13
2012
The Jason Bay Experiment Has Run It’s Course
An article by 
There are times when I think Omar Minaya takes a lot more flack than he should. During his tenure he did everything in his power to produce a winning ball club. He signed a lot of free agents to numerous big money contracts and for the most part I agreed with his decisions. I was even on board for most of his questionable ones. Due to a lack of better options at the time, I was even okay with the decisions surrounding Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo. However, the one move he did make that I was completely against was the four year, sixty-six million dollar contract to Jason Bay.
There was something that just didn’t sit right for me when it came to Bay. Acquired at the age of thirty, I thought it was foolish to commit so much money to a right-handed batter who had spent the previous year and a half hitting into the green monster in Boston. It just didn’t see logical to bring that swing to Citi Field where long fly balls went to die. However, even at that point I couldn’t predict in my wildest dreams how bad things would really be.
The 2004 NL Rookie Of The Year was brought in with the intention of locking down the heart of the Mets lineup for the foreseeable future. Instead, Bay has provided only twenty-one home runs in more than 850 at-bats. That is one home run every 41 at-bats…A far cry from the home run every 18 at-bat pace Bay boasted prior to arriving in Queens. Power numbers aren’t the only problem though. Since joining the Mets, Bay has hit for a sub-par .233 batting average. That’s a full 40 points lower than his career average, which has been significantly lowered in recent years.
Coming into this season, it was logical to keep Jason on the roster. The Mets outfield had more questions than answers and there was a minimum of $32 million dollars remaining on the former slugger’s salary. Combine those factors with the idea that the reduced Citi Field dimensions would help his power woes and it simply didn’t make sense to cut him. Half way through the 2012 season and its become apparent that Jason Bay’s presence in New York is doomed. Hindered by injury once again, his season remains devoid of any promise of the player we once envisioned. Add to that the fact that his redeeming quality, his defense, has abandoned him on multiple occasions in the few games he has managed to play, and there are far fewer reasons to keep Bay around.
Upon completion of the 2012 season, Bay can no longer hide behind the outfield depth concerns the Mets currently embrace. The promotion of Matt Den Dekker to AAA Buffalo would infer that he should challenge for the starting center field position next spring. Assuming the team doesn’t renew the contract of Andres Torres, one might think that Den Dekker would push Kirk Nieuwenhuis to left field. What happens to Bay then?
Despite the fact that we have a small sample size with regards to Kirk’s abilities, he seems more than capable to replace Jason Bay’s offensive production in left field…and for a small fraction of the price. Jason Bay has had more than enough time to turn his Mets’ tenure around and his most recent 0 for 16 slump since returning from the disabled list is less than inspiring. Jason Bay may be the consummate professional and he may be an above average left fielder, but the time is quickly approaching for the Mets’ organization to realize that the future is much brighter without him in the mix. There is no doubt that the more than $16 million dollars remaining on Bay’s salary will be a hard pill to swallow for our cash strapped ownership group, but the idea of cutting Bay has to be creeping into the minds of the Mets brass. Ultimately, such a move makes more sense next spring than right now, but it remains obvious that Jason Bay’s days in the New York Mets uniform are numbered..for better or worse.
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About the Author: Rob Patterson
Ultimately, I owe nearly thirty years of Mets related torture to my mother, who is the reason I became a fan. I was too young to remember the 86 run, but hope to see one I'll be able to recall much sooner than later. I enjoy writing about the team and welcome your feedback on my posts. Oh..and I am not with 28!
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One of the ways we boldly go where we haven’t been in a while is with Captain Kirk. Bay is a useless rally killer. I like his defense but he’s killing us at the plate.
While I agree Jason Bay has to be platooned for now and off the team soon, there is no experiment here. You don’t pay that much money for an experiment. The Mets surely are caught here between a get nothing and got nothing. It’s easy for us to say release him the money is wasted but man that has to be tough for an owner to do. I mentioned in the desert about maybe seeing if you could trade him for Figgins. Figgins might be even worse than Bay but he would be much more useful to our team. He could play the IF positions and has speed IF he ever gets on base. That would allow for Hairston to see most of the AB’s vs LH. Figgins is owed around 9M this year and 8M next with a vesting option that I am sure the Mets would never have to let vest. Seattle would get a home town guy who hopefully would be rejuvenated in Seattle and rid of their feel bad contract.
