15
2011
About Those Free Agent Compensation Picks….
An article by 
I happened across an interesting debate on our site today and the subject of free agent compensation came up. I’m only including the part of the debate between t agee and TruFan that went into the comp picks.
t agee says: I would bet anything that the strategy is to get the best guys who will sign one year contracts, especially in the bullpen or in spot duty (like Paulino) in situations in which they thrive.
If guys in the pen have even an average year with no blow up innings their almost guaranteed to be type B free agents the following season netting a sandwich round pick (where many of the best prospects at all levels of the minors come from)
Getting four supplementary round picks in addition to your own #1 and #2 give you a great chance of having three good major leaguers up here in 3-5 years. Add in another minor leaguer from a deadline deal every year and that’s another half a chance for a good player 2-3 years from now. Do that for 3 straight years and your adding 10-11 good players to the 10-11 Minaya provided and then your down to selectively targeting the right 4-5 guys to round out your team and you’ve provided your minor league depth with next years crop…
TruFan says: Don’t bet on it. It’s very possible that the new CBA will get rid of FA compensation.
t agee says: Well that’s very true, and it would be extremely unfair to the smaller market teams. It’s basically been the way a TB can compete. Without getting both good play and fresh horses from the guys they draft they have no hope.
The players union and the big market teams would love to do away with the current system but it works very well, for everyone all things considered. The only thing that’s a little unfair about it is that teams sometimes balk at giving up a #1 pick for a non closer relief pitcher. There should be a tweak in the minimum innings pitched so most relievers would be type B’s instead of A’s if they are not closers…But I know your right, it has been talked about and once that happens……
First of all, TruFan is right. From most of the people I’ve spoken to and from what I’ve read, Free Agent Compensation is as good as gone and it could happen as soon as the new CBA is ratified this offseason.
The motives behind instituting free agent compensation were noble. The intent was that it would raise the bottom and bring down the top and create more parity in the league between the haves and have-nots. In that regard, look around you and it doesn’t take a Harvard graduate to see it has failed, much like the luxury tax did. It also didn’t keep salaries from escalating either, which was supposed to be one of the residual benefits for the owners.
Everyone knows that the only thing that will ever bring parity to the league is a salary cap coupled with a salary floor. Until that happens, everything else they do is just a feeble attempt to complicate matters, ignore the bigger problem and ultimately fix nothing.
As a Mets fan, I feel that the last thing our team should be worrying about is free agent compensation. How can a team who plays in the grandest and richest sports market in the world spend one second worrying about what was intended to help small market teams like the Oakland A’s and Kansas City Royals?
My longtime reader and friend t agee says that he felt the front office strategy all along last offseason, was to try and find players who had a chance of evolving into “B Type” free agents so that at the end of the year we could stockpile extra picks. I never thought about that until today and sadly I think he’s right. That said, it begs the question of how can a large market team like the New York Mets operate that way?
I don’t like free agent compensation one bit. No New York Met fan should like it. You want to take the Mother Theresa approach and feel pity for the smaller market teams and all that “for the good of the game” stuff? Don’t waste your time because compensation helped no teams and fixed nothing. You know who reaped the best players with compensation picks over the years? The same teams you’ll find at the top of the food chain; large market teams like the Red Sox, Yankees and some team that that won the NL Championship in 2000 and got David Wright as a comp pick the following June.
If there were no such things as free agent comp picks, maybe the Mets would start acting like a big market team once again.
For one thing, Jose Reyes would just have completed the first year of his 5 year, $85 million dollar deal instead of his walk-year. This front office would have never picked up that team option on Reyes last November and would have instead signed him to a 5-year incentive laden deal . But the allure of potential comp picks were like visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Things would be much different today with Reyes already signed, sealed and delivered with a reasonable contract.
Instead all I keep reading about the Mets needing to go after Grady Sizemore, Paul Maholm and today Adam Wainwright, all because they are injured, could be cheap, and won’t cost the team any picks. It feels like the Salvation Army gearing up to do battle against US Special Forces. What has this franchise morphed into? Do we even have an identity anymore?
Anyway, I’m all for getting rid of the free agent compensation picks because there’s no evidence that it ever worked and plenty of evidence that large market teams got better and spent more.
Oh and before everyone starts jumping up and down and pointing to and screaming about the Tampa Bay Rays… Not one single Rays player that has donned their uniform this season was acquired as compensation draft pick…
Yeah, that’s right… I checked it out… Not one comp pick from the 42 different players who had at least one plate appearance or threw one pitch for the 2011 Rays this season… Not One. It had absolutely nothing to do with their success… Zero, Zilch, Nada…
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 42 | 28 | .600 | - |
| Nationals | 34 | 35 | .493 | 7.5 |
| Phillies | 34 | 37 | .479 | 8.5 |
| Mets | 25 | 40 | .385 | 14.5 |
| Marlins | 22 | 47 | .319 | 19.5 |
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JOE- These people who SUPPORT Alderson are totally AGAINST Omar Minaya. It’s like a sickness where their vision, logic and common sense has been compromised. Omar Minaya could care less about the MLB draft IMO. Omar was more about the kids in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. He didn’t gain his game thru the MLB draft.
I don’t see what the obsession with MLB draft picks, when there are SO many more places to acquire talent from in the IFA market. Regardless, people are blindly supporting Alderson, so they’re ok with this philosophy.
How many titles did Omar bring to the NY Mets organization? You are right he could care less about the MLB draft and look where we are today?
Omar is gone, so why would people still be behind him at this point? People are going forward not backwards. Well most people anyhow.
You are blindly supporting a guy that is no longer here and failed to bring a champiohsip, that makes perfect sense
By your argument, Alderson & Depodesta should be CLEANING TOILETS @ Citifield. Here’s a man who is on a 6 year under .500 streak as a team’s GM. And if he doesn’t sign Jose Reyes to a HUGE contract (you’re DREAMING if you think Jose isn’t getting one) it’s going to go to 8+ years of under .500 records as team GM.
Perfect sense to remove a brilliant GM with a guy who has been nothing but a certified LOSER since his brief success with the A’s in the 80′s. Twenty two years since his steroid monster brothers led them to a title.
Brilliant GM???? Discussing any further with you is a lost cause, you are certifiable if you think Omar was brilliant.
Yeah Omar that great pitching had nothing to do with 3 pennants and a WS title.Their offense was only pretty good,their pitching wa great. You are so clueless it’s sad. Minaya hasn’t given us anything more from IFA’s as he has from the amatuer draft.Either way he failed.Stop kissing his ass.
How many titles did Omar bring to the NY Mets organization? You are right he could care less about the MLB draft and look where we are today?
He brought one NL Championship and no World Series in six years. One more LCS than Billy Beane had in 17 years focusing on the MLB Draft.
Injuries played a big part in 2009 when Baseball America, Sports Illustrated and Baseball Prospectus tabbed Mets as the World Series favorites. The team tanking it in the last two weeks of the season both in 07 and 08 did those seasons in. Did the team choke or was it the GM?
Omar won the LCS? What year? Because the only LCS I remember was in 2006, when the Mets lost to the Cardinals.
The A’s were in the ALCS that year, by the way.
And how did your favorite team and GM Beane do in that ALCS?
Some as His Holiness the Dali Omar. Lost.
Good now that we established the EQUALNESS of their ALCS…
How many years did it take Beane to get to the ALCS compared to Omar?
How many YEARS of Moneyball did it take Beane before he even saw his FIRST Playoff appearance and how many years did it take Omar?
WTF does Billy Beane have to do with the Mets other than the fact he was in our system as a player?
He’s the GUY you and Donal said was a SUCCESS!
Don’t put words in my mouth Metsie.From the first time I saw you guys post about moneyball,I’ve been asking you what does it have to do with the Mets.I said he competed with big market teams with very little money.% playoff appearances is pretty damn good though for what they had to work with.If you’re implying I want the Mets to follow this design you’re off your rocker.
5 playoff appearances*
Opposite of Moneyball? 17 Playoff appearances!
What does it have to do with the mets?
YOU think it was a success and would love it if Sandy did it!
What does it have to do with the Mets? Letting Reyes Walk, Trading Wright, NOT SPENDING!
You can try and say we are not playing moneyball all you want but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it’s a DUCK!
Again with your ridiculous assumptions.I would love for the Mets to run the team the way Oakland did? What are you high? I said they did well with a limited payroll.Far cry from loving it if the Mets ran their organization that way.Your mind reading skills are shot.
Tell me Joe if not you then who was arguing last week that Moneyball was a success and that we should do what the Red Sox did who YOU suggested played moneyball because they hired Bill James?
Pssst – Billy Beane is not part of the NYM organization, no matter how many times you people in the dark ages bring up his name……
Nothing wrong with making a legitimate comparison. Minaya was brought up and criticized for 1 LCS title in 6 years. The suggestion was also to concentrate on the draft.
I simply mentioned that Beane won no LCS titles in 17 years while focusing on the MLB Draft and he gets praised.
That’s a contradiction and as such, a very valid comparison.
If you’re counting titles like you did in your original comment, let’s give your assertion some depth and compare him to another GM whose face is being etched on Mt. Rushmore as we speak.
I wasn’t comparing him to Branch Rickey – that would be the Dark Ages as you said. I compared him to a contemporary which puts us in Futureworld. (great movie.)
No JoeD Beane gets praised because he competed with very minimal resources.No Money!Who cares,Beane is not part of the Mets.
Joe, Omar did not bring an LCS to the Mets. They lost to the Cardinals. He won one division, that’s all.
Are you a Met fan or just an Omar fan, because Omar has been banished and has nothing to do with this team. But don’t worry he is still getting paid quite well for doing nothing which is essentially what he did when he was here.
No one has been a bigger supporter of the Mets going whole hog in the IFA arena than I have but it is just so extrodinarally narrow minded to say that this team should exclude ANY source of player procurement. This is a team that is chronically short 13 out of 40 players every year on the roster. How the **** can anyone in their right mind propose excluding any means of acquiring very good players?
IFA’s are a HUGE part of a committed teams plan to win consistently but they are absolutely dwarfed by the amount of players that get to the Majors from the draft.
Of the 300 hundred best prospects in the minors right now about 81 of them come from international free agency and that includes Asia as well. The rest of them come from the draft. 114 of them from HS, 77 out of college and 18 out of JC. 72 of them from the first round, 32 from the 2nd, 19 from the 3rd and 4th, 10 from the 5th, 4 from the 6th, 5 from the 7th and 43 from the other 43 rounds.
