Vic Sage

you can mention Upton all you want; we're going to end up with Parra, at best.

S'long, Cuddy, and thanks for all the fish you didn't catch. And don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Oh, and please take Ceetar with you. Mex17 wrote: Based upon that $92.2 million number that Rubin put out there as the payroll commitment going into the winter, things roughly break down like this. . . $92.2 million - $9 million for Niece - $12.5 million for Cuddyer + $10.7 million for Walker + $8.5 million for Cabrera = $89.65 million Assuming that they have a $120 million budget to spend (not unreasonable given that this was the around the median for MLB last season and this is a New York-based defending NL Champion), that gives them around $30 million to play with. So. . . $10 million for Span or Parra $10 million for an 8th inning guy $5 million for Colon $2 million for Blevins $3 million for Steve Pearce And there you go. Yeah, just replace Span or Parra with Cespedes, and we've got something. But god forbid we have a $130-$135m payroll, that might actually put us at the bottom rung of the top 1/3 of payrolls next year.

Earlier Vic Sage posted that the Mets needed Zobrist and Heyward. Looks like the Cubs were the only team listening You didn't have to be Theo Epstein to have looked at this team, looked at the available players, and make that call. Any Tony voter with a keyboard could've typed it (well, maybe not any Tony voter...) -- and i can't believe our solid front-office wouldn't have had that as Plan A, if they had the resources. But they clearly didn't. The problem, of course, is that now people will focus on Cespedes, his price will go up even more, so we're going to have to vastly overpay for a guy who, despite an amazing 6-week stretch, has NO control of the strike zone, and is over 30 (based on a Cuban birth certificate). He's a free-swinging hacker who's going to age fast, so i could understand why Sandy may not want to have targeted him, but at this point, he's the best option available. His power is legit, his arm and baserunning are excellent, and despite a few bonehead plays in CF, he did pretty well there overall. I think it'll take at least 6 years (maybe 7) and at least $25m/yr to get him. I would've preferred 8-10 years to a 26-year old Heyward at $20-22m, but that ship has sailed, and the Cubs are sailing it. Now we need Cespedes just to keep pace but i just don't think Sandy sees him as that kind of player, even if he weren't shackled by the Pons.

please, no wasting of of (apparently) significantly limited resources on a 5th starter when we've got major league-ready pitchers stacking up like planes over LaGuardia on Thanksgiving. We've still got to splurge and find a marginal improvement over Nieuhenheis!

the infield does NOT have more pop. Flores hit 16 HRs last year; that's more than Cabrera did, and more than Cabrera's hr avg per season. the SLG and BA are virtually identical. Flores has a disastrous OB% but he's 24 and control of the zone is something you can develop over time. Cabrera is a Venezuelan 30, meaning he plays like he's 35. He has very little, if anything, on Flores offensively, and considering how well Flores played SS toward the end of the season, and how Cabrera's range became so limited that they moved him to 2b last year, i don't see much of a defensive upgrade either. This retards Flores's development, as well as cecchini, and doesn't give us much of an upgrade. And the $8m could've gone toward a quality OF bat, instead of a LHed hitting OFer to platoon with Lagares which is what we're going to get, if we got anybody out there at all. Modestly happy about Walker (because we filled a hole from our surplus, without impacting our small-market budget), but Murphy had a higher slg% last year, so no, our IF does not have more pop, at least not $8m more. This deal sucks.

how about Corey Haim? Corey Feldman? Professor Irwin Corey?

d'Kong76 wrote: Question: If you're a member of TiTTS, do you have to apply to become a member of PAW or are you grandfathered in? We will uphold your bust with pride and usher you into the meeting hall. There will be mead on tap.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Vic Sage wrote: It's simply because angst is futile The Philosophers Against Wilpon respectfully disagree. Angst is a boundless font of life energy that can keep you warm in the cold days of December. To each his own, I guess! Angst just ain't my thing. then you haven't been doing it right.

agreed, to all of the above.

This isn't true, is it? My understanding (and Baseball Reference agrees) is that he's a free agent after 2016, not 2017. according to Cot's, Walker is going into his 4th and final arbitration year in 2016, and then is a FA for the 2017 season, not after it.

It's simply because angst is futile The Philosophers Against Wilpon respectfully disagree. Angst is a boundless font of life energy that can keep you warm in the cold days of December.

