The last thing I wanted to do this morning was bore you with another post on Jason Bay, however some of these strange twists that seem to surface each day make this ongoing soap opera to difficult to ignore.
When we last saw our hero (Jason Bay), his agent Joe Urbon had said that they would be making some sort of an announcement in the next 48 hours. That was late Friday morning, and as of this writing on Monday, nary a peep. But, that doesn’t mean our dynamic duo weren’t bust doing other things…
“Baby come back, any kind of fool could see.
There was something in everything about you.
Baby come back, you can blame it all on me.
I was wrong, and I just can’t live without you.”
According to Bill Madden of the Daily News, Urbon and Bay both turned back to the Boston Red Sox and pleaded with them to re-visit negotiations even though they already signed free agent Mike Cameron last week. This of course comes after they flat out rejected the Red Sox offer which was not that dissimilar from the current Mets offer.
In fact, two weeks ago before the Red Sox signed Cameron, Urbon made comments that sounded like Bay would definitely not be re-signing with the Red Sox.
“It’s pretty simple. We reject the Red Sox’ latest offer for a number of reasons but primarily the valuation of the offer isn’t where we think it should be, nor is it where other clubs have valued Jason in this marketplace,’’ Urbon said. “That’s just led Jason to be more interested in the other opportunities at this point, rather than with the Red Sox.’’
It looks like Urbon may have priced Jason Bay out of a good situation in Boston, and now with no other obvious bidders in sight besides the Mets, they are stuck between a rock (the Mets) and a hard place (also the Mets).
So why the reluctance to say yes to the Mets offer?
1. Citi Field – Bay is caught up in the perception that the park is a death valley to right handed sluggers, and he’s not the only hitter that feels that way.
2. Competitiveness – After tasting the post season with the Red Sox, Bay wants to play for a contender and he simply doesn’t view the Mets as anything more than a third place team.
3. Karma – You can put everything else including the medical staff, Tony Bernazard, Omar Minaya press conferences, and the two collapses into this category.
So why are the Mets still hanging around and letting this situation put a drag on the rest of the things they need to accomplish this off season?
It’s very simple actually, these are the New York Mets. Any other team would have told Bay and his consigliere to get lost a long time ago, but if the Mets feel they can save a buck or two, they have no problem swallowing what little pride they have left as well as any other dung that gets thrown at them.
