Re-Sign Reyes NOW!!!!

[metirish]

Mets never extended an offer

Alderson heard from Reyes� camp Sunday morning, and learned that �things were moving,� the GM said. �Exactly how far I didn�t ask. I didn�t need to. �I think there was an understanding on (agent Peter Greenberg�s) part of what we were talking about in a complete contractual sense,� Alderson said, while emphasizing that he was not aware of an agreement between Reyes and Miami, other than through reading news reports. �But we did not make a formal offer.� Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-mets-jose-reyes-free-agent-bidding-sources-marlins-100-million-offer-shortstop-article-1.986662#ixzz1ffQqv2DF

[Guest attgig]

so, with the new cba, what exactly are our compensation picks???

[TransMonk]

My dream is that in 2017 the Mets win 110 games while the Marlins are paying Reyes $17M to be on the DL.

Personally, I've been prepared for this for a while and am ready to move on.

[seawolf17]

metsmarathon wrote: i console myself with this tought. if the marlins are going to go after pujols too, then it's likely that no matter the wilpon's financial situation, they would have been likely able to push the contract eventually to where we sandy would not want it to go. so maybe we never had a chance to begin with. it is little, bitter solace. fuck the mets. i'll probably change my mind come april, but really. fuck the mets.

Yes, and yes.

Nymr83 wrote: If Reyes had gotten away as a baseball decision ("he's always hurt, so we wont go past 4 years") it would be another story, but lets face it, this was all about Freddie Coupon who lost his money to Uncle Bernie and wants to take ours at the same ridiculous prices he charged when he was spending twice as much on the product on the field. The Mets, from everything I've seen, never made a real offer... go fuck yourself Wilpom, I wont be at Citifield next year. At all.

Yes.

bmfc1 wrote: Sandy said that the Mets lost $70 million last season. How is this possible? You own a) a baseball team in New York City. This isn't a baseball team in Paris or a Roller Derby team in New York. This is New York baseball! And they own a television network that shows the games. How incompetent are the Wilpons?

Very.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: This might turn out to be a good thing for the Mets. You never know. I mean, with hindsight, letting Strawberry leave after the '90 season turned out OK. So there's that.

Agree, but only because I have to agree to justify continuing to wear the blue hat.

[nymr83]

I think believing that the Mets lost 70 million means believing in the standard MLB accounting tricks. The New York Mets Baseball team may have lost that, but I doubt this figure includes all the money made by SNY on television rights that they paid a dollar for and by a dozen other Wilpon/Katz owned entities that profit off the Mets but don't show up on the Mets' books.

[smg58]

Regarding the Megdal article: I was under the impression that the Wilpons never hid their intentions of keeping the 2012 payroll around $100M. That number was thrown around often enough this year. It still leaves the Mets with about $15M to spend, so we'll see what comes of it.

The Mets lost money for a variety of reasons. A lousy economy and a losing team are a bad combination, especially when combined with ticket prices that don't take the state of the economy or the team into account. Spending over $40M on three players who didn't play an inning of major league ball between them didn't help, either, although you can make the argument that Johan was bad luck more than bad management.

Having said that, there are legitimate baseball reasons to pass on Reyes at that price. We had no right to expect either Reyes to offer us a discount, or the Mets to go in extra to hold on to somebody because he was "one of our own." The sport doesn't reward sentimentality. Perhaps we'll sign somebody else who gives us reasons to like him as much as we liked Reyes.

Moving on...

[MFS62]

The evil in me hopes that MLB will add his theroid medication to the banned substances list.
The good in me wishes him well, except when he plays the Mets.
The Mets fan in me wants to see what moves will be made to make the team competitive this year, while we wait for the kids to arrive.

