Pujols contract, aka unnecessarily getting my hopes up....

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Ahem.

Also unlike both (at the time of Met-quisition), he has shown absolutely nothing in his surface OR peripheral numbers to suggest he's entering or even nearing his decline phase.

Did I just quote myself?

[Guest attgig]

structure his contract so that you're not paying him 30 mil when he's 42. make it so you're paying him 32-35 the next few years, and then down to 20 or less when he's hitting the late 30's/early 40's.


there's no debate in my mind not to offer him an arod contract. no doubt

[Guest Edgy DC]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Ahem. Also unlike both (at the time of Met-quisition), he has shown absolutely nothing in his surface OR peripheral numbers to suggest he's entering or even nearing his decline phase. Did I just quote myself?

Well (1) he's not at the time of his alleged acquisition yet, (2) his wheels and defensive skills aren't as good as they were a few years ago, and (3) just because this lion hasn't bitten yet doesn't mean I shouldn't trust the knowledge and experience telling me that lions bite. They're in fact famously dangerous predators.

Let the Yankees import overpriced douchebags in dumb hats to win them championships. We can grow our own douchebags. And provide them with our own hats.

[Guest Edgy DC]

attgig wrote: structure his contract so that you're not paying him 30 mil when he's 42. make it so you're paying him 32-35 the next few years, and then down to 20 or less when he's hitting the late 30's/early 40's.

How many such congracts have we heard of? There are many obstacles.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Oh, yeah... just kinda making the point that Albie's moneymaker is unlikely to diminish significantly anytime soon.

To clarify: I'm half-playing DA here. If he'd sign for a 3-4 year deal? Sure.

[Benjamin Grimm]

What do we think about Prince Fielder? Will be cheaper than Pujols (but not cheap!) and maybe he can be signed for seven years as opposed to ten. He'll turn 28 in May of 2012, so a seven-year contract would end when he was 34.

Yes, I know we all like Ike. I do too. But as I've said before, I don't follow opposing players that closely, so I don't know much about what Fielder's negatives might be. What I'm wondering (not advocating, but wondering) here is if it's at all likely that the Mets might go after Fielder next winter.

I do think that Fielder is more likely to hit the free agent market than Pujols is.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Retired AP baseball reporter Josh Bolan wrote: So are the Mets clearing payroll to make a run at Albert Pujols for the 2012 season? Well, The Mets are making an obvious attempt to spend no new capital this year and seemingly willing to forfeit the 2011season. The Mets are simply willing to bide time until those contracts come off the books so that they can be ready for the free agent class of 2012. You can be certain that unless Ike Davis hits 30 HR�s and drives in 100 + this year, or comes damn near close to those numbers, the Mets will have at the very least, Price Fielder (who has just set himself up nicely to be a free agent in demand next year) on their team opening day in 2012, if not Albert Pujols. Pujols has repeatedly stated that he will not negotiate once Spring Training starts. While I don't necessarily believe that, I do believe that he won't negotiate once the season starts. The clock is ticking and Mets fans are hoping that time expires. For those Mets fans who are all into the home grown infield thing and don�t want to give up Ike Davis to get Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder, the only thing I can say is, you�ll get over him pretty quickly. - Josh Bolan

With the Yankees, Phillies, and Red Sox all seemingly set at first base, the Mets would seem to have a shot if they decide to go this way. Especially if both Fielder and Pujols are on the market.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I've gotten over Josh Bolan... pretty quickly!

[Frayed Knot]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't follow opposing players that closely, so I don't know much about what Fielder's negatives might be.

The biggest negatives being that he'll soon require his own ZIP code and his cholesterol level probably contains a comma somewhere in the number.

[metsmarathon]

last year, bbref has fielder at 3.8 WAR vs. ike's 2.5 WAR, while fangraphs has fielder at 4.1 WAR vs. ike's 3.4 WAR

even taking the greater spread on bbref, is it really worth the added cost, lesser defense, and virtually assured mo vaughnyness of prince fielder as compared to the dreadfully inexpensive, defensively sound, and homegrown ike davis?

fangraphs and bbref agree that , fielder's best season, 2009, was the only season in which he was more valuable than pujols was in his least valuable season, 2002.

given the choice, and especially taking into account the contracts each will command in 2012, i'd much rather have albert pujols than prince fielder. given the choice, and especially taking into account the contracts each will command in 2012, i'd rather have ike davis than prince fielder, especially if ike shows any further development this season. i do not trust prince's body to last. not one bit. let another team take that risk.

[metirish]

Frayed Knot wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't follow opposing players that closely, so I don't know much about what Fielder's negatives might be. The biggest negatives being that he'll soon require his own ZIP code and his cholesterol level probably contains a comma somewhere in the number.

