Of course we are both speaking in generalities but as far as the payroll, it would only be Pagan whose salary would have affected payroll for this season. Wright and Dickey would not kick in until 2014 and at that time, Santana’s contract is over. So it would have meant an additional $10 million this season.

But we must remember that for any other team but the Mets it’s not a matter of not having the money, it’s a matter of whether the owners want to spend some of it or pocket as much as they could. We cannot look at payroll as a separate entity but part of the financial whole. It’s no different that if the Mets invested $25 million more on non-roster personnel. Financially, pocketing the money might not reap as much profit as re-investing in the team but it is then a guarantee of at least a certain amount of profits should the revenue not come through as hoped otherwise.

Sandy is not taking that gamble, financially, for whatever projected reasons only he and the Wilpons have privy to. His actions (forget about the statements) show that he has not only not spent but has also taken extreme measures to cut back and thus save – and that is throughout the organization, not just the roster (ten percent cut back last season, the elimination of an executive VP position last month and who knows what else privately).

We would be in much better shape in the field if circumstances hadn’t been so serious for the Mets financially. Certainly, the team could have remained competitive without sacrificing the future for I cannot believe that the future of the team is dependent so much on the shoulders of a Wheeler. We would have also acquired something better than “inexpensive” players as Sandy admitted he did for a purpose other than to field a competitive team (remember he said one can’t expect to win with those type of players who could only produce fifty percent). And had the moves been different, we would not even be talking about d’Arnaud.

Doesn’t mean a guarantee of October baseball – only the competitive integrity to attempt it. The players weren’t the only ones kicked in the teeth – the fans were too – for isn’t competitive integrity the reason why we buy tickets (if we could afford to) – and the reason why so many aren’t (even if they could afford to)? Re-building comes from not having a core of good players to begin with. That is dis-mantling and salary dumping that has nothing related to competitive integrity.

That the Wilpons were victims of a scandal that forced this upon them nobody disagrees. It’s the contention that what happened with the Mets beginning in November, 2010 had something to do with putting together a winning organization and that the measures taken were wise ones regardless of the owners being named Wilpon or Steinbrenner.

http://metsmerizedonline.com/2013/01/the-5-%c2%bd-man-rotation-a-healthier-and-winning-formula-for-future-mets-teams.html

yes, keeping all those players around would have made the Mets a lot more competitive over the past two seasons. Reyes + Beltran + KRod ( on a restructured contract instead of the 17.5 million vesting option, say, 3-years, 33 million instead) + Pagan for about 45 to 50 million $ combined in 2012 is a valid projection. Add it to the roughly 90 million $ for other players and you get to about 135 or so million for that team in 2012.

And instead of 74 wins, that team probably wins 85 games in 2012 if all goes well, maybe even up to 88 with good luck and challenges the Cardinals for the 2nd Wild Card. Would it have been enough to win it ? World enough fans have shown up to cover the extra operating expenses ? And what about 2013 with Pagan leaving as a free agent ? Yet an extra 10 million $ in costs for Santana and Bay plus raises in arbitration for Ike, Murph and others ? You enter this off season with at least 140 million in obligations for 2013 and have lost Pagan ( or kept him to be at 150 million with the same team returning, albeit a year older, still without a catcher and still with iffy middle relief and no guarantee to top 85 wins – albeit it very high costs.

Do you keep Dickey around in that scenario ? If so, no D’ Arnaud, no Wheeler and no Syndergaard going forward.
After 2013 you clear a ton of payroll space by losing Santana, Bay, Beltran and KRod and get back to the 100 million or so range even including RA’s much deserved extension. Still, thebullpen and C issues remain the same, you have to fill a hole in the rotation and in RF and CF ( if you didn’t keep Pagan).

Sure, it’s a valid alternative scenatio that’s a lot more interesting ( and costly) in the shortterm but seems questionable in the long term without any guarantee to reach 90 wins again…

My first response about the core was who brought it down to that level to begin with? Why do we have three holes in the outfield instead of no more than 1/2 (Hairston being platooned, possibly resolved with Duda coming back)? Why have no speed at the top of the lineup? Why now have a bullpen without a closer? Why no Cy Young award winner? Why no bench strength?

Many have argued that the Mets would have needed a $160 million payroll to compete in 2012. I don’t think so. Let’s do a little math with the understanding these are more estimated numbers and could vary one way or the other but not so far as to not be accurate enough for our purposes.

If they signed Jose to $18 million a year, Beltran for $14 million ($1 million more than St. Louis), kept KRod at his $12.3 million, hung onto Pagan, the payroll would have remained in the range of just under $140 million (added to the $93 million which includes the $6 million for our other Francisco, Rauch, other minor free agent signings plus the contractual raises for Wright, Santana and the others).

