Then since we need to open a spot in the rotation we trade pelf to Colorado for Streets.

This would be our team next year.

Reyes – SS
Havens/ Turner or Valdespin – 2B (my money’s on Havens finally totally breaking out)
Duda – RF
Wright – 3B
Davis – 1B
Pagan or Cpt. Kirk – CF
Bay – LF
Thole/Palino C

Lineup has the chance to be great if everyone has a healthy season.

Rotation

Shields
Santana
Dickey
Nisse
Gee

Sheets, brydk, parnell, Beato, and a few others in the pen.

We have Familia and Harvey knocking on the door of the rotation with McCugh and other suprising prospects as insurance / bullpen arms

No, that’s not enough pitching. We need to rebuild the bullpen—with Peralta and Francisco, the latter of whom can close.

The OF should be OK, especially with the walls lowered and in somewhat. Bay should hit 20-25 HR, as should Duda. Pagan for one more year? Maybe a trade could replace him, and he could be non-tendered, too.

I’m OK with Thole as the main catcher for now.

And the INF, with Reyes, Murphy/Tejada, Davis, and Wright should provide more power.

We can contend with this team. The Wilpons need to spend some money to boost attendance and revenues. $120 million should do it next year—not that much for the NEW YORK Mets!

We’ve given up #2 picks in recent years for David Weathers, Roger Cedeno, Cliff Floyd, Pedro Martinez and Jason Bay. All got hurt, played poorly or both.

Floyd and Pedro played well when they were healthy and I loved watching Pedro pitch but just like Weathers and Cedeno who were traded for salary relief, we got nothing for them going forward when they left here.

You just can’t keep turning your 1st and 2nd round pick into a guy who gets hurt or under performs every other year and then get nothing for them after they leave. You could fill an entire All Star game from guys who were drafted only in the 2nd round. A very credible one and you could have that young All Star in your lineup or rotation for 6-10 years or more, in their prime, not after it.

Wilson’s a terrific young pitcher, especially in that hitters park and could be worth the investment of a 2nd round pick. The competition will be fierce though and I’ll bet he settles in the 6/120 range unless he takes a discount to play where he wants and that sure as hell isn’t here. If money were unlimited I wouldn’t be against Wilson as long as every reasonable precaution is taken to check out his health as throughly as possible.

Bidding on Darvish is going to be insane. Last guy to get the hype in Japan that Darvish has is Igarashi. Pass.

Shields is most likely available for the right price and with two years left a very worthwhile trade target. Very durable. ELEVEN complete games this year. Tampa was certainly pitching him like he was a rental. Every possible precaution would have to be taken if we did trade for him.

Davis, Murphy, Evans, Duda, Dykstra, Welch. Lots of first basemen or potential candidates. Tampa does have a fantastic SS prospect Hak Ju Lee who looks good to go in 2014 (on both sides) I wouldn’t be in favor of including Tejada. Even Valdespin would scare me. Pitchers are off the table. Flores/Duda/Puello would be along the lines of what they want and that’s a lot. You do get two years and even if you can’t get the guy resigned you will hopefully get a couple of picks so it’s not a dead end but could open up a few holes down the road at depending on injuries and prospect development.

This is the best of the three options by far.

By “excuses” you must mean “real world issues that only the willfully blind disregard”.

“I’ve never seen a fan base as preoccupied with preserving their owners profits and safeguarding their financial interests as the Mets fan base. ”

OK, that is downright insulting. Not only do you have to lie about what other people are saying, you take a very condescending approach to it.

The reality is what you are preaching is what we’ve been doing for years. And what has it done for us? Half the time the Mets are on SportCenter, there’s Benny Hill music with it. Deadspin has a encyclopedia’s worth of articles with the hash tag LOLMETS. How many sitcoms make a joke about the Mets and their futility? Whenever the Yankee fans around me have a bad loss, the go to line is “at least we’re not the Mets”. That’s what checkbook baseball has bought us. It has bought us neither a championship nor dignity.

Are people supposed to apologize for wanting to build a sustainable winner? Are we supposed to feel bad about wanting to get away from an obviously broken method?

No one here wants to look like the Marlins. That is a what a cheap, greedy owner actually looks like. But, aren’t you sick and tired of being the goddamned Cubs? With absentee owners that just mail big checks to whoever can sell tickets and jerseys in April? Is it so wrong to try a new approach?

Look at what you are advocating:

A 30 year old who has 2, count ‘em 2, full seasons as a starter. That doesn’t raise at least a tiny red flag?

A Japanese pitcher. When was the last time a Japanese pitcher was a major success in the majors? The Red Sox got what..2 good years out of Dice K? Do you have especially fond memories of Hideo Nomo that you’d like to share?

James Shields… not totally disagreeable, actually. If he was willing to sign to a 2 or 3 year extension or so upon completion of the trade, perhaps. My real concern there is the dearth of quality position players in our upper minors.

“I hate losing and I hate wallowing in the mud of mediocrity just as much.”

Then why do you insist on using the same methods that put us in this mediocrity? Why do you insist on insulting the people who want to live to see “New York Mets” stop being a punch line for hack writers?

Other than that, probably 1-2 year stop gap/fillers like most every team uses.

lee and Halladay of course more than offset that, but as always, big $$ long term deals for SPs already into their early/mid 30s is a crap shoot.

They seem to start off well and then once the MLB adjusts to them it all falls apart.
And they never seem to make the counter adjustment needed to succeed again. I don’t know if that is due to communication issues between coach and player, stubborness to mechanics on the part of the player and I certainly don’t mean to suggest any racial reasons for their lack of success.

It’s just that none of the imports that have come over has ever showed me any long term sustained success! Almost all wind up being sent to the pen to finish out their contracts!

What is moneyball? Define it. Can you?