David Wright for Miguel Cabrera & Dontrelle Willis!

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I mean, you've stated perfectly the exact reason I can't be a Mets fan any more.

And I love David Wright, but I can't willingly join the coalition of the self-destructive. I'm sorry and everything, but I just can't root for my team to win fewer games.

Well, now, I can, but that's because the Mets are no longer my team.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I mean, you've stated perfectly the exact reason I can't be a Mets fan any more. And I love David Wright, but I can't willingly join the coalition of the self-destructive. I'm sorry and everything, but I just can't root for my team to win fewer games. Well, now, I can, but that's because the Mets are no longer my team.

So would you trade...

Hmmm, actually the Sox traded most of their home grown guys, errr never mind! In fact NOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMAAAAHHHHHH! was the last one (well not counting "soon to be stars" like Hansley Ramierez)

[nymr83]

mlbaseballtalk wrote: Note to self, next time agree with Sal so my thread doesn't get hijacked by another KC-Sal hissy fit match

You hijacked the thread with your anti-baseball tirade, not the other way around.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Ahh, would you trade Trot Nixon for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle!

Hell I'll do that trade just for Cabrera

"Give us Trot for Miguel Cabrera an..."

"DONE!"

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Elster88 wrote: (still haven't figured out who Joel Cairo is)

Keep working on it.

mm, I literally don't comprehend your point about mulitple team players. Have I stated somewhere that I think players shouldn't play on multiple teams, or that they don't, or that being traded is unAmerican, or something? I don't get where you're going or where you're coming from or what you're rattling on about at this point. Totally lost me.

[metsmarathon]

when did the mets become your team again?

enjoy the yankees, dude, cos you'll find sentimentaility amongst the ranks of fans of every other fucking team on the planet.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

metsmarathon wrote: gone are the cal ripkens and tony gwynns of the world, for the most part. teams rarely have the opportunity to develop a superstar, and have him grow up and then old with teh same team.

I think too much is made of this. I remember when Mike Schmidt and George Brett retired, people said that they were the last superstars who would play their entire career with only one team. I also think (but I'm less sure) that they said the same about Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Bench. And in the future they'll say the same about someone else, maybe Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones.

I'd love for David Wright to be our Cal Ripken. And I think there's a decent chance that that will happen. Of course, given the chance to trade him for a Willis and a Cabrera, it would be hard to argue against it. If that trade did happen, I'd certainly feel a pang of regret at losing Mr. Wright. I felt that way about losing Hubie Brooks back in December of 1984, even though I was jubilant at the thought of getting Gary Carter.

The thing though is that fans don't make the trades, GM's do. And if the GM is doing his job, he's not making the trade based on what they'll say in the papers and on the radio (and in these forums) the day after the deal is announced. Ideally, his decision is geared towards winning as many championships as possible over the next years or decades. And if that championship count is high enough, any deals that bring it about are going to be looked at as good ones.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="Elster88"](still haven't figured out who Joel Cairo is) Keep working on it. mm, I literally don't comprehend your point about mulitple team players. Have I stated somewhere that I think players shouldn't play on multiple teams, or that they don't, or that being traded is unAmerican, or something? I don't get where you're going or where you're coming from or what you're rattling on about at this point. Totally lost me.

I'm agreeing with your point against Marathon's "Don't trade homegrown Mets"

Maybe I should stop posting

[Guest *62]

mlbaseballtalk wrote: ="*62"]Quick reality check ............ Last 5 World Series Champs Chicago Boston Florida Anaheim Arizona One region sport. How does the team that won dictate mainstream popularity and coverage? blah blah blah blah ad nauseum

There's nothing wrong with baseball that wouldn't be cured by eliminating guaranteed contracts, a la the NFL.

Same could be said for the NBA, which lost my attention twenty years ago.

[metsmarathon]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: The thing though is that fans don't make the trades, GM's do.

well, exactly. if this were a GM forum, then i could see sal's incredulity.

its a fan forum. fans like to keep their favorite players, win-based rationality be damned, often.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

metsmarathon wrote: when did the mets become your team again?.

They didn't. Did I say they had?

.

] enjoy the yankees, dude, cos you'll find sentimentaility amongst the ranks of fans of every other fucking team on the planet.

Oh, please. You're perilously close to making the hopeless losers' argument that the Mets are morally superior to the Yankees because they're not so coldly focused on winning and World's Championships and that crap. We lose because we like to lose, because being buddies and good people is more important than winning, and mainly because we know how to lose. Losing is a sign of virtue.

