http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=19971805

and this is what i have always gotten at…

the wilpons treat the season like a set of 162 movies they have to sell tickets to….

Cano…Cain….Hamels….Howard…..

all play for very competitive teams….

none of them sacrificed dollars for the sake of “winning”

the contract is not prohibitive…its fair market value from an annual year perspective….

my thing is this….

there is NO point in keeping david wright…if u cant keep david wright and cant surround him with all-stars even when they were available….and with any free-agent…u can come up with excuses not to sign them…

this is what a potential lineup could’ve looked like…

1 – Bourn – 12 mil
2 – Tejada – 500K
3 – Murphy – 3 mil
4 – Wright – 8 mil
5 – Ike – 3 mil
6 – BJ Upton – 15 mil
7 – Duda – 500K
8 – Travis – 500K

that right there is roughly 50 mil….

add in the rotation…and the relief crew…and payroll STILL does not touch 90 mil

the mets saying that johan = 31 mil and counting Bay’s entire 18 mil salary is just their way of justifying not signing folks…

next year…in a much THINNER free-agent class…they’ll sign wally to be manager…and point to the thin class as to why they didnt sign anyone…and just use wally ball to sell tickets

signing wright + signing nobody = status quo… ( no gamble….more than likely )

signing wright + signing some top free-agents = potential progress ( highly likely )

trading wright for top prospects = potential progress ( gamble )

to make this about Wright would be very misleading…

this type of stuff has been going on since the early 90′s…the mets as a whole have been soft…weak….

20 years ago, this is what Fred Wilpon said about the transition from the 86 mets to the 92 mets

The most ruinous of their mistakes took three basic forms: miscalculation or outright ignorance of the intangibles winning players need, particularly in New York; quick-fix trades that recklessly disregarded long-term effects; and the disastrous breakup of what was supposed to be a seamless passing of the front-office command from chief operating officer and general manager Frank Cashen to his lieutenants, McIlvaine and Harazin. Wilpon is positively penitential in acknowledging all three elements. “Not enough emphasis was placed on the mix of people and the chemistry that are essential to winning,” Wilpon says. “It was almost like Rotisserie baseball.”

basically…to sum it up….

it seems that if u have a set of cojones on this team….u will at some point take it out on the other team ( the wilpons dont mind so long as u dont embarrass the league and bud ) ..BUT occasionally you will hold the front office accountable as well…

Beltran defying the wilpons and getting surgery ( which proved to be the RIGHT move )…led to the Walter Reed hospital incident…

Dickey defying the wilpons orders not to climb Killma. mountain….and also saying how the team felt when ownership punted on 2011….and a few other things…basically led to the team making him a villian 3 weeks before he was traded….

Wright is the poster boy for the type of player the wilpons have been dying to have….basically a more talented version of Gregg Jeffries…

good looking….marketable….wont fight with anyone….a hit at the box office…and occasionally at the plate…at least enough to keep the marketability going…

I understand what you are saying and to a point I agree with you. You are entitled to have your opinion and so is everyone else. Regarding D. Wright, correct me if I’m wrong but you fall under the not a big fan column, yes? Yet you framed your argument with fact based examples and didn’t take to character assassinations of a man who has a sterling reputation of being a good guy.

It is your choice what players you like and don’t like just no need to character kill a guy who is known as a “good guy”. I can see if it were a guy that was known to be a jerk then maybe you take that into consideration.

if the reporter did NOT get along with wright, he would’ve been calling him out on the stuff i just did now.

in a couple of years, when there are no more other folks to blame….and the mets are sub-500 again..and its just a boring August day, and if Wright is going through his annual 2nd half dive…..the same reporters will eventually write negative articles about wright…

then everytime he looks at the field, its a dirty look, a scowl, he doesnt get along with the manager….an unconfirmed source said he was seen having an argument with a teammate….

Mike Lupica nailed it perfectly the other day

“– Kevin Youkilis, who has one of the biggest hearts in baseball and has always had one of the dirtiest uniforms, speaks from the heart about the Red Sox this week and you immediately got the idea that he’s slashed the tires on Joe Girardi’s car.

You know why?

Because it takes nothing these days for something to be treated as a controversy.
No, check that.

It takes less than nothing when we exist in a sports culture where we require a Big Story for every single news cycle.”

“where we require a Big Story for every single news cycle”

write that and put it up on ur fridge…

now u know how the wilpons use the press to their advantage….

i can see it going down like this…

Jeff: Hey Adam, you need a story? I got a big one for u
Adam: Hey Jeff, whatcha got ?
Jeff: Yeah we had a trip to the walter reed hospital and some guys didnt show up
Adam: which ones?
Jeff: Beltran, Castillo, and Ollie….Gee didnt show up either but I gave him a pass
Adam: thanks, Jeff, my boss was really pressing me for a story, clicks are down since last wk
Jeff: No problem, just say you heard from an unconfirmed source that I was raging mad
Adam: I know the deal Jeff, no names

franco….
benitiez ( dont laugh )
wagner
k-rod

santana has the heart of a lion….but he’s never been known to be a head-hunter…

the only SP i can recall like that was Pedro….and like keith and carter, we got him at the tail end of his career, only getting a few miles out of him….

david only appeared tough in front of the camera…

he just said….that chase utley told him, if he had a problem with the slide…that HE will have a chance to slide into 2B, so basically…if u want some..BRING IT….

David has never taken Mr. Utley up on that offer…

Carlos Beltran instead…did none of that tough talk poser boy BS…he just tried to take Utley AND the SS out AT THE SAME TIME…and mind u…he did that when he had a BAD KNEE…

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.439897.1314584710!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/alg-beltran-out-jpg.jpg

sorry…but….the team is in essence a reflection of its owner…

SOFT…NICE….and occasionally they say the right things….

when u get someone who IS outspoken and shows a LITTLE emotion….most times the wilpons run them out of town…crap on em in the press…and the little sheep just follow suit

Says the biggest fugazi tough guy, cyber bully on the planet

http://newyork.sbnation.com/2012/12/4/3727500/new-york-mets-david-wright-extension

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dicker.01.shtml#trans

As for him being a phoney, I am not sold on that. He does want to win as do most players. And I am sure lots of things went into his decision with the Mets including (very highly) the money. He is probably telling the truth when he said that he is comfortable in the Mets organization and wanted to resign because of friends he has. How many people in the corporate world make this same decision? Was the money secondary? Not likely. Did he offer a discount? Not by much, if at all. Wright got paid and that was important to him. But if he wanted maximum dollars FA was the way to go albeit with increased risk.

Plus the other part of your basis for him being a phoney is believing that the Mets wont win anytime soon. I dont agree with that and, evidently, nor does Wright. This organization isnt that far from competitiveness.

What DW said made me proud of him. He said It they (meaning the Phillies) are going to slide like that then maybe we should change our approach how we slide.

For that one brief instance DW shed his image of being soft.