Later

[metirish]

Interesting article


Measuring Reyes�s Loss in the Box Score
By ANDREW KEH
Published: December 5, 2011

Since his major league debut in 2003, Jose Reyes has become one of the more recognizable stars in baseball. And for Mets fans, viewing the effervescent Reyes in full motion � knees pumping, dreadlocks swaying � became something of a quintessential experience. Such traits had complicated the Mets� pursuit to re-sign Reyes, the star shortstop who agreed in principle Sunday night to a six-year, $106 million deal with the Miami Marlins, and have certainly made his departure to another organization particularly unpalatable for Mets fans. Losing a star, as everyone knows, has consequences beyond the scorebook. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to consider what the Mets actually will be losing on the field now that Reyes appears to be leaving. The consequences, it turns out, are nuanced and unexpectedly varied. The most indisputable fact of Reyes�s career to this point appears to be his immense worth at the top of a batting order. Neil Paine, an analyst at Baseball-Reference.com, said in an e-mail message that Reyes has �arguably been the National League�s best leadoff hitter� over his career. Since 2006, the year Reyes truly seemed to break out as a star, and excluding 2009, when he played only 36 games, the Mets have received superb production from the leadoff spot, the position Reyes filled in the order for the vast majority of games during that span. The Mets� overall batting average from the leadoff spot in those five seasons was .297, the highest in the National League by 11 points. Their slugging percentage out of the spot, .450, was tied for the league lead, while their on-base percentage, .351, was the second highest. �From watching him this year, I would say he was the No. 1 catalyst in baseball,� said Doug Glanville, a former major league player who works as an analyst for ESPN. �You put him out there to start a game and he would be on third base the next time you looked up. I don�t know if there was anyone in the league close to him in terms of providing that spark.� Reyes�s production at the plate over the course of his career is just as impressive when considered alongside the statistics of other shortstops in history. Since 1901, there have been 82 players who have made at least 3,000 plate appearances in their first nine seasons, the number Reyes has made, while playing over three-quarters of their games at shortstop. Of those players, only 12 had higher averages in their first nine years than Reyes�s career mark of .292. Only two had more stolen bases than Reyes, who has 370. Only one player, Arky Vaughan, had more triples than Reyes�s 99. The 2011 season, in some ways, was the best of Reyes�s career. He won the batting title with a .337 average and finished the season with an .877 on-base plus slugging percentage. Both numbers were career highs. For the fourth time in his career, he led the league in triples, with 16. But there are indications that Reyes�s sky-high average could be a one-off occurrence rather than the beginning of an extended plateau. For instance, Reyes�s batting average on balls in play this year was .353, which was 45 points higher than his career average over eight previous seasons. �When you see an anomalous number like that, you dig deeper,� said Rob Neyer, the national baseball editor for SBNation.com. The fact that Reyes, 28, did not appear to change fundamentally as a hitter � the proportion of balls he hit on the ground, in the air and for line drives did not change much from previous years � implied at least to some extent that Reyes�s league-high average was aided by a decent amount of luck. �That doesn�t happen two years in a row,� Neyer said of Reyes�s apparent good fortune. �The Mets shouldn�t pay a guy for hitting .337, because he�s unlikely to do it again.� Reyes�s defense, meanwhile, appears to be an even trickier subject to measure. �I think Jose is clearly one of the top defensive shortstops in baseball,� said Harold Reynolds, an analyst for MLB Network. �He�s got a rocket arm, he�s got great range and he�s fearless in turning the double play.� But others disagree, some vehemently. For instance, Reyes was 15th among major league shortstops in the Fielding Bible Awards, which are decided by a panel of statistically-inclined journalists put together by Baseball Info Solutions, a company that compiles sabermetric data. Defensive metrics are embraced to widely varying degrees among those in baseball, but their conclusions tend to carry more weight if a number of them indicate the same thing. Take for instance plus-minus rating, a metric developed by John Dewan, the author of the Fielding Bible, to measure fielding performance. Reyes had a rating of minus-11 last season, which essentially meant that he made 11 fewer plays than the average major league shortstop. That was the third-worst mark among regular shortstops last season (the other New York shortstop, Derek Jeter, was last with minus-18). Reyes�s ultimate zone rating per 150 games � a metric that looks at errors, range, arm strength and double plays and finds a player�s value based on how many runs he saved or lost compared with the average player � showed that he allowed 3.6 more runs than the average shortstop in 2011, putting him firmly in the bottom third of his peers. Metrics from earlier in Reyes�s career portray his defense much more favorably � he saved 11.6 runs in 2007, for instance � and Neyer and Glanville, who were both panelists for the Fielding Bible Awards, said a midcareer drop-off was natural. �It�s safe to say he won�t be winning any Gold Gloves in the future,� Neyer said. Reynolds provided the counter argument, though, that Reyes had grown more savvy in the field over the years and did things that do not show up in metrics. Glanville summed it up succinctly when he said, �I think Reyes is a little enigmatic.� Ultimately, most observers agree to some extent that criticisms of Reyes�s production can come across as nitpicking, that an analysis of the player that attempts to divorce him from his most electrifying, visceral qualities do not provide the full picture. �You�re clearly seeing a player moving into his prime years who understands how to play, how to take care of himself, and how good he can be,� Reynolds said. �That�s what the Mets would lose, and that�s a big piece.� In the end, it was a piece that may have proved too expensive for the Mets to keep. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/sports/baseball/measuring-reyess-loss-in-the-box-score.html?pagewanted=1&ref=baseball

