Joe D. wrote earlier that the Marlon Byrd signing was a “power play” by the Philadelphia Phillies, and he couldn’t be more correct. It was a power play because they knew the Mets were interested in Byrd, and this signing could have also priced out a lot of the players for the Mets. It potentially screwed the Mets from two angles. If Byrd gets $8 mil per year, what the heck are the other guys going to get?
The Mets have some solace in hoping that teams were willing to over pay to get Byrd because it preserved their draft pick. Hopefully, the draft pick sacrifice that comes when signing players that declined qualifying offers from their team will help keep those the deals at reasonable levels—but Curtis Granderson saw the Byrd deal and said cha-ching.
If the Mets do happen to land a “big bat,” most will cost between $13-$15 million per year based on that Byrd deal. Reading between the lines, the Mets have already said they won’t pay $15 million per year for any players when they stated they didn’t want to take on any other $100 million contracts. I’m still trying to figure out how the Mets plan on pulling this off.
It’s been said the that the Mets plan on spending $30 million this winter, if that’s the case, it isn’t going to be difficult to land two big bats in the outfield as Sandy Alderson alluded to yesterday, it’s going to be damn near impossible. How would they be able to address all the other holes without mortgaging the future and moving some prospects? They can’t.
If that spending figure is correct, and all the teams have been injected with extra $25 million from national TV deals, and are willing to spend it on top of what they were originally planning to spend, then the Mets have already lost the off season. They won’t be able to compete unless they start mortgaging the future and moving some of the prospects in exchange for help now.
The more I think about it, the more I think the Mets will move Daniel Murphy this winter. He is due $5.8 million, and I’m not sure the Mets want to pay him that kind of money for what he can do for them. Don’t get me wrong, Murphy is a solid ball player and a nice piece to the puzzle if a team is ready to contend, but the Mets need impact players, not role players. They would be wise to move forward with Wilmer Flores and put the money towards some other area of need.
It’s early, but signs are pointing to another bargain bin shopping season for the Mets. While everyone else is buying fancy gifts at Best Buy, you can find the Mets shopping at the Dollar Store.
