Appreciate the points you made and it just goes to show that there are more pleasant ways to communicate. Let’s hope those days are over, OK?

I understand and agree with your point about 2010 being different than 2011 financially and that even an extra one or two million dollars on a player here and a player there would have been too much for the ownership to contend with at the time. Yes, you are right to say had the contracts for Feliciano (a healthy one, of course) and Takahshi expired after the 2010 season instead of 2009, both might have still been on the team. The point of dispute many of us have are with those who were hailing these 2010 moves as a beginning of a new era – citing that with his thinking outside the box, Sandy and his people saw things in these undervalued players that other teams did not – instead of what you correctly point out in the case regarding Takahashi “that had to do with finances is not bringing Takahashi back. Had he been a free agent going into this year, I would think they would’ve brought him back but not after the 2010 season when they were looking to cut payroll and not add a 4 million per relief pitcher.”. That issue is still being ignored by many – at least you give a valid argument as to why it happened.

But the question I have is about finances being a bit better (not much, as you rightly point out, but a bit better) for over the winter we learned not only that the Mets, according to Sandy, lost $70 million this past season but that they had also lost money in 2009 and 2010 and project losses again this year. That seems eliminate the signing of anything more than marginal players and hoping that in three or four years the kids on the farm can blend in with those now on the team who will then be young but experienced veterans. Then the question has to be asked about what Sandy would do with those many players who would then be eligible for free agency and will no doubt seek multi-year mega contracts if they indeed do perform like we hope they do. Will he still be reluctant to sign them based upon his hesitancy to commit to such type contract beyond two years? It won’t be like Niese who was still not eligible for arbitration.

Which raises the question we have all been debating and must consider for the future. Had the financial fiasco the Wilpons find themselves now never occurred, what would the club and the way it would be handled be today? Omar would still have been a goner but who would have been hired in his place? I doubt Sandy simply because Sandy didn’t want the job and Selig would not have pushed him to leave a position he was already happy being in. Of the six candidates on the final selection list (see attached) which one would they have eventually selected? What would those candidates offer in terms of their own visions for the team? We are also reminded in that article there were others that the Mets wanted to consider but for one reason or the other could not.

Again, judging from their past behavior (and the financial situation not being like it was), I don’t think the Wilpons would have gone for somebody so much the opposite of them in business practices as Sandy. It goes against their entire way of doing things, which included allowing Omar to sign big names to big long-term contracts, regardless of their age and cost, taking out numerous loans on the belief they could sell out luxury suites and boxes (costing at how many thousands per game?). Now, agreed they did not see the economic downturn coming, but my point here is their behavior pattern and business methodology during good times.

And thus, in 2011, with the Mets being in the position they were, would they have instead been buyers instead of sellers? Would KRod still be in the bullpen (with the new general manager being told no more knucklehead bonuses, etc) and would Beltran have played out the year?

That question does need to be asked – is Sandy a stop gap measure and the direction he has the team heading towards really no more a reflection of their economic misfortunes? Or, is it reflective of the Wilpons turning over a new leaf? The answer – whichever one it may be – if and when that time comes, will then allow us to look back and settle the dispute so many of us have now.

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20101021&content_id=15777570&vkey=news_nym&c_id=nym

If they signed Francisco for 6 mil per for 2 years after the 2010 season then you would be right to compare the signing of Takahashi who signed for 2 mil less per year, however the financial circumstances were totally different following the 2010 season compared to the end of the 2011 season. Francisco wouldn’t have been signed after the 2010 season if we needed a closer, not for that price.

Same thing with Rauch. He signed after the 2011 season, not the 2010 season. There was no way in hell they were spending 3.5 mil on a set up man after the 2010 season because of their bloated payroll. Which is why we spent a combined 9 million on 13 players.

And I totally disagree about only the finances being the reason for moving Beltran and K-Rod last year, part of it but not the main reason. The team if you haven’t noticed have been often injured and underperforming for a few years now and they have led the NL in payroll for quite some time now, changes were in order. They were not a player or 2 from competing for a championship, they were a long ways away from being a title contender despite what you thought last year.

When you have the same nucleous of players that choked away 2 seasons and have either been hurt or underperformed, you can not continue to keep putting the same product on the field and hope for this to be the year everybody stays healthy and everybody performs. it had not been happening for this team.

