Gwreck

Edgy DC wrote: Anybody else feeling the Wilponian cloud across the Mets blogosphere? When was the last time the Mets came into a season having given up before it started? Serious question. There have been some bad years in the recent past, but they have mostly come about as a result of injuries/ill advised acquisitions that were expensive. Yet as annoying as those seasons are, the leadup to them in January/February/Spring Training -- before everything goes wrong -- is a lot more palatable. Here, we've got ownership who has no money to spend on players, let the most exciting player in the league, who was a homegrown talent, walk without making an offer, owes money to everyone, is being sued for hundreds of millions more -- yet WON'T SELL under any circumstances. I don't have a crystal ball but I can see clearly that the next few seasons are going to be BAD. I'm going to guess that other people can see that too.

Today at ESPN: Olney wrote: A longtime agent who has had clients in the free-agent market this winter was asked recently about how much he had heard from the New York Mets. "Not a lot," he said. "It's like they're in a holding pattern." They have virtually no money to spend as their ownership wades through its legal morass. But the future of their most prominent player, David Wright, can't be placed on hold for much longer; soon, the Mets will face a crossroads on what to do with the third baseman. Wright is 29 years old and will make $15 million during the 2012 season; the Mets hold a $16 million option for 2013. Last season, Wright hit .254 with 14 homers and a .771 OPS, the worst of his career. But keep in mind that the lineup around Wright has been thin, generally, and he has played all the home games of his career in parks favorable toward pitchers -- first in Shea Stadium and then, in the last three seasons, Citi Field. The Mets have reconstructed the dimensions of their home ballpark, and Wright and other hitters should be helped by this. Wright's OPS+ has always been good; it was 114 in 2011. The Mets have three options for how to handle Wright: 1. They could keep him with the intent of re-signing him beyond 2013 and using him as a rebuilding block and a legacy player. Wright is the franchise's most recognizable and most marketable player, and in the next few seasons he may well accumulate the 250th homer, 1,500th hit and 1,000th RBI of his career. If the Mets want to re-sign Wright beyond the 2013 season, he figures to cost them something in the neighborhood of $15 million-$20 million annually. 2. The Mets could keep Wright through the end of the 2013 season, and then re-evaluate his status as he reaches free agency. This is how they handled Jose Reyes, who left the Mets to sign with the Miami Marlins. 3. The Mets could attempt to trade Wright sometime in the next 18 months -- although they may be frustrated with the quality of the offers they receive. In recent years, the Milwaukee Brewers had no success in trying to get an acceptable package for Prince Fielder, as he neared free agency, and this winter, the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs have been disappointed with the offers they got for John Danks and Matt Garza, respectively. The White Sox decided to re-sign Danks rather than taking 50 cents on the dollar in trade value; the Cubs are still trying to decide what to do with Garza. Generally speaking, the quality of third basemen around the majors is weak; teams have demonstrated interest in Wright, and it's possible that the Mets could get at least one young player they like in return, as they did in trading Carlos Beltran for Zack Wheeler. The guess here is that Wright will be marketed and traded in July. For the readers: if you were in Sandy Alderson's position, what would you do? I emailed some talent evaluators for their assessments of Wright, and these are their responses: From an AL evaluator: "He will have value at the trade deadline if healthy and performing as usual. He will bring compensation as a free agent, so his value to Mets is fairly high, and a team acquiring him will have to give up more than the value of a couple of high draft picks. He's a very good player, but not consistent enough to be a star on offense and defense. His defense has gone backwards and get into funks offensively. He'll produce numbers, and most every team would want him, but not as a No. 3 or a No. 4 hitter on a good team." From an NL evaluator: "Wright's value is limited by the lack of control and expensive salary. He's not a great defender and hasn't cleared 20 HR in two of the past three seasons. He's been trending downward by most statistical metrics and our scouts are concerned his swing has gotten long and slow, leading to a high strikeout ratio. Think about it this way: Aramis Ramirez just signed a 3-year, $36 million deal with the Brewers. Ramirez is a better hitter and similar defender to Wright -- who is due $31 million for the next two seasons if his option is exercised -- so what are you paying for? Make-up? Fame?" From an AL scout: "David Wright is a potential coup. He's eerily similar in value to the Seattle version of Adrian Beltre, although he (and everyone else in baseball) is not the defender that Beltre is. He and Beltre both were suffocated by their home parks, Citi Field and Safeco Field, respectively. Teams should have pounced and offered Beltre a premium multi-year deal when he left Seattle originally. If available, I'd trade and sign Wright now. Another caveat with Wright is that he's performed and handled himself admirably in New York, which bodes well for any type of market going forward."

I didn't read one word of this thread, and don't plan to. Just from the title alone, it belongs in the red light forum.

Edgy DC wrote: I like this deal a lot more if the Mariners go out and sign Fielder now. This deal was done because they're not getting Fielder. They now have nowhere to play him. They need the DH spot for Montero. First base is Justin Smoak, the prospect they got from Texas for Cliff Lee. If they wanted/expected to get Fielder, they would've just kept Pineda...

They essentially get 1/30th of everything. The MLB central fund receives money from a whole host of sources including, most significantly, national TV rights money. After paying certain expenses and keeping a strategic reserve, the Central Fund makes annual payments of equal amounts to each team.

