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.

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.

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….

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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”?

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!

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.

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.

The Phillies build a team that plays well and guys take LESS money to go there.

You really don’t get it do you.

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.

And you don’t see the problem with that statement?

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.