thing then it might be something to bring up.
Until then it’s just a lot of redundant irrelevant vomit!
It is the failed practices of the past that have put us in the position we are now in……again.
If you don’t think a large part of Phillips success didn’t have anything to do with players he inherited like Olerud, Alfonzo, Payton, Reed, Ordonez, or young players/prospects like Preston Wilson and AJ Burnett who helped him acquire Leiter, Cook and piazza then your not paying attention.
If you don’t think that the historically awful drafts of the Phillips regime and the handing over of draft choice after draft choice didn’t cause a severe talent defecit that Omar had to overcome or the ludicrous trade of Kazmir by Duquette didn’t set in motion the need to obtain all of our high end talent from elsewhere your crazy.
We’ve crashed for the third time since 1992 because of all the wild spending and never putting anywhere near enough back into the team to replenish the roster for future years.
It’s nothing other than a baseball version of a ponzi scheme.
I was watching some old clips from 69,73 & 86 what do they all have in common PITCHING! What the Mets do NOT have is Pitching! Bring up Mejia, & Put Gee in like they did with the Yougg Kooz, Seaver,Gooden,darling,Matlacks etc…..Then Give them some FIRE in their eyes…Jose,david,jason Ike are good enough bats…PITCHING PITCHING
I love it. Someone has finally got it. This is nonsense. PITCHING WINS!!!!!! If we get TWO studs then we will win. Double C lets pound this in to the rest.
Right. If the Mets get TWO studs then they win.
Now…. where are you getting these supposed two studs?
If your not going to be allowed to go over slot the only thing you can do is wait for the Marlins to have another fire sale.
Well if you want to keep your young players then you go where everyone gets them. Through free agency or draft. We are not any different than any other team except that we normally have money. In my opinion they have done a good job in recent years with their draft with the exception of spending more for the pitchers that have potential.
As far as free agency and trades are concern, we were on the right track when we got Johan but we failed to get the second stud in the years following. We were on a roll and then we stopped. Last year cliff Lee would have been nice. At least try. We always manage to get the top closer available but they don’t perform. Lets get the star pitcher instead. We could get a closer easier then a number one or two starting pitcher via a trade for a reliever that is performing as a set-up man.
Two weeks ago we knew we our pitching staff could not compete,for 100 years the Red Sox
rarely won but a least they have Williams, Yaz and Rice to show for it.The Yankee’s never won a world series in the 80s but have Mattingly to show for it.For 50 years the Mets have 2 titles and no hall of famer but countless painfull trade to show for it.Are you really trading Wright, Reyes and Davis because our bullpen is weak? I’m a Met fan, can we stop the panic trades and finally get a career Met in the hall of fame.We are just 2 years away
from seeing Mejia,Harvey,Familia,Stinson,Cohoon and Holt in NY. Charlie Sheen Can’t sing, dance or do stand up, so if you knew that when you bought your ticket, why would you boo him off the stage? We knew the Mets are not the Yankee’s when we became fans, why are we jumping off the upper deck?
Seaver HoF Met!
[...] blogger Jessep brought up a similar thought in his post yesterday on “Realizing It’s Time To Rebuild.” We can wax intellectual about who needs to step up and how, or how the manager and [...]
With everyday veteran players (when healthy) like Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Bay and the younger Davis, Pagan and Thole….the Mets could be a very competitive team and a winning team too. Of course this would be contingent on having decent pitching, but we don’t have any at all as it stands now. Our best pitcher last season was Dickey who not only did the job but was a breath of fresh air too. A knuckle ball pitcher is a novelty act in most cases with up and down stretches of control. Dickey will struggle and now that he is under pressure to be a savior for this staff…..it is going to be a rocky road for him. Mike Pelfrey is a head case and looks like he is ready to fill the shoes of Oliver Perez but at least he is not a contractual nightmare. Jonathon Niese is still developing and needs time. The rest are journeyman guys who will give a manager 5 or 6 innings of stomach problems. I am thinking that unless the team as is can right itself in the next month that Sandy Alderson will be looking to deal some of our veteran stars for the prospects he needs pitching wise. If the Wilpon’s finances improve Sandy could find some pitching help in the free agent market next winter but we won’t know that til then.
Met fans may be shocked but David Wright may end up being our biggest blue trip trade piece and Sandy’s ace in the whole come the trade deadline….
K-Rod, Beltran, Reyes all have baggage be it age, injury or the ability to test the free agent market this winter. Trading any of these guys will be a bit tougher for Sandy.
But I too think that Sandy is the right guy to help restore this franchise.
I think the term rebuild is thrown around too often when a team’s performance is lacking. Ideally, a team should be “rebuilding” all the time.