Ceetar wrote: at the very least they get the ticket sales from selling a game out at World Series prices including all the luxury suites. That's probably well over $5million just from ticket sales. Nope. From the Major Leage Constitution, Article X, Section 2: All-Star Game receipts from the sale of tickets (net of applicable local taxes) shall be transmitted by the host Club to the Major League Central Fund without deduction for expenses, but the host Club may retain revenues received from related activities until the final accounting and settlement. The net proceeds of each such game and related activities after the payment of expenses shall be deposited in the Major League Central Fund and shall be credited to the Major League Clubs equally.

Check out the similarities between Schilling and Bob Gibson.

I think even the Yankees have a line there. Plus, I presume they are also going to need that DH spot over the next 6 years as a place to hide for Slappy in the lineup. I wonder if the Brewers can get back in it. With Braun down 50 games (presumably) they could really use him.

G-Fafif wrote: Gwreck wrote: Arguably the worst player to make the opening day roster of the Mets in the last 15 years. Intriguing and depressing assertion. In a subset that includes Brad Emaus and Ricky Gutierrez, no less. I had forgotten about Ricky Gutierrez. The two that immediately came to mind when considering him for "worst ever" were Rey Sanchez and Tim Spehr. I think Hu was worse than all 4 though.

Arguably the worst player to make the opening day roster of the Mets in the last 15 years.

Edgy DC wrote: You're right. Everyone wasn't miserable. Most remained contemptuous of the owners. Last decade contained four straight winning seasons from 2005-2008 and the most dominant Mets team since the 1980s for the 2006 (and a good part of the 2007) seasons. Spending money got them results; the problem is that they spent some of it poorly and had bad management. It's obvious (at least to me) that sustained success requires good management and an infusion of cash. At this point, I think the Mets have the former but not the latter.

The Mets had spent at the top of the league for over a decade and everyone was miserable. Untrue.

Hey, Sandy: Booooooo

Hairston had two big clutch homers last year, and I thank him for those, but I'm not enthused by this move. 0.5 oWAR and -0.3 dWAR in 2011 -- I hope Sandy got him for cheap.

I think Texas is the most likely destination. I see them being able to pay him the bucks/years he'll want, knowing that they have the DH spot to fall back on when they need to put him there.

I don't think anyone here is renouncing the Mets (certainly not me)...but it's safe to say that the Wilpons have indeed gotten in the way of enjoying the Mets. The best outcome here results in the Wilpons selling the team as quickly as possible.

It's more of a "spending slowdown." Even in the worst years I was still going to Mets games and I don't think that will change for 2012, the first year in a while that I will be entering the season expecting a last-place finish. From 2005-2011, I was averaging 30-35 games a year. Dropping that to the single digits is a big change.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I'm not 100 percent certain, but I'm leaning heavily towards not buying any tickets this year. (I'm pretty sure BetterHalfer will be okay with it.) That's the plan in the Gwreck household. Realistically, I know I will be going to opening day, Reyes' first game back and Beltran's first game back, but aside from those three, I'm making no other Mets commitments. It was very freeing to be able to change how I was going to spend my entertainment budget for 2012.

Ceetar wrote: I'm not really convinced they're way off from the quality of product (meaning a baseball game at a terrific stadium, not the team itself). I think this is a factor my age. i didn't buy tickets in the early 90s or before that. my ticket stub for an Upper in 2000 against the Giants says $9. the comparable prom reserved seating is very comparable a whole 12 years later. 1. "Quality of product" = the team you're paying to see. A nice stadium makes for a good experience but people are always going to show up (or not show up) based on the quality of the team, irrespective of the quality of the stadium. 2. Promenade Reserved tickets are $28 (marquee) and $20 (classic) for 2012. I don't see those as all that comparable to a Shea Upper Reserved Seat at $9 in August 2000 at Shea. 3. In fairness, the promenade level is not where the Mets have their big pricing problems, anyway.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: What I did dislike about buying off of StubHUb is that (so I heard) some of the tickets the site offered were team controlled unsold tickets, rather than secondary market tickets. I heard those rumors too. I don't know if anyone proved it definitively but I believe it. Anyway, the Mets will use a different online service in 2012, right? The primary market sales will be through Tickets.com which is...get ready for it...a wholly-owned subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media.

Edgy DC wrote: Well, they've already lowered ticket prices. Yeah, from an artificially inflated price. The quality of the product presented and the pricepoint are still way off.

If you ever wanted proof the Wilpons are truly clueless, check this nugget out from that article (emphasis mine): The team�s preliminary projection that ATTENDANCE WILL RISE to 2.5 million in 2012 from 2.29 million last season

This is the problem with lowering standards. Jim Rice was a horrible selection for the Hall of Fame, but now people have a new "low" to compare borderline/undeserving players to. See also: Sutter, Bruce; Dawson, Andre.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: RAD, on the risks involved in the whole Tanzania-altitude-adjustment thing wrote: "I don't think there's really any lethal risk to doing it. It's not like it's Everest." Okay. Maybe he's a LITTLE bit stupid.. My mother had a friend who went to hike Kilimanjaro and got killed in a freak rockslide (the rest of her party survived, fortunately). There is indeed a lethal risk, although, in fairness, it's not necessarily an unreasonable risk.

I actually find Carlin an intriguing choice. Somehow I don't think he's going to be doing the "loudmouths" act while doing PBP.