Article 254 on Blowing Up the Mets
The most common off-season related article theme so far appears to deal with the Mets. Jayson Stark (taken apart here) wrote a piece all but announcing that they had to rebuild and had to trade Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran in order to do so. Why do they have to though? Well because of injuries, and they need a few new players, and oh yeah, they need to shake things up; because nothing quite shakes up a roster like trading one of your legitimate studs at potentially their lowest value.
Reyes is a soon-to-be 27-year-old shortstop signed through 2011 for 20 million. Further, since 2006 Reyes has posted WAR of 5.5, 5.1, 5.9, and a injury depleted 0.7. Unless he eats bat boys in the clubhouse or brings back Hanley Ramirez, there’s not a logical reason to deal him.
The Mets are one of those intriguing teams to me. They have a plethora of stars and the media jumps on the “TRADE X” bandwagon every time something goes wary. Heading into next season the Mets will have David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran. Depending on Johan Santana’s health, they could legitimately post four four/five win players without spending a dime on free agency.
A new first baseman, probably a new catcher, and a new rotation piece will be pricey, but the market for sluggers looks to be oversaturated once more. How much would a Russell Branyan or Nick Johnson really cost? Or they could always operate with a small market’s team mindset*; focusing on role players and smaller additions rather than the big names and marquee fillers.
Besides simply not making sense, does anyone honestly trust Omar Minaya to trade Reyes, Beltran, whomever and get a fair return?
*Speaking of which, one of my baseball fantasies is Billy Beane taking over the Mets. A) David Forst gets his GM gig, B) Beane would be re-energized by a new challenge, and C) he could work with fantastic resources.
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While I don’t think he should trade Reyes, the one thing that Minaya has seemingly shown is a good eye for which prospects should be traded away. In reviewing his trades, he’s given up Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom and many many spare parts in return for the all the players that have helped his team and are currently helping.
There’s a lot of chicken little in New York. A corner outfielder or infielder, perhaps a number two starter (to cover up for Minaya’s worst contract, Ollie Perez), and this team could be back in the mix, no?
Are you being sarcastic?
Heath Bell had FIPs of 2.50 3=and 3.34 in 07 and 08 when we could have used bullpen help bad and he has a FIP of 2.30 so far this year. In return we got Ben Johnson and Jon Adkins who are not helping this team. The Matt Lindstrom deal got us Vargas, who was traded in the Putz deal, and Bostick who has not helped us yet. The aforementioned Putz deal has been worth nothing for us and we could have used Vargas and Carp.
Really the only prospect trade Omar won was the Santana deal and that had more to do with the Twins being between a rock and a hard place.
Sokojoe, I think you’re missing Eno’s point. Minaya has, basically, traded for a lot of this team: Johan, Maine, Ollie (bleh), Delgado, Castillo, Francoeur (who I can’t stand), etc., and all he’s given up is two good pitchers and a bunch of parts.
what would vargas or carp do for the mets?
omar lost bell. i’ve never heard of a reliever coming good out of nowhere before.
and matt lindstrom has had one good year.
omar’s problem isn’t trading players away wantonly.
@Dan
I agree with you, but I’m not sure that I agree with Eno’s point that Omar knows when to deal prospects. While the trades you mention were good sans Frenchy, Johan, Delgado and Castillo were more salary dumps than prospect trades while Maine and Ollie were traded with ML players (Benson and Nady.) I’m not saying Omar is a bad trader but I have mixed feelings on his valuation of prospects.
@big baby
Vargas pitched well for the M’s before getting hurt and the Mets needed SP depth this year. Carp has also played well and the Mets needed 1st base depth this year. Both wouldn’t have saved the season but the depth traded for a RP with a recent injury history was not a great valuation of prospects is my point.
As for Bell, check out his minor league numbers, it wasn’t out of nowhere.
Sorry have to disagree
RP even if they are as good as Bell does not win a lot of games for you, K-Rod would have only been worth 1-2 wins at most
The problem from Minaya is FA signings, the likes of Perez, Castillo and K-Rod had not been great so far
His trades have been good, Putz has been injured, that is not Minaya’s fault, would those players have netted Santana today – no
Did we get a bargain in Perez from the trade- y, was Frenchy worth Church a 4th OF at best a good trade – y, was it a good trade for Schneider and Church – Y
The Mets should keep all of the core, turn Murphy into a super-sub, resign Delgado to a incentive based one year deal, sign Matt Holliday, trade for Harang, and pick up Putz option
How exactly would murphy end up a supersub? he failed in the OF and the mets have avoided putting him at second (presumably because he would be awful).
he’s a 1b/3bman on a team that has a 3bman who plays 160 games a year.
