Can You Cano?

[Benjamin Grimm]

And it overestimates (in my opinion) the value of a closer. If Diaz is really the best of the best it will be nice to have him, but they've paid too much to get him.

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: And it overestimates (in my opinion) the value of a closer. If Diaz is really the best of the best it will be nice to have him, but they've paid too much to get him.

I mean, at some point I have to let it go. But to do all this when you have all the leverage coming from a no trade clause. It's just mind boggling.

Deep breaths.

[Lefty Specialist]

Law has never been a fan of the Mets, but I can't argue with him about the foolishness of including Kelenic in this deal. Seattle's doing a salary dump and apparently not sending that much money, which should lower the return the Mariners get. That's always the way it works when the Mets dump salary.

[Guest d'Kong76]

11:00 AM news conference tomorrow.

[metirish]

#24 .....last worn by ????? i know this cos I follow Bucket on Twitter

[Benjamin Grimm]

Rickey Henderson

[Guest d'Kong76]

I read Kelvin Torve I think somewhere recently?

[G-Fafif]

Rickey wore 24 with Willie's blessing in 1999 and 2000. Kelvin Torve wore it in 1990, presumably by bureaucratic foulup. Nobody else has had it since Mays left his coaching position following the 1979 season.

[Guest 41Forever]

Edited December 3, 2018 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

I just got the "It's Official!" e-mail from the Mets.

I get the impression we're supposed to be happy about this.

[G-Fafif]

Press conference will dovetail with Mets' previously scheduled kids' holiday party. Cano and Diaz will double as Santa Nimmo's special helpers.

[seawolf17]

G-Fafif wrote: Press conference will dovetail with Mets' previously scheduled kids' holiday party. Cano and Diaz will double as Santa Nimmo's special helpers.

Wilpons allegedly thrilled to be saving money by combining both events into one.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Kids will be lining up to sit on Diaz's bone spur.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Kids will be lining up to sit on Diaz's bone spur.

Gross

[Centerfield]

Shockingly, other executives are expressing surprise at the underwhelming returns going back to Seattle for Segura, who had a no trade clause.

Dipoto asked for one of Philadelphia's young arms. They said no. Seattle did the trade anyway.

[RealityChuck]

An issue that needs to be addressed is the lack of outfielders now. There are currently only four on the roster (4 1/2 if you count Dom Smith), and one won't play before June.

Maybe they're serious about signing Harper and have a all-lefty outfield.

[A Boy Named Seo]

How do we spend thy bounty?

[tweet:23jxlz12]

[/tweet:23jxlz12]

[Lefty Specialist]

For an organization often castigated as being cheap, paying $100 million to a 36-year old seems to be a waste of resources. I mean, if you're going to pay $20 million to Robinson Cano, you'd be better off paying $30 million to either Harper or Machado, no?

[nymr83]

Yup.

[Centerfield]

Lefty Specialist wrote: For an organization often castigated as being cheap, paying $100 million to a 36-year old seems to be a waste of resources. I mean, if you're going to pay $20 million to Robinson Cano, you'd be better off paying $30 million to either Harper or Machado, no?

Absolutely.

I'm often criticized for harping on money. Some say it's not relevant. Others point to teams with big payrolls that are not successful. Or they say dumb things like "There's no point in spending just for spending."

Let me be clear, this is exactly the opposite of what I recommend. I recommend spending wisely, and committing $100 million to a 36 year old PED user is not spending money wisely.

I remember last winter, some of the garbage spouted by Sandy was how the Mets had spent more than other teams. You can see how wise those moves were now, when we have to give up prospects to unload those contracts.

Make no mistake of the fact that we will eventually be looking to unload the Cano contract. We'll have to eat a significant portion of it, and we may have to give up a prospect. The no-trade will make it even harder. And I can tell you, we're not getting a prospect like Kelenic back when we move him.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I agree with the above. Cano's contract is almost certain to be a burden in those last couple of years. I guess it's possible that $20 million (the amount the Mets will be on the hook for) won't seem like so much in 2023, but it's hard to imagine that Cano will be worth it even if there's salary inflation.

My guess is that the Mets will end up paying him about half of that amount, if not more, to DH for an American League team.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Now that we know the Mets are taking on $100M in salary obligations to Cano, it seems they could have signed Brian Dozier as your Cano prototype for around 1 year, $10M and still signed two closery guys (Familia, Andrew Miller, David Robertson, Ottavino whoever) for about 3 years/$30M each, $80M total in new salary obligations. They'd still have Bruce (and Swarzak) to deal with, but those guys are hardly immovable like Cano will no doubt be. Edwin Diaz better be as awesome as advertised cause this move is still a head-scratcher to me.

The Mets had zero (zero!) dollars committed to anyone after 2020! This is amazing to me. There are infinite number of ways they could have contracted the team. Now for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, they'll start their budget forecasting with a big, fat $20M already allocated to Mr. Cano. Just a baffling way to hamstring your finances when the Mets could have been the most flexible team in MLB salary-wise going into those years.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Press conference apparently on NOW!!!!

Edit: it hasn't started yet. It's just looping a 1-minute trailer for the guys, hyping the upcoming blockbuster summer hit.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Guest

[bmfc1]

Live on Facebook via the SNY feed.

[metirish]

BVW is very comfortable in front of the cameras , very smooth

[Benjamin Grimm]

I suspect that's a big part of why he got hired. Why pick a nerd like Chaim Bloom when you can have Don Draper?

[Vic Sage]

i haven't said anything in this thread because i was hoping it was all just a horrible dream. But i just listened to parts of the press conference, so i guess it has happened.

I hated Cano when he was a MFY. I hated him as a Mariner. I hate him now. He's a low-effort guy with a history of late nights. He's getting heavier and slower and, without the `roids, his late 30s won't be pretty. And we're now stuck holding the $100m bag for him.

Sure, you can look at it as a Bruce+Swarzak/Cano+20m deal, and a Jelenic+Dunn+Bautista/Diaz deal, but both deals suck. I have no faith in Cano being significantly more useful than Bruce + Swarzak over the next 2 years, and then it seems likely he'll be a net negative in years 3-5, at $20m/year. Diaz is young and productive and will be relatively inexpensive overall (even including his arb years) but, as a RP, his production has a great degree of volatility. I am loathe to give up on a CF prospect with all-star potential (not to mention a promising pitching prospect to boot) for anybody except another everyday player that fills a need, much less a guy who is going to throw 60IP/year. Sure, prospects are prospects, not players, but he was a #6 overall pick just last year and every indicator is pointing up on this kid. Considering the number of decent BP arms on the market right now, this is a massive overpay, even to me, the former president of TITTS.

BVW has pushed his chips in the middle of the table but he's still a few chips short, so lets see if Jeffie buys him another stack.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Guest

[G-Fafif]

Van Wagenen's insistence that the Mets would be "relentless and fearless" echoed Nuke LaLoosh's interpretation of Crash Davis's advice that once Nuke got to the bigs, he must remember to show "fear and ignorance".

[Benjamin Grimm]

New York Mets executive Jeff Wilpon said the team aggressively pushed to acquire Edwin Diaz in part to "block" the rival Philadelphia Phillies from trading for the All-Star closer.

Wilpon told reporters Tuesday that the Mets believed that if they failed to agree on a deal with the Mariners, Seattle would ultimately trade Diaz to Philadelphia.

Jeff Wilpon: Mets wanted to 'block' rival Phillies from All-Star closer Edwin Diaz

Psst! Jeff! The Phillies are also interested in Bryce and Manny!

[Frayed Knot]

Getting a player for the purpose of preventing another team from getting that player is usually a really bad idea.