Production as opposed to quantity is what matters and there is the distinction. The IFA’s that make it, tend to make it BIG but to limit yourself to just one side of the menu, especially for a team that has to resort to starting a rookie infielder in LF in a year their expecting to compete for a World Championship is just the height of lunacy. A team that boasts a starting rotation that includes Pelfry, Perez, Livan, Redding and Maine is beyond laughable. A team who’s farm system is so chronically challenged that ANYONE who shows even the slightest glimmer of potential is immediately fast tracked and frequently put into a position they’ve hardly even played before. Just look at our catcher. He spent almost as much time learning how to play 1B as he did learning to play catcher. Our RFer did spend more time playing 1B than OF and 99% of that was in LF.
I can hardly believe what I’m reading. We should just forget totally the largest source of player procurement in order to focus entirely on kids who 80% of the time have to be put on the 40 man roster 3 years before they get up here
Yeah we’re so loaded with top flight talent perhaps we should just opt out of the draft entirely.
This is either naivety or flat out bias.
Baseball America is properly dubbed because it focuses mainly on…American talent. If you look @ the number of IFAS directly impacting MLB since the 80′s, you’re waking up to the realization that this is where most of the upper echelon talent is coming from. To deny it is completely foolish. You can argue that players from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are the best at each respective position on the infield across MLB. And most, if not all, are products of international scouting. In the next 10 years, they’re going to be at least half the players in the game. This will render the MLB draft more and more useless as time goes on.
This argument is like the one I had 10 years ago regarding the NBA. European players, who are skilled and more physical than college kids @ the NCAA level, are going to arrive with their most talented players taking over the game. Eventually, their average players will also take away positions from kids coming in from the NBA draft. The transition has not been as fast, but they are here. And basketball has changed. Baseball’s transition @ the upper talent levels have been obvious for a decade.
There’s no bias unless you’re blinded by your own. Unless you think players like Miguel Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Adrian Beltre, Jose Valverde, Joaquin Benoit, Magglio Ordonez, Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, Yovani Gallardo (played HS ball here, but at what age did he arrive to Texas is unknown), Al Alberquerque, K-Rod, Jaime Garcia, Yadier Molina, Elvis Andrus, Alexi Ogando, Neftali Feliz and Albert Pujols are more hype than substance.
Why this list? These are players from the 4 teams fighting for the AL & NL titles.
You’re still living in the 90s, Agee.
Are you typing on a desktop?
Do you own a smartphone?
Still buy a newspaper?
Really?
I didn’t deny that a lot of the upper echelon talent was coming from over seas, in fact I stated it when I wrote about production, but it still doesn’t make any kind of sense at all to eliminate the source of the most players who get up to the Majors from consideration as your post seemed to advocate.
Baseball America does focus primarily on baseball in America. That’s where the minor leagues are. That’s how 81 out of 300 IFA’s got rated by the scouts, coaches and editors of Baseball America as one of the 20 best prospects in their league but I still can’t understand excusing eliminating or minimizing the importance of what is still to this day the largest source of players who make it to the Majors.
Look. I screamed to the high heavens about how we didn’t do anywhere near enough work internationally for years. Everytime I watched the Expos trot out yet another top talent one right after the other I used to go off. I’ve even heard (3rd or 4th handed so take it with a grain of salt) a few things that would make any Met fan sick about some near misses involving very few dollars but if the idea is to put the most talented players out on the field, back them up with capable hungry reserves, have good quality arms in the system and prospects to trade to make upgrades how can you excuse eliminating the importance of any potential source of acquiring guys, let alone the largest one?
The teams that are consistently in the playoffs are the teams that consistently do both and for a team that always has so many “holes to fill” it just doesn’t make any sense for us not to give our absolute best effort in all areas.
Roy Halliday, Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander, Joey Hamilton, Alex Avila, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Matt Holliday, Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter, Yovani Gallardo (born in the US) and Yadier Molina were all or are still in the playoffs and came from the draft so you want to eliminate guys like that from consideration for the Mets?
Please explain why.
Gallardo was born in Mexico.
Comon Tag there is a big difference between hoarding draft picks via losing FAs and ignoring the draft as you seem to think it is when you don’t worry so much about compensatory picks.
Yes the draft is the largest source of talent procurement in the MLB, It also has the highest failure rate, the slowest payoff, the lowest payoff, and costs almost as much to develop as it does to pay a top FA for one year when you consider he gets paid, the coaches get paid, the doctors get paid, and trainers and anyone else who is part of that development machine’s payroll.
Add to it the average age of a rookie making his debut in the MLB is somewhere in the 24/25 Year old area.
A guy like Nimmo (if that average holds true) won’t be seen here until 2017!
You keep trying to suggest that because we don’t value pick hoarding as narrowmindedly as you do that it means we would rather NOT DRAFT and just buy everyone!
Not ONE person here has suggested that EVER!
But we do not subscribe to the idea that what happens 7 years from now is more important or any MORE important than what is happening now and the next 2 or 3 years!
If your any good at picking talent in the draft then you do not need more picks to draft with. You will get enough just with the picks the MLB gives you!
And investing money on something that helps you NOW will put people in the seats, win ballgames, and get you the extra revenue to offset what you spent. Not in EVERY case but more often than not!
And again if you think the guy is good enough to evaluate and make good draft picks there is no reason to believe he will make MISTAKES or BLUNDERS when he evaluates who to sign either!
The DRAFT is the actual CRAP SHOOT! Cause your making judgements based on events and performance against a lot of kids who go undrafted and never play pro ball!
At least with FA you have REAL MLB performance to judge by!
And if you think the GM is NOT smart enough to avoid making bonehead signings in FA then you SHOULD also feel he isn’t worthy to be making Picks in the amateur draft as well!
Drafting is not a solution to that problem, All it does it delay the day of recognition that you hired the wrong GM to run your organization! Because it took 7 years to figure it out and by that time how much damage has he done at that point!
Metsie, your looking at the draft the wrong way.
A GM, draft cooridinator or scouting dept should be judged based on what the players they select actually do when they get up here. How valuable are they to the total team effort?
Take two guys. Say Aaron Heilman 2000 1st round and Ryan Howard 2001 5th round. A Ryan Howard, a first basemen (only position he could have played) taken in the 5th round is going to bust a hell of a lot more often than an Aaron Heilman will. Big College pitcher, nothing overpowering just a safe shot to at least get up here and contribute something somewhere in anyone of 12 different spots (5 rotation, 7 bullpen)
Now who is the better guy to take? The surer, more limited lower ceiling safe pick or the big risk, big reward guy who can only play 1 position?
My point is the draft should be a crapshoot. You should (most of the time) hunt the elephant, not the house cat because all it takes is hitting one or two guys every year and half your roster will all be under team control at the same time and with extensions, option years ect it can be even more than that if YOU CHOOSE to do that.
Now what’s better? Getting elephant production or house cat production out of the guys you develop?
If your getting elephant production it’s very easy to fill in around them with a Polanco, Brosius, Ross, Huff, Scutero, Gardiner, Freese ect and you can do it without giving up the hunting patch where the most elephants are found (1st and 2nd rounds) AND you don’t have to risk clogging your payroll and roster with expensive free agent busts which you seem to discount the possibility of.
“Proven” Major leaguers that teams give up draft choices for frequently, read very often, play worse than house cats. Lowe, Perez, Meche, Burnett, Silva, Bay, Castillo, Dunn, Figgins, Bradley, Lackey, Crawford, Werth, Pavano. You could go on and on with this list, so please don’t suggest that the “proven Major Leaguer” is a sure bet by any stretch of the imagination. Even guys who do play well frequently can’t stay on the field as well. Pedro, Wagner, Alou and that just with us in the last few years. Two #1 picks and a 2nd rounder and those guys are the ones who actually played well (for the most part) Combined they left behind just Chris Carter and left us 1 game short two years in a row.
It is really a reach to suggest that developing your own player costs anywhere near what one year of an expensive free agent costs and just exactly what expensive free agent signs for just one year anyway? Please get real.
Take a mid 1st round selection. College player maybe 1.75M, HS maybe 2.5 M. Second round college 500 K, HS 1M. 3rd round progressively less and so forth.
Forget the bogus cost of scouting, coaches and doctors. I’m sure the expensive free agents coaches, advance scouts, video people, doctors, clubhouse attendants, valet parkers and everyone else make a thousand times what they do in the minors.
So you take two HS kids (most expensive to draft) 1st and 2nd round, add in a supplemental round pick you snagged by some manuervering and you took another HS kid and gave him 1.5 M. Two of the three “fill holes” for you for 6 years, the other busts. Total cost 5 M. Average salary for first 6 years in the majors 10 M each. Total cost for two spots filled for 6 years each 25 M. TWO spots, 6 years each if they pan out. 67% is a fair average for 1st, 2nd and sandwich round guys. Average cost 2M per year each although it could be higher if YOU choose, based on how they play. You also don’t have to live with them. If at any point you want to cut them, trade them, send them down, YOUR CHOICE.
Now you also get the chance to get those kids BEST YEARS, not their declining ones and you have a good chance to resign them if you both want that. The kids have probably been with you for 8 years at this point and have built up your fan base a hell of a lot more than a guy like Delgado for instance who overall played pretty well here but only for about 3 years. When Delgado left, that was it. If the kids leave you can at least get the chance to draft 4 more like them or trade them beforehand and see what you can get. Most of the options are yours. There’s no living with bad deals, no refusing to go to the minors, no trade clauses, no sense of entitlement, no blase attitude about being in the Majors and your getting the best years of the player. Forget about cost. That alone is what makes the difference.
Of the 12 different free agents we’ve brought in here and given up draft choices to get, only one of them had his career year in a Met uniform. Only one! Beltran. Half of them sucked completely. Others got hurt and couldn’t play and three of them were in years in which we missed the playoffs by one game.
How much did that cost?
We’ve been drafting house cats for years and incredibly, even taking the low ceiling safer bet, bust more often than other teams taking the riskier, longer developing player and then we have to buy our elephants at their highest cost, and cost ourselves the best draft choices to do so and frequently get **** on by those expensive elephants and have to send them to the vet for seasons on end and play the house cats (out of position) anyway.
So the HS kids take 5-6 years. IFA’s take 7-8. We should stop hunting their too cause they take too long? Where would our minors be if not for Mejia, Familia, Flores, Puello, Lagares, Montero, Urbina, Tapia? Down the toilet, that’s where. But where would it be if we had two elephants every year for the last five years to add to those guys?
Top farm system in baseball. LOADS of options available to us. Probably exchanged 3 of those guys for Doc Holliday. Got a real catcher. Two of them in fact. An all around RFer with Duda in LF and Bay never got an offer from us and playing time isn’t so easy to come by anymore. In fact it’s hard to get. Gone are the days that 63 guys in the last 6 years played their last Major League game in our uniform. Hard to win a lot when that’s the case.