[batmagadanleadoff]

Megdal offers an interesting take on why the Mets didn't trade Reyes before the trading deadline. Because surely the Mets couldn't have realistically thought that they'd be able to resign Reyes at 5/80.

Reyes is gone, and now Wilpon's Mets are smaller than the Florida Marlins


By Howard Megdal

11:20 am Dec. 5, 2011

If you had any doubts about just how feeble the Mets' financial condition is at the moment, just look at what happened this weekend: Jose Reyes, their franchise player and the finest shortstop in Mets history, was bought up by the Florida Marlins, an organization that is currently under investigation by the S.E.C. As hard as it may be to believe of any team that plays in a market as big as New York, the Mets are no longer in the Marlins' league when it comes to being able to afford players like Reyes. Their ownership group, led by Fred Wilpon, is too busy just trying to hang on the team, as it grapples with the after-effects of its deep financial involvement with Bernie Madoff. The fact that Reyes left this way�rather than, say, after having been made an insanely lucrative offer he couldn't refuse from the Yankees or the Red Sox�is particularly sad. The Marlins and Reyes reportedly agreed to a six-year, $106 million contract with Reyes late Sunday evening, taking the 28-year-old shortstop from the only team he's known he was 16. The contract the Marlins agreed to with Reyes, however the Mets try to spin it, is quite reasonable. The Marlins had originally offered six years, $90 million for Reyes, back in mid-November. The Mets claimed their failure to make an offer during the period of time, post-World Series, when they still held exclusive negotiating rights with Reyes, was due to an unwillingness to bid against themselves. But once Florida bid, the Mets never made a formal offer either. Instead, they let it be known they'd be willing to go as high as five years, $80 million (which is, if you're keeping score at home, is fewer years and less money). And when the Marlins increased their initial offer to get the deal done, the Mets responded by declaring themselves out of the running. We are not likely to hear much about Reyes now from the Wilpons, Fred and his C.O.O. son, Jeff. Once again, it will fall to the overqualified, underfunded general manager Sandy Alderson to explain the latest disappointment. "Well, you have to draw a line somewhere,� a sober and at times visibly irritated Alderson told reporters late Sunday night. �And based on our experience�not just with Jose, but with multi-year contracts generally�and not just with our multi-year contracts, but all multi-year contracts generally, we decided that there were some conceptual limitations to where we would go. "One of the reasons we held back for so long was to see where the market might take Jose. One of the reasons we had more communication recently than before was because there was at least some indication that perhaps the market hadn't gone where some people had anticipated. If these current reports are true, the market may have accelerated considerably beyond where it may have been a week ago, or four days ago." But Alderson, a respected veteran, is entirely too intelligent to have thought, at any point, that he had a reasonable chance of retaining Jose Reyes if the Mets' maximum offer was five years, $80 million. Injuries had limited Jose Reyes to 126 games in 2011 and 133 games in 2010. But shortstops with the skills of Jose Reyes simply aren't rarely available as free agents in their prime years. According to Fangraphs, Reyes has already had four seasons worth $22.5 million or more to the Mets; his 2011 checked in at $27.8 million in value. The last free-agent shortstop as valuable as Reyes to hit the open market played in 129 and 148 games in the two seasons prior to hitting free agency. It was Alex Rodriguez, in 2000, who then signed for ten years and $252 million. Carl Crawford, whose offensive abilities are similar to Reyes' and who plays at a less important position, left field, signed a contract last year for a year longer that what Reyes just got, making around $3 million more in salary per year. Derek Jeter signed a contract to play shortstop across town last year for the same annual value as Reyes' deal, even though he was nine years older, and hadn't put together a season equal to Reyes' 2011 since 1999. In other words, if Alderson had really valued Reyes at 5 years and $80 million, but no higher, there could only have been two reasons he didn't trade him in July: Either he believed the value he'd receive in return wasn't greater than the pair of compensatory draft picks the Mets will receive now that Reyes has signed elsewhere; or ownership had instructed him not to trade Reyes, hoping instead to extract whatever value it could from the tickets the team would sell by holding onto Reyes for a few months more. The former is awfully unlikely; shortstops hitting .341, as Jose Reyes was at the the trading deadline, are valuable commodities. What seems obvious now, if it wasn't at the time, is that the Mets' decisions about Reyes were all about short-term money. Even as he expressed impatience with the recurring Madoff-Mets storyline, Alderson seem to admit as much. "Bernie Madoff and his specter are always referenced in these situations," he said. "I don't really think Madoff has that much to do with it. But when a team loses $70 million irrespective of Bernie Madoff or anyone else, that's probably a bigger factor in our approach to this season and the next couple than anything else." Naturally, though, the collapse of Bernie Madoff is what compelled the Mets' owners to cut spending, leading to losing on the field, leading to depressed ticket sales, leading to the loss of $70 million. Alderson went ahead and let everyone know while he was at it�with his throwaway phrase, �the next couple��that he doesn't expect Wilpon's Mets to emerge from austerity mode anytime soon.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2011/12/4479616/reyes-gone-and-now-wilpons-mets-are-smaller-florida-marlins

