4
2012
Should The Mets Trade Dickey And Wright?
An article by 
There was an interesting article by Joel Sherman in the NY Post this past Sunday. He argues that the only way the Mets can cure their woes, is by trading R.A. Dickey and David Wright for a bunch of prospects.
Really Joel? Just up and trade the two reasons why Mets fans still watch the games? That’s the fix?
I couldn’t disagree more. The logic is sound, but this move would lead to further fan frustration. The Mets are having a hard enough time filling seats in the stadium, and by trading the two main players that fans come to watch, you will have a hard time giving away tickets for free, let alone selling them.
The only way to fix this mess is to spend money. Bring in top flight free agents to help Wright and Dickey take the Mets to the next level or the promised land. There is no guarantee that this rebuilding process the Mets are banking on, will lead to winning. It could lead to more rebuilding. Then what? We wait three more years? No thanks.
It’s a ridiculous notion to trade stars for unproven prospects, and quite frankly, hardly ever works out for the team getting the prospects. If the Mets really want to turn this around they should do the complete opposite of what Sherman is proposing. The Mets should be the team packaging these unproven prospects, to try and get some help for Wright and Dickey. There are no prospects that should be untouchable if the Mets are committed to winning right now. The problem is, they aren’t committed to winning now. They already made up their minds that they are sacrificing the present for the future.
George Harrison once said
“It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.”
Mets fans want to win now. They don’t want to hear about how great of a team they might have in two or three years. Fans, much like Harrison, understand there is only the now. The goal should be to win now. Please stop telling us about a future that is not guaranteed. If the Mets do end up doing what Sherman proposes, which is basically sacrificing the present for the future, then it will be a lot longer wait than two years before the Mets start winning again. As a result, Citi Field will be as empty as these dreams of winning in two years that the Mets brass are feeding us.
About the Author: Mitch Petanick
Mitch is currently an Editor and Minor League Analyst for Mets Merized Online. His baseball experience includes being a former All-Conference collegiate baseball player who had numerous professional tryouts, and he is currently a hitting instructor. He has been involved with the game of baseball for over 30 years now as a player, coach, and consultant. Mitch is also a former Featured Columnist on Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @FirstPitchMitch.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 25 | 18 | .581 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 21 | .523 | 2.5 |
| Phillies | 21 | 23 | .477 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 17 | 24 | .415 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 12 | 32 | .273 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/19/2013
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Mitch, problem is, the mets GM does not like to spend on good players, since good players demand large contracts and we know his take on that. I do agree the mets should trade wright and get a boat load of players for him. Dickey on the other hand should not be traded, pitching is what wins game, the more pitching we got the better we’d be. Teams like SF, ATL, NATS etc do not have good offenses, they generate enough offense to back their pitching, if we start to build a team Anti-Moneyball, with speed and good defense to go along with good pitching i think we’ll be fine. We got power on ike davis, start to builf a foundation with players that can run the bases and play great defense and we’ll be fine. How do you think the Oakland A’s are winning games? Tampa bay? Those teams can’t hit to save their lifes, but look at how they’re pitching has kept those teams afloat.
Which again shows how great the Wheeler for Beltran trade was. The trade of two months of a hitter for the potential for a future Ace? “pitching is what wins game, the more pitching we got the better we’d be. Teams like SF, ATL, NATS etc do not have good offenses,”
So you obviously would agree with that trade.
Until such time as Wheeler makes it to the MLB and pitches on a level that is better than what Beltran as a player himself is….
You can’t honestly say that trade was a good or great one!
If his arm falls off tomorrow and he never throws a pitch in the MLB will that trade still be a great one?
If he does make it to the MLB and can’t get anyone out will that be as great a trade as you keep suggesting?
NOPE!
You can only compare what Wheeler has done so far to what Beltran did the 2 months he was traded for. Thus IMO the effect of the trade on the reputation of the Mets farm system is even worth the 2 months of Beltran in a lost season. But when you trade an established rental player for a prospect you are trading for that prospects potential. Thus, the potential of Wheeler is enough to make the trade a good trade before he even pitches in a game.
No you would like to limit the comparison to two months but the truth is the roster doesn’t care what your contract pays you and for how long!
The Roster is the limiting factor in building a baseball team and the only one until such time as the MLB installs a Salary Cap or limits contract years.
The goal of building a winning baseball team is not about how much or little you spend it is about how many GOOD players you manage to shoehorn into the limited 25 and 40 man roster!
The Two months are irrelevant and if thats all you want to talk about then that trade was a disaster because Wheeler didn’t do squat in the MLB those two months!
And until he plays in the MLB you don’t know if that deal was even an EVEN trade yet!
Nope, you have their careers as Mets. Thus the 2 months of Beltran will be compared to the entire production of Wheeler until he is no longer a Met.
You HOPE you have thier careers as Mets but you sure don’t know how long they will be Mets now do you?
If they both end thier career tomorrow will that trade be a plus for us?
Yes or no?
Please limit your answer to yes or no FIRST then qualify the answer if you choose!
Yes.
Because again the potential for the player obtained and the reputation gained is much more impactful than the two months lost.
Potential is worthless unless realized!
F-Mart had a ton of potential, How valuable to us was he?
What did we get for him or from him besides a lot of medical Bills and Hotel stays?
What reputation?
If they never give you something towards winning an MLB game then they gave you nothing and the only reputation they bring is BUST!
