Signing Sugar

[batmagadanleadoff]

September 30, 2012, 8:08 p.m. ET
Maybe It's Time to Trade Wright
By TIM MARCHMAN

For nine years now, earnest, reliable David Wright has been the public face of the Mets. His career has spanned four managers, three distinct periods of awful, depressing baseball, two catastrophic late-season collapses and one postseason, and not once has he expressed a frustration or regret anything like what the team's fans feel. All he's done is play very well�better, even, than he sometimes gets credit for. Wright will end this year as the Mets' career leader in hits, runs, runs batted in, walks, doubles, total bases and sacrifice flies, and with about 40 wins above replacement. That's basically what Derek Jeter did through the same age, and the only players who did meaningfully better in New York in their 20s aren't just Hall of Famers, but icons: Mantle, Mathewson, Ott, Gehrig, Seaver, Ruth, Snider and DiMaggio. And for all that, if Wednesday is Wright's last game as a Met, it probably will be for the best. This isn't because of anything Wright has done or left undone�there's nothing bad to say about him�or even because of the Mets' finances, which, bad as they are, still will allow them to pay Wright as much as or more than any other team. Rather it's because of the radical changes in baseball over the past few years, which somewhat perversely give the Mets every incentive to move Wright while they can. The first, which dates back to the mid-1990s, is the trend of teams locking up their own best players to long-term contracts, which is making it increasingly rare for a franchise talent to hit the open market. (Josh Hamilton and Robinson Cano are the only players who could reach free agency over the next two winters who are of Wright's caliber.) Add this to the recent enormous increases in television rights fees and you get vast sums of money floating around with no obvious place to go. This is how you end up with the small-market Reds locking up Joey Votto, a one-dimensional first baseman, through age 41. Potentially the most significant change, though, is the introduction of the second wild card, which will dramatically increase the value of a win to rich teams like the Yankees and Angels, who now have to plan to be good enough not just to make the playoffs, but to avoid getting shunted into a one-game play-in. It's hard to say how big this effect will be, but in theory the best teams should be willing to pay a huge premium for the players who can help them avoid the coin-flip game. All of this makes Wright, a great player still in his prime who projects to be worth about twice the $16 million he'll make next year, hugely valuable on the trade market. How valuable? The Dodgers gave the Red Sox good prospects and took on over $100 million in essentially dead money just for the right to pay Adrian Gonzalez, an older and lesser player than Wright, a market-level contract, and it wasn't viewed within baseball as an obviously insane thing to do. Past all of this, a going-nowhere team like the Mets has every reason to move a valuable player like Wright for young talent. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, it no longer will be possible for one team to seriously outbid others for amateur draft picks or international prospects. Recent successes like Matt Harvey aside, the Mets don't have a great record of scouting or developing players, so if they want good, cheap young ones around whom to build a winner, some of them are probably going to have to come from outside the organization. There are really only two reasons not to trade Wright. One is that it would damage the team's hopes of contending during what's left of his prime, but they don't have any. The other is that it would outrage fans and leave Citi Field quieter than a toaster, but as the Journal has reported, it already is. The only way to win back the public will be to win, and even if the Wilpon family announces tomorrow that the team has been sold to a mad Russian oil tycoon, that's going to take a couple of years, by which time Wright likely won't be what he was. All of this is cold, but so is baseball: Mathewson, Ruth and Seaver all moved on from New York, and sooner or later, so will Wright. If the Mets trade him now, it won't undo any of what he's already done, which is enough to establish him as the sort of player who ought to have a statue made of him when he finally ends his career, and it certainly won't harm him a bit. The man turns 30 in December, and unless he turns out to be a Jeter-like freak, he probably has only two or three years of real stardom left in him. It might be nice to see him spend them in a place where fans turn up to the ballgames, and cheer when they do.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444004704578028774273540996.html

[batmagadanleadoff]

September 30, 2012, 8:08 p.m. ET Maybe It's Time to Trade Wright By TIM MARCHMAN

David Wright talks Mets career
Updated: September 30, 2012, 6:16 PM ET
By Adam Rubin | ESPNNewYork.com