Don’t look now, but the Pirates are currently a game off the division despite zero offense. Maybe……..eat some money……..homecoming of a different sort……..stranger things have happened.
True but I think you would have to eat a lot of cash, their payroll already takes a significant jump next year with some of their arby guys finally getting paid. I am guessing it might even take a GMJR type deal to get rid of him.
In his last season in Anaheim, GMJ hit .250/.336/.361 and struck out far less often than Bay does. If they can literally give GMJ away for that…….
Of course GMJR was disgruntle as well.
Heh………how about a couple million disgruntled Mets fans?
Check this out….. http://www.piratesprospects.com/2012/01/early-look-at-the-pittsburgh-pirates-2013-payroll.html
Figure McDonald will get a little more, but Barajas likely won’t get picked up and Cutch’s 2013 salary with the new extension is only $4.5 mil, which is less than his arby estimate. So figure the Pirates are around $50 mil without Bay. The Mets may only have to eat half, which is fine with me.
I saw BR has them at around 64 after arbitration and option cost.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PIT/2012-roster.shtml
Even if we went with the $67 from BR, eating half of Bay would put them at $75. IF they think that’s too much, maybe they should revisit the $9 mil they’re paying Barmes and Barajas this season. Just sayin……..could be one of those win-win trades.
Xtreem that’s the thing, why would they even eat half? They could trade for a guy like Scott Hairston and give up a similar prospect with no ties to next year and no money owed. Bay is just dead weight, we could release him and he might not get signed much less finding a team to pick up half. I think at best we get the GMJR deal in reverse. Pay all but 1.5M of the next 2 years and get back a scrub in return.
Release him and watch Red Sox scoop him up because of their OF problems, and despite his parting issues with him he could be more prone to hit hr at Fenway, just saying.
Keep in mind that BR is not subtracting what the Yanks are paying on Burnett’s contract. The Bucs are only paying $6.5M of that $16.5M this year and next.
It looks like they are. It has it at the bottom.
-$11.5M -$8.5M
True, I stand corrected.
If we eat the cash, that might convince the Pirates to send a righty bat to platoon in left.
At this point, I’d rather a prospect with a higher ceiling than Hairston, who’d I’d call my RHB platoon. I’d pay more for the prospect, but with Hairston here, trading Bay for a RHB platoon is kind of redundant, don’t you think?
Looking at the FA market for Corner OF, there’s not much there. Honestly Hairston isn’t that old and with the 100 LH we have he’s a pretty natural fit.
But who is our other right handed bat? Maybe Turner when he comes back?
Hairston?
I meant besides Hairston. We’re very lefty heavy and not showing a lot of power.
Well on the days that Hairston starts you would need a RH guy on the bench of course but we have options there in house if needed.
Torres. He is as bad as Bay vs. RHP, but can hit lefties still so far. so pretend he is not a SH, and just treat him as another Bay type (RH platoon bat)
I love this post and it is so spot on. Minaya did get a ton of flack and yes too many of his contracts were either too long or too bloated, but it has always been difficult trying to get marquee free agents to sign with us unless we overpay them. There were a lot of Mets fans who didnt like the Bay deal because of that fifth year option which wont even be a problem at this point, but even if you didnt like the contract it was hard to argue that Bay wasnt the righthanded thump we needed in our lineup. The only other option was Holliday who was twice as costly in dollars and years. There is not one article I know of that said Bay would never hit more than ten homeruns in a season as a Met. Most of what I remember was that his power numbers would drop 10-15% so instead of hitting 35 homers he hit 29. At this point just get rid of him for anything, even for another team’s trash. Roll the dice, maybe get lucky.