I do think some players the Mets have should be dealt if the offer is decent. Jason Bay, Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriquez, Johan Santana are four of the players I would take offers for. I think we should keep David Wright and Jose Reyes. Reyes doesn’t fit into prototype Moneyball player, but he has a dynamic that is hard to find.
I would avoid trading home grown players, but Mike Pelfrey is an exception. Because of his agent, I don’t believe we can get him for a fair price. Also, I think he is one of those players who for whatever reason cannot handle pitching in New York.
Do you ever think that the “moneyball’ philosophy that is permeating this organization now may be part of the problem? A more traditional GM who values DEFENSE would not be messing around with 2B like Alderson is doing. It’s plain STUPID. Most people know to put your best defensive team out on the field. Alderson and his beliefs do not put a premium on defense and it’s showing so far. I think that’s more of a problem than wanting to blow up the whole team.
It’s too early for that. I think if better decisions were made by a more qualified GM who understood that this lineup was good enough to contend would have put the Mets in a better position then they are now.
Not a GM who prefers a philosophy first and foremost.
I don’t buy into the fact that these goons that were hired by the Wilpons are more suited to handle a small budget. ANY GM should be able to make decision on ANY budget that is handed to them so why should Alderson be an expert in this? Especially since the last time he was a GM was over 20 years ago and he was not using moneyball philosophies. So stupid.
If the correct bullpen was brought up to begin with, and you just put the best DEFENSIVE players out there and a HEALTHY starting pitcher was acquired in the off season then maybe the Mets could be at .500 right now and we wouldn’t be talking like this. He knew the state of our starting pitching and is amazing that he did not acquire HEALTHY starting pitcher. Until someone can DEFINITIVELY prove to me that was never possible I’ll still believe that a different GM quite possibly could have came in here with a different approach. Also it seems that maybe the Mets are starting to take TOO many pitches under this new “philosophy” and it’s hurting not helping. Let the players be who they are and leave the coaching to the coaching staff. Everybody’s a coach now with all this talk about “plate discipline”
Why are so many writers here, in fact. ALL OF YOU afraid to write a piece that maybe we’re in this positions because of the decisions made this off season by Sandy Alderson. Why is that a concept that is so taboo around here?
The very first thing I would do, right now, is trash this 2B experiment with Murphy and Eamus and restore some order to the infield and give Jose someone familiar to work with. I bet I would make our pitchers happy.
The second thing is would keep Misch here, also bring up Acosta and O’Connor and get rid of some dead wood. Also I hope Gee does well today because I think he should have made the team too.
In other words bring up the staff that should’ve been here in the first place. Then I would move Wright out of the #3 hole and put Beltran there. And then when Bay comes back I would put Beltran, Bay, Davis, & Wright one right after the other.
The starting pitching? I don’t know what I would do about it now, i would have to think about it and do some research and I’m not about to do that right now. But I am convinced that Sandy Alderson completely dropped the ball this offseason in his pitching decision-making. He did an AWFUL job getting injury reclamation projects and really only one bonafide starter in Chris Young and he was also an injury reclamation project.
The first thing many of us here were screaming for was HEALTHY starting pitching and again, unless somebody here can convince me that it ABSOLUTELY could not have been done, and I don’t they anybody can prove that, than you’re not going to convince me that Alderson did not do a bad job this offseason. But that subject is taboo around here
It’s too early to say that Moneyball is the philosophy yet.
Yes it played a role in our moves this offseason but not as much as Moneyball would suggest should have happened if we were adopting it as an organizational philosophy.
If we had Beltran, Reyes, Wright Bay, K-Rod all would have been gone by now and our payroll would be under 100 Mil.
We won’t know if Moneyball is the philosophy until this offseason. You might get a hint at the trading deadline if they move more than just Reyes and Beltran but even that will not be proof until we see what happens with all the money that comes off the books.
Sandy may have said he doesn’t expect to spend the entire 60 Mil that is due to come off the books but he couldn’t spend all that even if he wanted to unless he was overpaying someone. There won’t even be 60 Mil worth of Free Agents available next offseason so what he said is a logical and pragmatic statement than an indicator of his philosophy on payroll and aquisitions.
Time will tell.
“The very first thing I would do, right now, is trash this 2B experiment with Murphy and Eamus and restore some order to the infield and give Jose someone familiar to work with.”
Bayonne’s ‘someone familiar to work with’ is up in Buffalo. His name is Ruben Tejada and he is now 1 for 9 (AVG .111) in the his three games, after getting a quick start. After the first three games, Tejada has cooled, as reflected by his 5 for 23 (AVG .217). In total this season, Ruben hit a triple in his first game but hasn’t got any other extra base. He is an offensive deficit.
Let’s leave the managing to the pros. We don’t need another Emaus at the plate in Queens.
and this makes you happy? Making it a personal issue than what’s best for the team? Jason Bay is coming back soon so you’re going to have an upgrade in offense anyway. The Defense at 2B is more important than the bat. What’s best for this team right now is DEFENSE at 2B.