So a BUST is better than even the two months of Beltran?
Your just being biased and saying anything to make that trade look good before you know what it is you got for Beltran!
If Wheeler never makes it to the MLB (granted unlikely) you will have given up a HOFer for NOTHING!
And you think thats a good trade based on reputation?
Please dude…don’t insult our intelligence!
You gave up 2 months of Beltran in a lost season. Lets discuss why you think that was a bad deal… or better yet lets not.
We have already tied up enough of people’s time with this debate. You know where I stand and I am sure everyone knows where you do. Time to move on.
What you said would be valid if Beltran was out of baseball after those two months…
He is still playing and will probably get some MVP votes for what he is doing in StL!
How many MVP votes will Wheeler get this year?
if you think this way, as a GM, you will never make any trade at all.
Don’t let other people fool you man, i am a mets fan and not saying i liked the trade at the time, it was bad timing i thought. but it was made and whether we liked it or not, it was made. pitching and defense is what wins games, we both know that, you’d have no argument over that, but the problem is, if you don’t have good hitter, make sure you provide the team with good defensive players at least. no?
Right, and that is where you get your catch 22. Duda had no position, they needed his offense but the only open spot was the one vacated by Beltran. Torres and Kirk were viewed as better defensively than Pagan so that was an upgrade. I haven’t looked at any metrics but based on what I have seen those two are indeed better defensively than Pagan.
Next defensive issue, 2B. Again, back to see Duda. The Mets needed Murphy’s offense and had no real alternatives to 2B so you weaken 2B to provide missing offense. I guess they could have went with a journeyman 2B to get better defense but what have you gained?
Finally, I think we would all say catcher. I have no disagreement, going into the season to want to see what Thole could provide was fine but they should not have broken camp with Little Nicky and Johnson as the catching depth behind Thole. It reminded me of the days of where we started the season with Murphy in LF with no real alternatives.
You keep talking about the Pre-Trade thinking as if that actually held true!
Sure they thought Torres was an upgrade defensively but he wasn’t and certainly was not an upgrade when you factor in the offense! Kirk wasn’t even in the plans!
You insist the Beltran/Wheeler trade was a plus but then go onto admit that we had to put a guy who was not as good on the field to replace Beltran and you have yet to see Wheeler pitch a game in the MLB. While he looks good so far if he fails to have success in the MLB that trade is a big loser!
You all thought Murphy was going to be a liability at 2B and you seem to suggest he has been. But that couldn’t be further from the truth! Again put the Bat and glove together and Murphy is an upgrade!
Funny you don’t mention Tejada who as good as he has played and as promising as he is is still a downgrade at SS when the truth is told. Not enough to complain considering the price but still not as good as he replaced.
Based on what I have seen Torres is an upgrade defensively over Pagan. Obviously that does not make up for his putrid offense. However, to say “Kirk wasn’t even in the plans!” is BS and you know it.
As for the rest of the post we have already discussed this enough so no need to get into another 100 post on something that everyone here already knows our stance on.
How many games of Pagan’s did you see this year?
The times he played the Mets and then the occasional start. However, again I am comparing it to what I saw from Pagan last year.
So you don’t really know who played a better CF this year other than looking at metrics.
I suppose thats why you also judge the Wheeler trade based on what you DID see of Beltran and not what he was capable of doing and did!
You seem to be going out of your way to make what left minimal in worth over those who haven’t even yet arrived to seem better despite thier lack of contribution.
Nope, it’s very fair to compare what Pagan has done this year and what Torres has done this year. Never said it wasn’t.
However, my comment is that the Mets moved to upgrade the defense there and Torres defense is better than what I saw from Pagan last year. Could his defense suddenly have improved? Sure. Can we stop this anytime soon?
Sure we can stop anytime your ready to admit the Pagan trade was a loss for us.
We didn’t gain any glove from the trade from what we could have had without the trade and lost a ton of Bat in the proccess!
Wre made the CF position worse than it HAD to be if we had not made the trade. And Ramirez has not made up for that in anyway shape or form!
So that deal is a BUST, Bad Deal we got taken!
Not the least bit shocked you want to trade Wright, Alex. What is crazy to me is that you will trade by far our best player (and one of the best position players in our not so glorious history) but you want to keep a pitcher (whom I LOVE and hope he stays a Met for the rest of his career) who is in his late 30′s, has an extremely short historyof success, and depends on a pitch that is known to at times disapear from many of the pitchers who have worked with it. Thanks for your fair and balanced objectivity Alex!
I for one tend to side with Mitch. Appart from say Wheeler, Harvey, and MAYBE Flores I say trade away!!! As long as the return is NOT some aging (or juiced up) vet on the back nine of his career.
I do not want any contracts over 5 years (I would prefer 4), (not counting legit option years) no matter who the player is. I agree that trading away established talent for “future phenoms” rarely works but what works even less is these 6,7,8,+++ year contracts that these big ticket free agents often get. The reasons vary from injury to FatCatItis that many times sets in after signing one of these megadeals. Whatever! I want no part of either of those two “cures”
the reason why i wanna trade wright is because we can get the best prospects for him.. Top caliber type prospects for him. and i don’t think dickey will demand more than a 3 year deal at best, plus, he’s a knuckleballer, who usually last longer no? It has nothing to do with wright’s uncluthiness in this case, it’s just i think a team will fall in love with his stats and maybe trade for him while giving us a good package. i mean, Colorado offered us willin and pomeranz for him on bad year, imagine what we can get for him now that he’s had a decent year with a great first half? a team with a few superstars can use him, because, quite frankly, we all know he’s not a player that will lead a team by himself. that is why (along with the bullpen and the FO lack of faith on the team) he faded in the second half…
Alex, who replaces his production and how long before that production is replaced?