In an exclusive interview with ESPNNewYork.com, Wright indicated he is unsure who will be his employer in 2014, much less at the end of his career. "No idea," he said. [...] Wright has resolved to test free agency during the 2013-14 offseason if no extension can be consummated this winter. He does not want in-season dialogue. [...] "I think we've demonstrated we have some talent in our minor leagues," Wright said. "Some of the young arms that have come up have been really impressive. But, at the same time, of course it's important that we can make a trade or sign a free agent and be able to spend some money. This is my philosophy on it. And that's why I'm going to sit down with these guys at some point and discuss it. Yeah, I'd like to know if it's going to be 'what you see is what you get' and we're going to base it solely on the minor leagues." What if the current payroll constraints will be in place for a while? "That would be something I'd have to think about, obviously," Wright said. With Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon in an interview room at Citi Field three weeks ago waiting to present Jones with a gift recognizing his final visit to Queens, Jones noted to reporters the Braves never let him get to spring training of a free-agency year without having locked him up. Asked if that is how an organization should approach things, Wright made a distinction between himself and Jones -- and Jeter for that manner. "I think it makes it a lot easier when obviously Chipper is in that situation and they win the division each year and have a chance to play for a World Series each year," Wright said. "Obviously we haven't experienced what they have."

Read the rest of Adam Rubin's piece at http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/8445498/david-wright-no-idea-career-new-york-mets-continue

[ashie62]

Two media assholes all about themselves.

[Edgy MD]

What specifically about their articles do you object to?

[Gwreck]

When is it about Joey Votto and 1.051 OPS that makes him a one-dimensional player?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Gwreck wrote: When is it about Joey Votto and 1.051 OPS that makes him a one-dimensional player?

That's the part that stuck out for me. First basemen are first basemen, granted... but Votto's exhibited a fine glove with superlative on-base skills (even for the position), some speed, and good power. For Chrissakes, his worst wOBA of the last four years is .403.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

From Marchman:

"All of this makes Wright, a great player still in his prime who projects to be worth about twice the $16 million he'll make next year."

Wright is worth $32 million a year? That's crazy.

"The man turns 30 in December, and unless he turns out to be a Jeter-like freak, he probably has only two or three years of real stardom left in him."

Jeter-like freak? The only thing freaky about Jeter is that he has a cult of sportswriters who are in denial that he is an over-rated singles hitter with no range.

[metsmarathon]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: From Marchman: "All of this makes Wright, a great player still in his prime who projects to be worth about twice the $16 million he'll make next year." Wright is worth $32 million a year? That's crazy.

based on the fancy schmancy WAR - to - dollars conversion, wright's 7.4 fWAR (that's WAR as fangraphs.com calculates 'em) equates to about $35M on the free market.

it's a little complex how they derive that, and some might argue flawed, too, but basically, you take the total salary doled out to free agents, and divide it by the total WAR they produced, and you derive an average $/WAR expectancy - where for every, say, $4.5 million dollars you spend on a free agent, you would expect, on average, a return of 1 WAR.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'd say there has to be a flaw somewhere, because nobody is going to pay $35 million per year to David Wright.

[metsmarathon]

if you could guarantee 7.6 WAR per season for the duration of the contract, somebody probably would.

[Edgy MD]

I think it's more than a little deceptive if you only count money awarded to free agents. Reyes may seem to be worth every penny he gets by that measure, but not necessarily when you see the productivity one can get out of a pre-arbitration player like Ruben Tejada for pennies on the dollar.

Seawolf is arguing $40 million.

[seawolf17]

Edgy DC wrote: I think it's more than a little deceptive if you only count money awarded to free agents. Reyes may seem to be worth every penny he gets by that measure, but not necessarily when you see the productivity one can get out of a pre-arbitration player like Ruben Tejada for pennies on the dollar. Seawolf is arguing $40 million.

I honestly think his value to the franchise transcends money, in the Jeterian sense. They spent this weekend watching the Braves suck Chipper's teat, and then they're going to go trade their own guy? EFF THAT. $40M is extreme, obviously, but if he signed a ten-year, $250M deal today, I'd be cartwheeling across the quad.

[metirish]

I had an exchange with Marchman on twitter about this, I noted that if you trade Wright then you trade Dickey too, right?

[Edgy MD]

Maybe, I guess, and then Daniel Murphy becomes the anchor of your 2013 marketing campaign and you draw 3,643 fans to see you.

I'm pretty sure that they'll go whole hog into re-signing both. If they fail, they'd sooner trade Dickey, hope they can get some big league-ready pieces, go into the season optimistic-if-things-break-right-they-can-contend, and trade Wright if he still remains unsigned near the deadline.

