Reyes Signs Contract Extension

[MFS62]

As reported on WFAN.
4 years, $22.5 million.

Russo is ranting - screaming that Reyes should fire his agent and mentioning that Omar Viaquel gets $5 million per.

Now let's sign David long term.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

I guess that qualifies (if just) as LTBB.

Don't listen to Russo.

Good news.

[soupcan]

'LTBB'?

[Benjamin Grimm]

So that would mean he's signed through 2010?

Does that postpone free agency by one year or two?

I guess my question is, does he get credit for a full year of service time in 2004? I would think that he would. He didn't play much, but I believe he was on the major league roster the whole year, even though he was disabled.

If that's the case, then he'd be eligible for free agency after the 2009 season. So this delays it by one year.

Does that sound right to everybody?

[Guest sharpie]

It also gets them to avoid arbitration which is a good thing.

[Guest Edgy DC]

LTBB is the nebulous term "long-term big-bucks." It was debated in this space whether Reyes deserved a LTBB contract.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ah yes, the famous "deathwatch" thread where we had to assign a specific OBP by a specific date and then give Reyes a specific dollar amount over a specific duration.

[Frayed Knot]

]Does that postpone free agency by one year or two?

He'd be at approx 3.5 seasons of service time at the end of this year, so, yes.
This deal will cover his 4th, 5th & 6th years (the arb-elg era) plus his first FA year.

]I guess my question is, does he get credit for a full year of service time in 2004? I would think that he would. He didn't play much, but I believe he was on the major league roster the whole year, even though he was disabled.

Correctamundo!
ML DL time = ML service time

]LTBB?

Long Term Big Bucks.
It was a shorthand Bret used to use when discussing Reyes's future in general and specifically what he would need to do this season in order to justify giving him an "LTBB deal" as opposed to dealing with him one year at a time.

[nymr83]

i don't consider this deal to be "big bucks", this deal makes alot of sense for the Mets.

[soupcan]

Ah. Thank you.

[metirish]

Good deal all round I think, he'll still be young and all going well entering his prime when this contract expires so the bigger money will still be his to have....go Reyes.

[Frayed Knot]

]Russo is ranting - screaming that Reyes should fire his agent and mentioning that Omar Viaquel gets $5 million per.

Didn't hear the original rant - but he did just say that the Mets got a steal since this 4-year deal buys out 3 arb years plus his first 2 years a FA-gency.
Wow! Omar & Jeffie are so good that they managed to get a 4-year deal to cover 5 seasons!
Give THEM LTBB deals!!!!

[Guest Edgy DC]

Nymr83 wrote: I don't consider this deal to be "big bucks", this deal makes alot of sense for the Mets.

Me neither, but it's enough to label as such if Reyes regresses and makes the Mets look foolish.

As I said, the term was never quite defined. But this seems to be a smart compromise deal, paying more now to pay less later, maybe much less. And it's timely considering how little payroll the Mets had yet committed in 2007 and 2008.

[Frayed Knot]

As I recall, part of the head-banging frustration of that argument was one person's insistance (eventually retracted) that there was no middle ground between min-waging him and a $30mil+ deal that bought him out well into his FA years, and anyone who argued that there was was wimping out on the discussion.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

There's a team option for a 5th year which I guess is a good deal for the Wilpons. It'd take a terrible slump to get him down to the .313 OBP plateau which was his likely projection this season.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: There's a team option for a 5th year which I guess is a good deal for the Wilpons.

I like that. It means that free agency might actually be delayed until after 2011. (That, by the way, is the final season of Beltran's contract.)

Wright is currently eligible to be a free agent after 2010. Hopefully he'll be signed through 2012 before the 2006 season ends.

[seawolf17]

Something tells me Reyes will do more for this team than Rey Ordonez ever did, and I believe Rey's deal was for more money.

[Guest ABG]

seawolf17 wrote: Something tells me Reyes will do more for this team than Rey Ordonez ever did, and I believe Rey's deal was for more money.

Something tells me Reyes has done more for this team than Rey Ordonez ever did.

[Elster88]

MFS62 wrote: As reported on WFAN. 4 years, $22.5 million.

Entirely off the top of my head and doing no research, that sounds a little low for the market if he's going to keep his OBP at .350, but still pretty nice finanical security for him. Especially if his OBP does fall to say .325 as an average over the next few years.

MFS62 wrote: Russo is ranting - screaming that Reyes should fire his agent and mentioning that Omar Viaquel gets $5 million per.

I don't know if screaming is necessary, but there was the possibilty that he could get more if he continued to improve at the rate we saw this year. Of course, if he breaks his leg or forgets how to hit he'd get nothing.

Shut up Doggie. Let the guy sign and move his girl out of his parents' apartment.

MFS62 wrote: Now let's sign David long term.

Yes!! 1 to go!!

MFS62 wrote: Later

Later

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Elster88 wrote: ="MFS62"]Later Later

LOLater

[nymr83]

] I don't consider this deal to be "big bucks", this deal makes alot of sense for the Mets.

] Me neither, but it's enough to label as such if Reyes regresses and makes the Mets look foolish.

i think it would be very hard to make the mets look bad with his contract. how much did they pay Ordonez to be hte worst everyday player ever?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, answering would lend credit to the assumption..

[Guest KC]

Oh great, now there'll be a one week controversy in the media and on the
internet that Reyes got the shaft - he'll get wind of it - fall into deep depression
and sulk about it- and suck forever.

Russo is unbearable to listen to when he's alone, of course he's barely lis-
tenable when Fattessa is around - but alone, I'd rather listen to the tires on
the pavement.

(let's rip off Wright next for a few years, lol)

[smg58]

It's a great deal for the Mets, and sets the bar for Wright which should make negotiations with him simpler. Lots to like, nothing to complain about.

[Elster88]

I don't think it will affect negotiations with Wright that much.

[nymr83]

Elster88 wrote: I don't think it will affect negotiations with Wright that much.

well, it "affects them" only to the extent that Wright is a better player and should expect to get more than Reyes got, so if Reyes had gotten overpaid it would have meant that Wright would get even more overpaid, or at least i think so.

[Elster88]

Eh. It's possible. I don't really buy it.

[Frayed Knot]

Ordonez's deal was more like 4 yrs/$19mil.
It was also given after his 4th year, meaning it bought out 2 FA years rather than just one.

The problem was, of course, that not only was Ordonez not the player who needed to be "secured" but also that Phillips bet on an inflationary market and an improving player and got neither.
As the 1999 season ended, Rey was coming off the best year of his career offensively while turning in an all-century defensive season and that's when he was rewarded with his contract. But by the spring of the following year, Rey had suddenly "aged" an additional 18 months when birth certificates were re-examined and was out for the season with a broken arm - never again to find his offensive & defensive peaks.
Add that to the dot-com era spending spree suddenly reversing itself, and the Ordonez contract was out of date by the time it was a year old. The fact that it was backloaded made it even more impossible to get pawn off on someone else.



Wright's a year behind Reyes in service time and isn't even eligible for arbitration until the end of '07. His deal may still be a year off.

[metirish]

Gary made a good point tonight, a year and a half ago with all the injuries Reyes was going through it would be hard to imagine the Mets giving him a long contract, I see this as a win win for both.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, that was the basis of the discussions Bret used to bring up: how much does Reyes have to improve to the point where you'd discuss a long-term deal for him and for how much?
What's happened this year is that he improved much more than the guestimate we were basing our hunches on.