I think that if Murph was told he would be turned into a supersub he work more at OF and 2b and while he wouldn’t be good he would be adequate enough to fill in. He is not our future 1b, Ike Davis is. If Murph has a future on the team it is either as a 2b (unlikely) or a supersub. It would be pretty unreasonable to think that Delgado is going to play everyday.
Why take the Putz option? He hasn’t been successful since Nam, he’s expensive and an injury risk. Would definitely block the Mets from getting Holliday.
Also I’m done with Delgado and I guarantee he gets a $4-5 million deal to DH anyway. Murphy/Tatis will make a fine 1B platoon, especially when they have Reyes, Castillo, Beltran, Wright, Holliday and Pagan in front of them and a Thole/Santos platoon holding up the rear.
I wasn’t being scarcastic. Omar has traded plenty of players away. I know Bell and Lindstrom have value and would look great in the bullpen now, but over the course of all the trades he’s made, I think they count as collateral damage.
Of course, if you look at the Bell trade in a vacuum, it looks putrid.
I hate this (popular) notion that Billy Beane doesn’t care about baseball anymore. They A’s are in last place and are having one of their worst seasons in recent memory…but that doesn’t mean that Beane is uninterested. They’ve graduated several top prospects into the majors this year and their minors are still stacked with position player prospects. And I highly doubt that Beane would abandon this team with all that talent starting to bubble over into the majors for a couple more million dollars. Nuh uh never gonna happen.
The linked article about Stark’s piece is disingenuous at best and misses the real problem with the “blow it up” argument: there’s not much to blow up. Santana is entering a part of his deal where he’d be difficult to get much return on. Beltran has the microfracture alert hovering over him which squelches his value. Reyes has his own leg problems that he needs to prove he’s over to get a decent return. That leaves Wright, who’s simply too good and signed too cheaply to ever expect a fair return for. The rest of the team has practically no value as far as pulling back impact prospects.
No, it looks like the best approach for this club is to pour more money down the rat hole, close their eyes, and hope for the best. If Santana continues to perform at a high level, Beltran and Reyes return to 150+ game campaigns, and Wright adds a little pop back to his game, then a key FA addition or two could at least make the Mets annoying for the Phillies in the East and a tough competitor in the WC. I’m only surprised they didn’t have that mindset entering this season. It was obvious they needed another SP and OF. They were out there for a long time.
If you find the linked article disingenuous, how would you describe Stark’s piece? Helpful? Accurate?
I found the piece entertaining to read (I don’t mind a little hyperbole now and then) but otherwise useless. As I noted, the blow-it-up method simply isn’t a reasonable choice for the Mets. The response piece was lacking because it attacked Stark from a reactionary point of view rather than focusing on the main flaw of the Stark article. It tried to match Stark in snarkiness but only came off as bitter. I found the critique of Stark’s use of hyperbole annoying since the response article didn’t hold back on it’s own use.
I agree 100% with “The A Team”. Stark’s actually was useless, but it was not a manifesto to DFA Wright and Reyes. Claiming Stark “wants to trade Wright” is inaccurate, and it’s only designed to get Met fans in a lather over nothing.
Like, “The season has gone down the drain, let’s start looking for media boogeymen.”
Also agree that the Mets have no one to blow up even if they wanted to, except Wright, and he’s staying. So yeah, we have no choice but to hope that Beltran’s chronic (?) knee ailment is 100% fine in 2010, and Reyes’ chronic (?) hamstring problems are 100% fine in 2010. And hope that Omar’s 2010 FA signings pan out better than Ollie Perez and Luis Castillo.
I’d bet against most of that happening, but I don’t see any other course of action either.
Mets do not have the money they once had. Madoff took it! So the free spending argument is a bust this offseason. What is going to happen is a couple of losing years until they can get some decent draft picks they can trade for talent. Meanwhile they will be a top heavy team. 4 superstars and a bunch of replacement or near replacement level players. But that team should be somewhat competitive thanks to the stars.
How much money do the Wilpons have left? Did the Madoff thing really hurt?
Which Ollie Perez shows up?
What on earth happened to David Wright?
Blowing the team doesn’t really make a lot of sense because as A Team said above me they don’t have much that will get great returns… and it’s not like they have great organizational depth anyway. Unless they can roll out another pile of free agent contracts, it seems like they have to be thinking “win now”.
