No time for personal feelings or what happened in the past – it’s about one thing – WINNING….and If K-Rod is the best option out there and the Mets can afford him than sign me up. Do it.

Look at the list of the best closers in the league year to year. Notice the turnover in the leaders in SV%, WHIP, K/9 etc etc. The top 10 each year is noticeably different.

” but you almost need a good closer(s) to make the post season.”

See, that is a chicken or egg question to me. Are these teams going to the playoffs because they have a good closer, or do closers look good because they are on playoff teams?

And that is only half of the problem I have with the idea of closers.

Once again, you hit the nail on the head.

Thanks Fred & Jeff.
Sigh……

I’d never consider a closer to be worth more than a top 1 or 2 Starter…but one lesson my Dad taught us…something only has worth if someone is willing to pay the price. Sadly, looking at what closers are getting, a four year deal worth +$10mil is what the market is set at.

Is Papelbon worth 4 years $50mil? I don’t consider him any better than K-Rod but the contracts are very similar expect Papelbon gets more money guaranteed with an easy vesting option on games pitched for his option year.

Is Bell worth (especially at his age worth 3 years at 27mil? Joe Nathan coming of surgery worth two years $14.5mil? The market is just nuts.

As strange as it seems, closers are harder to come by then we’d like to think and get burned out much faster starters, but you almost need a good closer(s) to make the post season.

How am I using hindsight if I said that before they fell apart?

I knew once their pitching came back to earth, they would fall apart because their offense wasn’t really good at all.

Anyway, the Mets were not going to make the playoffs with K-Rod closing, and at least they found out that Parnell was not the answer to the closing problem in 2012.

One problem I have is, K-Rod (at least said) he was willing to rework his contract so they could dump the option and keep him for a few more years are a reasonable price. I don’t know what K-Rods perception and the Mets perception of reasonable is, but you’d think they’d talk first. Though I have to think that when K-Rods agent dropped the ball and never submitted his list of “no-trade” Teams Sandy jumped at the deal as quickly as he could.

I know I’ll get hammered for this, but I really think at while the 17mil option was really expensive, if you look at the deal as a hole, it wasn’t that bad of a contract. It was really a 4 year deal worth about 13-14mil per year….for a top tier closer in him prime, that’s not a bad deal, especially seeing that the option was built to protect the Mets if K-Rod turned into a huge bust. Who knew that the Mets would plan have to dump 40mil in payroll this year when the deal was originally made?

Sadly, Sandy punted last year…the season tanked, fans are discouraged and we have no closer and even us most optimistic have no reason to believe that next year will be better. If we only finished even a few games over .500 and resigned Reyes and maybe a solid starter, then we’d have a much better outlook in Metsville…maybe at least, they’d be able to sell some season tickets.