Come on, take that one step further. I'll need another sig line eventually.

[nymr83]

theres nothing wrong with gauranteed contracts and i'd hate to see everyone swinging for the nearest fence thinking "if i dont homer they'll cut me." Also you'd be giving cheapskate owners a nice new way out of any salary the arbitration process assigns that they don't like.

Theres nothing (major) wrong with baseball, but if i had to do one thing to it i'd intitute a salary FLOOR, because kets face it, absent one of two really bad markets (the two in florida) all the owners could probably spend 50 mil on payroll without a problem, they're just too cheap to do it.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Does that mean that there's nothing wrong with the NFL?

*62, if you haven't done so already, your Schaefer vote for the Friday game against the Brewers needs editing, or it will be discarded when I do the tallying in an hour or two.

[Guest *62]

done

gracias

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Further I don't even get what marathon means. Is it somehow morally wrong that a team that has money should restrain itself from taking advantage of the needs of poorer teams? Who won the most recent World's Championship, the Mets or the Marlins? The Mets are supposed to take the high road because of what? All our recent success?

I see your point about the Yankees. If we keep on buying championships and taking advantage of the poorer franchises, we'll be worse than them, but no sooner than October of 2031. Meanwhile the pathetic Marlins have won as manhy championships in the last 10 years as the Mets have in 43 years, but we shouldn't take advantage of their currrent financial weakness? Why is that?

I started out disliking the Mets organization for their incompetence, but I'll end up disliking all Mets fans for their overt masochism. Maybe another poll is in order before I go that far.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: Further I don't even get what marathon means. Is it somehow morally wrong that a team that has money should restrain itself from taking advantage of the needs of poorer teams? Who won the most recent World's Championship, the Mets or the Marlins? The Mets are supposed to take the high road because of what? All our recent success? I see your point about the Yankees. If we keep on buying championships and taking advantage of the poorer franchises, we'll be worse than them, but no sooner than October of 2031. Meanwhile the pathetic Marlins have won as manhy championships in the last 10 years as the Mets have in 43 years, but we shouldn't take advantage of their currrent financial weakness? Why is that? I started out disliking the Mets organization for their incompetence, but I'll end up disliking all Mets fans for their overt masochism. Maybe another poll is in order before I go that far.

Heh, also the 1986 Mets benifited greatly from dumps for whatever reason. Neil Allen for Keith Hernandez because of Keith's off field issues (though turned out Allen had his own demons!) and Carter for Brooks was probably one of the first big Expos dumping of a superstar for cheaper talent

Would MM want wager that the 1986 Mets would have been better off with Allen in the back of the pen and Lord knows WHO at 1st and behind the plate

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

That would be Dave Kingman at 1B and Mike Fitzgerald at C. Baseball went down the toilet when the Mets lost those two.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: That would be Dave Kingman at 1B and Mike Fitzgerald at C. Baseball went down the toilet when the Mets lost those two.

Ahh give be Gibbons over Fitz, or maybe Hearn or Lyons!

You think we'd still be carrying Kingman around by 86?

You know what, never mind, this is my last post in this thread!

[metsmarathon]

i'll just bang away some more on my keyboard, and have my words not be understood, and have y'all make more silly proclamations as to the nature of all mets fans based upon my typings. this'll be fun.

where exactly do i say that the mets are morally superior, particularly for their losing?

what i did say was that fans of most teams grow to like the players on their team, often preferring them to players on other teams who may even sometimes be superior to those players. its a natural human response. familiarity, fondness, etc.

fans often like to see players they've come to like, to look forward to, etc. to stick around with their team, instead of being traded away for some other piece. (and those fans, in the wake of such a trade, may often come to like the new player even more than the old player, pending the results!) fans often tend to like continuity from one year to the next in the form of successful players returning for another year of action.

fans often tend to like to see their own team develop its own star players instead of importing them via trade or free agency, despite the often lesser liklihood of doing so. (and those fans also often will tend to like those imported players too, if they're good)

fans also like to see their baseball teams make player/personnel moves which will improve the team, and improve the liklihood of winning a world's championship, either in a given year, or in the forseeable future.

i guess if you've not payed any attention to fans of whatever team you're a fan of these days, you'd understand a little better that humans have all sorts of motivations and rationales for their actions and decisions and interests.

maybe you disagree with those people. wonderful. you can't tell me that its unfathomable that they could react that way.