Again, who can replace reyes productions??? You can find good 3B out there, way more easier than find a great SS like reyes.. come on man. as bad as reyes year has been he’s still has 9 triples, 37 SB, and after a bad april he’s hit 296 which is his career avg. Hell, Daniel murphy can play 3rd base..
“You can find a good 3B out on the market easier than a good SS”
Can you?
How much more value does Reyes even have over Tejada but that’s a different day.
Reyes and Hanley changed teams this year, two of the premier SS.
Here’s what is available in FA at 3B.
“Miguel Cairo (39)
Eric Chavez (35)
Mark DeRosa (38)
Brandon Inge (36)
Maicer Izturis (32)
Jose Lopez (29)
Placido Polanco (37) – $5.5MM mutual option with a $1MM buyout
Mark Reynolds (29) – $11MM club option with a $500K buyout
Scott Rolen (38)
Ty Wigginton (35) – $4MM club option with a $500K buyout
David Wright (30) – $16MM club option with a $1MM buyout
Kevin Youkilis (34) – $13MM club option with a $1MM buyout”
How much better is Wright than anyone on that list for 3B?
It isn’t even close.
Right, and the Reyes argument here doesn’t work. The production lost on offense and defense from going to Murphy instead of Wright is tremendously greater than the production lost of going to Tejada instead of Reyes.
Again, I am not a huge fan of WAR (if there is someone with a better way to compare players impact on offense combined with defense please step forward) but take a look at the difference.
Reyes: 3.4
Tejada: 1.9
Wright: 6.5
Murphy: 1.4 (keep in mind that is Murphy’s WAR as a 2B).
If you are not a big fan of WAR why use it???? Obviously you see it as a flawed stat, so again why use it? Because it strengthen your argument? Thats not how things work…I also like how you bring up Wrights defense as if he is a stud defensively lol…while he is having a good season at the hot corner his play there for most of his career left a lot to be desired. And least we forget Murphy’s natural position is 3B he is a far superior at 3rd base than he is at 2nd a position he has learned to play within 1 year.
Also Reyes wasnt replaced with a free agent he was replaced by a prospect. As Wright can be replaced by a prospect…Wright will undoubtedly bring back multiple top prospects in a trade. They could easily ask for a combination of the other teams top pitching prospect along with there best 3B prospect, which lots of teams have done.
Especially since they wont be needing the aforementioned prospect after acquiring Wright. And in the meantime Flores,Marte and this 3B prospect can compete in the minors to be the future Mets 3rd Baseman. And in the meantime they can either sign a stop gap or have some sort of platoon at 3B with Murphy/Lutz. Or they can easily try and acquire another teams best prospect(s) and instead of counting on one person to make up for the loss of Wrights Bat acquire multiple players via trades,free agency with the money saved from Wright…
AGAIN ITS ALL SPECULATION!!!
But it can be done multiple ways…losing Wright isnt like losing Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle….The Mets have been losers with Wright they can accomplish that without him. The only real argument here is the fans backlash of losing a popular player which Alderson has shown doesnt bother him 1 bit.
Because it’s all he has due to the fact he can’t come up with his own metric to make a better comparison? LOL
WAR is one of the worst most OB biased metrics ever invented!
It is due to the fact that I can’t find another metric that compares players across different positions while attempting to quantify their total impact on the team, not just defensively. However, I don’t even attempt to understand how it is computed and it most likely is flawed as hell. That being said, the same system is used for all players so it can still be useful in comparisons. That’s about it.
I did find it interesting though that Jim Bowden said on MLBN that WAR is something that ALL GMs rely heavily on. Hopefully they understand it more than I do.
None of them are better…..True
But, Five of those players are starters for teams around the MLB…And Wright is probably a top 5 3rd baseman in the league now and he is towards the end of his prime and the Mets are far from being contenders….So this lists shows that there is a big market for Wright….TRADE HIM!
Well actually if ASG voting is any indicator he is the third best 3B in the league!
It’s not enough to have “STARTERS” Pagan was a starter, and everyone thought he wasnt’t an answer then either! All your doing by trading Wright would be adding 3B to the list of things that need improving.
Nice list how many of them are as good as Wright?
TRS, the only way we can get a 3B is by FA? we can not make a trade? come on man, also, be creative for once.
OK, I challenge you to be creative enough to propose any name that the Mets could logically get to replace Wright’s production at 3B. By trade or FA.
You can use multiple players to make up for one players production
ex. get a serviceable 3B and acquire an above avg OF,C,RP,SP…
Well that only is true if you have a 40 Man roster you cn use all year!
But for most of it all you have is 25 Players and in the end the sum of that parts determine how good the whole is.
By taking more production from one area to get a little more in another even if you wind up on the plus side, unless you DOUBLED the production your not getting as much PER roster spot!
Having a 7 at 3B and a 4 at CF is not worse than having a 5 at 3B and 5 in CF! You lost a point along the way!
better to just keep the 7 at 3B and relace the 4 CF with a 5! Easier to do and less risky!