I think Wright will be fine. The power outage is probably a mix of things all hitting at once — CitiField, having basically no reason to throw him fastballs in the zone, and finally, self-fulfilling prophecy as he swings (and misses) for the fences.
More than likely it’s an injury for his defense has been abominable all season. Manuel has intimated on Wright having some knee issues, which may explain the defense and the drop in zone-contact.
The big question for the Mets (and I say this as a big Mets fan) is sadly not whether Santana/Reyes/Wright/Beltran can give a total of 20 or more WAR, but rather whether Ollie Perez, Jeff Francoeur, the left field and first base abysses, the back of the rotation, and probably catcher can give us anything whatsoever. The Mets budget woes and past practice give me reason for pause.
Frankly you do not need to add much to Santana/Reyes/Wright/Beltran to get a winning team. But, I am unsure the franchise has enough money right now to help next season.
I live in the NEW York area so I’m quite accustomed to this particular discussion. It seems odd, to me, that anyone would want to trade their best players, at some of the most important defensive positions simply because they feel the team doesn’t have good chemistry. Those are the two words I hear most often about the Mets, they have bad chemistry and some kind of lack of desire to win. I find this pretty comical, why place the blame on this completely superstitious nonsense instead of the lumps of crap that are currently on the team. I mean these are the Mets, a team with a ton of money (debatable I know), trusting Brian Schneider to be there catcher. Trusting Moises Alou to be there everyday left fielder, trusting Pedro Martinez to be an effective pitcher. I mean the Mets actually put Jorge Sosa, Nelson Figueroa, Claudio Vargas, and Tony Armas on the mound in the same season.
Spot on (although you mean “their”, and Brian Schneider is a servicable catcher on a team without crap for corner outfielders).
btw I’m talking about 2008, because this year was completely unexpected with the absurd amount of physical injuries this team has had.
angel pagan, for all of his boneheaded plays, is putting together a fantastic season value wise. the mets outfield for next year looks very solid; youd have beltran in center, and then a three versitle, good-fielding athletes all of whom have great potential as hitters (frenchy, fmart, pagan). good platoon mix in the corner spots along with maybe the best all around centerifelder in baseball
i think the mets should focus next year on adding some cheap pitching depth and a solid defensive catcher. i would look into righty options at first base, because chris carter and daniel murpy look like decent enough options at 1b. also ike davis could be up by mid year.
there is some speculation that they will resign delgado but i see no chance of this, because if they thought this was an option why have they been so frugal of late and why did they trade wagner for chris carter
In 2,848 plate appearances, Frenchy has a .309 OBP and a 91 OPS+. Should we really consider this “great potential” as a hitter?
ok, i shouldnt have used the word great. it would be nice to see the mets replace franceour, but i have pretty much no other choice but to accept the fact that he will be here next yr. regardless, i still think the mets should shy away from spending money on an everyday conrner OF this offseason, because they have other options that are intriguing and cheap (although one could argue that franceour is neither).
if they look for a bat they should try to find a cheap 1bman, preferably righty, who can play some OF and would be willing to ride the bench if they decide to promote ike davis midseason. the big money sould be spent on pitching, where the mets dont seem to have any good young options.
I’d also like to mention that throughout all the carnage this year that neither Willy Mo Pena nor Mike Lamb got a major league at bat this year. If you’re not going to use those guys when your entire bench has been pressed into starting duty, what are they doing in the organization?
I think Nick Johnson would be a nice fit at first for the Mets.
Mets would be fools to trade Reyes! They should trade Beltran for prospects ready to play now. They could address some holes and save for the big bat (Jason Bay, Matt Holiday) Sign a John Lackey and for 1b Nick Johnson/Daniel Murphy platoon. Bottomline! Reyes should not be traded unless Hanley Ramirez is playing short at citi field.
Moves that make sense! Santana & Lackey, Nick Johnson batting 3rd for the Mets, Jason Bay or Adam Dunn batting 4th. Not a big fan of Holliday batting for power in citi field. A major trade that will land Martin & Billingsley from the Dodgers? Trade bait Putz (if option is picked up) Murphy, Parnell, Beltran, Evans, Thole.
Should the Mets trade F.Martinez ? Only if it’s a player that can impact for 2010 but i’d consider Martinez, Sullivan & Pagan to fight for cf in the spring
Yes. The Dodgers are almost certainly looking to trade Chad Billingsley and Russell Martin, a cost controlled good-hitting catcher and a cheap fireballing ace, for the broken and expensive JJ Putz, an expensive star CF who will presumably platoon (?) with Kemp, David F’ing Murphy and a bunch of mediocre prospects.