I think there is something wrong with his eyes , maybe from the head trama he has had in the past, no power that’s one thing not getting a hit, could be physical. Depth perception and so on although playing the field he seems to do allright, swings from the waist which is normally bad not using legs for power, just looking for something simple besides saying he sucks. 5 yrs 30 or more homers and 270 + BA don’t know. 0 fer 18 since he is back there has to be more wrong.
They owe the money no matter what happens – that can’t be avoided. They don’t owe him the right to clog up the lineup. Why does a bad financial move have to force a bad baseball move?
They should try to trade him with two conditions:
1. They eat the entire salary… unless
2. He puts up ridiculous stats, then the receiving team picks up some of the contract.
Then they get rid of his hole in the lineup and fan aggravation. And, if he rises from the ashes, they get a few bucks back for their trouble. The receiving team either gets a flier on a free player or a good player that they pay a discounted salary to.
Just get him out of town!
The money on his contract is gone. Want to re-coup any of it, then put his butt in the souvenir shop selling foam fingers. Otherwise get him out. The team has been fine without him all year and they will be worse with him. 11 runs last night and the only thing he did was pout.
Jason Bay has been a major disappointment!!! He should give back half of his money hes made.. He can not got out of here soon enough.. Sit his ass or say he is hurt. But get him out of the line up.
We arent far away from winning so get our young guys in left field and do the “WRIGHT” thing.
LETS GO METS!!!
This can be laid at the feet of the player’s association and the fools who own these teams agreeing to a collective bargaining agreement that allows a player to sign an enormous contract that doesn’t allow a severance package way out for a team to exercise for NON PERFORMANCE not do to a career ending injury (say 5 to 10 percent of the contract). The team releases him is happy and if the player can find another home fine, but what company in the real world would allow an employee to come to work and do nothing, oh yeah we have such employees, thier called federal and state workers. Forget this post.
So now this is a political blog? Bay was a horrible contract. Buyer beware. Lets keep promoting the rookies. No more expensive free agent signings.
the thing is it doesn’t work that way. Sure it’s awesome to have a lot of your team come from within but you’re STILL going to have to sign a veteran/veterans to help you win. Maybe one or 2 who knows but it’s bound to happen.
The thing is there may be a time where the perfect guy you need will come here only at HIS price. I understand not wanting to give a multi-year expensive contract (not that i care because it’s not my money) but there will be a time that the perfect guy you need to be the final piece of the puzzle will come here..but at HIS price and not yours.
You’re going to have to be prepared to do that.
It’s hard enough trying to win the World Series let alone setting conditions now to win it. And that’s what a lot of you fans are now doing. You want to win but under certain conditions now.
It ain’t gonna be cheap, you will come across times where you will have to sacrifice prospects and bite the bullet and give a player a contract HE wants and not want you want to pay him.
true about paying when you have to. The key is, it should be for just key peices, not “run of the mill” parts. And if you don’t have a virtually unlimited budget to eat mistakes, you better make damned sure you buy the right guys.
and I think you are saying (which I agree with) that the base to buiild on needs to be in place for it to make sense.
Well Stick I have to ask…For two years all we have done is buy run of the mill parts!
Bayonne is correct you need to have Veterans on the team to lead the kids when times get tough, Someone they can turn to and talk to without the risk of saying something to your boss that you may not want to tell him is a problem for you!
If Wright goes down for some dumb reason who is the veteran leadership that will lead this team in his absence?
The Role playing Hairston?
The light Hitting Torres?
The BAD Hitting Jason Bay?
Who is that everyday go to guy they can lean on and get mentored by should god forbid Wright be lost for the rest of the season?
We have no one! They HAD Beltran and no point in debating that movfe what is done is done!
All we have left is Wright and while it’s been fine so far I have to wonder if we had a guy who knows as much about hitting as Beltran or a guy like Hernandez around, would Ike’s slump have lasted as long as it has?
personally as much as I like the way Thole has been hitting the ideal veteran this team could use is a Power hitting catcher who calls a good game like Carter.
Unfortunatly what you need isn’t always available to get.