And the truth is your not likely to get those guys from the trade. You going to get a maybe which even if you get the players you think will get you those numbers, it won’t happen for awhile and may never happen at all!
You are right that when you trade for a bunch of not as high level prospects the chances of getting all of them to work out are slim. I also agree with your point that your goal is not to have a bunch of average players in every position because then you have no potential for increase.
The end goal should be getting as much production out of the limted 25 spots you get and you can’t do that trading away all your best players for a gaggle of kids that can’t ALL fit onto that 25 man roster even if they are good!
You need to keep what is good and ADD more Good!
Do that enough and you have the best 25 Players possible and thats how you do what the 86ers did!
Kids can be a component of that sure! But no one would have traded hernandez for Kids thinking it was the way to go!
You have to keep what works and YES sometime you have to guess what is no longer going to work and get something for it beofre that happens.
I don’t think that is the case for Wright as I also didn’t think that was the case for reyes.
I would have preferred to keep both, Sign them and then do what people propose to do now 2 or 3 years from now where the Ike Davis’ Reuben tejadas and maybe even Daniel Murphy, Harvey and Wheeler will have established the vet productive base that will make the kids we got for trading Wright and reyes midseason a good move.
Truth is if we really wanted to have a selloff it should have happened LAST year to get a year head start on the 5-10 year proccess we seem to be heading for!
2 words… ARAMIS RAMIREZ… Serviceable, good CLUTCH hitter, good defense, not that much of a salary. And hell, i’d approach the yankees for a swap of “stars” since i heard this morning he’s fed up with cano’s anticts. Trade wright for cano, Trade for aramis or at least entertain the idea, and can you imagine the lineup we’ll have????
One word: No
I said logical and then you trade for Cano?
Ramirez:
2013 35 Milwaukee Brewers $10,000,000
2014 36 Milwaukee Brewers $16,000,000
2015 37 Milwaukee Brewers *$14,000,000 $14M Mutual Option, $4M Buyout
Alex you have to understand that if you trade wright you might as well trade Dickey as well, Might as well trade everyone!
You can’t build a team through the Minors around one 38YO Knuckleballer!
By the time you get done Dickey will be long retired!
SO if you support letting Wright go then you might as well go all the way and let them all go!
I agree, for once. The problem with trading Wright is with a weak FA market you are almost locking in the fact that you will not be competing until at best 2015 or later. You have no 3B close to ready or anyone else that can replace his production no matter how clutch or unclutch or streaky it is. Trading Wright actually sets back the rebuilding process 3-5 years in my mind.
Which is why I also say that if you do trade Wright it has to be for impact position players. The problem with that is they can be even harder to judge than the pitchers. Who would have predicted the struggles of Duda and Davis?
What are you gaining though?
If you trade Wright for Impact players it has to be for TWO of them. One for the one your losing and another to fill a hole you already have!
Good Luck finding a GM stupid enough to give you twice what your giving!
Your not going to get ahead that way your merely playing Whack a Mole!
Give away your 3B solution for a RF Solution, Great for RF but now you need a 3B! And the stories the next three years will be we need another RH Power Bat to complement the RH Power bat we got for Wright!
Going nowhere very fast and I’m sure you’ll get there last! – Bloodless Pharoes
Again, I agree you would just be buying time if you traded Wright and Dickey. IF the Mets thought that Flores was a 3B and could replace Wright and was ready you have a different story. However, that is not currently the case and having Murphy play 3B and V-Spin or Havens play 2B is a travesty.
Buying time isn’t the goal!
You don’t get an extra prize for taking 10 years wha yuou can do in 5!
Your not actually BUYING time your merely WASTING IT!
By putting your self back the number of years it takes to replace whatever it is you lost!
To an extent I agree. However, you are also waiting on those prospects to be ready and for your window to be open. Personally I don’t believe it is going to take 5 years currently for that window to open. Right now I see it as 2 years. If you trade Wright to me that window closes firmly until after 2015 at the earliest.
Basically that is what the Phillies did. Wait on Hamels, Howard and Utley to be ready and then take off from there filling holes either through trade or FA.
Yes but they didn’t trade Rollins to get them did they?
They DRAFTED thier young core, they didn’t trade away good players to get them!
They didn’t trade away all stars to get Polanco and Werth not even for Hallliday and Lee!
I know a lot here would like to portray the folks who lament Sandy as folks who just want to buy thier way to a championship.
And you also like to think we don’t think having kids is important!
But thats just apologist claptrap meant to disparage us for not drinking the Sandy koolaid!
We ALL feel Kids and getting them are important but where we differ is we don’t think you need to create holes in the MLB to getb those kids as they should be gotten via the draft!
Draft well you don’t have to play Whack a Mole with the MLB roster!
Sign your picks and you will get those Howards who no one thinks much of at the time of the draft but wind up being All Stars!
Your window will never open because by the time your trade has filled the holes you have your still left with the holes you made to fill them!
If you have a Window your not going to have that window or open it with Kids!
Your going to open it with a top FA or Multiple for Mastery trade!
Thats what Cashen did!
When you have the majority of your positions filled (and in this case we have half the regular starters set, all in the IF) you don’t go backwards you go forwards and fix the other half that isn’t helping them!
One RH Power Bat Would add about 10 wins to the offense on the team we have now if he just replaced Jason Bay and did what Bay was supposed to be.