What’s this got to do with being happy? It’s about performance, which seems to make you annoyed. Besides you make your opinion equivalent to fact. It’s not. You’re just another point of view.
Aren’t you the guy who says if you can’t hit, you shouldn’t be in the majors?
Let’s put the Ruben Tejada hitting and fielding skills into perspective. We know right now that Tejada is a weak hitter. He may develop into a serviceable hitter but he’s nowhere near that right now.
What’s not known widely is that Tejada is also weak fielder. This season Tejada has been shaky in the field for the Bisons. He has five errors in ten games at SS. He’s had 50 chances, and is fielding .900 — no doubt he’ll improve but this is a bit of a surprise.
For his minor league career, encompassing five seasons at SS and three seasons at 2B, Tejada’s Total Zone Fielding Runs Above Average is 3 at SS, but -2 at 2B. During the same time, Tejada has a .954 fielding percentage at SS. At 2B, his fielding percentage is .937. These numbers are well below those of top and even mediocre major leaguers. In the majors, average percentages at SS are around .975 and in the .980′s at 2B.
But, he made a real good looking play this one time I was watching and I’ve got a bunch of hollow cliches I want to throw around, even if they completely contradict other things I say.
Because of the foghorn blasting of cliches about Tejada which turn out to be not supported by facts, I did a little research. My conclusion:
Tejada is a poor to mediocre middle infielder. In fact, Chase Utley, a guy who is viewed by many Mets fans as a inferior second baseman, has numbers way, way better than Tejada.
But he can hit …. LOL
I think at the very least Tejada will be a good backup MI but I’d like to give him every chance to be more than that and the only way to do that is to reinforce, through repetition, the skills that will allow him to be all he can be. Once guys get up here and go through a dry spell they immediately revert back to what got them to the minors in the first place.
It’s sink or swim up here. If Tejada doesn’t have ingrained in him to take the the middle in high fastball in AAA he’ll never hit up here.
That should have been ingrained in him before he got to AA. If it had he might be starting for us right now.
Here’s more evidence of Ruben Tejada’s mediocrity as a second baseman in the major leagues.
In 2010, Tejada played 50 games at 2B. How well did he play compared to all major league second basemen? Of the 91 players who played at least ten games at 2B, Tejada’s fielding percentage of .972 placed him tied at Number 77 with one other guy. Only 13 of the 91 players had a poorer fielding average.
There were likely many reasons Tejada was sent to Buffalo. Honing his skills at SS in case Jose Reyes doesn’t return for the 2012 season was one of them. But improving his play on the field was no doubt also important.
In the last 2 years Tejada has 24 extra base hits in AAA and the Majors. Last year he hit .185 against RHP. The idea that you should use up a year of team control before a player is capable of even playing up here is even more absurd than bringing in yet another dinosaur at so many millions of dollars.
The kid showed he wasn’t ready to hit Major League pitching last year. Let him show that things are different this year BEFORE you bring him up.
.286/.359/.343 with just one extra base hits in 40 AB’s only shows that he still needs more minor league AB’s. Those are basically the same numbers he had last year when he came up.
This idea that every Met should learn after they get up to the Majors is just juvenile.
tag, I personally like the kid but facts are facts. Whether he’s another Dal Maxville or someone who grows into an offensive role is why he needs more MiLB time. As the old saying goes, the proof is in the pudding.
I agree Des. He looked poised, not overwhelmed, fielded competently, good instincts, good eye, nice short swing, just couldn’t hit up here. A full year in AAA will give him the foundation he needs to come up here and play well on both sides of the ball. Hell, he’s only 21. If he can’t get it done in AAA he wouldn’t have been helping us here anyway. Hopefully he can do both.
Tag, I’m going to follow him a bit closer with my MiLB video account. Some of the AAA locations don’t give you much of a picture, but others give you a good product.
One thing is certain, despite bulking up, Tejada is not a power hitter. If he can make contact, hit some line drives, and get some doubles, he might be a serviceable player.
Des has the bulking up slowed him down at all?
tag,
The short answer is I don’t know yet. It’s too early to tell.
The International League season is just a bit more than a week old. The Bisons home games have good TV coverage but it was cold as hell up in Buffalo for the two late afternoon games I saw. No conclusions from there except that despite the announced attendance, it looked like there were only a few hundred fans in the seats.
The road game I wanted to see involved the Bisons at Scranton/WB. The single camera there was awful. It was up behind home plate and so distant that the infield and almost all the outfield was visible in the shot. I turned it off because there were no close-ups in the fifteen minutes or so that I watched.
The last couple of days I hung with the Mets on MLB.