...

i see now that my critical mistake was in not qualifying this a bit more:

]Met fans would rather win 90 games with David Wright, than 95 games without him, because he is a Met. He's one of ours.

it wasn't meant to be a blanket statement of all met fans, or even of this met fan in particular. some met fans would rather keep a star, future superstar, player that's come up through their own system, that's they've been looking forward to, that they've come to think of as one of their own, then to get rid of him coldly, even if it is for an upgrade. i admit. i am among those met fans who wish we had a superstar player developed in our own minor league farm system, and keep him long term through his free agency. however, and i'm sure i've said this before. i make the trade, loathe as i am to make it.

maybe i haven't said that enough to allow y'all to not misconstrue my point. there are reasons some met fans wouldnt make the trade, and i think those reasons are legitimate. different strokes for different folks, i guess. i'd still make the trade.

...

i guess chipper jones and bernie williams are no more rare commodities in baseball today than they were in the past, and i'm sure some research could lend some support to the notion, but am i crazy in saying that the general perception is that players don't stay with teh teams they came up with, as much as they used to? i feel like i hear that rather often, alongside escalating player salaries and the DH rule, as reasons for baseball's supposed decline across these great states.

i guess i'm crazy for thinking that fans like to see top prospects come up through the farm system, develop into star players, and ultimately retire all for the same team. i don't know where i could possibly have gotten that from.

but then, i also don't know where i ever say that teams shouldn't trade away future stars for current stars, and more of them. after all, i'd make the trade. i don't thik i ever characterize those trades as a bad thing, aside perhaps from a general "good of the game" standpoint, in which case, its reallly more the commisioner and the union who should be involved in putting together a framework whereby such trades are less necessary for the weaker teams to remain marginally profitable. if these trades are indeed a bad thing, the commish and the MLBPA should come up with a new CBA that helps the weaker teams get stronger. i don't think i ever say that the mets shouldnt make a trade that would weaken another team. that would be dumb.

in fact, i imply that it would e better for baseball for miggy and dontrelle to land in flushing, compared to the alternative of them landing in the bronx. if any strong team is to benefit from a weak team, then i want it to be my strong team. because i would make the trade.

...

but then, i'm not sure also where its suddenly become my cause celeb that the mets "dont trade homegrown mets"

because i'd make the trade.

i guess its that i feel fans like to hold onto their star players insteaed of trading them away. but that's really more a preference than hard-fast rule, and certainly i'd trade away homegrown players to make the mets better. afterall, i'd make the trade.

and i don't quite know how my already stated position that i would trade david wright for miguel cabrera and dontrelle willis would really address my feelings for the building of the 1986 championship mets. i guess since i would trade david wright for miguel cabrera and dontrelle willis, then surely i would not have traded for keith hernandez or gary carter.

...

i don't know why i bothered with any of this shit.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

metsmarathon wrote: 1) i'll just bang away some more on my keyboard, and have my words not be understood, and have y'all make more silly proclamations as to the nature of all mets fans based upon my typings. ... 2) i don't know why i bothered with any of this shit.

1) Because you unambiguously typed some nonsense that you'd prefer not to have attributed to you now?

2) because you've got a lot of diging to do?

[metsmarathon]

(snippy remark edited out. replaced with long topic for discussion)

i hate this thread. i'm particularly hateful of my getting into it with sal, instead of sticking to the actual points i was trying to make.

i probably should let this thread die, and what not. who knows. i'm still bugged by one thing.

basically, one of the objections to the proposed wright trade is the ability to resign him versus the ability to resign willis and/or cabrera. i think that argument was stronger when those making it thought miggy and willis would be gone after this year, and not next. (i'm pretty sure it is next year that their free agent clocks expire after, meaning if we were to trade for them, we have them for the remainder of this season, plus 2007, before we have to worry about resigning them)

and i wonder if that is more a matter of perception, or misperception, that players who comes through the farm system of a given team are more likely, or signficantly more likely, to re-sign with the team than a player brought in from another team, even if that player spends a year or more with us.

i mean, sentimentality aside, that would seem to be the strongest objection to such a fanciful, unrealistic wright for cabrera/willis trade, right?