But if we had that the worry about bringing up Harvey, Familia, and even Wheeler a little too early would be minimized wouldn’t it?
if you want old grizzled guys just for leadership, hire them as coaches. Keeping relics that can’t play isn’t going to help. Unless you are fine with say Thome who can only PH?
But in general, rebuilding teams are going to be on the yong side.
and yes, you have to go get parts to fill gaps. I was not talking about signing bench guys, middle relief, or a platoon starter. Those are normal things that every team has to do 9some to a greater extent).
i was talking about the big $$/LT contracts, the ones that if they go wrong can really screw a team that lives with a budget. Those are the ones that really should come when there is a foundation already in place to build on.
and the key (the run of the mill part) is not dishing out a contract like that, to a guy that is really not a high-end difference maker (like Bay).
Money is useful. It should not be wasted. Our improved bullpen took all we had to spend and we overpaid for what we got. How many of Sandy’s Free Agent signings will even be tendered this winter? Baseball is full of AAAA guys who never got to the show. I was thrilled to see Egbert get a shot. I don’t understand paying medeore journeyman players 6 times the minimum to be a role player.
Short memory eh? I suppose those thousands of comments about the Wilpon, Madoff, Picard court cases on this site were not political?
I would love to somehow get BJ Upton for CF to add some RH hitting and speed to the lineup and the Rays can’t hold on to him forever but I am not sure we have the position prospects it would take to get him.
What is the deal with that option year if we cut Bay? Would we have to pay him that because couldn’t he file a grievance that it didnt vest because he was cut and didnt accumulate the ABs?
There is a $3 million buy out for his last year, so the team would have to pay that if they choose to cut him.
See that’s a curious thing that I am not sure about. No team would pick him up if they were going to no doubt have to pay him 3M. Also that 3M was guaranteed as part of his contract so I am not so sure the Mets don’t have to pay that too him when they cut him.
We would be on the hook for the remainder of this year and next year as well as the buyout on the option I THINK, assuming the new team did not allow the PA to vest. If they did that they would be on their own. Anyway there could be no grievance filed because the Mets would be justified in the release based on performance.
Well, they could file a grievance. It would end up in the hands of an arbiter. Both sides would be taking a huge gamble since Bay has performed so horribly in his time here, but there is also a year and a half on the deal.
Also, both sides have to consider future negotiating positions if it came down to this. The Mets have enough problems attracting free agents. They don’t need bad blood and a reputation (even an unjust one) for backing out of incentive clauses. The MLBPA don’t want people focusing on them defending a player not performing.
Thank you for you replies. It sounds like cutting him isn’t as cut n dry as lets say cutting Ollie and Castillo was.
There is no way that they would even file one. The Mets would win in a landslide. Bay hasn’t performed. We aren’t talking about someone who has struggled of late. It’s a lost contract. The option has nothing to do with it anymore as this year the PA would not happen anyway. So the only thing left is the PA for next year. Also, I don’t buy the fact that it would be bad for future FA. They and their agents see what happen with Bay and know the circumstances. Also it isn’t like Bay didn’t get paid.
See, you are using logic. For all we know, the case will be presented to the guys who judged the Pacqiauo fight
Donal, I think it would be embarrassing for the union to even try to file a grievance unless Bay starts to improve.
well, he can file a grievance on anything but he isn’t likely to win!
but the deal is, if they cut him, and a team actually picks him up of waivers, they inherit his entire contract, including option. Needless to say, that ain’t happening!
so when he clears, the Mets have to pay him his guaranteed salary, but the option becomes moot.
not that big a deal right now. If he stays, and mostly platoons (mixed in with a likely DL stint or 2) he won’t come close the the required PAs, even without any monkey business. Can’t see him getting 500 this season (after so much time off), and that means he would need 600 in 2013, a tremendous long shot.