The lineup sucks. Reyes swings at ridiculous pitches, Wright will strike out 200 times. Bay would if he could even get on the field. Beltran will be in and out. Whatever Emaus/Murphy give you AB they’ll give back in the field or on the bases. Catcher might get us 20 xtra base hits all year. If that’s your idea of a good lineup I’d like to see your idea of a bad one.
As for why we didn’t bring in a healthy starting pitcher who were we going to get? Garland and Harang weren’t coming here. Lee wasn’t. Hell the NYY couldn’t even get a healthy arm this off season.
Of course if we hadn’t voluntarily handed over our #1 draft choice in 2007 for a 40 year old chronically injured left fielder we could have drafted Tommy Hanson.
If we didn’t spend our 2nd round pick on 2 years of David Weathers in 2002 we could have had either Jon Lester or Josh Johnson in the rotation or even Brian McCann behind the plate.
You can’t fix the incompetence of the prior regimes in just one off season.
You are so quick to use the word moneyball, incorrectly too. Goons hired by the Wilpons? Funny all these goons as you so respectfully call them, come with the utmost respect of most in the know in baseball. You are so against them, BEFORE, they even had a chance to do a darn thing, tell me, what GM should have been hired to put this team in a chance to win, now?
Another thing, you keep talking about the writers and taboo subjects, you seem to think you know so much, but yet, don’t have the spine to actually write an article.
This team certainly needs quite a bit, I’d start with pitching, mostly the bullpen, you certainly put a lot of effort talking about the 2b issues, while most watching the game actually realize that pitching should be the priority.
I think you are so hellbent on the 2nd base issue because your golden boy Tejada was not called up, despite the fact that he was horrendous at the plate and the paid professionals actually do see a lot of potential in the kid and afford him the chance to reach that potential by being developed properly. IF, you can get over that and actually focus on what is actually wrong, you’d be a lot better off.
“Goons hired by the Wilpons”……..funniest line ever, or maybe to date……
Funniest line ever? I don’t know Harry, there’s a lot of competition.
There’s the “Omar put together a good team.” That’s a classic considering that this “good team” included Mike Jacobs, Rod Barajas, Alex Cora, Jeff Francouer, Frank Catalonotto, Gary Mathews Jr., Oliver Perez, John Maine, Luis Castillo, Fernando Tatis, Chris Carter and a 20 year old Jenrry Mejia. That’s 12 out of 25.
There is also the always popular “Omar made a lot of mistakes but people only noticed because of all the losing.” as if the mistakes had nothing at all to do with the losing. Ostensibly, no one would have noticed all these mistakes if the team had been winning, but then again, if we had been winning why would they have been called mistakes?
Strange dude. Seems to get all twisted up in the English language.
“Omar made a lot of mistakes but people only noticed because of all the losing.”
There might be a connection here. Hmmm. This is a line Yogi would be proud of.
Bayonne the Complainer,
You asked: “Why are so many writers here, in fact. ALL OF YOU afraid to write a piece that maybe we’re in this positions because of the decisions made this off season by Sandy Alderson.”
Well you sort of asked… you didn’t add a question mark, but I assume you were asking.
Short answer is because “all of us” didn’t A) refuse to read a book but have an opinion on its contents and B) Didn’t decide we despised a new GM the day he was hired.
Long answer, how can you sit there and preach that the 2011 Mets are practicing moneyball philosophies when you have never read the book? How are you even taken serious at times?
You’re pinpointing 2B as your end-all to Alderson turning the Mets into Moneyball. Go ahead and find me a page in the book that gives you the ammunition needed to compare Emaus/Murphy to Moneyball. What is your alternative? To bring up a 21 year old kid (who has minor league options) that cannot hit in the big leagues yet? Why? Because he may turn a double play in the 5th inning? If you think so highly of Tejada then wanting him on the 2011 Mets from Opening Day is a disaster of an idea, and makes me glad you’re not in the Mets front office.
You don’t call up a kid who is NOT READY with his bat when you don’t have to!
You do realize Alderson was the CEO of the Padres from 05-09 right? So bringing up the last time he was a GM just makes you look uneducated because a CEO of a baseball team has more control than a GM… you know this right?
But my favorite is: “and a HEALTHY starting pitcher was acquired in the off season”
I love that because it sounds like the Mets could have gone in the basement, and created a pitcher. Nevermind that the market for healthy starting pitchers consisted of Cliff Lee, Jon Garland who went home, and Zack Greinke/Matt Garza who were acquired for more than the Mets could have offered….you want people to prove something to you, how? How about you prove they had a chance to acquire a healthy starting pitcher? You can’t. But if you think rationally and realize not every GM wears a Mets hat you’d realize it wasn’t possible.
“Also it seems that maybe the Mets are starting to take TOO many pitches under this new “philosophy” and it’s hurting not helping.”