personally, i'm not so sure that the mets would be any more likely to re-sign wright than they would to re-sign either cabrera or willis, despite the fact that i'd like to imagine a world where players are loyal to the teams (and fans) that brought them up and stuck with them to the point that such loyalty would make them less likely to test the free agent waters and seek the best deal out there wheresoever it may take them.

so, that's about it. this is all just a likely-much-too-late attempt to bring this discourse back into the realm of baseball discussion. but have at it.

any differing opinions? anyone think that teams are more likely to resign their own players than imported players? has anyone ever conducted, or dug up, some research or what-not which would lend some insight into the issue?

sigh.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I don;'t know why you would be reluctant to "get into it" with me. If you're willing to defend your statement, I'll argue it with you, or if you want to change it or retract it, I'm fine with that (as long as you acknowledge the changes and not try to tell me you were really saying something other than what you said.)

Why would a Met fan say that homeboys tend to sign with their organiations? You don't remember Fonzie or Straw? Popular homegrown stars whom the fans loved, and whom the Mets organization heaped money all over? Didn't help.

Not that I'm trying to malign either of those players. But the market is what it is. One organization is likely to find Fonzie roughly as valuable as another, and he's going to want to sign the best deal he can. His agent is certainly going to push him in that direction. And the odds of positive ties to the organization seem to me about equal to having a negative history with the organization.

IOW, I think it's romantic sentimental crap to expect that this week's adulation of Wright is going to mean very much when he goes FA. The only advantage the Mets have in signing Wright before his FA years lies in their exclusive negotiating wrights to him until he goes FA. But even there they have to come close to matching what the market would yield for Wright.

[nymr83]

]and i wonder if that is more a matter of perception, or misperception, that players who comes through the farm system of a given team are more likely, or signficantly more likely, to re-sign with the team than a player brought in from another team, even if that player spends a year or more with us.

I don't want to make generalizations about players in general, but when it comes to David Wright who grew up a Mets fan and is universally loved by the fans (who chant M-V-P for him in April, had to stick this in somewhere haha,) I think it is reasonable to assume that he will play his career here unless the Mets say otherwise (ie with insulting below-market value offers or by trading him.)

[metsmarathon]

="Bret Sabermetric"]I don;'t know why you would be reluctant to "get into it" with me. If you're willing to defend your statement, I'll argue it with you, or if you want to change it or retract it, I'm fine with that (as long as you acknowledge the changes and not try to tell me you were really saying something other than what you said.)

"get into it" meaning arguing angrily as opposed to discussing calmly. i think i threw in an ad hominem. that's what i regret. sorry.

]Why would a Met fan say that homeboys tend to sign with their organiations? You don't remember Fonzie or Straw? Popular homegrown stars whom the fans loved, and whom the Mets organization heaped money all over? Didn't help.

well, i don't think its a met fan thing specifically, but rather a baseball fan thing. i think that in general, there is an idea out there, maybe its just a hope, that by sticking with a player, he will be more likely, if not terribly much moreso, to re-sign with a given team instead of test the free agent waters.

but i think i've thrown enough qualifiers in there to make certain that i have no idea how much more likely i, or other fans in general, think players are more or less likely to re-sign with their teams, and i also think that i've thrown out enough qualifiers to make it certain that the above statement is not representative of all fans or all met fans. heck, i'm not sure how much i even believe it. but i'm sure some people out there do.

[qoute]Not that I'm trying to malign either of those players. But the market is what it is. One organization is likely to find Fonzie roughly as valuable as another, and he's going to want to sign the best deal he can. His agent is certainly going to push him in that direction. And the odds of positive ties to the organization seem to me about equal to having a negative history with the organization.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="metsmarathon"]"get into it" meaning arguing angrily as opposed to discussing calmly. i think i threw in an ad hominem. that's what i regret. sorry..

No problem. I much prefer calm discussion.

]well, i don't think its a met fan thing specifically, but rather a baseball fan thing. i think that in general, there is an idea out there, maybe its just a hope, that by sticking with a player, he will be more likely, if not terribly much moreso, to re-sign with a given team instead of test the free agent waters

well, it's just elementary economics and common sense to say that re-signing with a given team is appealing, but only up to a point. If the money's the same, and the environment is okay, some players will choose to stay where they are. But there's the whole grass is greener scenario, and often the money a different offers IS greener, because the can see your numbers but not always your flaws that are well known to your old team. So, as we saw with Straw and Fonzie, there's player movement even from teams that badly want to keep their players. Nothing you can really do about it.