[TransMonk]

"But when a team loses $70 million irrespective of Bernie Madoff or anyone else, that's probably a bigger factor in our approach to this season and the next couple than anything else."

Fuck.

[Centerfield]

TransMonk wrote: "But when a team loses $70 million irrespective of Bernie Madoff or anyone else, that's probably a bigger factor in our approach to this season and the next couple than anything else." Fuck THE METS.

I finished your thought for you.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I wonder if Mets Hot Stove Report tonight will be all about how great Ruben Tejada is.

[Vic Sage]

i hear he's the second coming of Tim Bogar.

[metsmarathon]

TransMonk wrote: My dream is that in 2017 the Mets win 110 games while the Marlins are paying Reyes $17M to be on the DL. Personally, I've been prepared for this for a while and am ready to move on.

Right now, I'm fairly certain that I do not want, under any circumstances, for the Wilsons to be right here. I want Reyes to be a perrenial all-star and MVP candidate. Granted, I want for him to do It while playing on a last place team. or at least a second place team.

I want Jose to build a hall of fame career and for this non-signing non-offer to forever be an indelible blemish upon the legacy of the entire fucking wilpon clan.

I wish Jose all the best and look forward to cheering him each and every time the fish come to town.

[Edgy MD]

Hard to go there.

[Centerfield]

I disagree. Very easy to go there.

If it comes down to rooting for Wilpons or rooting for Reyes, it's an easy fucking choice.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Scuttlebutt: Hanley is "distraught" about the signing/attendant move to third.

But I'm sure that will work out fine; Ramirez has always been the kind of guy who plays well and hard through upset and emotional distractions.

[Edgy MD]

I disagree. Very easy to go there.

Well, I had hoped "for me" was clearly implied.

You're rooting for him to succeed, that's fine.

You're rooting for him to fail, that's fine.

As far rooting for him to succeed because you want there to be no way in the universe that this was the better choice in the situation, because what's important is not that he succeeds or fails, but that Wilpon is most deeply tarnished, it's hard (for me) to go there.

You go crazy. But that's not what I'm in this for. I'm totally down with the notion that there should be a higher limit for a career Met star. And I realize I don't have kids for whom Jos� Reyes on the Mets is a lifetime fixture. But that's a bridge too far for me.

I've mentioned this before, but a real firm, in the real world --- be they law, financial, or architecture --- when they came to an impasse, where they couldn't afford to retain a star employee, but couldn't afford to lose him or her, would upgrade their star from mere employee by offering him or her a partnership in the practice. MLB forbids this --- and I assume most professional leagues do --- but they shouldn't, and shouldn't be allowed to.

