Koo gone, Wright "renewed"

[Frayed Knot]

From Mets.com:

"The Mets have sold the contract of left-handed reliever Dae-Sung Koo, who wasn't very effective in most of his 33 appearances with the Mets last season, to the Hanwha Eagles in Korea."

Well, that's one lefty out of the sweepstakes.
So long Mr. Koo.


Also:
The Mets "renewed" the contract of David Wright, for $374,000

Essentially, because Wright has no power in negotiations for another two years ("I've got no hand" says David, "I need to get hand!") he can negotiate for what he thinks he deserves but the club has the power to simply assign him a contract amount with or without his agreement if it doesn't want to meet that price. The Mets decided to not make a special case for Wright and instead stuck with "their formula" basing the amount on service time with a cost-of-living increase. As a result his salary was upped from last year's $322,500.
Wright's only comment on the matter was "respectful disagreement". It's the team's first salary renewal since Butch Huskey in 1998.

All other remaining contracts were dealt with as well - all for the "3 & under" guys. Reyes, with a year & change more service time than Wright, signed for $401,500

[soupcan]

That's crap. Both of those guys should have been given significant raises.

Would paying them each $500,000.00 have broken the Mets backs? No and it would have given them some good will with the players.

I'll slip David & Jose a coupla bucks this weekend.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Pass that hat around.

Here's one of the few Mets' policies that makes some sense to me. Anything you'd pay players above and beyond what you are compelled to pay them is pure waste. The COLAs and c. they're tossing in is money pissed away in the cause of PR, not players' good will. When the time comes, they'll hold the Mets up for every cent they can lay their hands on, and more power to them, but there's no reason to throw money away trying to gain their good will or a future home town discount. They'll get whatever they can, and no one's going to say "I'll give the Mets a break because they gave me 20,000 dollars my third year when they didn't have to."

[duan]

if that's the case how come the mets haven't had an arbitration hearing in YEARS.

There's always a point where you say 'No'.

He makes a case, they say, "by our reckoning you've been really really good and what we did in the past with guys like you is pay them 30% (or whatever the figure is) more then we have to. If we put you at 450k this year then if Victor Diaz has a good year we'll be locked into doing it for him too - Don't forget Jose's only getting 400k and he's been in the ML for a year more then you.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

duan wrote: if that's the case how come the mets haven't had an arbitration hearing in YEARS.

Because they negotiate rather than arbitrate? Duan, I'm saying I agree with the Mets in this instance. But there's no advantage in offering players huge loads of money before they're arb-el, just these token figures.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

In a similar situation, the Phillies did the same renewal thing with their bright young star, Chase Utley, whose name is a sentence.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

And just to clarify, I'm not saying that it's counter-productive in dealing with potential arbitration cases. It probably helps to have a token of good will there. I'm just saying that it's not as if this move saves them a ton in persuading potential FAs to stick with the Mets because of 20,000 way back when.

[Frayed Knot]

Renewal is a fairly standard practice everywhere.
Wright's still 2 years away from arbitration and probably at least as far from being offered a long (or even long-ish) term contract. You can argue that he's a special case because of his success over his first year and a half but the Yanx & Marlins did the same with Jeter & Cabrera who had starts at least as good. Jeter, as I recall, did his share of grumbling over it at the time.

[Elster88]

There's no loyalty in this business, and yet Bagwell should retire because the Astros have been so good to him.

[soupcan]

I'm a big believer in doing what's right in business even though it may not garner you the most money.

If down the road an raise that the Mets were not compelled to give to Wright and Reyes does not produce any good will then shame on the players but at least Fred and Omar and whoever can always say that they were always more than fair when it came to compensation.

That's how I handle my business and yes, I've definitely gotten burned in the past but I also have a core of very loyal employees.

Its just money and yet a (relatively) little bit of can go a very long way.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Can I come and work for you, Soupy?

[soupcan]

Hmmmm, unfortunately I don't have any openings for Caustic Fucktard English Professors right now.

I'll keep you in mind should anything come up.

[Elster88]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: there's no reason to throw money away trying to gain their good will or a future home town discount. They'll get whatever they can, and no one's going to say "I'll give the Mets a break because they gave me 20,000 dollars my third year when they didn't have to."

Money always talks in the end when free agent time comes around. But who knows. The Mets could've thrown a little (but more than 20 grand) love David's way. It's not like they can't afford it. Maybe he'd be more willing to negotiate a long term deal before free agency if they treat him right now.

A guy like David is the guy you want to stick around a while.