No need to bring in 13 guys for the 40 man roster every year. Now you can narrow your focus down to 3 or 4. Make better choices. Not be in such a rush every off season. Consider your options. Not get painted into a corner by Borass. Be open to trading for prospects and trading from the farm. Always consider the free agent ace but take a look at type B’s, rule 5′s and non tenders as well. Take a flyer on a guy for your 25. Bautista was a rule 5, Nelson Cruz kicked around for years. Identify guys in other teams systems and then go get them. Melvin Mora was a Godsend for the Orioles. He manned 3B for 10 years and yeah be open to the idea of letting your own guys go free agent to keep replenishing the system.
That of course is dependent on the options you have available on the way up which brings us right back to the same old thing.
You gotta start somewhere. Could have been 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, could have been anytime. If it had we might be heading down to Citi Field right now……..if we could get tickets.
You still have to draft well, you still are going to have guys that break your heart and you have to emphasize player development above all else and go heavy in Latin America. 10 M every year. Two top shelf blue chippers every year, unless the year is lite but if you religously chop away like this year after year, only occasionally deviating from the plan you’ll have more talent in your system then you can find playing time for it all.
How many AllStars are produced from 1 year worth of draft picks Tag?
You look at Howard who was a lucky pick!
If they thought he was going to be what he became he wouldn’t have gotten selected in the 5th round!
What you get in the draft is largely due to where you pick in each round as well!
Giving up a 27th 1st rounder is not much of a loss compared to the guy you got that helps you win almost immediatly!
You constantly bitch about what we gave up for Alou, and Wagner…
What did we miss out on? Who did the team who got those picks get from them?
Name the ALL STAR we missed because we went and SIGNED an ALL STAR we didn’t have to wait 6 years of MiL time and 4 years of MLB time before they became an ALL STAR!
Sure you get good players based on how good you are at picking!
And GMs who ARE good at picking are also good enough to know during the FA signing period what is available in the next draft, what chance they have of selecting them and when it might just be better to BUY a guy who helps now than to wait 6-8 years for a guy you don’t think is going to be all that good even when he DOES get up here!
It always comes down to this. If you TRUST the guy to MAKE THESE PICKS then you SHOULD trust him JUST AS MUCH when he decides to NOT PICK and go for the Immediate fix!
First of all Alou and Wagner didn’t help us win, they really helped us lose. Wagner even helped the Phillies get Blanton and Halliday.
Wagner was never even available down the stretch in 2007 or 2008 and pitched about 3 innings for us in 2009. He had a 13.50 ERA in the NLCS and couldn’t even be on the mound in the 9th inning of game 7. He also blew a 4-0 lead against the NYY because he wasn’t prepared to pitch in a “non save situation.”
44 M and a #1 for that? Maybe that’s good value to you but I’d pass on that and then Boston gets the 20th and 39th best amateur players in the country while we get Chris Carter.
You know who got great value out of Wagner? Phillie and Boston by letting him go.
The thing with Alou is we didn’t even have to give up a draft choice. All we had to do was wait a week and we could have gotten Alou and KEPT the #1 pick. Having an extra spot on the 40 man roster could have prevented us from losing Jesus Flores as well so we dicked our self out of two chances at having a good player.
And what did we get out of it? Half a season in a year that we fell 1 game short and 13 games in another year that we fell 1 game short.
I really don’t see how you can say either guy put us over the top.
Your always crowing about Duda and Gee and I’m happy we got them too but why were they good draft choices and Howard was a “lucky” draft choice? If Minaya had drafted Howard you’d be claiming it was the greatest pick of all time.
Your right about GM’s in the winter having a fairly good idea of the upcoming draft, knowing where they’ll be drafting and how the class is shaping up, who they want to get some looks at ect so why would Phillips have given up a #2 and a #3 for Weathers and Cedeno in a good draft in 2002? Sure teams had to wait a little while for their draftees to get up here but do you think Atlanta would trade 6 years of Brian McCann for 2 years of David Weathers? Think Boston would give up six years of John Lester for 2 years of Roger Cedeno? Think the Reds would give up six years of Joey Votto or the Tigers/NYY give up six years of Curtis Granderson?
But hey your right, at least we didn’t have to wait four years for Weathers or Cedeno or Appier, Coleman, Bonilla, Bay, Alou or Wagner. We got their production right away.
Thank God. If we did have to wait we might have had more than 12 losing seasons in the last 21 years.
Duda was a nice pick but 2 picks after Duda went this pitcher named Matt Moore who’ll we’ll all be hearing about for years to come.
Duda got 85K to sign, Moore got 115K.
Looks like the big market Rays took advantage of us small market Mets.
And the small market yankees, and the small market Redsox’s, the small market Phillies, the small market Braves, ect.
They all didn’t draft him.
We spent the 2nd fewest amount on the draft during Omars tenure.That’s on the Wilpons as much as it is on Minaya’s inability to draft impact players.Omar’s budget went to free agency.If the Wilpons had stretched the budget on the draft then maybe Omar comes away with at least one stud.
Duda was picked in the 7th round, Moore was picked in the 8th.
never mind, your right.
But it’s not just the Mets that passed on him, EVERY team did. To say the Mets are bad at drafting because they didn’t draft Matt Moore is silly because everybody did, including the rays.
You want the Mets to get a fair shot on this site? You’ve got to be kidding!
Where did anyone say the Mets are bad at drafting because they didn’t select Moore?
This would be like saying the Angels are terrible at drafting because they took Alfredo Amezaga one pick in front of Pujols.
What were they thinking???? Don’t they know that Pujols is better than Amezaga?
Except that nobody said that.
I know JoeDiaz is worth ignoring but if you read what he said you would know where it came from!
“Duda was a nice pick but 2 picks after Duda went this pitcher named Matt Moore who’ll we’ll all be hearing about for years to come.”
It’s just annoying. The Mets made a GREAT pick in Duda, but you guys still find away to attack the Mets for it – It just seems like no matter what the Mets do, there will always be something to attack them for – I’m tired of it.
My point is the Rays made a terrific pick, so because of that we have to hear comments like this: “Looks like the big market Rays took advantage of us small market Mets.”
Now every time somebody makes a great pick, we have to bash Omar for it.
“– It just seems like no matter what the Mets do, there will always be something to attack them for – I’m tired of it.”
Couldn’t agree more.
It’s not like that Vinny your reading too much into it.
Joe just pointed out that little fact as nothing more than a bit of trivia. I then added a remark about the budget. There wasn’t any criticism in any way directed toward Minaya at all and the remark about the tight draft budget that the Wilpon’s provide is nothing more than just a fact of life. Been that way for 25 years.
Nah Wagner was useless wasn’t he…he had 40 Saves in 2006 granted not all for us!
In2007 he had 34 Saves…Nah No help whatsoever…
Yeah he got hurt down the stretch…
And Alou? Oh he sucked he only hit .341 .392OBP and a .424 SLG…
Jeez talk about getting facts straight dude!
Metsie Wagner played one full season out four. Blew plenty of saves down the stretch in 2007 and was then unavailable the last two weeks of the season and stunk up all four games of the 2006 NLCS and wasn’t available for game 7.
On what planet would that be considered good?
Alou hit real good……when he played but he only played about 30% of the games and both years we lost the postseason by 1 game.
Pedro too. four years, we got one and a half out of him.
Especially in the case of Alou and Pedro, injuries had to be part of the consideration of signing them. Wagner I cannot say the same about but every 35 year old pitcher is a risk, the more of them you count on the more chance your starting your AAA depth. If that AAA depth is Brian Lawrence then that’s going to be a problem. If your 35 year old closer gets a 4 year deal you can be pretty well assured that your set up guy is going to be finishing alot of games one year. If that’s Luis Ayala……..
As for a 40 year old LFer. Hey if it was only cash who cares, but still Murphy was plan B?
I don’t know Metsie, seems pretty ill conceived to me.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wagnebi02.shtml
2006 70 Games 2.24 ERA 40 Saves
2007 66 Games 2.63 ERA 34 Saves
2008 45 Games 2.30 ERA 27 Saves
He missed parts of 2008 and 2009…
Thats it! And did what we expected the rest of the time!
So your exagerating his bustedness merely because you need to to make your indictments on Omar stick!
Did what he was expected? He blew the ****** NLCS. Wasn’t available in game 7. Wasn’t available the last two weeks of 2007 and out for good midway through 2008 and all of 2009 (where you say he was out for part of 2009. Yeah the whole part is more like it.)
Whenever you really needed the guy he was unavailable.
What ****** good is that?
Oh Beltran had nothing to do with that?
Please stop with the histrionics…the guy got hurt.
Can you tell me who is going to be hurt next year in september?
If you can’t do it how can you blame the move Omar made for his not being able to predict!
There was NO injury history with Wagner until we ran him out that nearly once every other day!
The guy was in 70 frigging games!
there are only 162 NOT COUNTING the playoffs!
He was 11 games shy of picthing in half the games we played!
Blame Willie not Omar or Wagner!
Or Blame the Offense if you want for having games be so close that we needed to put Wagner in so much!
Beltran had a great 2006 NLCS, you just choose to focus on just one AB. 3 HR’s in one 7 game series is a great job regardless of how the final out was recorded.
Wagner had a miserable series. 13.50 ERA in 4 appearances.
Hey maybe Willie did use him too much. Wasn’t much of a pennant race that year but maybe he just didn’t trust anyone else. Shouldn’t have been the case because Bradford and Hernandez could have given him a day here and there but you know closers don’t get up two three times a game only to sit back down, then come in. Closers stretch in the 7th, warm up in the 8th and come in in the 9th. 70 appearances shouldn’t be a huge deal but leave it to you to pass the blame.
Fact is you give a 35 year old max effort, small guy a 4 year deal it cannot be unexpected he goes down. Cannot. And if all you can back him with is Luis Ayala you really have to question whether it’s a wise move to be forking over a #1 pick on him in the first place.
Yeah lets blame everyone except the guy that actually made the decision to sign Wagner.
Good thinking.
Dude I;m not focusing the blame on ANY one player…YOU ARE!
The point is and was made, Wagner was OVERUSED that year…
Beltran had the chance to win the game and didn’t!
I don’t care about that AB as much as I care that they didn’t score enough offense to not need the closer that day and get to the WS!
Yeah what an AWFUL GM who trades 40 saves in a season for 5 career saves in 10 Games!
I’m not pointing the finger at the player, I’m pointing the finger at the thought process used to make the decision to acquire the player.
My position is this team wasn’t in a position to be spending draft picks cause we were backing up a lot of age and injury risks with guys who weren’t credible backups.
Some were bound to break. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that ALL of them could have been forseen. Reyes and Beltran for sure, but Pedro was already breaking down before we signed him. Alou his whole career, El-Duque, Valentin, plus every single team goes through 8-12 starting pitchers every year.
Why not build some depth, then go for it?
Why even hire a talent evaluator of young amateurs which is really the only part of the operation Minaya had ever excelled at (happens to be the most important criteria in my opinion) but why hire him if your just going to play fantasy baseball every year? Anyone could do that, and do a more realistic job of it too.