If Fielder comes expect this to be surpassed







In a way I hope Pujols gets signed so the speculation doesn't build all season .

[Guest Edgy DC]

Prince is a vegetarian.

[seawolf17]

Edgy DC wrote: Prince is a vegetarian.

What? There's a pickle on there.

Five years, $180 million for Pujols.

[Guest attgig]

Edgy DC wrote: attgig wrote: structure his contract so that you're not paying him 30 mil when he's 42. make it so you're paying him 32-35 the next few years, and then down to 20 or less when he's hitting the late 30's/early 40's. How many such congracts have we heard of? There are many obstacles.

a-rod's contract does something like this... and we are modeling albert's contract after arod, no?

[Guest attgig]

agreed with some of the other assesments. Fielder, while good, is not a huge improvement over ike to warrant the $'s being asked by boras.

meanwhile, pujols is leaps and bounds better than anyone else in baseball, that despite his age, is no question to warrant the $$ being asked by him.

[Guest attgig]

seawolf17 wrote: Edgy DC wrote: Prince is a vegetarian. What? There's a pickle on there. Five years, $180 million for Pujols.

there will be some other teams out there bidding against the mets, and in the end, I think we'll have to have a longer AND higher paying contract vs the cardinals (who will end up being the main competitors, imo) for us to win out a contract.

[Guest Edgy DC]

attgig wrote: attgig wrote: structure his contract so that you're not paying him 30 mil when he's 42. make it so you're paying him 32-35 the next few years, and then down to 20 or less when he's hitting the late 30's/early 40's. How many such congracts have we heard of? There are many obstacles. a-rod's contract does something like this... and we are modeling albert's contract after arod, no?

I guess it does. Although I'm not modelign Pujols' contract after anybody's. I'm staying in the moment.

[Benjamin Grimm]

metirish wrote:

That is one wide dude.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Overpaying for the biggest guy on the market in his declining years is exactly what the Mets past practice has been. Bonilla, Coleman, Foster, Pedro...

Granted, none of those guy are Albert, but it still seems like the way the team used to work. Guess if I were going to overpay, I'd do it for a pitcher.

[Guest Edgy DC]

If I were going to overpay, I'd do it for a Met.

But, of course, it's best not to overpay.

[metirish]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Overpaying for the biggest guy on the market in his declining years is exactly what the Mets past practice has been.

By biggest do you mean fattest?

[seawolf17]

metirish wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: Overpaying for the biggest guy on the market in his declining years is exactly what the Mets past practice has been. By biggest do you mean fattest?

/rimshot

Of course, they need to sign Wright and Reyes to megadeals FIRST, then go sign Albert.

[Guest attgig]

overpay, meaning pay more than.... what?

I don't want to overpay like we overpaid for ollie and castillo. there were no competitors for either of them, and yet we decided to outbid ourselves.
you can say the same about arod and holliday.

when it comes to pujols, there will be competition. I want to overpay other people, but i don't want to overpay us. that's just silly.
and if we beat out real competitive bids to get the best player in all of baseball, well, i don't think we're overpaying.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I don't follow. What if we beat out bids that were themselves overpaying?

If we beat all competing bids for the best player in baseball, and he becomes the 75th-best player in baseball, we've overpaid.

[Guest attgig]

just reading about who's really the mvp.

war comparison graphs of a few different folks:
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?playerid2=1177&playerid3=1744&playerid4=1281&playerid5=1908

the article.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/real-mvp-part-2/



and i think the overpaying argument is a question of perception.
in a competitive market, overpaying is winning.
i bought my house a few years ago when house prices were up. i guess i could look at it as i overpaid, but i don't becuase i paid what i was comfortable with and what the market dictated. value that i lost since then is sunk cost.

[Frayed Knot]

Except that the value of a ballplayer will eventually, unlike a house, ALWAYS reach zero and the idea is NOT to be holding that player when his value is rapidly descending towards that point. Also the under-valued player keeps you from being able to afford other players which, unlike extra houses, are necessary to the buyer.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sheesh, yeah.

The value of a house is in what you can flip it for on the market.

The value of a ballplayer is in games he or she can win for you.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Bumping this because Pujols is in the news again. Says tomorrow is the deadline for him to sign a contract with the Cards, otherwise he's going to become a free agent.

[smg58]

I'm waiting for Pujols to "volunteer" to swap positions with Berkman -- which will of course have everything to do with helping his current team, and nothing to do with the Yankees and Red Sox having openings in right field next offseason.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Deadline extended for a day out of respect for Stan Musial.

No, Stan hasn't died. He's being honored somewhere.

(Interesting that my Firefox spellchecker recognizes the name "Musial." I tried other fairly unique names from (very roughly) the same era. It likes Koufax and DiMaggio but not Killebrew, Campanella, Yastrzemski, or Drysdale.)