— Can you show me evidence of this? Maybe you can but what I see is Ike, Thole, Beltran, Reyes, Pagan currently taking LESS pitches per plate appearance than 2010 and David Wright is taking exactly the same.
“He did an AWFUL job getting injury reclamation projects and really only one bonafide starter in Chris Young and he was also an injury reclamation project.”
— I’m sure this is what you were saying when Chris Young appeared to be the only starting pitcher on the Mets. Let him try and come back from the injury before we call him a bust?
“How about you prove they had a chance to acquire a healthy starting pitcher? You can’t.”
Harang 1 year 3.5 million – 3-0 1.50 ERA.
Wrong. Harang went back to his home Town to re establish himself and got a promise from SD not to offer arb so he’s a non compensatable free agent. We would have had to offer the same plus at least 5 M or a player option for 2012 to make it worth his while to come here.
For a player who’s made over 40 million dollars in his career, do you really think he would choose NY over his Wife and Kids for an extra 500,000?
With a total spent of 13M for about 10 roster spots the only reason your advancing the notion that Harang would have come here is to complain about Alderson. And really with the chance to go anywhere why would anyone come here anyway? The only reason anyone ever did is because we either paid them a lot more or they had no other options. Not everyone wants to play for the Mets you know.
Prove that he would have.
Nope, you’re wrong.
What if we offered double of what he got from the Paders? 1 year 7 million? Or what if we gave him two years? The only reason why I’m saying we should have signed Harang (or atleast tried to sign him) is because he’s a good pitcher – 3-0 1.50 ERA, and I’m not 2nd guessing like you always do because I was saying we should get him (or try to get him) during the offseason.
I don’t think we offered him a contract, did we? If we did could you give me a link? We weren’t even interested in him, but you’re saying the reason why we didn’t sign him was because he wanted to back to his home town. Unbelieveable – We didn’t sign him, because we didn’t want to sign him!
And we all know not every free agent wants to play here, but we also know that not every free agent doesn’t want to come here either.
Vinny:
agee is right about Harang. Just like Garland did, Harang wanted to play close to his home. Just like we saw Cliff Lee chose the place he wanted to live over the $ etc.
However, I find it hilarious that you mention Harang and healthy pitcher in the same sentence. You do realize Harang has been injury prone the last 2 years right?
You can’t just sit here and pickoff players around the league that you think should be a Met simply because we root for the Mets.
If we offered Harang a contract, and he turned us down because he wanted to play close to his home, then you would be right. BUT we weren’t interested in him. You cann’t sign a guy you don’t want.
And how would YOU know that we didn’t speak to his agent? Think every single possible, potential signing is leaked and reported?
Did the NYY contact his agent, feel him out? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows. Certainly not you or I.
Harang got a one year deal to play at home. For a guy who’d been a 3 hour flight away his whole career and made over 40 M I doubt very much he would pass that up since he may get a multi year deal elsewhere if he is successful in reestablishing himself.
Neither money nor the Mets takes precedence over everything else in life.
You just want to have something to complain about with Alderson and I’m sure you’ll have a few things but this aint one.
There was not one story, not one rumor or anything connecting Harang to the Mets. NOTHING – if there was I would like to see it. And I’m sure in the year 2011, we would hear about it if we were interested in getting him.
Your talking about me complaning about Alderson? you of all people? You look for ANYTHING to complain about the previous GM. You are so unfair – You wanted us to sign Cano, and Werth before he was with the Phillies, draft, Pedrioa, Hamels, Gallardo, Cliff Lee, josh johnson, and who else? And you get upset about me saying we should have sign a pitcher and the offseason? Makes sense…oh wait, no it doesn’t.
Vinny, First of all I was talking about the way we conduct our business, our basic philosophy of waiting around every year and settling for whoever just so happens to be available every year. That doesn’t work. I want that to change some day so we can win some World Championships.
Yeah I complain about Minaya, but I also point out some of the good things he’s done, although I know you’ll deny this. I also complain about Phillips who was way worse than Minaya and Duquette who was the biggest moron GM of all time. But at least those guys have a track record to discuss. You hated the new Administration from the first second you heard about sabermetrics. I couldn’t care less about that unless it screws up our chances of winning.
All I want is to have a good team year after year and start planning ahead of time for things rather than just winging it every year and I really can’t see what Omar, OPhillips, Duquette, or Connie Mack could have done with 13 M this off season anyway.
This team didn’t get so ****** up in one off season you know. It’s been 13 years of **** drafts, neglecting the farm, signing one expensive under performing, frequently injured shell of their former self free agent after another and as long as we keep doing that we will never win.
“You hated the new Administration from the first second you heard about sabermetrics.”
I don’t hate the new administration. I thought the players that they signed didn’t fit our team and I thought there was other players avaiable that were better fits for our team.