That puts us in the WC running!
Add the Wins above that Harvey and Wheeler get you pitching a full season (lets conservatively say 4 games each) and your now tied or the division and leading the Wildcard by 8 games!
That window is in reach but taking a step back is going to make that Window go away!
We are not one player away from being a champion, no one is suggesting that!
But we are one player away (assuming Harvey and Wheeler are already here) from competing for the playoffs where you guys think anything can happen. And with those two kids and Dickey, Niese and Gee we have the pitching that can make that Playoff entry interesting!
The opportunity to open that window and go through it is there!
But this frustrated anti-logic of going backwards is going to seal that window shut and it will be 10 years before you get close to a window again!
Well why does it have to be slvin FA?
Why don’t we trade 3 or 4 of those non-OFer prospects who we will be playing there the way we played Duda (to get the bat despite the glove) and go get that RH Power Bat we need and not create another hole we need to fil to get him?
It doesn’t, it’s just that most GM’s as you said are not going to take quantity over quality. They are not going to trade a top notch offensive OF for a bunch of misfits. I guess that is where a team’s scouting department has to earn their money.
Sure they are they do it all the time!
When Quality is being purged in most cases Quantity is the return. Your whole philosophy is predicated on that happening!
The Quality is never of the same magnitude as that star you purged!
At best what you get is you trade a single roster spot solution to fill 2 or 3 holes (if every player you get is actually MLB capable) who all need upgrading because at best they are just slightly above average and still not enough to get the job done. And what do you do then?
Go and find a player to replace them who is as good as the guy you originally traded and in some cases use the guys you got from trading him to get it!
Whack a Mole dude it’s pure Whack a Mole!
who are the big time, can’t miss, game changing FAs this year they are supposed to spend on? Hamilton and Grienke? That has to be the first question
The problem is not spending some money to bring in guys, it is making sure that you have enough of a base to build on that an older guy is going to make enough of a difference to be worth it.
trading though, does make a ton of sense, as long as they can get the quality needed back for whatever they can package up (and you can’t trade away all your close to the majors depth, otherwise you end up back in the same boat of having a couple of injuries, and not being able to cover it!)
as to Dickey and Wright, I still don’t see why they have to be coupled together. You could decide to trade one and keep the other. They are not some kind of package deal!
The irony is Dickey at age 43 ( 5 year deal) very well may be more productive than Wright at 37 (7 year contract). I definately see Dickey in his early 40′s being a closer ala Hoyt Wilhem.
We have to be careful in what we expect for Dickey. He’s not the normal knuckle ball pitcher and being that he throws with much more force their is no way of knowing, because it hasn’t been done, what the overall effect will be on his arm and if he indeed will be able to pitch well into his 40′s. Keep in mind also that as you age it isn’t just your arm that gets tired.
Can a “sports writer” be considered a “troll”?
No, but they can be considered a clickmonger.
Mitch, the evidence that Wright puts fannies in the seat is not supported by the facts. However Beltran did put fannies in the seat and when he was injured or gone the attendance figures compared to when he was healthy and raking support that conclusion. Here’s two things one should know about Wright:
1. He doesn’t sell tickets.
2. He cannot carry a team.
Pssst, I wont even mention the clutch thing. Oh snap!
With all due respect here Maniac…
But until he’s gone you don’t really know how many are going because Wright is still here.
The same thing was said about Reyes. He left and Attendance is down! was about even at the time just before the slump after playing above .500 up till that point.
It maybe hard to say how many people are coming because Wright is here but it’s not hard to say some of the few folks we have is because Wright is still here. And if he goes do you expect attendance to go up or down?
Metsie, so, if he’s not putting fans in the seat either, and the mets aren’t winning with him either, what’s the point on keeping the guy? might as well trade him now that the value is up in case he just not as productive. i mean, it’s not as if delgado, reyes and beltran are coming back to the mets so he can put up good stats!
Alex 28K people are going to the game now….
How many are going if he’s gone?
Minus that number from the 28K and you see how many people Wright DOES draw!
You can’t say because there are empty seats than Wright isn’t drawing!
He isn’t Metallica and supposed to sell out on his own.
And to take that further, Would Metallica pack the house if Hetfield was no longer the singer?
You can’t Say Wright doesn’t draw beacue people ARE going!
And not just on days Dickey Pitches!
Beltran’s injury coincided with a lot of things that wrong with the team at the same time, so your “fact” is skewed.
Wright did a hell of a job the first half of this season when no one else did squat (position player I know what Dickey has done all year), no one player should ever have to carry a team for a sustainable amount of time, that’s not a winning team, that’s a team treading water.
I submitted the following as a fan post Since it was so long but since Mitch beat me to the publishing punch I will just put that piece in a comment here so be forwarned it’s a long one.
It’s that time of year again where frustrations of a losing season cause sane and rational people to embrace the insane and irrational for lack of anything better to suggest.
The latest doozy from Joel Sherman of the Post suggests we should trade Wright, Dickey, Niese and oh while we are at it might as well trade Davis and Duda too. (He didn’t mention Murphy but might as well have included him in the name of being complete.)
The onus for such a drastic selloff is the same backwards thinking that frustrated people always come up with.
We are not close enough so let’s move even further away by getting rid of anyone who takes us in the direction of winning, and gets lot fillers in the hopes they are actually better than the guy we gave away to get them.