Centerfield wrote: Twitterverse has Niese for Walker rumors. I don't see how that makes a lot of sense. Salaries seem like a wash. it makes sense for Pittsburgh, because if Niese pitches well, they can exercise his options for 2 more years beyond 2016. If he doesn't, then it's 1-year wash, and they have a young 2bman they want to look at instead of Walker. It really just fills holes for each team temporarily, and its not as if we'd really miss Niese all that much. I'd be ok with this.

By almost any metric i can find, Walker is a better player than Murphy. They're roughly the same age, with similar career plate appearances to date. Walker's line: .270/20hr/80rbi with a .338/431 ob/slg, 113 OPS+, 17.5 oWAR and .6 dWAR Murphy's line: .288/10hr/70rbi with a .331/424 ob/slg, 110 OPS+, 14.8 oWAR and -2.6 dWAR Walker will strike out more, and hit for a lower average, but with more power and run production, and better defense, and is a switch-hitter. He can play 3b and 1b too, at least as well as Murphy. That being said, i wasn't that high on Murphy either. Walker will cost players + an arbitrated contract for 1 year, and then he'll be a FA. So do i want a guy like this? yeah, he'd be ok for a year, allowing Herrera and Cecchini to get another year to develop. It'd be like a less defensively challenged Murphy in the lineup. But what do i want to give up for a guy like this? Not Nimmo, no. We need young OFers in our system with high upsides. But I'm not sure what 1 year of this guy is worth.

CF and d'Kong, keep the flame alive! I wasn't happy with our lineup going into 2015, and it wasn't until Cespedes and Conforto joined the returning Wright and d'Arnaud (and Johnson and Uribe won games with the depth they provided) that they went from the worst offense to the best offense in baseball. And now Cespedes and Murphy (probably) are gone, and Wright and d'Arnaud still have ongoing injury concerns, and Cuddyer is washed up, and Lagares can't reallly hit, and Flores doesn't have any range (and just busted his ankle), and our big move to fix this was going to be Zobrist? I didn't think that would be enough. and now they don't even get HIM? And everybody's ok with that, because a 4/yr $56m deal is some sort of crippling deal that would hobble us for years? wow, what total bullshit. I predicted a 4/yr $60m deal for Zobrist, and the sabermetrically minded thought he was worth that and more, but that is an "overpay" we should be glad the Cubs indulged in? The Cubs are going to be one of our main rivals (if not THE main one) to win a pennant this year, and they replaced Starlin with Zobrist (win-win). And what are we doing? bemoaning the fact that Heyward is out of our reach? WHY IS HE OUT OF OUR REACH? Go ahead, people, say it. I want you to say it out loud. Say it!. Because our owners were either stupid or corrupt enough to try and win money in a pyramid scam and, after making consistently big returns in a bear market (at which they did not look too hard), they got wiped out by the guy just above them in the pyramid. And so they hocked everything and the interest hasn't even come due yet, so they still talk like they're a NY team but act like CitiField is in Oakland. We needed Zobrist + Heyward, we could make do with Murphy and Upton, but we're likely headed for Cabrera and Parra, or Span and Desmond (if we get anybody at all). And we're OK with that? The team should be in receivership and run by MLB, like they did with the Dodgers, until real owners are found. In the meantime, we'll just keep whistling past the graveyard and sing "happy days are here again." This has been a message from Philosophers Against the Wilpons... PAW, pushing a rock uphill since December 11, 2008.

Colon showed he could work well out of the pen. For the right price, i'm ok with bringing him back, even as a 5th starter until Wheeler returns, then into the pen. plus he's got all those intangibles folks are always talking about. But he looks pretty tangible to me.

by WAR: top 6: Bonds Mays Aaron Clemens Musial Williams then there is a little drop off to Seaver Henderson Mantle F.Robinson Maddux Schmidt R.Johnson J.Morgan with another drop off to Yaz Carlton Brett P.Martinez Then: Glavine Ryan Carew Rose B.Robinson Bench Ozzie with a final level of Carter Banks Piazza Koufax The top 6 makes sense to me, except i'm not emotionally equipped to vote for Clemens. so for the last 2 slots, it would be between Mantle, Seaver and Rickey. So first, i'll go with our guy. Bonds Mays Aaron Musial Williams Seaver Then for the 7th slot, do i go for Rickey or Mickey? I gotta go with the ex-Met. FINAL BALLOT Bonds Mays Aaron Musial Williams Seaver Henderson ...with Mickey, Frank Robinson and Mike Schmidt rounding out the top 10 for a regular HOF ballot, and Clemens off somewhere, sucking cock for heroin.