It’s just so funny that your accusing me of hating a GM because I said I wanted Harang and some better RP’s during the offseason, while you expected the previous GM to draft all stars at every postion. And you get upset when I say I wanted a pitcher and better RP’s in the offseason? Makes no sense.
Well no one could know for sure, what do you think Omar would have been able to do with 13 M this off season? Or anyone else for that matter?
Your answer is to pay Harang double what the padres paid him. OK. that leaves 6. How would you have addressed our other needs with just 6M left?
Sorry. But I can’t see a team in NY, in the year 2011, not being able to spend more than 13 million.
And isn’t our payroll down from what it was a few years ago?
Harang – 7 million
takahashi – about 4 million per year.
Choate – around 1.5 million per year.
I also would have signed Millwood on a minor league contract – i’d rather have him making a spot start instead of Carrasco. That’s what I would have done differently. And that would come to about 13 million anyway. Young and some other guys I thought were ok signings, so it will be a little more than 13 million when you’d count those guys – I know it doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but I think if we had a better starter (Harang) and better RP’s (Taka and Choate)we could possibly be over .500 right now, because we lost TON of close games this year.
You may not be able to believe it but it’s true. We’ve gone for it every year, importing expensive players, drafting the cheapest one’s to help pay for it and now we’re left with only one dimensional players at the top of our farm system or just added to the 25.
Thole would still be in AAA in anyone else’s system. The NYY have two or maybe even three catchers more advanced than Thole. Don’t get me wrong I like him but still… After him we have Paulino, Nickeas and Dusty Ryan. That’s very AAA. Murphy, Duda, Evans, Parnell. Same thing.
We took out two loans from Major League baseball. One for 25 M and one for 50 M. That credit is now all used up. Before that the Mets restructured all their debt yet they still had to go to MLB, TWICE.
Every question was answered with wheelbarrows full of cash for 6 years. Two of those years had a great return on investment and 2 probably broke even but the biggest payroll years resulted in MUCH lower revenue. All together they probably lost a lot of money over the six years.
Add in the new stadium, network, bonds due on the Stadium, Maddof, the lawsuit, loans to MLB that have to be paid back, loans to other creditors. I mean if you borrow 50 M and then have to come back 4 months later for another 25 M what does that tell you? It tells me that your not adding payroll regardless of where you play your home games.
There is every reason to believe that the whole GM interviewing process was just for show and that MLB called Sandy back from the DR and asked him to get this situation under control before it went belly up.
Why do you think their trying to sell part of the team to raise 200 M? Cause they have plenty of cash on hand?
Hey even in the good times when they were shoveling cash all over the place like crazy they were cheaping out like crazy on the draft, IFA’s anything that wasn’t about today was put of till tomorrow.
I’ll tell you the situation is so bad right now because of all the shortsighted, incredibly stupid decisions made around here that the whole franchise could go into receivership and then every single dollar spent would have to be approved ahead of time. To complain about us not paying someone twice as much as someone else did will be the least of our problems if that happens.
Alderson is the best guy we could possibly have right now in the situation we’re in. If he gets fed up we and leaves we are absolutely hosed.
I would have liked to go that way too but we’re still short on the the bench and 5 guys in the pen and a starting pitcher.
I think with the budget constraints he did the best he could but I wish we could have gone that way too.
btw, Harang started 46 games the past two years. Young and Capunao combined started 27 – Harang would have been a much safer option.
Vinny, even guys that we did get didn’t want to come here. Bay took a bout 4-5 days before agreeing to take our final offer, even had to explain it at his introductory press conference. Beltran would have taken 20 M LESS in the same CITY. Delgado DID go to the Marlins. The only guys that come here are the one’s we overpay to do so.
Look at how hard Omar tried to get Zito. Where’d he go?
Who in their right mind is going to come here with this ownership situation, our best players in their walk year, a guy who played an elite CF, hit 41 HR’s and is only remembered for one AB and booed over it 5 years later.
Freaks running around shirtless challenging their 20 year old employees to step outside, the media up your ass everyday, 10K in the stands, no chance of winning, a rebuild or fire sale on the way. I mean come on. There’s many great places to live in and work in this Country. Most Major Leaguers aren’t from NY, why would anyone come here now that the vault is empty?
As a Met Fan you may not like it but the truth is we’re a laughing stock all over Major League baseball. No one with any other real good options is coming here especially if they can play in their own hometown.
If you give guys enough money, they will want to come here.
Hey tag, Bary Zito and his dad are wackos. They fit in the Bay area, but maybe not here. We wound up being lucky that Omar failed but with the attitudes of the Zito family, I wouldn’t hold Shea, Citi, Omar or Jeff and Fred responsible. Thank goodness we didn’t throw our planned $75-$95 Million down that sewer.