[duan]

I've tried to get round to thinking about this for a couple of days.
to be honest, the Mets under the Wilpons are a bit like Ireland.
There's the Tsunami of Madoff (for that read the mishandled banking meltdown) which if everything else was going well you could handle
but then there's also the reckless growth of spending in the payroll, the stadium and planes for the owners (for that read our current budget defecit)
There's no easy place to go with this except to accept some painful medicine for a couple of years and hope that the medicine is actually correct and that the clean bill of health happens earlier rather then later.
Of course there's a risk, correcting the payroll imbalance too quickly could lead to a depressionary spriral where due to the poverty of the output and the absence of confidence the income which comes with it declines at an accelerated pace. So what you try and do is get rid of the things that you simply can't afford any more, and make smaller chops everywhere else.
Last year the Mets spent $41 million on players who did not play at all, they have also had one of the worst injury records in the majors for last 3/4 years. So I have no doubt that Reyes' relative inability to stay healthy over an extended period of time has been the key factor in Alderson valuing him a *that much less*. Normally the advantage of being a big market team is that you can absorb one or two bad injuries/signings, but until the mets get through this period they can't.
Me, I think it won't be a great signing, but they'll get one MVP season, two MVP but hamstrung, one healthy but only ok, one injury riddled and one .320 obp 390 slg with 10 steals fiasco. Don't get me wrong, he'll be a lot better then Jason Bay, but therein lies the secret of where we are now.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Sandy said on Mets Hot Stove last night that the Mets offered Jose a incentive-based package that would have paid as much as the Marlins will pay him, but only if Jose remained healthy.

I don't know when (or if) that offer may have been made, but that's what Sandy said.

[metsmarathon]

Edgy DC wrote: I disagree. Very easy to go there. Well, I had hoped "for me" was clearly implied. You're rooting for him to succeed, that's fine. You're rooting for him to fail, that's fine. As far rooting for him to succeed because you want there to be no way in the universe that this was the better choice in the situation, because what's important is not that he succeeds or fails, but that Wilpon is most deeply tarnished, it's hard (for me) to go there. You go crazy. But that's not what I'm in this for. I'm totally down with the notion that there should be a higher limit for a career Met star. And I realize I don't have kids for whom Jos� Reyes on the Mets is a lifetime fixture. But that's a bridge too far for me.

well, i want him to stay healthy and succeed and all that because i'd like to be right in that the mets hsould have retained him, or made a better effort in doing so. and since my being right would mean the wilpons would be bitterly wrong, it's like a bonus. the more right i am, the more wrong the wilpons are.

and especially because i like jose reyes - no, i adore jose reyes - i want him to be successful no matter what pajamas he's wearing ,no matter how gaudy. and if hte wilpons are right in that jose reyes wasn't worth aggressively retaining, then it means that he was not as successful. and i wouldn't like that.

[metirish]

duan wrote: I've tried to get round to thinking about this for a couple of days. to be honest, the Mets under the Wilpons are a bit like Ireland. There's the Tsunami of Madoff (for that read the mishandled banking meltdown) which if everything else was going well you could handle but then there's also the reckless growth of spending in the payroll, the stadium and planes for the owners (for that read our current budget defecit) There's no easy place to go with this except to accept some painful medicine for a couple of years and hope that the medicine is actually correct and that the clean bill of health happens earlier rather then later. Of course there's a risk, correcting the payroll imbalance too quickly could lead to a depressionary spriral where due to the poverty of the output and the absence of confidence the income which comes with it declines at an accelerated pace. So what you try and do is get rid of the things that you simply can't afford any more, and make smaller chops everywhere else. Last year the Mets spent $41 million on players who did not play at all, they have also had one of the worst injury records in the majors for last 3/4 years. So I have no doubt that Reyes' relative inability to stay healthy over an extended period of time has been the key factor in Alderson valuing him a *that much less*. Normally the advantage of being a big market team is that you can absorb one or two bad injuries/signings, but until the mets get through this period they can't. Me, I think it won't be a great signing, but they'll get one MVP season, two MVP but hamstrung, one healthy but only ok, one injury riddled and one .320 obp 390 slg with 10 steals fiasco. Don't get me wrong, he'll be a lot better then Jason Bay, but therein lies the secret of where we are now.

Ha! , but where are the Germans?

[Edgy MD]

Regarding marathon, above:

I guess so. I certainly thought the Mets were wrong in not making a higher offer than they did to Edgardo Alfonzo. I hoped he succeeded. But when he didn't, even though I felt modestly badly for him, I found it wasn't that hard to tip my hat to Steve Phillips.