You really can’t only look at the best case scenario of every decision you make, you have to look at posibilities and probablilities as well.
When your 6th starter is Brian Lawrence and you have 4 40 year olds on your starting rotation you might want to rethink signing that closer and draft a starting pitcher cause your gonna need one pretty soon.
And I thought we were talking about loost picks here not signings?
Is this the lets harp on unrelated issues to make it look worse than it is tactic?
I mean really Tag, Look at what other teams have done and even the Phillies and Red Sox who you thought were smart did the same things!
And until you tell us all who you were taking with that pick instead of Wagner all your really doing is playing hindsight 20/20 genius, at the time ALL of the best players anyone EXPECTED to be great players were off the board!
If an All Star was selected with the pick or after it in the first round you MIGHT have a case…But that didn’t happen..I’m sure some 2nd round talent surprised and made the ASG after that but if Omar took him you would at the time complain that he reached for him!
Cause in your mind Omar could do NO RIGHT!
That is such a crock of **** Metsie.
I have given Omar his due plenty of times over what I thought he did well, you just gloss over all that. I’ve also claimed (rightly) that Phillips did the same thing only didn’t put anything back in the system. Your just changing the subject.
The subject as far as I’m concerned is that when you give away a first or 2nd round pick almost every single year for a decade, and then draft for right now instead of best available talent, with the few picks you keep, your ******.
With all your picks your not guaranteed anything but without them you have absolutely no chance of filling a position for 6-10 years and narrowing the holes down to a manageable few. Your just guaranteed to be pillaging junk yards for spare parts and that’s what we did during the Minaya regiem every single year and we’re still doing it today because there nothing close. Nothing close that’s healthy anyway for this year and alot of what we do have is 2-3 years away so it’ll be more of the same.
And again what is the justification for not signing Moises a week later and probably keeping that pick?
Not saying we would have but just imagine if we had drafted Mike Stanton with that pick. We don’t sign Bay I know that and Stanton in RF and Duda in LF. Not a bad offensive corner OF huh?
Ok lets talk crock of crap…
“The subject as far as I’m concerned is that when you give away a first or 2nd round pick almost every single year for a decade”
Omar was GM for how many years?
“and then draft for right now instead of best available talent”
Who was this best available talent?
Randal Grichuck? (Rodriguez)
Wendell Fairley? (Alou)
Kyle Drabek? (Wagner)
I mean comon since you know who shuld have been taken WITHOUT hindsight who in that 1st round where we picked would have been better than the player we got?
Please post comparative stats to show it!
Your problem is you are using HINDSIGHT to judge a decision made via FORESIGHT!
Omar saw the scouting reports on those kids that you did not!
And based on THOSE (not what happened 5 years AFTER THE DRAFT) decided that what was there was NOT WORTH what was in that draft!
You also fail to note that while he lost a pick for Alou he was expecting Glavine to leave to the Braves that year by not excersizing his option. Glavine resigned and brought back compensation from Atlanta the following year!
And your just speculating that the timing changed anything! Or that we would have gotten him without giving up picks!
He was a Type A FA!
There were a LOT of teams pursuing Alou at the time and Minaya probably knew that and was aggressive in getting the deal done! He had wanted him for quite awhile even trying to get him from the Giants earlier in the year…
No one would have signed Alou before SF had to decide whether or not to offer arbitration. No one. And even if some other team was interested (doubtful) they can’t talk? They can’t come to an agreement and sign the deal one weak later? I mean c’mon Metsie. Their from the same Country. Jeez Omar was the first Dominican born GM in MLB history.
Think Alou didn’t want to see him succeed? The Alou’s are practically baseball royalty in the DR. Of course they would have wanted Minaya to be successful. Jeez. Not even a question.
As for who the teams selected with our pick, that’s not relevant. We cannot know who the Mets would have taken, all we can know is that there were plenty of good players in 2006 and some good players in 2007, we didn’t have a chance to select any of them, future all star or complete bust because we spent our 1st round pick on Wagner and signed Alou a week too early.
Here we are four and five years later STILL swooping over landfills trying to plug 13 spots on the 40 man roster cause you monkeyballers all need a fancy bauble every Christmas.
And you can PROVE this can you?
Can You?
The A’s (You know those Moneyball guys?) were hot after Alou that year and had already contacted his agent about a deal! They wanted him almost as bad as we did!
They had PLENTY of money to spend thanks to moneyball so Minaya made sure he got to him first!
considering how little we paid him you would appear to be crying over spilt milk!
The same thought proccess you had no issue with when Theo or the Phillies did it!
HYPOCRACY ABOUNDS!
Red Sox did with Crawford…BONEHEADED MOVE?
Phillies did it with TOM GORDON? How does that stack up to Wagner?
Please tag your just embarassing yourself with this tripe sniping at Omar for doing what EVERY TEAM IN CLOSE CONTENTION FOR THE PLAYOFFS does!
And whats worse is your idea of the right move was getting a guy who has 5 career saves to his name instead of 40 in a damn season you bitch about because he was overused and got gassed before the playoffs even started!
Or is the reason you don’t take them to taks because your crystal ball is broken and 5 years from those drafts hasn’t really played out yet?
Is that what this is about?
Phillies and RedSox were smart because you can’t HINDSIGHT their decision and find all those SURPRISE late rounders who will be All Stars in the future to make your point?
Your a hindsight genius here!
And even WITH it you think taking a guy with 5 saves in his career would have been better than the guy who got you 40 saves THAT YEAR and was a big part of the reason you made the LCS at all!
We paid him 7.5 M but who cares. It’s the pick we lost.
The chance to fill a hole with a good player for 6-10 years.
I highly doubt the A’s were hot for Alou and even if they were so what? Minaya and Alou can’t talk? The A’s sure as **** weren’t signing him before SF had to decide about offering arb cause that’s the only chance they have to get decent players.
I even saw Minaya and Alou together after a Cubs game at Shea getting ready to go out and eat or go somewhere together. Please they easily could have kept the pick, they just didn’t want it.
I guess filling holes every year is part of the Met GM’s job description. The more the merrier right?
Yeah picks that would have done nothing not even BY NOW!!!!
You highly dount a lot of things that ARE true…
I suggest Google to help you with that HINDSIGHT INTELECT!
Search Moises Alou Signing
They get mentioned in just about EVERY ARTICLE about us signing or being close to it!
Oh and you have yet to show any proof they would NOT have offerred him Arb…after all his father was the damn manager!
Metsie your just getting ridiculous.
I’m not in charge of the draft. I’m not qualified to select who we would take. All that I’m saying is that there are good players there to be taken. Other teams get them and have them help win baseball games for 6-10 years at a time.
Without having the picks we have no chance to get any of them and consequently we are always outgunned.
That’s all I’m saying. If we keep spending our draft choices on free agents we’ll keep getting busts half the time and injuries half the time and we’ll never compete successfully year in and year out cause we’ll always have 13 spots to fill on the 40 man roster year after year and it’s never going to work out.
I know you prefer the monkeyball approach but it’s been tried and tried again here for two decades and it hasn’t worked and it never will.
Long term solutions are there for the taking. Other teams draft Cy Youngs, MVP’s All Stars. We get salary relief after yeat another bust.
Wrong again Metsie. His father was canned. Bochy took over in 2007.
I cannot know for sure but I suspect that after canning his father, spending a fortune on Zito that they would NOT have offered arb. That’s my best guess.
In any event it would have made tremendous sense to at least wait one week and try to keep it.
Alright Metsie I get where your coming from.
We should just give away our #1 pick.
OK. I disagree but I respect your opinion.
“I’m not qualified to select who we would take.”
Well then what makes you qualified to say not taking what was there was wrong?
All because you like drafting more than getting to championships?
Like it or not Wagner was a big part of our success that year…
Would we have gotten there with Looper as our Closer?
or Bard?
I mean really dude!
You look at PART of the situation you want so you can bitch but never bother to mention what the situation was and WHY we would make the move!
WE WERE COMPETING!
And Wagner believe it or not was one reason we GOT to those playoffs!
Now I know everyone on the Omar MudSlingers side would conveniently like to forget that and focus on Perez Castillo and Bay, Conveniently forget all those kids who played .519,.593 and .519 baseball in May June July he drafted without the benefit of Ike Davis, David Wright and Jose Reyes, and conveniently forget 2007 and 2008 which were ALSO competitive despite injuries,
Conveniently forget that We still have a few VERY PROMISING Pitchers still in the Minors NOT NAMED WHEELER!
And that he managed to get ALL THOSE GUYS DESPITE all these picks you are whining about and did it with a team and MiL system that was as barren as Who’s nether regions!
And in two years built a team that went to the LCS, Competed but fell short in the last week of the season two years after that and then suffered though a bunch of DEVASTATING INJURIES no one on earth not even YOU could predict would happen!
So please! Just stop with the full court press about picks who you say you are not qualified to make OR JUDGE based on what you KNEW at the time!
Omar had the scouting reports!
HE SAW what you did not and made a decision and considering the names you came up with I will say they were pretty good moves considering what he got out of them!
A competitive team in two years from GARBAGE STARTING MATERIALS!
And he STILL managed to draft a pretty damn good set of Kids that Sandy is going to rely on HEAVILY because he isn’t buying a damn thing!
Maybe not even REYES!
And in 6 years will you piont that sharp hindsight at him for not getting any FAs to compete with because he hoarded a bunch of picks who 5 years later have only played in a handful of games as a SET UP man?
I mean is THAT what you look for in the 1st round a set up man?
Should a setup man or a reliever of ANYKIND other than a full blown knock them down closer be your focus in the round where the BEST EVERYDAY players are still available?
in 2006 there was NO CLOSER and even if there was we would be knocking Omar now for not getting to the LCS instead of the picks he spent TO get there!
Your being UNREASONABLE!
Because you are more interested in your DRAFT ONLY pHilosophy that has never worked for ANYONE Not even the Braves or Phillies you keep using as examples!
“I cannot know for sure…”
EXACTLY MY POINT!
Your jumping to a conclusion and then chastising someone based on info you have no clue is tru or not!
They hired his His old man as special assit to the GM in January!
“In any event it would have made tremendous sense to at least wait one week and try to keep it.”
Yeah we might have kept it because they would have gotten it from the A’s or Cleveland!
“The A’s contacted Alou’s agent after Frank Thomas signed with Toronto. Cleveland is pursuing Alou aggressively, too.”
http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-11-19/sports/17322148_1_team-signs-san-diego-moises-alou
There I saved you from your Google Phobia!
As always t agee,on the money.
Thanks Joe.
Joe, the Red Sox have wound up with so many extra picks because they put in a process in which to get them. A process that any team could take advantage of.
