Upton In No Rush For New Deal

nope. wright and reyes. if anything omar started this. he looked those guys up half way through there best seasons which was genius because they both had even better seasons after that. If he had waited they would have made up to 5 mil more each, reyes stole 70 bases the next year and wright was 30/30 with a gold glove. omar does not get the credit he deserves people only point out his mistakes it seems. and whats his biggest mistake to date? brian bannister? He's not the one that traded kazmir. And Lastings is not going to be ken griffy jr. I'm like the only met fan I know who thinks that was a great trade. He was over hyped and I think a bad influence on reyes. I look at lastings and I see Preston Wilson all over again. Unless he bats 280 hits 30 and drives in 100 by the end of 09, you cant call that trade a bust. Plus hes an outfielder theres so many outfielders you know the mets are going to sign someone good for right field in 09 when Alou is gone. Whoever is a free agent can be had if we want them bad enough the mets have the money to spend they just dont squander it. I'll give you mota and scho, but even still...that cost less than 15 mil a year and were not getting luxury taxed even after signing johan. how much did the yankees spend on farnsworth and mussina? how much did eric gagne get? you have to take gambles with pitching sometimes because most pitchers these days just aren't that good.

Stefano,

He was referring to the question about locking up a guy before he's even played his 10th game in the majors... You are talking about a long term deal to players that were established big league talent... If we were to talk about premature deals which is really what the question asks...

The first one was not Wright and Reyes, it was Drew Henson from Michigan who was supposed to be a quarterback picked in the 1st round. The Yankees signed him to a 6 year 18MM deal while a minor league 3B to keep him from going pro and they also gave him a phat bonus to sign, in fact he'll probably have made more money being a Mendoza-line 3B in AAA than he'll make as a professional football player over the next 10 years in the league!

The reality is that Evan Longoria is no more proven than Henson and he could be the Scott Rolen of T.B. for the next 9 years, or he could turn out to be the next Drew Henson and be the biggest signing mistake in baseball history.

Sure more money has been lost in other deals, but to knowingly throw your money around on a guy that hasn't even proven he can hit a major league breaking ball is crazy and no spring traing doesn't count! The air is heavy and the ball doesn't break right in Florida or Arizona.

The economics of the game currently say that this will become the trend, but only until deals start to blow up in GM faces like $100MM+ deals have done the last few years! I give it two or three bad deals like Longoria's before they wise up and start waiting uptil the end of the first season at least.

So far their sure-fire first round players in T.B. have included a drug addict (Hamilton), a self absorbed player with a bad attitude (Dukes), and a relief pitcher that can't stay in the majors (Brazelton), all of these players were at one point the answer to the franchise's problems.

This offseason they trade another 1st round pick (Young) for a broken pitcher (Garza), a solid shortstop (Barrett) defensively who should be a bench player on any contender, and they got a young pitcher who's a relative unknown, but my favorite part of the deal is how they also threw in a capable CF prospect who reminds me of Coco Crisp, and they kicked in a Jason Bartlett-type player with power (Harris) to make it all happen...

Sounds like front office is to blame for most of their problems... I just hope Longoria isn't another crash and burn 1st rounder as they seem to pick those better than any other team in baseball!

You want a real test of his ability, just wait until he faces Erik Bedard and Felix Hernandez back to back and see whether or not that deal holds water, my money is on him getting rung up 6 times over their two starts against TB later this season!

I bring those two up because they are a lefty-righty combination, they both throw ridiculous curve balls that snap across home plate like they're being thrown from the dugout.

I've seen some good curveballs, but I watch those guys every start and they still amaze me. The only other guys that are in their league in terms of breaking ball is Bret Meyers for Philly. It's been a while since he could control it very well, so it doesn't have the same effect.

I remember Darren Dreifort had the sickest breaking pitches (not including knuckleballs of course), probably moved more than any other pitches I've ever seen in 20 years of watching games. His problem was always injury. He could've been the next Pedro, but that's why you don't give out large contracts early on!

It's like a car taking a right or left hand turn without signaling, the ball literally seems to take a 90 degree turn and I know that Evan hasn't seen that in AAA durham!