Stick am I right in thinking if he clears and becomes a FA the Mets would owe him the remaining portion of this year’s contract, the full salary for next season and the 3M buyout of the option as all of those were guaranteed? Then you would subtract the amount he signs for this year and the amount he signs for next year. So basically the prorated minimum this year plus the minimum for next year is what they would get back. That’s why you don’t see too many released before their last year. I still think best case is to trade him and hope that if anything you could get back the 3M in the buyout.
sounds right. they pay him anything guaranteed but vesting options go away.
Bay has been nothing but disappointing and frustrating. If you did a little research, you’d see that in Bay’s time in Boston, he hit more HRs away from the Green Monster that at it. So to assume that Bay pulled a Curtis Granderson and padded him numbers by playing in a home park that gives plenty of cheep pop shots is incorrect.
I really think the that whole hit the other way practice BS that they did (I can’t remember what it was called) and then the huge dimensions in LF at CityField got into his head much like it got into Wrights. Despite the lack of HR’s in his first year, Bay was still gonna get around 90RBI and his BA was above average for him.
I think the nest year, he tried to make up for lack of HRs by becoming pull happy. It was crazy seeing how similar Wright and Bay looked at the plate.
This year, Bay does look different to me. He’s guessing less, He’s not trying to pull everything, he’s waving at the off speed pitch much less frequently and he’s not rolling over to short every other AB. I saw the same thing at the start of the season and once he got his timing down, he actually started to hit. Unfortunately, he got hurt before he had a chance to show if he could truly be productive. From what I’m seeing now, his timing is a little off which is just enough to keep him from fully squaring the ball up. I don’t think he’s far off, but then again, he’s given us plenty of glimpses of hope that past couple of years so I can’t get too excited.
I do wonder why they rushed him back the way he did, he was sick and only had a dozen ABs to back up to speed. It just seemed like a stupid move, especially seeing how the fans feel about the situation.
But, you can’t just dump him, and we need a productive Bay to win this year (this recent down slide started before Bay was back and has more to do with sloppy play in the infield and bad bullpen then the lack of production from one player) And if we can live with Ike sucking up the joint, then we gotta live with Bay too…
Plus, in moneyball, strike outs don’t matter…
too bad they are playing baseball, not money ball! But hey, outs DO matter, and he makes a lot of them.
Can he get his timing down like you suggest? Possible, but he looks old, tired and slow/sluggish now. And that isn’t about just being a tick off timing your swing.
and at the beginning of the year, he had freakishly good #s off lefties (real small sample size of course), way above career norms. But, as usual, his # off RHP were crappy.
heck,, on the year he has 1 RBi (a single, lone, solitary) off of RHP. That is mind boggling.
Bays a nice guy but enough is enough. The Mets owe him the money no matter what. Would you play a pet rock in left field if it were under contract, no. I would just bite the bullet and release him. Its become just pointless to keep him on the team. He cannot hit at all anymore. Its sad because he is a good guy but three yrs is long enough to know it aint coming back at least in a Met uniform.
he looks old, tired and slow. And they really can’t keep running him out there forever hoping for it to change.
I have been saying for ages that screams platoon guy now. The #s sure support it.
But, they actually have an issue with finding a platoon mate. Torres is just as bad vs. RHP, so that just leaves Kirk to platoon with each of them! Baxter going down was actually the big hurt, because that was the natural guy to split time with Bay.
And bay is redudant to hairston (and not as good of course) as a RH platoon mate.
So, right now, vs. lefties you could go with Bay/torres (hariston better, but assuming you are playing bay)
vs. RHP, you play kirk, but are stuck with hairston or Torres. maybe torres for the glove?
Ditching Bay does not hurt the roster at all, since his PT would be replace by hairston.
Bay couldn’t leave the Mets fast enough. The whole problem with trading him for another teams headache is contract lengths. I’d rather the Mets release Bay than take on a bad player contact that would be even a year longer than Bay’s contract.
Actually, Bay is making a huge contribution. He keeps setting up all those 2 out rallies.
They should have left Bay in the Minors until he hit!
The only reason they brought him up as quick as they did was due to the LHPs they were going to face!
Well how has that worked out?
