Most Hated Shortstop in Met History

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Well, this is all support for my vote: "Rey, hands-down, no one else is even close."

That Post article is Exhibit A in the New York State vs. Phillips and Valentine et al. trial on the charge of "Impersonating a Knowledgable Baseball Person." I'd find Phillips guilty sooner than Valentine, since Bobby didn't necessarily have much to with signing Rey to that contract. Phillips, sounding as cocky as Bobby, certainly did.

[Guest Hillbilly]

Hubie Brooks almost killed me once!! My buddies and I were leaving Shea when my friend yells out ‘look out for that BMW!!!” While driving out of the way I could see a terrified Hubie behind the wheel. It was late in 1984 in one his maybe two dozen starts at shortstop. So it’s got to be him on top of my most hated list for being there when my drunk-ass stumbled in front of his car. The nerve of that bastard!!

[Guest KC]

Edgy almost killed me in a similar manner once.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

KC wrote: Bret, do you have the thread that broke the news that Rey was re-signed to that big fat contract? That would make for some entertaining reading. I kinda recall gloating that he had prevailed and The Great Debate would then live on, but I may be mistaken.

I don't think I'd started archiving yet. The earliest threads I have date from the early 2000 season, I think.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Heavily Edited (see below)

[Frayed Knot]

]That Post article is Exhibit A in the New York State vs. Phillips and Valentine et al. trial on the charge of "Impersonating a Knowledgable Baseball Person."

What exactly do you expect a GM to say publicly about the SS he just signed to a 4-year deal?
"Y'know, he really suxx ... and I truly expect he always will. Can't play, never could"
You're treating this as "proof" of something when evidence that would say the opposite is non-existent virtually by definition.


Rey's deal came after his best season when there was a plausible reason to believe that he was an improving player. It was one of 3 deals that SP handed out to arb-eligible players (Fonz & Mando were the others) in order to gain "cost certainty" throughout the arb-years and maybe the 1st FA year. He got good value on the two and missed on the 3rd. Going in to 2000, MLB was probably at it's most highly inflationary period (where you always like to lock in costs now "knowing" that it'll only cost you more later) since the beginning of the FA period in the late '70s.

The problem with Rey was that - within months of signing the deal - not only did he "age" 1--1/2 years (birth cerrt discrepancy), stop improving, and miss 100+ games with a broken wrist, but the market actually reversed itself and became DEflationary for the first time in years; a condition which lasted until just about a year ago.

Phillips bet on an improving player and an inflationary market and got neither.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

rewritten from above avi'd post, I had my years wrong.

So at the time the Mets bought out Ordonez' arb years, he was a 26 year old SS with 3 Gold Gloves in 4 years, and had just had his best year offensively -- which granted, wasn't great.

Is Reyes arb-eligible next winter? If so, can anyone tell now the minimum standards he'd have to meet this year in order to either buy out his arb years with a contract or trade him?

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

My complaint is mostly with how long it took for Phillips to move off "Rey's a MLB hitter, and he's getting better, I just know it" pap to "Uh, we have a real problem here, we need to deal with it realistically, and not as we wish it would be." Far as I know, he never really moved off that all, so I hold him responsible for making an extravagant judgment that turned out to be costly and ruinous.

What, am I supposed to give him a pass because he didn't see the market changing, or Rey's limited growth potential, or any of the other things you cite? I thought that was his fucking job. Are you telling me he did a terrific job of analyzing Rey's growth potential but the poor dweeb just got unlucky and we should feel sorry for him? He couldn't do his job, not that that will distinguish him particularly among the Mets' lying and incompetent front office personnel.

And in answer to "What would you have him say to the public, Bret?", my answer is "Nothing." STFU, in preference to saying misleading stuff and spin and general BS, that's what.

On second thought, his self-aggrandizing quotes make it easier to mock him later on, so I'm voting to have more puffy quotes from empty-headed baseball professionals. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I remember my disbelief when Ordonez got that contract. Again, the conventional wisdom, such as it was, was that the Mets were a year away from signing Alex Rodriguez as a free agent. My fear was that a commitment to Ordonez meant a lack of interest in Rodriguez.