OR
We have too many holes, so to solve that we will create even more holes so that no matter what move we make after that we can at least say “Hey we improved!”
When logical solutions escape you, you inevitably resort to Anti-Logic to save the day!
Let me illustrate the illogical nature of this concept Sherman proposes.
If you need to go 100 miles to get where you want but your car only has enough gas to get you 75 Miles, does it make sense to sell the car and walk 100 Miles and/or using the money you made on the sale to buy bus tickets and hotel stays along the way or does it make just a bit more sense to go find another 25 Miles worth of gas instead?
If you had a house that was about to fall apart would you get rid of the only pieces holding it up or would you go and fix the pieces that are falling down?
In the latter example, the illogical suggest that it’s the foundation that needs fixing and they think the Minor League system is the foundation of the franchise. However it is not, it is nothing more than the place on the jobsite where materials are kept for use in the reconstruction, nothing more!
The foundation of the franchise is in the 40 Man roster and players who have ALREADY PROVED they are good enough to be on a MLB 40 man roster! By depleting that 40 man roster of anyone good all you’re doing is ruining the foundation not fixing it. Selling off major structural pieces of the foundation for more materials to stack up that might never be useful towards making a new more solid foundation. The “Lottery Tickets” you hope one day will be the basis for a new foundation but perhaps will not, especially considering the bust rate of prospects in the MLB.
Would you give up a month’s salary and empty your bank accounts because it isn’t enough to pay the bills, or make you rich to get a bunch of lottery tickets instead?
I didn’t think so!
So why would you propose to do the same on a baseball team?
Other GMs in the league are not stupid! You might get three kids but that’s because they don’t feel those kids you’re going to get are going to be as good as having the player your giving them. If you look at every blockbuster deal ever made you see the ones where the team who gets the multiples RARELY ever gets as good as they gave away. Maybe one of the prospects turns into a great player but in most cases not quite as great as the player they gave away. The cases where the Kid was better than the player are rare and even rarer do those kids ever lead to the success the theory promised when the deal is done.
If you don’t believe me tell me the Giants GM didn’t know exactly what we were getting in the Pagan trade! Tell me how well we made out on the player side of the K-Rod trade as well. Only deal that seems to have a chance of being a plus is Wheeler for Beltran. Let’s just hope the reason they gave up Wheeler isn’t because they knew something about him and merely had a glut of pitching that maybe they didn’t feel he could improve on. In the end Beltran could be a HOFer can anyone even hint at that for Wheeler yet?
Oakland has made deals like these for a decade now. How many World Series titles do they have under their belt? The Yankees are the team who most often gives up multiple kids for good MLB players, how many have they won in that same time period?
Now that’s not suggesting we are in a place where making those multiple for mastery moves is the way to go, but we are a lot closer to that state than we are to being so bad and so poorly built that losing for 10 years in a row is the only way to fix it. This is pretty much what seems to be the plan these days though!
Sell off all the guys who can win a game for you for lottery tickets, Lose a ton and get to the top of the draft heap, and hope some of those kids you got trading your blue chips actually makes the MLB or can be decent enough to trade for someone who can.
I know many fans don’t think much of our Minor League prospects but that doesn’t mean they are useless in trades to get what you want or need. You get your best prospects from the draft not from trades so if you really want to see that Minor League pile of materials stack up you should insist on signing all your draft picks as opposed to purging all the guys who contribute to the wins you have been getting.
Even if you think that purging the stars is a good plan and the slow rebuild can work you have to come to grips with the facts of being a New York baseball team.
Patience is not a New York Virtue!
And it makes no sense taking a path you know will never make it to completion.
That doesn’t mean a buying spree is in order but a selling spree will never sell and what will happen in the long run is all that money you think you saved will be wasted by the next GM who replaces the TurtleGM as he will be forced to go and buy whatever is available for any price in order to try to get us to go see them play. That’s how you get bad contracts on the books like Jason Bay, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.
Cashen is noted as taking 5 years to get the team into the World Series. But he had 5 top 10 overall first round picks (10 first rounder’s in his first 5 years overall) to get there, and he only hit on two of them! And what was needed in the end? A trade of our Multiples for one mastery (Gary Carter) and the lucky situation of having St Louis willing to trade a Hernandez for Neil Allen. (You can think that the Mazzilli trade was integral but when push comes to shove, you can’t say Darling was a better player than Mazzilli in the grand scheme of baseball greats and Terrell got you HoJo who had a good season or two but hardly a great of the game…You got back about what you gave and only marginally better at best. It was a Fair and pretty even trade)
You can’t build a winner just by having more things to try than the other team. You build it by keeping what is good and adding to it and by having more “win contributing” players than the other guy.
That means extensions for Wright and Dickey. That means adding to the team via the acquisition of a RH power hitting bat that Jason Bay isn’t, to complement Wright. That means holding onto young promising players like Ike Davis and good hitting players like Tejada and Murphy. And if the kids we have in the Minors can’t fill the holes we have then trade them for players that can!
But this notion of going backwards from the goal of winning in the hopes you win the lottery and outsmart some GM goes against all the logic of PROGRESSION!
Digression is not the answer here and even if we try it the truth is we will get to the point where it has digressed as much as it can and then fire the guy with the plan so that the endgame you expect will never come to pass. Leaving us worse than we were when we started!