Right. We’ve been there done that through three death spirals since 1992. Now the money’s all gone. The days of getting Schowenweiss for 11 M, Castillo for 24 M, Mota for 5 M, Perez for 36 M, Alou for 7.5 M are gone.
We’re gonna have to find a different form of player procurement that doesn’t include shoveling wheelbarrows full of cash at every single need, every single off season.
It just doesn’t work.
Your right Des. We were damn lucky Zito and his family turned us down. Could have been another useless waste of 100 Million dollars but my point was even when your offerring that kind of money if a player has other options he’ll probably go somewhere else. We’re only getting the guys with no other options and even that is being chocked off with the checkbook under lock and key.
Vinny: “If you give guys enough money, they will want to come here.”
And you don’t see the problem with that statement?
“if you give guys enough money they’ll want to come here.” Whew. Vinny isn’t that what we’ve been doing for 20 years now? How’s it worked out so far?
The Phillies build a team that plays well and guys take LESS money to go there.
You really don’t get it do you.
No you really don’t get it,
Most of time the player will sign where the most money is offered – That’s what I was trying to say. Why do you think Werth signed with the Nationals? Sure once awhile a player will take less money to go play somewhere else. It happens, and there’s times where you will have to pay a little extra to the player you want, but most of the time they will sign with the team that offers the most.
And didn’t C.C Sabthia only want to play on the west cost, and in the NL? But he signed with the Yankees. Why did he do that Agee? Money? Yeah I think so.
Do you really think Werth is…err worth…that contract? Do you know why the Nats did that?
You really don’t see a problem about just backing up a dump truck full of cash to every player that is slow to sign here?
You are eager to bring in players who are only here because we’d overpay them? If they did that, would you be willing to give up even mentioning things like “heart” or “hustle” or “desire”?
“Most of time the player will sign where the most money is offered”
Yes and two years later demands a trade where the guys who gave him the money lose their shirt still wind up paying most of it to get players that amount to nothing because they left themselves in a very poor barganing position.
Cliff Lee didn’t go to the highest bidder either.
A-Rod did and regretted it! He wished had come to us. Who would you have given up to get him? Reyes or Wright?
Throwing stupid money at a player is stupid business.
Build a competitive team and you do not have to throw stupid money around.
It’s fine to pay fair market value for free agents. Even if you seem to overpay by the time the contract usually runs out you will find that they are probably a bargain compared to other players who were recently signed when compared on a per year basis.
But if you just become the highest bidder for every player you might want all you will do is have a bunch of contracts that you can’t pay because there are only so many tickets you can sell per year and there is no guarantee they will sell even if you get the guy!
We paid Wright Reyes and Beltran a lot to keep fans in the stand. Now count up how many seats there will be tomorrow and tell me it was worth even the REASONABLE money we paid those three.
Yeah but just because they come here for the most money is no guarantee of anything, is it? You put a whole team of guys together who came here because we offered them the most money and what do you get? You get a whole team of mercenaries who’s sum is way less than their individual parts.
Guys like Alomar, Vaughn, Coleman, Bonilla, Castillo, Bay, Schowenweiss, Mota, or guys who spend more time on the DL than on the field.
CC going to the NYY isn’t really a good example because they had to over pay him AND give him an out if he wanted. So he got his guaranteed 150 M and could opt out after 3 years. Cake and eat it too. Plus he has a great chance to get a ring, which he already has. in addition there is competent ownership, front office and players behind him.
What pitcher wants to re establish themselves with only half a lineup and only half a defense and ownership that won’t bite the bullet on guys like Perez and Castillo?
There’s a good reason free agents would go to the NYY. Beltran would have taken 20 Million dollars less to go there. Think about it. Twenty Million dollars less.
The players know how talent challenged this team is. They don’t want a gimpy Beltran patrolling RF (or CF), a Castillo, Murphy, Turner or Emaus at 2B, a Lucas Duda backing up a Jason Bay or a lineup like last year in which a full one third of AB’s went to “hitters” that couldn’t even get OB more often than two of the starting pitchers.
They want to play with competent players. players with talent, in or close to it’s prime, or going to the HOF and still capable of effecting the game positively. A team with a plan that goes beyond “who can we get for these 8 roster spots every year.”
No one wants to go to an under performing team filled with mercenaries who’s fan base has been disapointed year after year with some of the most incompetent play in all of the Major leagues.
No one with any other options wants to come here. Why would they? When even an elite gold glover with 41 HR’s and as low maintenance and professional a superstar that there has ever been gets remembered by the media and fan base for only one AB in 7 years. A player who has an injury mis-diagnognosed, then has ownership attempt to embarrass him when he heeds his own Dr.’s advise and then seeks to embarass him again when he’s working on his own charitable endevours.
Face it. The only players coming here are coming for one of two reasons. The paycheck or no one else wants them.