In spring training 2011 just about everybody was resigned to the fact that Carlos Beltran would probably not be on the field very much since he could not get ready for the season only playing n the last 5 games of grapefruit games. The majority of the fansbase were praying for him to hopefully show enough to maybe get something for him in a trade.

We got very lucky. Not only did Beltran stay on the field, he produced very well. We would have been utterly insane to not capitalize on his trade value when we did. We were not good enough to do what the Cardinals did cause we did not have the personnel that the Cardinals had. You can disagree all night but it doesn’t change the fact that we were an overachieving team that had way too many obstacles to get past to hope for a miracle.

You’re also forgetting that we paid the rest of Beltrans salary to get the prospect that we did so it was not a salary dump since he was a pending free agent. That trade wasn’t to help the Wilpons get their financial house in order, that trade was for the future of this team and he quickly became our number 1 prospect.

Keeping K-Rod would’ve been foolish even if the Wilpons weren’t having financial problems simply for the fact that he is not good enough to warrant the 12 million he got paid last year let alone the 17.5 million dollar option he had waiting for him. Not even the Yankees would pay him that money. That was the most moronic option ever given to a closer

What gets lost in the K-Rod shuffle is the way Collins used him, knowing he had that option attached to him for finishing 55 games. Not only did he use him to close out 4,5 and 6 run leads, he used him on the road when we were trailing by a lot in the 8th inning just to put a bad innning to bed which gave him credit for a game finished when you pitch the 8th on the road in a loss. Nobody ever brings that point up here. Had Collins used him wisely we may have not had to worry about moving him and could’ve just declined his option and paid his buyout or even resigned him at a lower rate which I wouldn’t have wanted to be honest. Unfortunately we ended up with another “cardiac closer”.

The only one I agree with you that had to do with finances is not bringing Takahashi back. Had he been a free agent going into this year, I would think they would’ve brought him back but not after the 2010 season when they were looking to cut payroll and not add a 4 million per relief pitcher.

Finally I also disagree with the conspiracy theory that Bud pushed Sandy on the Wilpons to help to turn a large market club into a small market team. That would not be in the best interest of baseball to have a NY market acting like a small market team. MLB wants NY to be successful because it means more money for MLB to have both NY teams be successful.

I think Bud convinced Wilpon that Sandy could turn around the franchise, not only in a financial sense but how to run a successful franchise. Any GM could’ve come in here and cut payroll and get the team back in the black.

If that was the case then they wouldn’t have beefed up the scouting and revamped the player developement people they have now in place. And they wouldn’t have added other former GM’s as assistants for big money if they weren’t trying to turn around the franchise.

We have a much better player developement team in place now and it’s paying dividends in how the farm system is improving. And it”s showing with how well these players are prepared when they come up fro the farm and contribute the way they have.

If you wanted a quick turn around Sandy isn’t your guy. If you want a team thats trying to build for sustained success, he’s definitely the right guy. We do not have a championship caliber nucleous, not by a long shot. They’re gritty and fun to watch but we have a ton of holes yet to fill. You are totally overrating the core of this team.

Now there you are, and correctly so, bringing in the money issue which every team has to consider.

But talking about a total $25 million as far as a big market team that through all it’s holdings makes several hundreds of millions in profits each year, that amount is a minor investment leading to those profits. But yes, under the unique situation the Wilpons find themselves in, obviously, it is major. But that is the point. The team is being taken down due to situations that have nothing to do with the running of the franchise. The Wilpons want to hold onto it and that is there right, but like it or not, this is the result – a small market mentality. The decisions not to sign Takahshi to two years and to send KRod and Beltran packing were not part of a vision of putting together the best baseball club it could, if not this year, then in the years ahead. They were made under financial desperation.

BTW – Takahashi’s salary over two years is eight million. We spent $12 million on Francisco and $2.4 million on Carasco for two years. That’s $14.4 million over two years, $6.4 million of which could have been used for another reliever besides Takahashi

$3.5 million for Rauch for one year. In terms of spending, we paid $11.7 million this year for those three relievers. In the business terms of baseball for a big market team, double that amount for KRod, Takahashi and Izzy, retaining them at those salaries would have been viewed as a wise investment. For a New York team having to operate with the purse strings of a small market Oakland club, that, of course, is different.