If you want to move forward you don’t do that by moving backwards first. There is no running jump in Baseball!
No team has ever won the World Series with a homegrown only Minor league built team! And if they had, they won only one before they shot their load and were done! Back to losing wholesale!
It’s not sane OR smart!
And not the plan we should be supporting here!
Damn metsie..
LOL I actualy cut a chunk OUT of that!
You should still submit this as a fan post…
It was submittd yesterday but since your came out and Mine didn’t I figured it wasnt’t posted because it was on the same subject as your piece.
I don’t like splitting the conversation into two articles usually I think it’s a bit unfair to the original (first published) Author.
Metsie, the CORE appreciate what you did. unlike some others who post articles to steal one fellow author’s idea just because they want a piece of the pie as well…
Or to distract people from reding the article that goes against thier propaganda.
One thing i’ll say.. If we trade wright, don’t tell me we’ll lose even more fans. it should depend on who we get back… With IKE davis leading the front, and some good/serviceable players around him, and a very solid SP and a fortified Bullpen, there’s no telling how good this team can be.. again, pitching is our forte, we should embrace it and hand the keys to this offense to ike davis. find some speedy guys who can create havoc and don’t worry much about OBP (kinda like what Oakland and Tampa are doing), and fortified the defense, specially up the middle. booom, contenders… with guys like Flores, Lagares, Vaughn, Nimmo, and others waiting on the wings, we can build a contender for years to come. Pitching is there, defense will help the team even more.
Alex whoever we get back will not even be playing in CitiField so there is no way he can make up for the loss of attendance. Maybe if 4 years but here is the rub…
If you can get him for Wright you can probably also get him for Flores and Familia without the claptrap thrown into the deal to make up the difference between him and Wright and still have Wright’s bat in the lineup.
I know you don’t like Wright much but you have to admit he is probably the best guy on this team right now from a proven performance POV and do you really think selling off your best player each year is the smart play?
Metsie, problem is, we got a good player that we might lose anyways! it’s not as if their gonna surround him with talent, we’re a few years and a new FO with winning phylosphy away from contending again, why the need to keep wright if we’re just gonna waste away his stat padding years? might as well get something in return now and hope for 2 year turn around on those prospects we get from him instead of losing him in 2 year for a draft pick that we might no even sign anyways,
Well this might be where we disagree a bit…
Yes we agree we are a decent GM away but thats besides the point…
We have half of a pretty solid everyday team.
And as I said we have two good SPs to add to that part of it.
One RH Power Bat to play the OF (preferably RF) would add abotu 10 wins to the record and make Davis and Duda better too!
Is that enough to dominate? NO! But it is enough to play for the playoffs and with the Pitching thats makes us a favorite there!
get a RFer to complement Wright’s power, Duda in LF and you have all those kids like Kirk, Flores Valdespin and eventually Nimmo to fight over the CF spot!
Even if Shoppach was the regular catcher that would be enough to compete for the playoffs!
And when fortune smiles on us and makes a good hitting LFer available to replace Duda or a CF to leadoff and replace those kids, We go for it and for around 120-130 Mil we will be packing in the crowds, Winning a ton of games, making the playoffs, and then all that will be left to do is to draft the hiers apparent for the guys we have by the time they get too old to be productive!
terrible, poorly reasoned article. let’s continue doing what hasn’t worked!
I gess making the playoffs is now considered a failure and moving into the basement is the new PROGRESS???
Is that like the Bad means Good thing?
pburke,
Terrible, poorly written comment. Lets continue to post asinine comments!
pburke TROLL Status LEGEND
WRIGHT WANTS TO BADLY REMAIN A MET
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/jon-heyman/20048041/believe-it-or-not-wright-suggests-he-badly-wants-to-stay-a-met-time-for-the-wilpons-to-repay-him
If true this guy doesnt want to be a winner….he likes to lose
If that is true and that is how you feel do you feel the same way about yourself as well as other Mets fans? That we don’t want to be winners and want to lose?
My profession is not being a Fan for a living TRS. If I were with a company that I viewed as a losing organization and I saw they showed no signs of improving. I would definitely look to leave, now if the Mets offer Wright a ridiculous large contract and he accepts I wont think badly of him. I’d think he was smart for taking the money…family comes 1st.
Obviously he is not going to take pennies on the dollar to stay with the Mets and for every player money is a primary concern. However, him WANTING to stay with the Mets if finances are near equal is the same choice you are given as staying with them as a fan.
No it is not TRS it is 2 different things although you would like them to correlate just for the sake of your argument.
Hate to borrow a phrase from Herm Edwards but “You play to win the game”….You are not a fan to win the game “you are a fan win or lose”…
And if Wright believes the Mets arent anywhere close to being a winning team (as he has stated)and they are just making baby steps. He needs to find a team that is interested in winning and wants him to be a part of their team.
I as a fan can say you know what my team the mets arent interested in winning so screw them im not gonna watch. Or I could watch other teams play because i do love baseball and if i want to go to a game, Coney Island here I come. Wright doesnt have that option when he is under contract he has to go to every game and deal with mediocrity and journalists asking him the same questions everyday.
The Mets would be NUTS!!!! To offer Wright a deal similar to Zimmerman….hell no! That would be going against everything they said this new FO was about….It would be a return to previous regime of offering bad contracts and ruin the tiny credibility they have left with Mets fans regarding their long term plans for the Mets
I do agree with this. I have said it before, just because some other organization is stupid doesn’t mean we have to follow suit.