That is almost certain to go down.
Why the hell does every Mets fan seemingly want to trade Carlos Beltran? If you’re in win now mode, isn’t it sensible to keep one of the best centrefielders in baseball? Also, no-one is trading marquee prospects for Beltran because his contract (whilst not unreasonable) is not cheap.
why would you ever platoon beltran…
and smart mets fans don’t want to trade beltran. the idiot ones can’t get over game 7 of the ‘06 nlcs and they’ll hold it against him for the rest of his career.
Only in NYC can you be the goat of a series when you hit .294/.387/.667 in 31 PA with 3 home runs in said series, after a regular season with MVP caliber play, while previously holding a reputation as a clutch postseason hitter.
One strikeout = chokey asshole. Makes perfect crazysense.
BTW, in 2006 when he went .275/.388/.594, his BABIP was .268. Guy probably would’ve been MVP. If his BABIP was his current career average (.307), he’d've hit .302 and probably would’ve won the MVP.
Why would you platoon a Left handed hitter (Murphy) with a Left handed hitter (Johnson) that makes no sense. Besides the fact that Johnson’s health is totally unreliable.
I’m interested in Lackey as a #2 but don’t know if they’ll be able to sign him for the right price.
Dunn isn’t going anywhere and Bay is declining and would be a defensive joke in Citi’s cavernous RF.
And the idea that the Mets could land Billingsly and Martin for those players is laughable.
You do know that in order to have a platoon, one player has to be right handed batter and the other left. johnson and murph are lefties. i think that the mets pitching staff underachieved big time this year becasue of injuries and also becasue of the pitching coach. i mean come on! dan warthen is a minor league pitchin coach at best. theres a reason he was in the minors for a while. what the mets need to invest in is dave duncan, great pitching coach and he can turn each and every pitcher around. weve seen this with lohse and others. that is what the mets need to do for next year. ppl who think reyes should be traded are idiots becasue not only would that give u minor leaguers but it will also create another hole in the lineup. we saw what happened when u have cora, hernandez, valdez playing ss.
Breaking up the core is not a viable option. This team has a brand new stadium, its own TV network and has to compete in a market with the resurgent Yankees. In my mind, there is only one way to fix this team – go for broke and take a “win now” attitude. If the Madoff money is a non-issue as the Wilpons claim, then they need to put their money where their mouth is. The Yankees went on a spending spree last off-season and now the Mets need to do the same. They have major holes to fill and they need to do it with stars, not role-players. Unfortunately, because the Mets have done a horrendous job of developing players, they have to spend their way out of this mess. They need one big-time starter to pair with Johan and a big bopper in the outfield and 1B. My targets would be Matt Holliday and John Lackey. Bring back Delgado at an injury discount. I can’t stand Frenchy, but I’ll live with him for another season if Matt Holliday is playing left. And for Pete’s sake, revamp the minor league development program and the joke of a medical staff that can’t get its act together. Angel Pagan has proven his value as a 4th outfielder/bat off the bench. Alex Cora deserves another shot. Daniel Murphy can be your primary lefty off the bench. K-Rod anchors a pen with Parnell, Stokes and Feliciano setting up. This team has core players in their peak seasons (Reyes, Wright) and a couple who are at the tail end of their peak years (Beltran, Santana). They need to build to win with this core and start developing the next core.
you are kidding yourself if you think the mets are going to be big buyers this offseason. im think matt holliday would be a great fit for this team, but he may literally account for their entire offseason budget, even if they dont take delgado back. the mets have some decent options at the corner OF spots, i would not mind goiing into the season with pagan, fmart, frenchy splitting time in lf and rf. you would also have chris carter as a dark horse for the lf spot, and i dont mind watching fernando tatis every now and a again.
id like to see them be a little frugal as far as the offense goes, and try to grab two solid arms for their rotation and a middle reliever.
they have delgado (12 mil), putz (6 mil), schneider (4.9) coming off the books and that gives them 23 mil to spend, assuming they keep their payroll around what it was last year. there is a good chance they will only want to spend 10-15 mil of that though, so holliday and lackey may be out of the question from the getgo.