I can even now personally entertain scenarios where he wouldn't have floundered had he not left the Mets. I can attribute all his downward career trajectory to heartbreak and homesickness for the Mets and New York. It might even be true. But it's certainly far-fetched enough that I'm not going to hang my hat on it. So again, I tipped my hat to Steve Phillips. Even as I stick to my guns that you go higher to retain home-grown stars and honor the connection that the fanbase has with them.

Steve F. Phillips. I know, right?

[Edgy MD]

Megdal is also pimping a new anti-Wilpon book.

[MFS62]

Seems Loria may have been involved in some hanky-panky.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AugWHM1evWGjdBXjeLNf.AkRvLYF?slug=ap-marlinsstadium-investigation

Later

[Vic Sage]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Sandy said on Mets Hot Stove last night that the Mets offered Jose a incentive-based package that would have paid as much as the Marlins will pay him, but only if Jose remained healthy. I don't know when (or if) that offer may have been made, but that's what Sandy said.

What i had hoped and suggested the Mets do was to make such a contingent offer such that, if healthy, Jose would make alot MORE than the Marlins offered. It's not enough to offer contingent money = guaranteed money. And i totally understand Jose turning it down for guaranteed money.

I think, ultimately, Sandy will be proved right about Reyes' value in the long run, but in the short run its a PR disaster for the team, and whats going on now is just spin for the sake of damage control.

[duan]

Edgy DC wrote: Regarding marathon, above: I guess so. I certainly thought the Mets were wrong in not making a higher offer than they did to Edgardo Alfonzo. I hoped he succeeded. But when he didn't, even though I felt modestly badly for him, I found it wasn't that hard to tip my hat to Steve Phillips. I can even now personally entertain scenarios where he wouldn't have floundered had he not left the Mets. I can attribute all his downward career trajectory to heartbreak and homesickness for the Mets and New York. It might even be true. But it's certainly far-fetched enough that I'm not going to hang my hat on it. So again, I tipped my hat to Steve Phillips. Even as I stick to my guns that you go higher to retain home-grown stars and honor the connection that the fanbase has with them. Steve F. Phillips. I know, right?

I said "Posada Money" for Alfonso (meaning that time round 5 years @ about 60 million. ) I too have learnt that sometimes the guy actually does know what he's doing.

[Fman99]

Regarding marathon, above: I guess so. I certainly thought the Mets were wrong in not making a higher offer than they did to Edgardo Alfonzo. I hoped he succeeded. But when he didn't, even though I felt modestly badly for him, I found it wasn't that hard to tip my hat to Steve Phillips. I can even now personally entertain scenarios where he wouldn't have floundered had he not left the Mets. I can attribute all his downward career trajectory to heartbreak and homesickness for the Mets and New York. It might even be true. But it's certainly far-fetched enough that I'm not going to hang my hat on it. So again, I tipped my hat to Steve Phillips. Even as I stick to my guns that you go higher to retain home-grown stars and honor the connection that the fanbase has with them. Steve F. Phillips. I know, right?

I tip my hat to him because he bags fat chicks. Good on him!

[batmagadanleadoff]

Sandy said on Mets Hot Stove last night that the Mets offered Jose a incentive-based package that would have paid as much as the Marlins will pay him, but only if Jose remained healthy. I don't know when (or if) that offer may have been made, but that's what Sandy said. What i had hoped and suggested the Mets do was to make such a contingent offer such that, if healthy, Jose would make alot MORE than the Marlins offered. It's not enough to offer contingent money = guaranteed money. And i totally understand Jose turning it down for guaranteed money. I think, ultimately, Sandy will be proved right about Reyes' value in the long run, but in the short run its a PR disaster for the team, and whats going on now is just spin for the sake of damage control.

If the Mets contingent and incentive laden offer merely matched, in money, Miami's guaranteed offer, then the Mets essentially didn't offer Reyes anything. It was a Bizarro Godfather offer: We'll make him an offer he has to refuse. (Because we can't afford him at anything near market and this way, maybe we fool some fans into thinking we made an effort).

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy DC wrote: Megdal is also pimping a new anti-Wilpon book.

Good. Fans need to hear the other side of this agenda driven drivel that the Wilpons are good guy competent baseball owners. Enough with the dragging out of Sandy Koufax every coupl'a months for some good ole Fred tales.