Then some of the sportswriters/analysts speculated that the deal made Ordonez more tradable, because other teams would like the cost-certainty that came with Rey's guaranteed contract.

That seemed like an odd argument at the time. I couldn't see how dramatically overpaying somebody for four years makes them marketable, but I hoped that there was at least one other team out there that saw things that way.

What I now wonder is if that's really what Phillips was thinking: that signing Rey would make him a valuable trade chip once Rodriguez was signed. I have my doubts about that. And anyway, if that was the plan, it obviously didn't work out.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

After 99 the Mets had 3 options eessentially:

1. Trade him
2. Go to arbitration
3. Buy out his arb-years

The Mets as a rule hated option 2 and in an inflationary market, decided that 3 made the most LT financial sense. Choosing 1 would have been bold at the time but would have required them also to get a SS back either in that deal or in another.

In retrospect, perhaps the Mets should have seen this as an exception to their general objections to option 2.

[Guest Iubitul]

Vic Sage wrote: Tony Fernandez

Ah yes. Tony "I'll start trying when I get to Toronto" Fernandez.....

[Frayed Knot]

]What, am I supposed to give him a pass because he didn't see the market changing, or Rey's limited growth potential, or any of the other things you cite?

Not suggesting that Phillips be let off the hook here.
He backed the wrong horse, at the wrong time, with the wrong deal.




btw, my objection to the deal at the time was the "backloadedness" of it which - when combined with the market correction - made the 3rd & 4th years of the deal even worse to deal with. $4+mil/year was bad enough, but when it was structured as more like $2 + $4 + $6 + $6, it made disposing of the contract even more problematic.

[nymr83]

yes he did, BUT all GMs are going to make mistakes (hey Billy hows Hatteberg doing? Theo, Renteria?) the question is what do you do about those mistakes once you've made them.

[Frayed Knot]

Well, for those who start with the impression that the contract was a bad deal before it was ever inked, there'll never be a point that's NOT defined as dumping out too late.
As it was, the Mets wound up eating 1/4 of the time and approx 1/3 of the money in that deal and - until the advent of Reyes - tried numerous other candidates [sanchez, Bordick, Relaford, Lopez, Abbott] who turned out to be no better than the one they were dumping.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

This is why I'm suggesting the Mets are fundamentally cheap. They've never budgeted for "What if we screw up?" Their answer to that question seems to be "Pretend like nothing's wrong, and maybe it'll fix itself," which hasn't worked out so well.

Theo, thankfully, doesn't have to worry about Renteria any more, but the Sox seem willing to eat contracts, deal people off for less than they valued them a year ago, and other similar moves to improve the team on the field after an off-field screwup that the Mets have been loathe to entertain.

Look, we fans are usually the last to know. If we've decided that Diaz is a klutz with the leather, or that Alomar looks like he's not playing very hard, or that Ishii can't piss accurately enough to wet the bed, it's a safe bet that the professionals have already made that call. Whether we're ahead of the Mets' front office, which is a frightening reflection on their ability, or whether they're unwilling to cope with truths they've learned ago, they need to be willing to make contingency plans and to act on them. Sometimes this costs money, sometimes this calls for chalking off money you've already spent, but always this needs to be done in order to make a little progress.

[seawolf17]

But ultimately, the dollar determines at least some piece of what they do. Maybe Fred doesn't want to pay guys millions of dollars not to work for him; that's his prerogative. It's all play money to us.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't think the Mets are unique in this way.

The vast majority of teams will try to get some kind of a return on investment rather than let an $8 million per year guy sit on the bench.

Some teams never have this problem because they never agree to pay anybody a big contract.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

seawolf17 wrote: Fred doesn't want to pay guys .

Found my new sig line.

Thanks

[Benjamin Grimm]

He's sure throwing a lot of money around for someone who doesn't want to pay guys.

You may say he's cheap, but he's much better than Lorinda de Roulet.

[Guest KC]

>>>Look, we fans are usually the last to know.<<<

I forgot to inquire, are you a Mets fan again?

