Until the Mets add a legitimate piece to their roster this offseason, skepticism will surround general manager Sandy Alderson’s vow to spend writes Mike Puma of the New York Post.
Scott Boras recently summed up the Mets over Alderson’s three-year tenure:
“The thing with the Mets is they’re interested in everybody and interested in nobody.” Alderson is on the clock to make at least a ripple, if not a splash, this winter.
Alderson cited “payroll concentration” as the reason the Mets will avoid chasing the highest-priced free agents.
The team is expected to have a payroll around $90 million next season, but wouldn’t want nearly half that amount tied up in two players. As it stands, David Wright is scheduled to make $20 million next year.
That is exactly what I speculated during the GM Meetings when it was learned that the Mets would not pursue any players looking for $100 million.
At the time Alderson said this:
“We’ve been in that stratosphere once recently with David Wright,” Alderson said. “Those were special circumstances. I think it would be difficult to duplicate that again — not from a financial standpoint, just in terms of team-building. I think it’s difficult to concentrate those kinds of resources into very few players. It’s not really the way you build a quality, sustainable, winning team, I don’t think.”
Everyone assumed he was discussing a $100 million dollar player, but I believed Alderson was speaking unilaterally and that he was dismissive of having two players earning the same average annual salary as Wright at the same time.
In other words, even a player wanting a three year $50 million dollar deal like a Curtis Granderson or Jhonny Peralta as an example, would be prohibitive. Because he DOES NOT want two players tying up more than a third of his $90 million payroll. That was my point then, and that is what it is now, and I’m glad to see someone else come out with that.
“If you want to look at the data, the way we look at data and associate winning teams with payroll concentration, you realize there are limits to how effective an overall team can be with your payroll concentrated in a small number of players,” Alderson said. “It’s not an absolute rule, but it’s a pretty clear correlation. It’s a function of how much you have to spend.”
This is why they feel and I’ve been saying that they will be priced out on not only top free agents, but also mid tier free agents as well.
This is a bull market and teams have over $1.5 billion in new money to spend this offseason… Look for their biggest signature acquisition to come via a trade and brace yourself for a signature piece or two to be moved.