They’ve purposely targeted players anywhere from a year and half to one month away from free agency. They do this so they have a steady stream of players to bring up as well as to trade. Since 2005 they’ve let the following players go Pedro, Cabrerra, Lowe, Damon, Mueller, Foulke, Gagne, Wagner, Bay, Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre. By doing so they’ve gotten 9 comp picks and 11 supplementary round picks. Many of the guys they let go were obtained (IMO) strictly or at least partly, for the chance to replenish the farm. Those include Gagne, Wagner, Bay, Beltre, V Martinez and Beltre who was a type B when signed by Boston and was also behind their interest in Capuano who believe it or not wasn’t that far away from becoming a type B at one point.
Their strategy is to get the year and a half (or month, whatever) while the player is seeking the big deal, then let someone else pay them the huge money while they replenish their farm so they can make the Adrian Gonzalez type deal or have a ready major leaguer for 5 years down the road.
Ellsbury, Clay Buckholtz, Jed Lawrie, Daniel Bard, Caleb Clay, and several of their top prospects, Bryce Brentz (A+, RF Wagner), Anthony Ranuado (RHP, A+ Bay), Henry Owens (R Victor Martinez)
This is nothing more than an effective plan to obtain extra late first round picks and as you can see it’s not one sided. The rich, the middle class (Toronto) and the poor (TB) so the same. Any good GM should be trying to obtain the best players for both this year and subsequent ones as well and this idea is available to all teams.
Toronto has four top prospects obtained in this manner and actually employed an even more interesting idea of trading for Miguel Olivo when they found out Colorado wasn’t picking up his option, AFTER the season had ended. They then paid Olivo’s buyout, let him go and got an extra pick in the late first round and all they gave up was the cost of his buyout. 500K. This is the sort of thing a smart GM can do at no expense, or very little to the present team. We could have been doing this too you know.
Colorado traded for Octavio Dotel mid season 2010, let him go and drafted Trevor Story a HS SS I was really hopeing we would take one pick after we took Fulmer with the pick we got for letting Feliciano go. Properly evaluating the risk/reward in making these decisions is what separates winning organizations from losing one’s regardless of what market a team is in. When just one guy can make such a huge difference in your draft every year having an extra chance or two to get him is a big deal and one that should be easier for a big market team in constant need of players like the Mets but is not limited to market size at all.
Tampa has 3 supp round or comp picks ranked among the 20 best players in the league in which they played and obtained 3 more in the Garza deal. These are the things Tampa has to do in order to compete. They have to get the picks and make the most of them or their dead in the water. You can’t have 1 or two teams in every division finishing 20+ games out year after year or we’ll be talking contraction for 10 MLB franchises or MLB will be propping them up forever.
Take Houston. They traded 4 prospects to Arizona for Valverde who played for them for 3 years and signed with Detroit. Houston got a first round and a supplemental round pick out of it. What they do with them is another matter but that’s a function of how good the front office is and how much they’ll spend on the draft and IFA’s but at least with the draft choices they have a chance, without them how would they ever put a good team out there? Even if they hit on their 1st and 2nd round selection every year they’ll never be able to have enough good players all at the same time to be relevant. They also won’t be able to hedge the two picks they could get against what other teams are offering at the deadline. People don’t realize it but Houston got FOUR terrific prospects in the Pence and Bourne deals which really gives them a shot to have a team in a couple of years. How much less would they have been offered if they were going to get nothing for Pence at the end of the year or next year or whenever he becomes a free agent?
For that matter what would the offer have been to Texas for Texeira without it having to be better than a comp and a sup pick? Texas with the work they’ve done internationally and in the draft was going to get there anyway but the haul they got for Tex is what really made them. Andrus, Feliz, Harrison really sped up the process and as far as I’m concerned really made the 2010 playoffs a LOT more interesting and enjoyable. Just imagine if it always came down to the NYY vs. Boston every single year?
Speaking of the NYY they really haven’t employed this strategy. Hughes, Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy (Pettite-Tom Gordan) were the only guys to my recollection that they selected with comp supp picks (that panned out) and they only have one top prospect in their system (Bichette-Javier Vazquez) but they could do it too.
We could have done the same thing. We gave Philly two picks for Wagner which they used as the two biggest pieces for Blanton and Halliday. We spent a #1 on a 40 year old LFer. We could have taken back a supplementary round pick for both Perez and Castillo and gotten two more by keeping Wagner for another month. We also spent a #1 on K-Rod and a #2 on Bay and prior to that we had spent three #1′s, three #2′s and two #2′s in the prior seven years. For a team that is so chronically short at 13 of the 40 spots on the 40 man roster every year this is criminal and is exactly the reason we always have so many holes. But again, it was the choice of the organization to sacrifice the future for the present emphasis on the word choice and it’s even gone both ways for us. We got Heilman and Wright in 2000 and that had nothing to do with what place we finished in, it had everything to do with WHO we lost (Hampton) Same with Glavine. We were damn lucky someone wanted to sign Glavine or we’d have one less good player on the team and we have another shot with Holt so even not being hip to innovative ways of adding to the future at least we got something going forward, if not we’d just have that many MORE holes to fill.
I know that Houston, Tampa ect are the least of our concerns but competitive balance is much more than just a trite little phrase. If teams that can’t afford to keep the stars they’ve developed don’t have that minimum cushion (the picks) to weigh offers against they’ll be forced to take less and that will just keep them irrelevant and eventually they’ll require more revenue sharing and ultimately dry up and blow away. On the other hand if a team like Milwaukee wants to blow out the farm and go for it they have that right and if Detroit wants to sign Valverde and Victor Martinez, knowing full well there’s a cost to be payed down the road that’s their right too. It’s good for baseball to have different teams in the mix.
All good organizations look toward both today AND tomorrow, maybe not both in the same year all the time but there’s a balance in there somewhere that’ll bite you in the *** if you consistently lean too far in one direction and the current system is a big help in keeping all teams, Rich, middle class or poor from tipping too far off the edge.
If there were no compensation picks due Reyes value would be even higher. That’s why Borass negotiated away the arbitration/comp picks for Beltran.
For the cream of the crop free agent comp picks aren’t a huge matter to give up so it’s not a gigantic matter with Reyes but given the choice every team would naturally like to keep their pick and they have to weigh losing it vs. the chance of Reyes missing 25+ games a year and then again vs. the money.
I think the new FO is much more concerned with the future than previous FO’s have been but signing Reyes to a reasonable (5/100) deal I would really hope would trump any thought of the two draft choices.
Remember, the new GM should get a look around before committing a lot of money right off the bat. That’s reasonable. It’s also reasonable that coming right on the heels of Crawfords deal, Alderson might want to wait like Cashman did with Jeter after Jeter’s terrific 2009. It’s also reasonable that Reyes 11 M option, as oppossed to his 20 M annual salary made a huge difference this off season. Not really the fault of draft pick compensation or Alderson but he did sign 13 guys for 13 M.
Hard to say he could have added another 9 M.
Coming off two injury marred seasons that effected his speed, hitting and defense, I’m not sure Reyes would have gotten more than a $12-14 million average last offseason. Too many questions, and back to back seasons of declining performance. He needed this MVP type season in 2011 to get back in the drivers seat and command $20+ million in my opinion.
Good points. The problem with FA compensation is that the rating system used by Elias is total BS. Relievers, especially closers that provide far less value to a team than starters or position players are often given type A status. These relievers are harmed as well since there are less teams willing to sign them because they don’t want to give up the picks. The whole compensation rating system MLB gives Elias to use (http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/10/stats-used-for.html) is completely outdated with the amount of new data we now have. There are additional problems like how a team can sign multiple type A’s but only give up 1 1st round pick such as the Yankees did in 2009.
Yep they had so many extra draft picks and STILL had to go and sign Crawford to fill a whole and missed the playoffs!
So what exactly did all those picks get them in the end?
Where is their Homegrown Cy Young winner?
Where is their Homegrown batting champ or HR king?
Where are they NOW?
I don’t think the Red Sox felt like they HAD to go out and get Crawford. I think they just wanted to get him. Maybe if the A Gon trade had occurred first they don’t sign him. Maybe they wanted to keep him away from the LAA. Who knows I’m just speculating but Crawford was an option for the Red Sox, not a neccesity.
They had OFers in Cameron, Ellsbury, Reddick and Drew who’s a free agent now so maybe they just decided to address the OF this year instead of next. They also traded their best OF prospect (AA) for Bedard and they probably just liked Crawford better than what the likely options were this off season.
Where are those guys? Good question. The Red Sox farm has been good due to having so many picks, not good due to great drafting. If they didn’t have all those picks they would have a pretty bad farm or they wouldn’t have acquired Schilling, Beckett, A. Gon, or Victor Martinez. They have given up a lot of top prospects though Hansley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, Kelly, Rizzo, Fuentes, David Murphy and they’ve given away some draft picks too on Drew, Lackey and Crawford.
They’ve still got some real good prospects in the farm but no where near as many and Lester, Lowrie, Bard, Ellsbury, Bucholtz, Youk, Pedroia, Lavarnway, Iglesias, Reddick, Paplebon is not a bad crop either especially when you factor in how many guys they traded from the farm and they did give up three first rounders in the last 4 years and have overall gotten about the results everyone else has since the steroid/greenie crackdown.
No they didn’t HAVE to go get him…but they did think enough of him to give up those comp picks you keep saying are so damn important!
It’s a classic example where they must have looked at the draft, Said you know what not much in it this year that we can get to, lets get the guy who we can count on for a few years and we will get what is there NEXT year!
If your good at picking talent in the draft then isn’t part of that knowing when the picks are not worth taking when a sure thing can be had that helps immediatly?
If your smart enough to pick when there is talent there aren’t you also smart enough to know when there isn’t enough to care about the picks you lose to get an allstar?
I never said it’s never worth doing. I just am flat out against doing it every year. That is what we’ve been doing. Since 1999 we’ve given away six #1 picks, four #2 picks and three #3′s and turned our nose up at 4 more #1′s. Only Ventura and Beltran were truly worth it from an onfield standpoint and Zeile was a decent use of a #1 as well but still. 17 picks on 3 guys who played a total of about 12 years?
I said many times that once your team is relatively built it even makes sense to sign a free agent, although I prefer the free agent power pitcher as opposed to an everyday player and I far prefer to look at every single player in both the Majors and the minors and trade for the guy I like the best rather than being limited to only those guys who’s teams let them go.
To be able to talk about everybody, you need a farm. If your happy overpaying for the Dunn’s and Lackey’s go right ahead.
Ok then prove it wasn’t worth doing that year…
How many picks have the phillies given away, You know for guys like Tom Gordon?
Please it’s so easy to make your argument when you ignore half the facts and don’t have to pick who to take with those picks your so concerned with…
And why talk about 1999 was Omar running the show then? You seem to be insistent on him having ZERO say back then….you know when he was head of international scouting where we got reyes and Draft picks where we got Wright?
Now you want to credit Omar for back then?