But I'm pretty sure that they'll go whole hog into re-signing both.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The other factor here, of course, is that they may not want to stay. The Mets will need to convince David that there are better days ahead, and that's certainly not an easy sell.

[Edgy MD]

I think selling a vision of the future is probably easier than most sells.

You offer me a guaranteed $30 million salary for eight years, I'm more than happy to believe that there will be ice skating on the moon.

[seawolf17]

Edgy DC wrote: I think selling a vision of the future is probably easier than most sells. You offer me a guaranteed $30 million salary for eight years, I'm more than happy to believe that there will be ice skating on the moon.

Egg-zactly.

And I'm already on record as saying that Dickey should be dealt.

[Benjamin Grimm]

They're not gonna offer him $240 million over eight years. Maybe $120 over six. And whatever they offer him, he can reasonably expect that someone else may come relatively close. And that somebody else may not have as bleak a short-term future as the Mets do.

Sure, the Mets have Harvey and Wheeler and whoever else we may want to get excited about, but David Wright is 30, and the biological clock on his World Series hopes is ticking.

[Edgy MD]

The Marlins didn't have so bleak a short-term future as the Mets did when Reyes jumped. Except it was.

It's real easy for rich men to bullshit about the future they are building.

[ashie62]

I guess I have to resign myself to an off season of Wright speculation. I didn't care about Reyes, Wright I do very much.

I feel like if he is not wrapped up by opening day he has played his last game as a Met.

Very difficult for me to gauge managements feelings on Wright and that kind of money.

There are many cogent arguments that will be made about Wright's future with or not with the Mets.

I feel shitty about this already..

[Benjamin Grimm]

Edgy DC wrote: The Marlins didn't have so bleak a short-term future as the Mets did when Reyes jumped. Except it was.

Of course nothing is absolutely certain. But some situations appear to be better than others, and it's not hard to imagine that there are other teams whose situation looks better than the Mets does. If you don't make any decisions unless you know 100% what the future holds, then you can't make any decisions at all.

Edgy DC wrote: It's real easy for rich men to bullshit about the future they are building.

Yes, it is. And if Wright is as gullible as we have to hope he is, then they'll sign him.

[metsmarathon]

Edgy DC wrote: I think it's more than a little deceptive if you only count money awarded to free agents. Reyes may seem to be worth every penny he gets by that measure, but not necessarily when you see the productivity one can get out of a pre-arbitration player like Ruben Tejada for pennies on the dollar. Seawolf is arguing $40 million.

or the yen on the dollar you can get with a mike trout.

like i said, it has some arguments against it. but if you're using it to price a free agent, it's a decent way of looking at things. if you pay wright $20M per year, you expect him to give you 4 WAR per year (on average). you hope for more, obviously.

for what it's worth, wright has more fWAR to this point in his career than either jeter or chipper.

[ashie62]

How about 10 for 250

and Mr. Met cleans his penthouse weekly.

It is going to take more cash to keep Wright than I thought.

I suck at this and need a hug.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Ashie62 wrote: I feel like if he is not wrapped up by opening day he has played his last game as a Met.

I think this is very likely. If the Mets thought there was a strong chance that Wright will play out his option and sign somewhere else, they''ll probably trade him as soon as they are able to. I'm guessing the Mets are loath to spend $16M on Wright's 2013 option if they're only gonna have his services for that one season.

[MFS62]

Ashie62 wrote: I suck at this and need a hug.

Homey don't play 'dat.

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

"Sign the extension and me and dad promise that we'll trade
for Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg a month from now".

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Tim Marchman wrote: Mathewson, Ruth and Seaver all moved on from New York

Matthewson, one game with the Reds when he was well past his prime and moving into a managerial role.
Ruth, 28 games with the Braves long after his decline from a star player.
Seaver, still in his prime but his departure from New York due to strife and incompetence.

These are not good comparisons to 30-year-old still in his prime Wright.

[seawolf17]

The comparisons to Wright are Derek Fucking Jeter and Chipper Fucking Jones. Neither one of those organizations would have let either of those fucking guys get away. But this is the fucking Wilpons, so fuck that.

Fuck.

(NSFW)

[metirish]

Chipper was asked about that his last time through NY, simply put he said the Braves never let him get close to FA.

[Edgy MD]

I can't speak to Chipper, but the Jankees let Jeter get "close" (at least by the definition that describes Wright as close) and they are doing so again.