The mets were winning and he was hitting at a insane rate and he didn’t wanna talk about contract or anything like that. Said also he wants to win.
Fast forward to NOW, when he’s struggling like crazy and the team is losing, he wants to stay badly with the mets?? Which one is it then david??? he’s all over the place!
Lol….true…
Alex, Its called negotiating a contract during the season while at the same time saying “I dont want to negotiate during the season”
All a leverage game
Well if you look at the context not the sentence what he really said was…
He wants to STAY with the Mets and help them bring a WS to NY!
He would like to see them help him there!
That means he wants to be here provided the Mets are going to work towards that goal but if the FO is insistent on this 10 Year Tampa Bay model then he won’t be around to see it and might as well move on!
I happen to agree with this idea having been a long time Mets Fan. The only difference is I would not trade these players for unproven minor leaguers but instead players that are young but able to immediately contribute. If the scouting team & GM search the league hard enough I’m sure they can find some good decent players that can improve our infield & outfield for the years to come. Guys like Trout, Upton, etc are out there and can be found, and with David Wright & Dickey’s value way up at the moment, it would be a perfect time to trade them off. Wright still strikes out alot and will not be getting better in the next 3 or 4 years, but his skills shall be declining instead. Dickey has been a nice find but cannot go on forever at age 39. So now really is the best time to do something positive instead of shellying-out millions of dollars to these two players that really should not be a part of the Mets future. Haven’t we had enough long term deals blow-up in our face?
No offense but did you just say guys like Trout are out there? For trade? Really? That is why you have to trade for prospects. If they are already on a team and proven there is no way in heck you are getting them for one year of a veteran. Seriously, what would it take to get Trout? How many young proven MLB players get traded for veterans? I can’t even really remember one right off the top of my head.
I have one for you…
Hubie Brooks for Gary Carter!
LOL, THIS.
Good one. Of course at the time Hubbie had played in 551 games and was 27 years old and of course Gary Carter was 31.
Not sure that fits ” If they are already on a team and proven there is no way in heck you are getting them for one year of a veteran.”
But it’s close.
Well you have to find the right team with the right conditions existing to make those deals.
We had Ray Knight and Howard Johnson waiting in the wings to step in and replace Brooks.
Some here might even suggest the same kind of situation exists with us now with Murphy or Turner playing the role of Knight until Flores is ready to come up and assume the HoJo role.
Of course that is the opposite direction than was proposed we do. We could get the Carter but maybe not the Younger
We are much more like the Expos in that deal where We have a good guy we can’t really afford to re-sign and would need to get the younger guy back so if thats what you want to do you have to either find a team that has a logjam at the position you will get who is younger than Wright (pretty hard to find much younger than Wright at this point) and even if you made that deal in the end you have to admit that Brooks was not as good as Carter when all was said and done.
Making trades is all about matching up with your trade partner. Find a team who can part with a player at a particular position they are deep and your weak at but is weak someplace else your strong at then you can make those deals.
SO if you want to make a deal like this you have to find someone who doesn’t have a credible 3B in the next 3 years and needs one to become a winner (like us in the 80′s) . And you will have to find one with a player in a position we don’t have otherwise you wasted the plus you gave and merely downgraded the position.
WHo that is I have no idea because truth be told I think it will be hard to find a younger guy than Wright who is established because how the hell do you establish yourself with only 3 maybe 4 years in the league?
And in the end I think we have enough in the Minors to get an OFer who hits for power and bats Righty.
He doesn’t have to be a high average guy (Carter sure wasn’t!) just enough of a threat to stop pitchers from playing around too much with Davis and Duda and risk putting them on base for the RH power bat to potentially drive in.
Lose Wright and the truth is your so far behind the 8 ball it doesn’t matter who you get because losing your best player is not the way to build a team or a smart thing to do whenever you make a move which in our case is pretty close to what has been done.
Best Closer, Best RBI HR guy, Best OB and Base stealer, They are all gone and now we propose to trade our best High Average power hitter too?
When does it stop? DO we trade our best Pitcher too?
How many years in a row do we do these things and how many years before all these kids win again?
I can tell you it’s NEVER!
Making a trade just so you can make a trade is chasing your tail!
Especially if the only trades you seem to be able to make is trade one good player for 2 or 3 mediocre players!
They need to start trading some of these kids that no one seems to feel are any good (except maybe those of us who actually read Pet’s stuff).
If they are that bad then trade multiples!
You see to think it’s a smart thing to do so maybe some other GM is a dumb as some Met fans who support such trades ar!
Uh… I think that was my point all along. Trades like this don’t happen very often.
Actually they probably happen all the time just not on the level of Stars that exists here….
Shoppach for Beato is the same thing just at a much lower level of stardom than a Brooks for Carter.
There are probably a TON of deals like that made for slightly above average players and a TON of them on the bubble type role players.
The implication was for star players. I don’t think I would consider Beato proven either.
The frequency of trades is proportional to the amount of players that fit the level your trading…
Are those deals like that for star’s rarer? SURE because there are much fewer players who are that good in the entire MLB!
But the concept of trading established old for slightly younger happens all the time.
And anyone who makes the MLB is established as an MLB player!
As opposed to getting sme id who hasn’t even established that much yet!
Perspective!
Yeah…