I think you might be able to get away with blowing all the off-season cash on Holliday. I don’t think they have to spend money on a bench, or the bullpen arms. If they cover one hole in LF, then they could live with Murphy at 1B or a Nick Evans platoon. I also think they should kick the tires on Rich Harden. Matt Holliday seems to be the key piece though if the Mets offense wants peace of mind. Even with the mediocre rotation, the offense should be enough to keep them in the WC hunt. The Phillies won the world series with suspect rotation.
Your rotation next year is:
Johan
Perez
Maine
Pelfrey
Niese/Parnell
If they should trade anyone, it’s K-Rod, before his star finally gives out.
Think Steinbrenner & Co. would be nuts enough to do K-Rod for Austin Jackson straight up if they miss out on the WS this season?
The problem with trading Frankie is that he has a huge contract. In fact, nobody was willing to pay that much for him except the Mets, which is why he ended up on the team. Now he’s coming off his worst year and entering the most expensive, backloaded years.
However, he is still a beloved star, very reliable for a reliever, and I think capable of a nice bounceback.
So people would be interested but the Mets would have to take back another bad contract or eat a lot of his salary, in which case, what’s the point of trading him?
Hence the only reason I think someone would trade for him was a home run attempt to show the fans how they’re making their team better by acquiring a “star”. Lost in the mess that is the 2009 Mets is K-Rod’s gone from good but overrated AL closer to B- level NL closer (to be fair, closers are less affected by AL-NL splits since they never face pitchers). Unfortunately, as a Red Sox fan, I don’t think the Yankees are the crazy organization they were at the height of their home run deal making.
Essentially, sucks for the Mets that Bavasi isn’t running a team.
I read a good piece on NY baseball digest, where it was suggested that the Mets wait for 2010-11 off-season where you have Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Chris Young, Brandon Web, and Aaron Harang all on the open market. Plenty of options. Oh, and Ollie Perez’s contract will only have one year left.
Get the Holliday this year, cut Francouer to save some cash, have Pagan in RF and leading off. Murphy at first and or Evans at 1B. I think they should give Parnel and Niese the entire year to develop in the major League rotation.
That Mets blog was hilarious, that Stark piece was so bad.
“Something goes wary” is by far, my favorite typo ever.
The last thing the Mets need to do is get rid of one of the Big Three. You’re highly unlikely to land anyone who will end up being more valuable than any of them. While cutting costs isn’t a bad thing, blowing up a roster is only necessary for the poorest of teams. With the Mets’ money, there’s no incentive to deal four- and five-win cornerstone players.
Keep your good players, and stop overpaying for mediocre ones.
I really do love when writers try to attribute all team struggles to the stars. When will people learn teams like the Mets can struggle not for what they pay Beltran, but what they pay guys like Ollie Perez?
Time for huge cost cutting and youth. Trade Beltran for Elijah Dukes, Santana for Colin Baelster and JD Martin, Reyes for Alberto Gonzalez and Christian Guzman. ( ….. please ….)
That’s not any more far fetched than the earlier post saying the Mets could get Billingsley and Martin for Putz and garbage.
but, but, but…
VETERAN PRESENSE!
I find it interesting that you differentiate Putz from garbage.
Stark’s article is a bunch of garbage. For a good part of the first half of this season, the Mets were in first place or only a few games out. It was only AFTER the injuries kept pilling up and Beltran went on the DL that the team spiraled out of contention. I can only conclude Stark is a Phillies fan. It’s in his interst to see the Mets jettison all-star players, get weaker, and make it easier for the Phillies to compete.
As for Heath Bell, cut the crap about his FIP. The fact is, he couldn’t pitch in NY and he didn’t get along with Peterson. And he didn’t have much trade value at the time due to his putrid major league numbers. Many will point to Bell as one of Omar’s biggest mistakes but if you look at things objectively, it was a trade that was almost inevitable.
Omar has made a lot of mistakes as GM, but the Bell trade is only a mistake in pure hindsight — unlike, say, leaving Flores unprotected. Now that was a mistake.
Also, the suggestion that the Mets trade K-Rod is blatantly inane. He’s not just the best reliever in the Mets bullpen, but still one of the top relievers in the game. If the Mets traded him, they’d just have to get another closer this winter and there isn’t a better one available on the market.
It was the lack of a closer and decent pen that did the Mets in during 2008 — when Wagner went on DL for TJ surgery. This idea that they should trade their closer and one of their best and most valuable assets just makes no sense at all.
Anyone looking at K-Rod’s numbers keep this in mind — he has had few save opportunities in the second half and hasn’t had the opportunity to pitch much. He’s gone stretches of many days without pitching, and many think when he did get into games during the second half he was rusty.