Edit: typo

[soupcan]

Elster88 wrote: Money always talks in the end when free agent time comes around. But who knows. The Mets could've thrown a little (but more than 20 grand) love David's way. It's not like they can't afford it. Maybe he'd me more willing to negotiate a long term deal before free agency if they treat him right now. A guy like David is the guy you want to stick around a while.

That's all I'm saying.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

soupcan wrote: ="Elster88"]Money always talks in the end when free agent time comes around. But who knows. The Mets could've thrown a little (but more than 20 grand) love David's way. It's not like they can't afford it. Maybe he'd me more willing to negotiate a long term deal before free agency if they treat him right now. A guy like David is the guy you want to stick around a while. That's all I'm saying.

And I'm saying that amount, such as the amount they're voluntarily paying him right now, over and above the amount they must pay him, is a token amount in the context of FA salaries.

And anything above that token amount costs them real money, or real ill-will, down the line from future rookies: "You gave David x bazillion dollars when you needed only to pay him Y hundred thousand dollars, you can give me a piddling raise too, because I hit 3 HRs my rookie year, No? Did you say NO? You suck hairy moose bbbyyyy."

[soupcan]

Well if that guy accusing them of sucking hairy moose cock had a year like Wright's at that age at that point in his career he would have a point.

Case by case by resume-peddling friend.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I think the part that always cracks me up about Widey's colorful image (I'm pretty sure Widey came up with it) is the necessary specificity that the moose cock is a hairy one, like a bald moose cock wouldn't be objectionable.

[MFS62]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I think the part that always cracks me up about Widey's colorful image (I'm pretty sure Widey came up with it) is the necessary specificity that the moose cock is a hairy one, like a bald moose cock wouldn't be objectionable.

Memo to self:
Next time I run into Roger Clemens I'll ask him how different they taste.

Later

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

[seawolf17]

And as is typical CPF style, this thread degenerated quickly.

[Elster88]

It could be worse. At some boards you would've already gotten five post with pictures of actual moose balls.


Or even worse....pictures of Sandra Oh.

[Elster88]

Dammit. Again a stupid remark randomly selected to head the new page.

[seawolf17]

I hate when that happens! Someone clicks on to Page 2 now and thinks "What do moose balls have to do with David Wright and Mr. Koo?"

Of course, perhaps that's part of the fun.

[Willets Point]

A Moose ball:

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Carried over from the previous page:

[MFS62]

Yancy, same complaint. Different reason.
http://cybermessageboard.ehost.com/getalife/viewtopic.php?t=1817

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Back to topic;
I don't guess we'll ever know, but I wonder what $$ figure young David and
his agent had in mind?
Half-a-mil maybe? Not sure how many 1+ year players have reached that.

On a good note, the one thing that did NOT happen (though occasionally
does in these cases ) is that the team didn't "punish" the player for not
accepting their number by sticking him with an even lesser figure.
"Oh ... so you don't want to sign for 374K eh? OK, in that case we're
renewing you at $330K"


We now return you to your discussion of large, hairy moosecocks, already in progress.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="Frayed Knot"]Back to topic; I don't guess we'll ever know, but I wonder what $$ figure young David and his agent had in mind? Half-a-mil maybe? Not sure how many 1+ year players have reached that. On a good note, the one thing that did NOT happen (though occasionally does in these cases ) is that the team didn't "punish" the player for not accepting their number by sticking him with an even lesser figure. "Oh ... so you don't want to sign for 374K eh? OK, in that case we're renewing you at $330K" We now return you to your discussion of large, hairy moosecocks, already in progress.

Like I said, I like this policy. It rewards young players like Wright and Reyes who plainly outperform your typical rookie, yet if you get a swelled-head asshole at some point who insists that he get some fraction of what Wright and Reyes got because the asshole feels he too performed better than a typical rookie, giving him a proportional number will soothe his feelings over and not blow your budget out of the water.

[Guest Rotblatt]

I'm with Sal on this one--I think it's a good policy. If we can't reach an agreement with them on a new contract, we renew the old one with a little bit of a boost based on service time.

I have no doubt that we'll be able to lock Wright in to a lucrative, long-term deal before he reaches free agency.

Unless, of course, our team sucks hariy moose cock by then.

[Frayed Knot]

Well, I think Wright's point (and that of those who are objecting here) is
that he's NOT being rewarded for a stellar rookie-ish season.
Essentially they're giving him a salary based on service time more than on
what he accomplished in that short span. If there were another player
with the same year-and-change time but mediocre stats how much less
could they pay him ... 350K?, $340K? ML min is already something like
325K so that's the point you're starting from.

Like I said, the 2nd yr salary based on service time is pretty much
standard practice around the league apparently - but the counter argument
is that Wright's the type of guy for whom you'd make the exception.
They chose not to.