]how pertinent is this to wright/cabrera/willis? no clue, really. since in both cases, you'd have time to develop a relationship with the player. the only big difference is that wright came up through the system, and the other two wouldn't've. again, not sure how much positive effect that has. i also don't think that whatever minimal effect would be enough to sway one, or, rather, me, from thinking that if omar were presented with an offer tomorrow of david wright for miguel cabrera and dontrelle willis, that he should pull the trigger. its romantic. its sentimental. its not entirely crap.

I'll buy that for a dollar--it's not entirely crap. BTW, when I said you have to do this deal right this second, I think you took that presumed rudenesss ("Hello, Omar, you fucking idiot, do this deal or you can drop dead, okay? I'm hanging up unless I hear a YES" etc) as an excuse to turn the deal down. Often the right-this-second stuff sounds very polite ("Hello, Omar, I'm doing you a big favor by calling you up first, but if you can't answer, my boss wants me to call the other 28 teams immediately before I call you back, and some of them will probably take WiIlis and Cabrera off my hands, so please give me a Yes so we can get you these ballplayers...") but the effect is the same.

My biggest problem with your thinking (tell me if I'm wrong) is that you perceive a problem with the big market bullies vs the small market victims that you think is Not Good For Baseball, and you want to fix it starting with the Mets not bullying the weaker teams. This is a fine impulse but the way to address it, IMO, is to change the rules by which MLB teams operate, not by changing one team at a time. As long as avariciousness is legal, you've got to be as rapacious as the Yankees are, precisely because you want them not to be the only MLB team operating under a crooked legal system. If you rape the weak teams with equal dedication, you can show the Yankees that outspending your budget isn't necessarily the path to the World's Series and maybe you can introduce an alternate system. But by addressing it in tems of whether the Mets should or should not make a particular deal that favors them is silly, in my view.

[metsmarathon]

well, the "this second" thing was more a response to the poll, not this threa. here, i said i'd make the trade.

as far as the "Good of the Game" argument as a reason not to make the trade, it really wasn't even mine to begin with. i just tried to expand on another poster's, and likely to ill effect.

i mean, i think that the rich getting richer at the expense of the weak getting weaker in what seems like (but isn't necessarily) an endless feedback loop is very likely bad for the game, and may well be killing the game in small markets, and markets without major league teams.

however, so long as we are among the ranks of the rich, i see no reason why we should not take advantage of the system while the system hands us these advantages.

if not us, then the yankees, right?

so, in conclusion, the "good of the game" was never a factor in my own decision to make the trade.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Ok, so fill me in on what we're supposedly in disagreement about.

We seem to agree that some Met fans would rather keep David Wright than win the next fifteen pennants. I think that these Mets fans are terminally stupid, and they make me ashamed to be a biped, or any life-form, really, but you may not agree with my degree of shame at sharing DNA with such creatures.

We agree that MLB shouldn't be structured to allow the rich teams to dominate the poor teams and treat them like a free talent resource, yanking their best players away in lopsided deals in exchange for lesser and cheaper talents, but as long as them's the rules the Mets should particpate in such unequal deals when they're to their advantage.

Are we agreed that trading Wright for Cabrera and Willis even up is a deal the Mets would have to make if the Marlins ever offered it to them? Maybe.

Perhaps we're disagreeing on the business of whether a player's home team loyalty works to the great advantage of the home club in re-signing him when FA looms? I'm maintaining that the exclusive negotiating rights help a little, the chance to forge a good comfortable relationship with the player probably helps more than it hurts (but sometimes animosity prevails, so it's not an unblemished advantage), but that market economic limits the degree that the home team will make out financially. No FA, however good the relationship, is going to piss away millions of bucks just to hang out with his buddies in a city that's nice to him. I think we've seen the limited power of that appeal, and I'd mark it below the multi-million dollar level. In fact, I'd put it at just about the level where money becomes significant. If the money's roughly a wash, then that stuff might have an effect. If there's a significant $ difference, the $ difference will usually carry the day.

So what's our ferocious argument here?

[Guest OlerudOwned]

http://www.newsday.com/sports/printedition/ny-sbmside234714144apr23,0,946343.story?coll=ny-sports-print

They should've thrown in Cabrera.

[Guest abogdan]

What about Dontrelle Willis for Jose Reyes? Which team says no to that?

[nymr83]

most likely the mets, though i'd do it in a heartbeat.

on edit- I'm Todd Pratt!