Centerfield wrote: Gwreck wrote: I agree, they should sign both Heyward and Zobrist and if it's just one, it should be Heyward. And signing him doesn't require ANY other OF moves. You have a LHed OF of Conforto/ Heyward/ Granderson, with Lagares and Cuddyer backing them up. signing Zobrist means the IF is Wright/Flores/Zobrist/Duda with Tejada backing up at MI and Cuddyer backing up at CI. A LHed bat would still be needed for the bench, like KJohnson, and a credible backup catcher. If no Zobrist, you try Herrera and, if he tanks, you move Flores over and put Tejada at SS. It's still a solid IF. Basically, I think the long-term impact of Heyward over Lagares/Cuddyer (with Nimmo in the pipeline) will be greater than Zobrist over Herrera/Tejada/Johnson (with Reynolds, Cecchini & Rosario coming up), particularly given their relative ages. You could give Heyward an 8-year deal today and, at the end of it, he'd still be younger than Zobrist is now.

Is Price "worth" it? Worth is subjective. What ballplayer is intrinsically worth anything to our society? What do they contribute? Nothing; they offer distraction, something to do and care and get passionate about beyond our families. But anybody with a unique and limited skill or commodity (like athletic ability) is "worth" whatever another party sees as necessary to a money-making opportunity. Price is, by definition, "worth" it, because the Sox were willing to pay it (and other teams were likely to pay something approaching it, since other teams have given out similar contracts to other pitchers). It's impossible to say its a bad contract unless we have a context. How much money actually is there in baseball now? $30m could just be the new $20m. My bet is that the Sox can afford this and other big contracts and still have a warehouse full of currency. Teams with $200M payrolls are making money. It's all relative. And if Price pitches well, it won't matter how much he's making. And if he doesn't... well, it won't matter how much he's making, because he wouldn't be helping the team at any price. The Sox surely know he's not likely to be productive in the final years of the contract. But they're paying him for what they think they'll get over the next 4-5 years, because they think they can put a good enough team around him in that time frame to get to the post-season. We may think they're not that close, but they must think so, and they're in a better position to know. Or they may feel that $30m/yr will be chump change 5 years from now, and so the contract won't be a particular millstone when Price stops being productive toward the end of the deal, such that it would prevent them from making other moves to improve the team. They may be right or wrong about these things, but they are certainly in a better position to know the economics of baseball generally and the Sox specifically than anyone on the outside looking in. Or, they could be idiots of course, which is also possible, but i think the burden of proof on that point is on anyone making that argument, and to do so without making the argument circular (they're idiots because they made this deal, and they made this deal because they're idiots). Anyway, i'm happy about any deal that makes the Yankees unhappy.

As Camus observed regarding the myth of Sisyphus, we define ourselves not by the success of our accomplishments or our intentions, but by our actions, even in the face of futility. Continuing to push a rock up a hill in full knowledge that it will roll down on you every time, is an existential act of courage in a godless universe; we create meaning for ourselves by our choices. In the face of a meaningless and absurd task, Sisyphus creates meaning by simply continuing to apply himself to it. So, I choose to howl at the wind that is Fred Wilpon. How the wind responds has nothing to do with me. I expect nothing from the wind. But by naming the wind as merely a gale of hot air, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, i stand in opposition to the wind, shaking my fist at the sky, and laugh at its indifference. For this is where i stand, this is who i am. Who are you? This has been a message from PAW -- Philosophers Against Wilpon -- shaking our PAW at the sky since 1942.

well deserved, particularly with the financial constraints he works under.

oh, and weather is man-made, too. Ask the polar bears.

preach it, brudda.

i don't think its overpaying to trade one of the "big 4" for Betts. He's a 5-tool CFer with many years of team control ahead of him.

Asdrubel Cabrera? No thanks. he's not bad, but he's not very good anymore either. Middling power, limited range. I'd rather have Zobrist, even at his age. But i don't want Zobe either... at least not for more than a year or 2. Actually, come to think of it, that would be fine. Ok, sign Zobe for 4 years, and even if he sucks toward the end, we're a NY franchise and can afford to carry an expensive UT guy or dump him if necessary. Zobe = 4/$60m Heyward = 7/$130m C'mon, Fred, put on your big boy pants. Sign Zobe and Heyward and we'll be good to go. It would probably put our payroll at around $120M next year (or thereabouts), which still wouldn't have been in the top 10 last year.

Warthen should have taught him a slider.