The future of the franchise does not depend on Jhonny Peralta being in a Met uniform next year. I'll take him if I can get him but, if not, you live with an alternative and try to improve the team by spending your allowance elsewhere. Well put. I'm with FK on this. Do you have a place where you might start? In short: Elsewhere. - You try other, maybe lesser, FAs: Drew, minor league FAs, roster cuts, DFIs, DNRs, whoever. - You try trade possibilities (will Baltimore move Hardy to make way for Machado?) at either the major or minor league levels - Or you return with Tejada and hope he either bounces back or that a different alternative comes up at a later date. At this time last year no one here (or anywhere else that I know of) was thinking of Eric Young, Marlon Byrd and Juan Lagares as the Mets everyday OFers, or that that trio would be 3rd, 4th & 5th on the entire team in ABs. Things change, and the 2014 rosters aren't required to be set in cement prior to Turkey Day. The point here isn't to say that Peralta won't be an upgrade--of course he would be--only that he's not a 'do whatever it takes' kind of guy or the final piece of the puzzle that we "have to get" now because he'll make such a difference in the 2014 season anymore than Michael Bourn* would have been that guy for the 2013 team. You don't want to get into a deal that he becomes a detriment to the budget in the short term or to the roster three or four years down the road, and if that means you don't improve the roster at SS this winter then so be it. In the meantime, you husband the resources (both financial and human) that would have gone to that spot and use them to improve the roster somewhere else. * Would Bourn have been even a two-win** addition to last year's team? ... and, if so, would that have been worth the multi-year deal ($48 mil through 2016 plus a vesting option for '17), the loss of the draft pick, and maybe the overlooking (or trading?) of Lagares simply because he was the best guy out there and the call to "do something" from the fans and the press needing scratching, even if it were partly just for pr purposes? ** Not according to BB-Ref, who list Bourn's offensive WAR at less than 2 wins better than Lagares, a gap which is then wiped out and more by Juan's advantage in defensive WAR FK...I just don't believe the approach you are endorsing is aggressive enough...