If the Wilpons weren’t in this financial mess caused by Madoff and the real estate market bust, I am sure Krod and Takahashi would still be on the club – that is, of course, unless Jeff Wilpon was the father of Krod’s girl friend LOL

Since we are both talking about performance, let me ask a question. Let us take away the names of those six pitchers and their salaries. Looking at the game logs of both sets of three, without knowing who they were or what their team was, which one would you take? Don’t forget, we must base it on the whole season as you said. Take into account April, May, June and half of July. Take into account the direction the performances are heading – getting better, getting worse or staying even and for the stretch of games and innings that deals with.

Also, look at their stats for last season as well so to see if they are having lucky years, pitching worse, better or just simply up to their standards.

Then make the choice of which trio would have been of better help to the team this year based on the consistency of that performance level. . If you still want to emphasize overall statistical performance for the entire season – which I believer are very poor indicators by themselves – which group would you then take on a statistical basis only so instead of the game on the field, we could play a game of Stratomatic.

One other thing. If the Mets bullpen is settling down, why is it still rated the worst in baseball? Wouldn’t it at least be moving up some off the bottom?

If you still believe my assessments are based on a distaste for the front office, that is fine with me, but please don’t forget that such argument could go both ways.

Had Hisanori become free agent following the 2011 season instead of the 2010 season he might still be a Met. 2011 projected payroll before any transactions were made was 140-150 million and that’a without adding a single player.

Takahashi and Feliciano were both seeking multi year deals. We offered Feliciano arbitration, he refused and we got a 1st round pick for it whih turned out to be Micheal Fulmer. Remember that name. Takahashi asked or 15 millin over 3 years, the Mets said no, he settled for 8 million over 2 years. BTW Takahashi has been terrible when brought into pressurized situations his year, just like our guys have and has been mediocre overall. He’s been relegated to the lefty specalist role.

We spent 9 million on 13 players because of the position we were in with team losing 50 million and projecting to lose even more in 2011 which we did. They were not spending 4 million on one reliever when they were only budgeted between 5-10 million for player acquisitions.

Izzy had a nice season last year until the end of July when his workload increased and he became very hittable. He was subsequently shut down around Labor Day with a herniated disc and never got back on the mound. No one mentioned all offseason that Izzy shoud’ve been brought back. And Izzy has been brutal of late.

I don’t need to rehash the K-Rod situation. He was a slighty better version and I mean slightly better than Francisco and it woud’ve cost an insane 17.5 million dollars to keep him. Even if he was going to be paid hs normal 12-13 million I would look to get him off he team. He’s simply not good enough to warrant such a salary. There’s a reason the Angels let him walk without putting up a fight.

I fail to see a significant improvent from those 3 names you mention to warrant paying them double whatwe paid or he 3 guys we added this year and it would’ve been impossible to keep those 3 and add the other 3 with the budget constraints the team has been under.

And just a side note.It doesn’t really matter if SNY quadruples their profit margin every single year until their contract with the Mets expires because the Mets have a contract with SNY that pays them around 60 million a year and I believe it’s even less than that. The Mets locked in with SNY on a long term contract that they may have screwed themselves with. Compare that to Anaheim’s deal with Fox that pays them 150 million a year for TV rights.

Not that I ever believe anything the Wilpons say, they’re a bunch of crooked SOB’s but they don’t make as much from SNY as they could’ve and they definitely aren’t selling tickets like the had hoped so you have to take that into account among the Madoff situation making matters worse.

Tagee was destroyed on this sight for his constant repetitive posts and 2nd guessing.

“So we’re talking about a real solid Big 3 in the bullpen since May at half the price of the other three. See what happens when we cherry pick? It doesnt fool anyone, does it”

Forgot to add that if we were talking about a real solid Big 3 in the bullpen since May nobody would be talking about it today, all through the month of July, or in June, or in May.

How would Ronald Regan have put it? “Is our bullpen better off now than it was less than two years ago?”.

A team doesn’t register having the worst bullpen of the thirty clubs in the majors with any sort of big three. It has had small streaks of good performance, at best. “See what happens when we cherry pick? It doesn’t fool anyone, does it”?