In actual costs, that’s an extra $47 million, however, we must also look at total expenses and not just that of payroll. Notice that the 2011 roster payroll (search through the attached) does not include money owed Perez and Castillo. So in terms of actual player expenses, that $47 million would have really only been $29 million because those two ($18.2 million combined) were off the books. That $29 million could have been made up an approximate addition of drawing 120,034 more fans (1,486 per game) based on the estimated $241 spent by fan per game in 2011 (I attached an article several weeks ago breaking down the average cost per fan going to a game- the Mets were the fifth most expensive in 2011).

It would be a good bet that the Mets would have played much better that first half and continued to do so with the roster being what it could have been, resulting in more fans coming with the team in a playoff hunt instead of feeling betrayed by many by the team being dismantled (there had to be at least 120,000 in the tri state area who felt strong enough to have stayed away LOL). So why didn’t Sandy go this route? My only hunch is that Sandy did not want to risk counting on those additional 120,034 fans to bring in $29 million more in revenue when not paying iit guaranteed $29 million less in expenditures.

So how would the 2012 team have looked like? In alphabetical order:

Outfielders: Bay, Beltran, Duda, Hairston, Pagan; Reserve: Baxter.
Infields: Davis, Murphy, Reyes, Wright ; Reserves: Polino, Tejada, Turner,
Catcher (weak link): Thole, Nickeus
Starters: Dickey, Gee, Harvey, Niese, Santana
Relievers: Byrdak, Francisco, Parnell, Rauch, Rodriguez

And all we would have not to show for our “rebuilding” efforts was Zack Wheeler and nothing more. Our farm system would have remained in tact and with Santana, Beltran and KRod moving on after 2012 those kids coming up this season (sans Wheeler) would still be doing so. We have no idea what would have resulted from the better success of the last two seasons as far as better player moves as well.

http://content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/baseball/mlb/salaries/team

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2008/05/Issue-162/Leagues-Governing-Bodies/MLB-Teams-Insure-Long-Term-Deals-To-Protect-From-Player-Injury.aspx

Nationals trade Michael Morse for A.J. Cole in three-team deal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/nationals-journal/wp/2013/01/16/nationals-trade-michael-morse-for-a-j-cole-in-three-team-deal/

Whatever it is you think they add is certain not as much as they cost to get!

Sorry Dooby there is no core being BUILT it was already here….
You can say he added to the core that was here but he sure didn’t build it and he certainly isn’t doing anything to help it by signing the other scrubs he has while waiting for Wheeler and d’Arnauds clock to start.

He’s not PREPARING this team to be ready to INFUSE/INCORPORATE a new young core…
Most of it is already here, already has thier CONTROL clock ticking off and will have most of the control you covet WASTED while we play AAAA players around them.

SO there is no point in having a core when your going to waste all thier early years over a MONEY PHOBIA!

The only thing this core will bring us is MORE trades of THE CORE to get even MORE kids we will wait on before spending around them because they will be the names of guys who “We Can’t Win WITH so should trade to build the NEXT CORE we won’t build around and waste it’s team control of.

I’d rather have Cilppard, Storen AND Soriano than just Clippard and Storen.

For now, the core is merely Wright, Niese and if you’re generous Ike Davis.
Matt Harvey is closing in – and he’ll hopefully be joined by Zach Wheeler and Travis D’Arnaud shortly. That combined with a low payroll and a deep farm system, plus several solid complementary pieces ( Gee, Parnell, Tejada, Murphy, maybe Nieuwenhuis, Familia or Mejia eventually) is a very promising situation to build on.

Will it work out ? Who knows. There are obiously no guarantees and a bunch of things can go wrong – like labrums popping instead of 95 mph fastballs.
But the general idea is pretty sound.
And so far, except for failing to maximize the value of Jose Reyes by either trading or keeping him, not a single move over the past two years has had any sort of meaningful negative impact on that plan. The number of cheap “hidden gems” picked up from the waiver wire has been quite low so far. Though after going for mediocre veteran plugins with limited upside over the past couple of years, the front office has finally started picking up the types of younger players this winter ( Burke, Cowgill or Brown) I expected to see more of earlier. It’s certainly more creative than signing Jon Rauch, Ronnie Paulino or Ronnie Cedeno.

What Soriano was peeved about was his GM telling the whole world that he was FORCED to sign him by ownership and it wasnt his call !!!

If Soriano was that big of a baby…why did he execute his PLAYER OPTION ?