The paying of people double what everyone else will is now over, that leaves only those who have no other options.
Ownership had no credibility in MLB circles before they went on the skids, now their only weapon has been taken away and because of all the cheaping out in the draft and IFA market we’ll have to piece together a competent roster with whatever inexpensive options there are. When the Organization starts to regain some credibility players will start to come here again. Until then forget it.
I’m not saying that Donal. What T agee was saying was Harang wouldn’t sign with us because he wanted to play close to his home, and I countered that with, if we would have offered him more money maybe he would sign with us. C.C Sabathia only wanted to play on the west cost and wond up playing in NY, so maybe if we offered Harang more money he would come to NY also – I don’t know for sure and you don’t either, because we never offered him a contract.
I suggested to offer double of what he got from SD, which is about 7 million. 7 million dollars for a SP isn’t “backing up a dump truck full of cash” I think that’s reasonable for someone like Harang.
Agee, what are you talking about? All I said was to offer Harang a little more money that we he got from SD. Your talking about big expensive free agents and how the killed our team over the years. I’m talking about signing a guy who’s a good pitcher, on a one year contract, for less than 10 million.
You don’t see the difference between signing Vaughn, Coleman, Bonilla, and Castillo, and trying to sign Harang for one year? It’s the same thing to you? wow smh.
So, you are in favor of guys who are just chasing dollars.
The other problem with throwing more money at guys who don’t want to come here is it sets a bad precedent. The next free agent you want has more leverage now. He can just say “I’m not really into New York” and know it will get him a bigger pay day. Thanks to the Yankees and Sabathia, thats going to be happening for the next few years.
You want to pay Harang more per year than Young and Capuano combined and they all have health issues. And he doesn’t even want to be here.
yes, I would pay Harang more than Young and Capunao combined. My main reason for that is, Harang has started in almost TWICE as many games by himself, the past two years than Young and Capuano combined.
If you paid Harang enough money, then mabye he would want to be here. You don’t know. And I’m only saying to offer 7 million, so PLEASE don’t go on and on about how big free agents signings didn’t work out for us, or how werth, wasn’t worth the amount of money he got, please don’t. because 7 million dollars for a pitcher on a one year contract isn’t a big free agent. Not even close.
And because I wanted to sign Harang (or try to sign him) means that I’m somehow in favor of guys who are just chasing dollars? yeah ok….
Well that was a bad example Vinny but my basic point is the same. Sure we could have blown Harang away with still reasonable money but it would have cost us elsewhere too.
I was very annoyed that we didn’t go after Pinero last year. 2/16 seemed pretty good especially since it would have condensed Maine and Perez into just one spot, and spot starter. Harang at 7M one year and a club option would have been real great. Even just one year and the ability to offer arb, get turned down and help reload the farm with some first round talent would be great. I just don’t see that we had the money this year. I’m as sure as I can be that we don’t.
Your baseball reasons for offering Harang double can not be disputed but there is more to this than just this year.
I believe re establishing guys who cost nothing to obtain and then letting them go FA and getting a 1st round pick or two (or prospects in July) is the strategy. one perk Harang got was a promise to not offer him arb if he became a type A FA. That will increase the demand for him if he successfully re establishes himself.
There is also no way that guys are tripping over themselves to come here. If Beltran had the 3 year out that CC does he would be long gone. What do you think Beltran is telling players around the league about his experience with the Mets? how about Delgado?, Castillo?, Bay?, Wagner?
This goes way back. it’s not a new situation. Around the league the Mets are well known for shooting themselves in the foot, having a fan base that gets incited by the media and getting on guys.
One thing about players is they never tell other players anything about their poor play, they always lay the blame wherever they can. Bonilla’s not taking the blame, either is Coleman, Alomar, Vaughn, Burnitz, Perez, Schowenweiss, Mota, Castillo or any of them.
Without the wallet we’re not getting anyone with any other options until we start putting some first round talent on the field.
Even guys who did come here and become absolutely beloved Mets like Hernandez and Piazza had reservations about coming here. They thrived but they were also surrounded by some of the best players we have ever had.
It’s gonna be a couple of years at least before those higher end prospects Omar got us start to rebuild our on field credibility. Until then the thought of playing with Thole, Davis, Murphy, Tejada, Wright, Bay, Pagan, and Duda/Fern/Evans and a rotation of Pelfrey, Niese and Dickey and whoever and a pen with Parnell just isn’t all that attractive.
That’s the most likely scenario for 2012. That and whoever we can get on the cheap for all our other roster spots. Once we start getting some success out of Mejia and some of the rest that will start to change but for right now that’s the way I see it.
This franchise and the team on the field is in limbo until the Wilpon/Madoff mess is cleaned up… presumably with new ownership. Don’t expect any serious progress toward a World Series until that day.