Money wise, one is talking about an industry in which franchises pull in hundreds of millions in profit each year and everyone is overpaid so the financial argument only relates to those small market clubs with less sources of revenue. Those issues of finance are more relevant with rotisieree league, not the big business of professional sports. Whatever financial problems the Wilpons have, owning the New York Mets and having had a high payroll was not the cause of them. There is television and marketing revenue which dwarfs revenue pulled in from attendance. The owners of the Yankees could not operate in the manner they did if they did not also own YES. Neither could the owners of the Red Sox without owning NESN.

That the Mets spent too much on some players is another story. But what they spent has little to do with the players they did then have and the reason for salary dumping. That $70 million loss is purely the way one can present ledger books to make their case. As said, the Wilpon’s financial problems have nothing to do with the team other than it’s affect in making them operate like Oakland.

Now, if you look at baseball reference.com at the game log for KRod you will notice it is not just a small stretch of games – the point I referred to with KRod was beginning May 4 – almost two and a half months. Here is his game log – once again.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=rodrifr03&t=p&year=2012

And with Takahashi, it is his performance since May 7:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=takahhi01&t=p&year=

What this shows is that after each started off poorly in April, both settled down and got back to their game for the remaining two and half months of the season to date – May, June and half of July. And that if one wants to look at it in terms of just stats, one has to take those handful of poorly pitched innings the first few weeks of the season and see what their stats were back then and what they are now. I posted those stats before not to cherry pick but to show that after poor starts in April both have been pitching as to be expected.

And in terms of settling down, I think one pitching to an ERA of 3.86 over his last 12 games is not like two pitchers each pitching to an ERA below three in their last 28 and 24 innings. And BTW, Rauch has pitched just 9.2 innings over those last 12 games, which is less than one third the total innings pitched by KRod and just over a third of the innings pitched by Takahsahi over a much longer stretch. The same has to be looked at in terms of the limited amount of innings pitched by Rameriez as well. Cherry picking?

But what if it came to this – we kept KRod, Takahashi and Izzy and added to that Francisco and Ramirez along with Parnell. What type of club do you think we would have now? Would we have the worst bullpen baseball or perhaps one of the more better ones instead?

That’s the only point. We had a bullpen in which Francisco and Ramirez could have been added to in order to make it stronger. Adding to is different than replacing.

As for Parnell: why is it the Mets and the league see a 98 mph pitcher and can’t touch him. Parnell can throw 101 and he sucks.

1st 13 appearances
3/W – 0/L, 1/BS, 3/H, 2.31/ERA, .146/BAA, 2 of 5 Inherited Runners scored.

2nd 13 appearances
0/W – 5/L, 1/S, 2/BS, 2/H, 7.36/ERA, .373/BAA, 2 of 2 Inherited Runners scored.

Last 12 appearances
0/W – 2/L, 4/H, 1.93/ERA, .147/BAA, 0 of 6 Inherited Runners scored.

But I can do what you did and cherry pick. Let’s see how that works out:

In May and June, two thirds of his season, Francisco is pitching to a 3.75 ERA

In Rauch’s last 12 games, about a full third of his season, he’s pitching to a 3.86 ERA. And let’s not forget he was light’s out in April, if we add that, which is essentially subtracting his May, he’s got a 3.15 ERA.

Ramon Ramirez, in his last 16 games, which is the majority of his season (almost 2/3rds of it), he’s pitching to a 2.75 ERA.

So we’re talking about a real solid Big 3 in the bullpen since May at half the price of the other three. See what happens when we cherry pick? It doesnt fool anyone, does it?

Today first must win game knowing our next series w be w the back end of our rotation. Win today and see if somebody can step up as we await anything from Alderson other then using internal guys Omar brought in.

We started the season w zero depth at starting pitching, low and behold Pelfrey gets hurt and Aldersons replacements of Schwinden, Hefner, Batista barely got us 1 win. Youngs done decent work but we’ve still lost 5 of 7 games he started. Now Gee is hurt, we hanging on in a pennant race barely thou, I’m sure there’s a contract we can take off a teams hands, or just fold our own hand..I just know I don’t expect much from Alderson other then to speak like a smooth politician. The pen needs a dependable arm right now. Francisco is hurt, Aldersons dependable arm he brought in Ramirez isn’t..make a move Sandy.

There’s always a chance we win 9 of 10 and yest game doesn’t mean as much or do what the Cards did and win out sept and Oct but seems unrealistic given current state of team. I’d just like to see some reinforcements come in, even if we do come up short in the end..