At the end of the day, Washington is doing exactly what NY should’ve done in 2006…

instead of acting on best-case scenario’s and crossing your fingers that everyone stays healthy, they prepare for the worst…

Tyler Clippard was shaky as a closer
Storen had chips in his elbow

Why bank your season on everything going right with 2 shaky but good players when you can sign a top closer and have….real DEPTH in case !!!

like i said, you are a champion for mediocrity

i did see a change in his approach towards the end of the season…he looks like he is a quick learner…

he attempted 11 bunts for base-hits last year…successful on 3…

the thing is….he is not going to be ricky henderson on day one…but give him a Carlos Beltran or Cliff Floyd or a Julio Franco on the team…someone who takes the younger kids ( not just the ones that look like him ) and mentors him, Jordany would be just fine…

in NY…on the Mets…with THIS squad…with a manager that doesnt appear to even like him…

Jordany Valdespin is going to have to be PERFECT in every sense of the word…

not likely he gets a chance to flourish here…

What happened to the guy who said reyes wasn’t worth having because he missed all of about 30 games a season and is now apparently has been replaced by a guy who thinks 30 games in a season makes you the best closer that doesn’t need iprovement or help?

Careful because if your list contains more than two names your redefining BUILT to be something used that was already here…..and already BUILT!

“one benefit of the current 40-man roster is that it´s young & under team control longterm”

That cuts both ways you own them long term but do you really want them there long term?
You can own a junker outright but that doesn’t make it more valuable to have than a new car. Young and Under control is only relevant if the guys your talking about are good enough to want to keep long term.

You saw the debate yesterday on locking up Ike….

Tejada looked good but only because many WANTED to focus on the BA to justify letting Reyes go and if the rest of the team was playoff ready those slap singles would become an issue for them…

No one seems to think Murphy is a great 2B despite the MLB Network Shredder saying he was #10 in the league (see that recent debate as well)

And d’Arnaud is unproven in the MLB and he already has the two worst injuries a catcher could have, Bad back (discs) and Bad Knee….

Harvey had a good 2nd half of the season…Keep your fingers crossed there…
Wheeler is still unproven in the MLB….
Gee is coming off surgery, he should be fine but if he’s not does it matter if we own him long term?

Having players locked up long term and under control is really only important when your sure you WANT them long term and thier performance makes controlling them worth something!

RE: Payroll – Any discussion of Payroll is just excuse making and rooting for the owner not the team winning. There is no benefit to building a team with a 100 mil payroll over building one with a 150Mil payroll or more (until you hit the luxury tax) And I know you all think well we will put all that money in the bank and spend it all next year but as you list shows there isn’t much there worth having aside from maybe Granderson.

Carlos Gomez- a career .247 hitter!
Chris Young jr – a Craeer .239 hitter! (and he costs 10 Mil+?)
Jacoby Ellsbury – Who aside from his 2011 Anomoly (can you say PEDS?) is 28 and not very good just a slap singles hitter…

From your list I don’t see anyone who makes next year a championship ready team other than granderson….And none that would have done any better than the guys who were available this year.

And to think that any of the guys you like is going to sign for 10Mil per when the seeming average for a decent OFer is atabout 13 Mil per I don’t see where your getting any of them at the price you suggest.

I think your just doing the same thing with 2014 FAs that many of you are doing with the Kids Hyping and Hoping….

SO much for the younger guy being better to have because older guys are injury risks….

Keep in mind the philosophy of the Nats FO….
This is a team who shut down thier best pitcher while they were still in a playoff race!
They seemingly are very CAUTIOUS (same say overly) about the amount of workload thier pitchers get especially when coming off an injury or surgery.

Since Storen was hurt they sure are not expecting him to go and be effective for an entire season. They can lower his workload and deal with who becomes the closer between the two next year when Soriano is in the final year of his contract!

So not only was it a smart move it was a smart DEAL as well…Sure they give away some money…Money that will easily be made by ensuring they stay in the playoffs and repeat this year…
And it expires after storen has the benefit of a season of coming off injury to build up arm strength and get sorted and one year at full strength to win back his job making Soriano expendable, tradeable and likely to get back the LATE first rounder they lost to get him!

If the two guys he was replacing was the same age you could understand it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/drew-storen-pained-by-washington-nationals-loss-to-st-louis-cardinals/2012/10/13/93e416be-152d-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html?tid=pm_sports_pop

And how does his team respond? Not by saying we have confidence in you, gotta lose before you know how to win… no – they sign 33 yr old free agent Soriano to replace him.

Everybody is acting like the names on paper are all that matter for the Nats but 1 of those bullpen arms is mentally damaged and his team just added to it rather than trying to instill confidence