You want to know what the biggest headscratcher is on the signing of Bay?
They used his spray charts to select him over holiday!!
They KNEW what his spray charts said about him and yet they still decided he was better for CitiField than Holiday!!!
How did they actually manage that?
Bottomline pay his salary (all of it) to anyone who will take him and give you even a B Prospect in return. If Den Decker continues his hitting in AAA he will be here in Spetember and quite possibly before then. Soon enough to be eligible for the playoff roster should we have one.
It’s time to cut our losses and admit it was a bad contract, move on!
Holliday may have just never wanted to come here. Honestly, neither one of them was going to make the remnants of the 2009 team a playoff contender.
Maybe not I certainly can’t say he did….
But thats no excuse to look at evidence and come to the opposite conclusion from what it told you as an excuse to sign the guy totally not suited to the stadium you had!
Even dumber to have the gaul to use that evidence as an excuse when all they had to say is the best guy doesn’t want to play here and look for something else!
Would have gotten them off the hook with the media….
It’s a mistake made by a GM who was being badgered to do something (ANYTHING) by the press and he was stupid to give them what they wanted.
In either case don’t exacerbate the mistake by sticking with it because of money, Bite the bullet and trade him for scrap or cut him! Right now the roster sport is more valuable than the money!
I’m saying they should have passed on both of them.
I hate the “do something ANYTHING” thinking. When someone in authority does something just to show he’s doing something, 9 out of 10 times, it ends up poorly thought out, poorly executed and with terrible results.
Well something we can both agree on!
Desperation breeds mistakes!
I don’t know if they could have gotten Holliday or not…
Truth is the one guy they really needed wasn’t anymore interested in coming to us either!
What they needed was Lee or Halliday!
And even then we would be here now questioning that move considering their current situations.
And while I agree Holliday may not have helped 2009 it does make 2010 a much more interesting season!
At this point in the season (June 13th 2010) we were 2 games ahead of the Phillies and 1.5 games behind the Braves who folded that year (like last year).
We lost Bay Jul 25th. I wonder how many games Holliday’s bat could have turned around that second half of the season…Maybe not enough to make the playoffs (we didn’t have the pitching) but certainly would not have been 12 games out of the wildcard/
He’s lucky as hell he got hurt at the time he did. If that wasn’t the case, Bay would’ve been reduced to a platoon role where, even then, he’d suck. I’m sick of the “I’m trying”, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me” and all this crap coming out of Bay’s mouth. If you don’t produce, you don’t belong here. You don’t belong in the lineup or even on the bench.
LOL Well I doubt he considers himself Lucky…If anything his absence only PROVED that this team can get by without him and if he doesn’t start hitting he will lose more than just half his game appearances to a platoon!
Roger Cedeno, Bobby Bonilla, George Foster, Kaz Matsui, Luis Castillo, Vince Coleman and Oliver Perez.
I’m sure there are others, but Jason Bay sadly is joining a fraternity of Mets that nobody wishes to join.
I wish it worked out different for him, but I don’t think he’ll ever be the same hitter in NY that he ever was in PIT or BOS.
The worst part is I have little to no doubt that we will see some forms of success for Bay in the future, but they won’t be in a Mets uniform.
Bay’s head is FAR more screwed up than anything attributed to Ike Davis this year!
And it isn’t Citifield because he hits better there than away!
He got those fences in his head and it messed up his swing so badly that he can’t recover now that the fence issue went away!
And a lot of it has to do with him swinging for the new fences I think…
He has 7 hits at home, 1 double 1 HR in 36 PA
He has 37 PA away, 5 Hits 1 Double two HRs…
Tells me he is just swinging for the fences and missing more often than not!
Just seeing him come up last night made sick cause I knew what they were throwing to him and he just continues to swing at it thinking his bat might get longer.
Maybe he has great game against Price tonight but anyway why does a player who has struggles.d so much at the plate not go to AAA to get some at bats instead of killing team with his rehab at bats, who’s choice is this, player or team. If player then he is being selfish and Mets allowed this to happen, why????????