[Elster88]

]The vast majority of teams will try to get some kind of a return on investment rather than let an $8 million per year guy sit on the bench.

Vast majority = all

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

KC wrote: >>>Look, we fans are usually the last to know.<<< I forgot to inquire, are you a Mets fan again?

Why is it always about me, me, me, KC? Can't we talk baseball for Chrissakes?

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

]Theo, thankfully, doesn't have to worry about Renteria any more, but the Sox seem willing to eat contracts, deal people off for less than they valued them a year ago, and other similar moves that the Mets have been loathe to entertain.

This is an odd complaint: Is there any team out there over the past few years paying more money for guys not playing for them than the Mets?

[Guest KC]

There's too much of a history. It's a perfectly acceptable question from
where I'm sitting. I'm truly curious. Sorry if it offends you. My bad. Won't
happen again until tomorrow.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Elster88 wrote: ]The vast majority of teams will try to get some kind of a return on investment rather than let an $8 million per year guy sit on the bench. Vast majority = all

Well, if you're going to go all high finance on me, there's an adage that applies here: "Don't Send Good Money After Bad," that addresses the problem I'm identifying. If you've made a mistake, it's suicidical to continue with that mistake just to justify having made it. If you've spent 8 million on a stock that's gone into the shitter, at some point you need to take what you've invested and put it elsewhere, even if that means taking a loss on the original mistake. That's precisely what Fred refuses to do, and what I'm fauiting him for here.

Look at it in baseball terms for a second. I don;t think anyone disputes that if the Mets had Ordonez at just under $500,000 rather than just under $5,000,000 per year, he would have lost his job. Well, since that money had already been lost by the time everyone on this planet decided that Ordonez deserved to lose his job, and nothing was going to earn Fred back a nickel, why did he keep his job for a few more years? Look, Fred, sometimes your front office is going to make bad choices--if you're not going to allocate some money to take care of your ballteam when this happens, your team is not going to win, and ultimately that will cost you more money than you're saving with your present policy.

[seawolf17]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: ]Theo, thankfully, doesn't have to worry about Renteria any more, but the Sox seem willing to eat contracts, deal people off for less than they valued them a year ago, and other similar moves that the Mets have been loathe to entertain. This is an odd complaint: Is there any team out there over the past few years paying more money for guys not playing for them than the Mets?

Keep in mind that Senor Bonilla will be on the payroll until the year 2289.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: ]Theo, thankfully, doesn't have to worry about Renteria any more, but the Sox seem willing to eat contracts, deal people off for less than they valued them a year ago, and other similar moves that the Mets have been loathe to entertain. This is an odd complaint: Is there any team out there over the past few years paying more money for guys not playing for them than the Mets?

Well, MoVo was covered pretty much by insurance, right? Who else exactly has been let go with mega-money coming to him recently?

[Frayed Knot]

They cut Bonilla w/about $6mil left
Ordonez with 1/3 of his money still out there
Cedeno with about 1/2 ($10mil? or so)
Alomar had about 1/2 season's worth ($3-$4 mil?)


Also, it's plenty easy for outsiders to say they should be eating more money for breakfast. But, unlike the investment example, going out and buying another SS (or whatever position you're trying to replace) means you have to pay the new one in addition to the one you're sitting on the bench, resulting in a huge portion of your payroll tied up in one position. So, unless we're buying into the limitless payroll scenario, let's not act so surprised if/when payroll considerations play a hand in decisions that are made or pretend that this practice is unique to one team.

At what point, for example, was it prudent to cut Giambi last year when "it became obvious" that he had lost it? Lost it, that is, right up until the part where he led the majors in HRs over the 2nd half of the season.

Until some corp hires me as their accountant, I'm not going to go advising them about how much is reasonable to simply write off.

[nymr83]

Frayed Knot beat me to it....who else would you like to have seen cut with tons of money owed sal? please don't tell us piazza because even if he was making too much there was still no adequate replacement out there.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Legend had it the Mets were gonna whack Jerry Koosman while still a minor leaguer but for the fact HE owed THEM money.