Well this was the best draft in years and they gave up a pick to a Division rival so they must have either really loved CC, really wanted to keep him away from someone else, hated their other options or a combination of all three.
I didn’t see too much of CC during the season so I can’t offer an opinion on him and I really didn’t even see him that much with Tampa but he did look chunkier to me than he did before. Not sure if that’s true or not.
I think he’ll rebound and play pretty well the next four years or so.
Point is THEY THOUGHT IT WAS WORTH IT!
WE THOUGHT it was worth it with Wagner…
WHAT IS SIMILAR pray tell?
US – In the race to get into the Playoffs!
2006 – Wagner – We picked 18th in draft that had only 3 AllStars in the first round and all were gone by pick 10! THIN DRAFT, LATE PICK!
2007 – Alou – We Picked 29th in a draft that had only 3 All Stars in the 1st round. Heyward being the latest one picked with the 14th pick. How did he do this year?
Boston – Picked 24th IN the race to make the Playoffs!
Who knows how many All Stars were selected but until you know your giving them a hell of a lot more credit than you gave Omar who at least knew the NOW KNOWN All Stars in the 1st round was gone by the time we picked!
Plenty of good players were drafted after our spot in 2006, which isn’t a late round pick either. It’s middle of the pack.
Plenty of good players were picked after our spot in 2007 as well.
A few like Jordan Zimmerman, Daniel Bard and Mike Stanton have been up for a couple of years. Most are just starting to get up here now while we’re still picking 13 guys off the scrap heap like we’ve been doing for years.
Most of the players who will be making the All Star game in the future just got up to the Majors.
The point is you knew Pedro, Wagner and Alou wouldn’t last long enough to get you to the kids from Latin America and you also knew you couldn’t back that age up with anything capable of stepping up so it was all just a big hope.
Hope that everyone stays healthy and you don’t need Brian Lawrence to start or Luis Ayala to close or Murphy to play LF cause if you do…….To Murphy’s credit he played pretty well in 2008 but he was only given 3 minor league games at LF before he came up so what really was the backup plan? WAS there even a backup plan? Who knows.
And why don’t you explain again why it was a good idea to sign Alou before SF had to decide to offer arb thereby ensuring that we would lose that pick instead of at least waiting a week to see if we could keep it?
In the 1st round? WHO?
Or is this 2nd-12th round hindsight your using to find a player here?
But I’ll play HOW MANY ALL STARS came out of that ENTIRE DRAFT!
Please tell us!
And in what rounds!
Cause if they all came in later rounds which means NO ONE THOUGHT MUCH of them then your just yapping about guys who were lucky and didn’t find success until AFTER they got drafted!
Before then EVERYONE thought they were scrubs not worth picking in the 1st! And I can prove it because NO ONE DID!
Bard 1st round # 28.
Zimmerman 2nd round # 67
Stanton 2nd round # 76.
There were plenty of other guys there too. PLENTY. These are just 1 starting pitcher, 1 reliever and 1 OFer.
Plenty of other good players there though, but without a draft pick………
Ahhh 2nd rounders…what I thought! And HIND-GENIUS!
Bard?
Really?
The guy with 5 saves to his name?
He’s better than Wagner who had 40 in one season?
Thats your idea of better than Wagner?
And two guys who scouted so poorly NO ONE thought much of them until the end of the 2nd round?
Really thats who your so upset about losing?
Jeez WHAT A BLUNDER! We lost out on 5 saves to get 40!
What a waste!
Glad you weren’t running the show then because we wouldn’t have made the LCS but we might have a setup man for all of 10 games this year!
Metsie Bard is a set up man in Boston. Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have closed for us and he was a classic Omar selection. College relief pitcher.
And yeah guys who went in the 2nd could have been higher on our board than someone else’s right?
Evaluating young talent was Omar’s forte wasn’t it? He couldn’t have made a better selection than another GM?
Please don’t under estimate Omar. He recognized the talent in Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez and Sammy Sosa.
He couldn’t have done the same in the 2006 and 2007 drafts?
Yeah would Bard have gotten us that save you blame Wagner for not getting?
The guy has played in how many games IN HIS CAREER?
He hasn’t done SQUAT!
In his ENTIRE CAREER he has not done even a 10th of what Wagner did in ONE SEASON for us!
And what was the problem Boston had this year?
PITCHING wasn’t it?
You think Bard hasn’t done anything because you only look at stats.
Bard will probably be taking over for Papplebon as Red Sox closer next year and would be the best reliever in our pen, by far if we had him.
I think Bard hasn’t done anything because he is just breaking into the MLB now 5 years after the draft he was in!
And maybe he will be the next Wagner all you have is a PROBABLY which is good a prediction as Probably NOT!
Wagner helped us right then and there!
Got us into a playoffs…
Would Bard have done that for us?
NO!
Would he get us into one today now that he IS breaking into the MLB?
NO!
So 5 more years maybe before he would equal Wagner and thats giving up a playoff for something 10 years away!
Bard’s been in the Majors for 3 years.
Pitched pretty damn well and in a pretty small home field too.
If Boston called all 29 other teams in MLB they’d all be interested in talking about Bard. Much more so than anyone we have in the pen.
Wow a whole 192 games!
WOW!
5 saves Dude!
He isn’t even a closer he is at best Aaron Hielman to this point!
FIVE YEARS LATER!
Agee – I’m not totally disagreeing with you, and I thank you for bringing this debate to the forefront where we can all exchange ideas on this largely ignored topic.
As for the Red Sox, I find it was more incidental than planned.
You wrote:
They’ve purposely targeted players anywhere from a year and half to one month away from free agency…Since 2005 they’ve let the following players go Pedro, Cabrerra, Lowe, Damon, Mueller, Foulke, Gagne, Wagner, Bay, Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre. By doing so they’ve gotten 9 comp picks and 11 supplementary round picks.
When they traded for and signed Pedro Martinez in 1998, I’m certain it had nothing to do with him being a Type A free agent in 2004. They let him go because he just completed his worst season of his career.
When they traded for Cabrera they gave up Garciaparra who also ended up netting the Cubs a comp pick, so that’s a wash and doesn’t support the theory it was part of Comp Pick strategy.
Derek Lowe was a Red Sox for nine years before he became a free agent and I would venture that after a season with a 5.49 ERA and 1.67 WHIP he was not a Type A or Type B anyway. He certainly wasn’t targeted from Seattle eight years earlier for draft comp purposes.
You cite Damon and Foulke as being targeted for draft pick compensation, but it was the Red Sox who also lost first round draft picks for signing them as free agents.
Wagner is a strange case too because when they made the trade they verbally agreed not to offer Wagner arbitration which then they offered him arbitration anyway. Wagner could have vetoed the trade because he had a full no-trade clause and okayed it.
Anyway, I don’t see this free agent comp situation being used as a strategy to build a farm system because it’s hard to predict what players will do in future seasons to begin with let alone expend resources on these players because they will somehow help you stockpile future picks 1-3 years down the road.
99.9% of all free agent signings are done for the hope and benefit of immediate impact and value and I see nothing here that will make me believe otherwise.
I’ve never once heard of a situation that any free agent was signed because there was a chance he might net the team a comp pick down the road. That would be like telling a free agent we’re signing you, but not because we really want you, we just want the pick you might get for us if you post a decent season.
Joe, I agree, good topic. Let me try to explain. The guys I identified as either partly or completely due to the picks they could garner were Gagne, Wagner, Victor Martinez, Jason Bay and Adrian Beltre. Basically one guy every year from 2007-2010. They even picked up Felipe Lopez last year after he was cut by St. Louis on the off hand chance that Lopez could leave behind a supplementary round pick as a type B with an expiring contract.
I don’t think that Pedro, Lowe, Foulke, Schilling ect were acquired partly or solely for that reason but even after 2004 I’m sure they thought Renteria was an upgrade over Cabrerra but still and all the move cost them one pick, but got them two. I believe that was part of the thinking.
Teams that do a lot of trading have to find a way to fund it. Atlanta funds a lot of their trades through the IFA market. Even if their trading a kid who came from the draft, their able to do so because their hitting big every year internationally.
If your a consistent winning organization your always excluded from the cream of the crop but prospect wise there is a lot strength in numbers cause it is a crap shoot but what can also happen is you have too many kids that you would like to protect from rule 5 poachers so better to trade a guy (or 2 or 3) your likely to lose and get something for him at exactly the point in your trade targets life where he’s looking to get a big contract and have that player perform for you for a month to a year and a half and turn that player into the 50th and/or 60th best amateur prospect in the Country who doesn’t have to go onto the 40 man roster for 3-4 years.
Keeps the whole value chain going and replenishes your farm with fresh stock in which to make the Adrian Gonzalez type deals.
Two of the players in the Gagne deal would have had to be protected or lost. Both of the guys in the Wagner deal and they really didn’t have a true need for either at the time of the deal. In the case of Victor Martinez they traded two guys who were supplemental choices and another who was a 2nd rounder all of whom are doing well but in the thought process behind the trade Theo knew he could address a need on the 25 now and almost certainly get back a first rounder and a supplemental round pick in two years and have Martinez when he’s looking to score the big deal, not after he already got it.
Bay was probably the best they could make out of the Manny situation but basically they turned Manny’s distractions into Bay for a year and a half, and then into a supplemental and a second round choice. Our headaches turn into salary dumps, get designated for assignment or turn into lifelong annuities. They could wind up benefitting from the Martinez and Bay deals for a long long time, or they could trade those draftees for Felix Hernandez.
Adrian Beltre was an opportunity that came along. Beltre’s value had slipped playing in cavernous Safeco and he was a type B. Cost Boston nothing to acquire. I believe he got 10M 1 year deal with a player option for the same. Basically Theo guaranteed him 20 M or he could opt out if he had a big year. Big right bat, little Fenway park, monster lineup. Good gamble he’d reestablish himself pretty quick wouldn’t you say? Boston didn’t really even need a 3rd basemen. They had Youk Lowell and Lowrie but getting Beltre for nothing and then getting two #1 picks for him helps fund the types of trades that helped Boston win their two championships.
Guys like Pedro, Schilling, Adrian Gonzalez, Beckett are 3 and four top prospect deals. How does a team drafting 25th or so acquire enough top prospects to make those deals and maybe keep some guys for themselves and occasionally give some #1 picks up for free agents?
They recycle guys into supplementary round draft choices and compensation picks. Not saying that that is in anyway the sole reason for all of these moves but it certainly was the underlying reason and in my opinion the reason in full for Gagne, Wagner, the interest in Capuano when it appeared he may be a type B and even in picking up Felipe Lopez last year.
Neither Gagne, Wagner, Capuano, Beltre or Lopez were true needs and they did all have one thing in common. An expiring contract, as did Martinez and Bay in a year and a half and even though Theo quasi offered Bay a deal that was easy for Bay to turn down and then when Bay reconsidered Theo put some restrictions in it, insisted he have Knee surgery the Red Sox own DR. said was not needed and he wouldn’t guarantee the deal if there was a shoulder issue blah, blah, blah. He basically just dicked around with him and he didn’t even make the pretense of an offer with any of the other guys because the real value wasn’t in keeping them, it was in letting them go. I know Capuano shouldn’t be on that list and Lopez didn’t make type B but I’m including them because that’s what was behind the interest in getting or possibly getting those two.
Tell me if you were a Major League GM in a big market with a winning team, how are you going to be able to keep getting top prospects to keep your franchise winning? IFA is big but once you start dealing those guys the pool starts shrinking cause they take 7-8 years on average. 3-4 just to get to A+. You need to provide some of your own prospects too so where do you get an extra six top prospects to pick up a Felix Hernandez (and keep the NYY from getting him)?
You get a good player for your team now and within two years you get a couple new prospects out of either the first, supplemental or 2nd round where 40% of the most valued prospects in the minor leagues are found every year.
The red sox have been turning good players into good prospects and getting good play or other good players out of them for a while, we’ve been turning our #1 and #2 picks into salary dumps or watching them ride off into retirement without leaving behind so much as a nickel.
About Wagner Joe,
That trade was held up for a while. I believe part of the reason was someone put a claim in on Chris Carter, but Boston agreed not to pick up Wagners option (I think Wagner had already decided where he wanted to go) and Wagner agreed to waive his no trade. Even the reports of the trade said that Boston had the right to offer arb. Maybe Wagner tried to get them to not do so and I wouldn’t put it past the Wilpon’s to have made that verbal offer because it would be two less signing bonuses they would have to pay but no one else would give the picks away for nothing. In this day and age of unions, CBA’s, agents, lockouts, grievances and all the other stuff that goes on in sports I cannot see where a team gets off giving up valuable assets for nothing and by a verbal agreement in a world ruled by a CBA? Can’t see it.
What did Boston owe Wagner anyway? Boston agreed not to pick up the option, Billy agreed to drop the no trade and went there for the last month and the playoffs. Boston got the picks. One of them is starting pitcher Anthony Ranuado in A+, probably about 10th on their top 10 but plenty of god players were available with those draft choices. The 20th and 39th picks in any draft always have a ton of value and give you a great chance of getting two guys who will be here for 6-10 years.
insane assumption about reyes
Inane assumption about Reyes? Really? You think it’s inane to say that a first round pick and a sandwich round pick would be a big consideration to a GM when determining whether or not to re-sign their own free agent?
martin, I put up with you because I think you’re funny. But sometimes your lack of insight and logic are real head-scratchers. I expect more from an intellectual like you.
why would reyes refuse to test the free agent market, where he stands to make massive money? he doesnt care about the picks!
Maybe because he knows he won’t get as much there as he might from us BECAUSE we don’t have to give up any picks to get him?
And it should be noted that Reyes recently complained about the Mets not contacting him yet about his contract status despite the fact that Free Agency hasn’t even started yet!
again, you are just being an idiot if you think reyes or his agent would have signed before testing free agency. the money they had to gain is enormous. you might have noticed that this is what players do, they count the days until free agency and then cash in.
And your an idiot for not paying attention to the news and just making up your own WARPED view of reality as you would like to see it!
Reyes complained they did not contact him yet…
Why would he care if he never intended to sign before testing the market?
Why would he care about an offer you say he would NEVER ACCEPT!
Reyes did not COMPLAIN he stated to Nick Klopsis of Newsday that the Mets had not contacted him yet, that is not complaining that is just stating what is going soon.
Do you know the difference between a statement and an actual complaint?
No wonder you twist what everyone says to your own agenda
Did you read the article at all?
I did, I see you did not.
Did you read the part where he wondered WHY he hasn’t heard from them yet?
Because he gave the Mets a deadline to sign him before spring training that’s why. Get your head out the sand, martin.
the mets dreadfully mismanage comp picks. billy wagner and oliver perez come to mind. perez was less valubale to the mets than any other team because only they stood to gain from not signing him. but omar was an idiot. not enough sabre analysis.
Wasn’t David Wright a compensation pick in the supplemental draft acquired from the Rockies, who signed Mike Hampton?
I think FA compensation is an important component in the effort to level the playing field b/w the haves and have-nots in baseball, given the absence of a salary cap.
Whoever says it doesn’t work hasn’t observed the Florida Marlins re-stock twice.
Personally, I think a salary cap would be great for baseball. I love the NFL’s competitive parity. But I don’t think that’s going to happen unless the sport caves from within, which it might. If they do away with the FA compensation picks, the disparity b/w the rich and poor become even greater and the teams that field a competitive balance are reduced to a small few.
Man, I miss the Pirates, Reds, Orioles & Royals being in the playoffs, and I’m a die-hard Met fan.
Please don’t get me started on Omar…not now.
Please start. Head to the shout box and I will fix the media issues fogging your thought process regarding Omar Minaya.
Saber, not sabre.
Valuable not valubale.
Capitalize much?
do you even know what sabre stands for?
Edited for Comment Guidelines violation.
Do YOU? You accused Omar of either being a bad sword analyst!
If you mean the society for american baseball research please enlighten us all about how smart you are and tell us what the E in SABRE stands for!
Perhaps the “E” stands for EMBARASSED which is what you shoud be right about now!
it is because i know what it stands for that i spell it that way, fella. the E is in rEsearch, which is after the R, isnt it, guy. perhaps you do not understand acronyms.
Yeah thats why thier logo and Web Domain have ne presence of E in it whatsoever!
http://sabr.org/
Funny no E’s in there…
martin for a guy who loves to play Spelling Gestapo and Grammar Police on this site, I’m shocked that you can’t handle what you’ve been dishing out for years. Really? Seriously?
I find that most of those who comment on Grammar and spelling usually do so because they need to change the subject and hide the point made with the misspelling and bad grammar! lol
Always been that way Metsie. If readers come here looking for Pulitzer Prize material, they’ve lost their way. lol
Yeah well at least they are good at spelling and grammer because those same folks are just plain AWFUL at current events and statistical analysis!
LOL
I’m going to start by saying I didn’t read every comment. Omarfan. Not every alderson fan hates Omar. Me for instance. Omar deviated from his plan. I don’t like when sandy detractors crucify him when there intent is clearly geared towards the wilpons. Sandy is a smart guy. An ivy league law grad who was a marine. As far as I’m concerned he contributes more to society each tine he autographs the back of a urinal than most participants of this site. With all do respect. Joe D., there’s nothing small market about looking toward the future with compensation picks. It’s smart baseball IF done correctly.
Omar played a huge part in them missing the playoffs in 2007 and 2008. Partly by not seeing the current problems in the off season, but largely for not aggressively filling holes at the trade deadline.
If ownership had allowed Omar to acquire Manny Ramirez in 2008, we make the playoffs without a concern in the world.
As for 2007, Omar had no idea Duaner Sanchez would be finished as a pro. Delgado’s injuries certainly didn’t help.
I guess Wren and Epstein deserve to be fired for their collective collapses this year. They were FAR worse than anything Omar went thru.
Duaner Sanchez was hurt at the end of the 06 season, and he’s ONE BP pitcher, he should have had a back up plan and added instead of subtracted to the bullpen.
Henry Owens and Matt Lindstrom for Jason Vargas and Adam Bostick WOW that worked out well
Brian Bannister for the criminal Ambiorix Burgos – even better.
Does Manny Ramierz come out of the bullpen? How would he had stopped the bullpen from blowing games at record rates?
And Chris Young got hurt this year, Did SABDY have a backup plan or did he just revert to Omars Acquired plan?
Ike Davis got hurt who got HIS backup?
Sandy Traded away K-Rod! What backup plan did he have? Isringhausen and Parnell??
Thos KNIVES you Omar hater wield cuts both ways you know!
Pay attention, I was responding to your boy Omarlover.
Omar is gone, for good reason, get over it, move along…….
Omar is gone, for good reason, get over it, move along…….
JoeSmith, I agree. I liked Omar, but he’s gone. Criticize or praise Alderson on his own merits. Forget all this Omar talk, he’s gone. How can you move forward when you keep looking behind you? And it’s not like all the crying in the world is going to bring Omar back. Enough already. Let’s talk baseball, let’s talk Mets.
OmarFan – You know you are on moderation and you still use profanity knowing full well I will not approve those comments. What’s the deal?? You have some good points, but you communicate them in the most boorish ways. Play nice.
Joe D – agreed and that same point should be made clear about bringing up Alderson and his previous employ, he’s with the Mets now and I WISH that everyone would give a fair shake.
Terry Francona had a .440 winning percentage in Philly, then went to Boston and was successful.
The negative talk and assumption that Alderson will be bad because of where he came from is as irrational as assuming someone form the 86 Mets team will be the savior of the Mets going forward, we know that’s not true, i.e. Howard Johnson.
Joe D says:
October 16, 2011 at 6:31 pm
“Criticize or praise Alderson on his own merits. Forget all this Omar talk, he’s gone. How can you move forward when you keep looking behind you? And it’s not like all the crying in the world is going to bring Omar back. Enough already. Let’s talk baseball, let’s talk Mets.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
JoeSmith says:
October 16, 2011 at 8:36 pm
“Joe D – agreed and that same point should be made clear about bringing up Alderson and his previous employ, he’s with the Mets now and I WISH that everyone would give a fair shake.”
In a Professor Higgins voice:
“By Joes, I think you’s got it!
I agree with that sentiment Joe…
But I will go on record now saying anyone who wants to criticize Omar for certain moves and situations had better expect those same knocks will be applied to Sandy equally!
Not because I don’t want to be fair to Sandy…
But because FAIRNESS is an equal opportunity that should be applied the same to EVERY GM not just the ones you don’t like and not exempting those you do!
I am giving Sandy three years to show me something.
First year is a free one. It’s wher he starts and year two will be judged based on that.
Second year will be either better or worse. He gets year three to break the tie and get another year or get out!
I don’t ask for a WS in that time nor do I demand a playoff.
But by year three if this team is not any better then I will say he failed!
If marginally improved then maybe I give him year 4!
After that WIn or get out!
I’m not giving him 12 years the way some want him to take to fix this team.
No need for that!
And I was responding to you…you wish to slam him personally with bullcrap call him on the phone so others don’t respond to your crap and call it out for the crap it is!!
You want to blame Omar for Snachez then it’s fair game to blame Sandy for Young!
So you thought Minaya should have spent even more at the trade deadlines than he already had? I actually agree but aren’t you the one who keeps complaining about spending??? I agree he should have gone after Halladay, Lee, etc. when he had the chance. I’m sure Phillies fans dont anguish like they do on this site saying Amaro sucks because he spends too much money.
I don’t care about spending. And I wasn’t talking about taking on huge deals. Simple stuff, like an extra bat for the bench, but mostly reinforcements for the pen
At the deadline?
How many kids do you have to give away to get secondary BENCH players?
How many STARS do you have to sell to get them in bulk?
And when was he supposed to do that? 2006-2008?
Didn’t he do PRECISELY that?
Isn’t he taken to task for trading Nady amnd Dotel to supplement?
It is those MINOR signings and trade supplements that are the ones who usually fail the most!
Hairston, Harris, GMJ, Barajas, Cora, Escobar, Francouer Et Al.
And WHile BAY and PEREZ were two bad signings those are just TWO Major purchases when compared to the Pedro, Beltran, Santana, Rodriguez Reyes, and Wright. (yes K-Rod was a trade but it’s still taking on Salary which is not any different in regards to spending as getting one via FA is!)
The other BAD CONTRACT everyone talks about was acquired in precisly the manner you suggest!
Castillo was a mid season pickup and then resigned.
I think some folks just look at Bay and Perez and then think EVERY DEAL turns out that way because they forget what happens when you go and sign SOMEONE REALLY GOOD as opposed to buying just because everyone says you need to!
Omar was goaded into buying into Bay. The media the Fans all DEMANDED he sign them.
And once he did and it didnt’t pan out they blame Omar for listening to them!
Why should we listen to those same people now?
The media and fans did not demand that Omar do anything. Omar did what he did, just like every other GM and K-Rod was not a trade and Dotel was traded in 2000.
Omar was also NOT “taken to task” over the Nady deal.
He was universally applauded for bringing Roberto Hernandez back here after Sanchez got hurt.
Any GM that listens to the fans is a moron anyway and I highly doubt that Omar felt pressured by anyone to make the moves he did. He did what he felt was best and while working for an ownership that holds numerous things at a higher level other than winning.
Please try to be a little more accurate in your “facts.”
No I guess you didn’t read the papers when they complained that signing Bay took TOO LONG!
Good example, and now we can’t get rid of him.
Keep advocating for more and more “proven Major leaguers” like Bay and we’ll be in 5th place before long.
Thats why GMs should never implement plans or moved created and suggested BY THE FANS!
Like never buy just lose for 12 years and rebuild from scratch ideas!
“How can a team who plays in the grandest and richest sports market in the world spend one second worrying about what was intended to help small market teams like the Oakland A’s and Kansas City Royals?”
Ah, the old “big market” arguement as to why the Mets should do certain things.
Well, the spent “big market” money on a stadium (things are expensive in NY), and took on debt commensurate with that. But, they have been drawing like a small market team.
so while in theory they should be drowning in all the money from this grand, rich market, they are only bringing in enough to support a payroll in the 110 range (from the most reliable seeming reports). Combine that with having about 40% of that already tied up in effectively dead assets this year (Santana and bay), and a lack of top tier ML ready prospects, and you have the need to add some risk/reward guys to try and compete this season.
“But, they have been drawing like a small market team.”
And that has to do with compensatory draft picks how?
Getting new blood 7 years from now fixes that how?
Truth is it has to do with not winning ballgames now and hoarding compensatory picks can’t fix that issue!
Like I said to Tag if you think the GM is smart enough to pick correctly in the biggest crapshoot of the MLB talent pool why do you also think that he will blunder money away in FA where the return is much more measured, proven and immediate?
You know I see Tag using Red Sox as a fine example but why doesn’t anyone look at the Yankees?
Yankees sign the most Type A FAs and net comp picks for letting them go when they are done with them or have those COMPS offset whatever they would have lost by signing the next Type A FA!
in 2006 Yankees lost a pick for signing Damon and gained a pick for letting Tom Gordon go!
Who got the better return on that deal?
They got Ian Kennedy and Johnny Damon in exchange for Tom Gordon and Daniel Bard!
I think some may fail to realize than in order to GET compensatory picks you have to have the Type A players who will get them for you!
And rarely is that accomplished by a homegrown player. Cause if he is homegrown you probably keep him anyway!
It’s always about the Big FA you signed a few years back who you pass on and let go someplace else that usually gets you those COMP picks!
And in years that you do it seems a lot better to BUY that year as the net loss in picks is ZERO and you get an even better player that helps you immediatly than the kid who probably won’t get here until he is 24 or 25!
you have to have money to spend if you want to sign the expensive players.
And the Wilpons have 300 Mil of someone else’s money if you have forgotten!
Which makes you more money?
Keeping Reyes and maintaining attendance or not paying him and losing 30 more mil a year because no one shows up, eats, pays for parking, subsidizes all those people they have to pay regardless if you show up or not?
Lets just say for arguments sake we went and paid 50 for Fielder (not suggesting we do just using him as an example cause he is one guy available this year)
Youdon’t think he will generate far more than his Salary in attendance and concession sales?
They would make his salary on Jersey’s sales alone! (The fact his personal uni probably costs twice the cost in materials so he can fit into it aside! LOL)
Lets face facts Any, If people didn’t go in droves to see us when Reyes was here how the hell are you ever going to solve the money issue you percieve exists without him?
Are more people going to go to games if Tejada is our SS? More than would go to see Reyes?
You know it’s an entertainment business whether you acknowledge that or not!
It is as STAR DRIVEN as any movie you went to see in the past 5 years!
Would IronMan be the hit it was if Bruce Campbell was the lead and not Robert Downey Jr?
Would anyone have gone to see it?
Would there even be a sequel?
Winning helps drive attendance but only because if your winning you PROBABLY have some STAR POWER on the team!
And while you CAN develop STARS it takes far longer, plenty of years and you have only a 5% success rate considering how many guys you draft in a year that actually turn out to BE THAT STAR DRAW!
That is completely incorrect Metsie.
It is ALWAYS your own homegrown player who nets you comp picks unless you trade for a guy before he becomes a free agent. With the steroid/greenie era ending you won’t be seeing any 36 year olds signing 5 year deals anymore. The only guys who’ll double dip are guys who get up here at 20 or 21. There aren’t too many of those guys around.
Supplementary round picks are a different matter entirely. One relief pitcher signed to a 1 year deal for 5 straight years could be a type B free agent every single year. The signing team doesn’t care. The team letting him go is probably psyched to see him go. He wasn’t going to last forever. Now they get to draft the 45th or so best amateur prospect in the entire country who just might be a superstar for them for 6-10 years and they just go out and sign a different relief pitcher to a one year deal and hope that he becomes a type B as well.
Yeah was Glavine a home grown player when we got Comp Picks?
Please Tag we are not STUPID here!
There are a couple of exceptions here and there but unless you traded for the free agent before hand, very very few guys, especially in the post steroid era will sign two big free agent deals.
Beltran will and Reyes could very well also but the vast vast majority of players will sign one 4-7 year deal at 31 or 32 and then either retire or go sign a smaller deal most often not as a type A.
Hmmm lets look at history to decide how true your statement is…
2009
O Hudson – Homegrown?
F Rodriguez – Homegrown!
M Texiera – Homegrown?
R Ibanez – Homegrown?
B Fuentes – Homegrown?
2010
C Figgins – Homegrown!
J Valverde – Homegrown?
B Wagner – Homegrown?
J Lackey – Homegrown!
2011
V Martinez – Homegrown?
A Dunn – Homegrown?
C Crawford – Homegrown!
A Beltre – Homegrown?
R Soriano – Homegrown?
C Lee – Homegrown?
Hmm lets see 15 Type A free agents the last 3 years.
4 of them were homegrown
11 were NOT!
And you think 11 was the exception not the RULE!
And you want us to take what you say seriously on issues of Free Agency and Pick compensation?
Maybe you should look at it first!
Not just from the Baseball America perpective but the MLB perspective which is what the GMs who makes the decision do!
I did say unless they were traded before they became a free agent. In otherwords before they had the required 6 years so all those guys that you listed other than Hudson who went year to year for a few seasons represent exactly what I said.
Beltre tripled dipped, but that was more due to him being ruled a free agent early because the Dodgers signed him before he was 16 and then he spent a year with Boston trying to reestablish his value.
With the steroid era now over free agents are going to be getting one crack at free agency, not two except for the guys like Reyes and Beltran who get up here at 20 or 21 except in certain situations like Beltre’s. That means they were homegrown or traded within their first 6 years.
Oh please Tag…
“very very few guys, especially in the post steroid era will sign two big free agent deals.”
Actually most guys of Type A Ststus will sign two big FA deals!
Because they are that good and wanted!
Bottomline here is you tried to imply most TypeAs were homegrown…Not the case!
Yes you left your self an exception…
They are HOMEGROWN except in cases where they are NOT Homegrown!
And then went onto say there were very very few of those exceptions in a round about way!
If this is just an excersize in Semantics then no sense in discussing it any further…
“The same teams you’ll find at the top of the food chain; large market teams like the Red Sox, Yankees and some team that that won the NL Championship in 2000 and got David Wright as a comp pick the following June.”
And huge big market teams like the Rays, Rangers, etc etc
In case you didn’t notice, payroll doesn’t seem to guarantee a playoff spot or success if you do win one.
Yeah and the red Sox and Yankees INDIVIDUALLY have won more WS titles than both your teams COMBINED!
You could even add MORE cheap teams that won and they STILL combined wold have less WS wins than the Yankees!
What is it with you and the Yankees?
We get it, you’re another Yankees fan troll. Why do you need to come here and cheerlead for them?
What is it with you and LOW PAYROLL?
You seem to think the lower the payroll the better and I’m using the Yankees as examples to show you just how WRONG your dumb CHEAP payroll points are!
You say teams with low PAYROLL win the WS! Sure they do…But not as often as teams that SPEND MONEY do!
Only reason to really CARE how much the Mets spend is if your name is Jeff Wilpon and your worried about your inheritance because your too stupid to make your own fortune!
cheap teams win…EXPENSIVE TEAMS WIN MORE!
Thats why they pay what they do because it pays for itself in WS wins and Ticket Sales!
Something you CHEAP MISERS simply do not get!
“In case you didn’t notice, payroll doesn’t seem to guarantee a playoff spot or success if you do win one.”
How does this statement equal wanting to be cheap?
I love how you guys twist everything because it’s either all or nothing.
Wise spending wins, not expensive spending or cheap spending WISE spending..
Simple …read his other posts and look at the examples he cites to prove his point!
No it doesn’t guarantee success or playoffs but if you spend you get more success and more playoffs than teams that don’t!
Wise spending…what exactly is Wise Spending?
How much is the cutoff before Wise Spending is too much spending?
You see your side of this SPENDING Argument seems to be under the impression that if you spend over 160 Mill your NOT spending wisely when the results PROVE the more you spend the more you win!
How many Playoffs have the Yankees been to in the last 20 years!
How many have the WISE SPENDING A’s been to? How many has Texas and the Rays been to?
Have they even been to as many playoffs as the yankees have won WS?