The legend of Jed Lowrie grew a little more today thanks to another homerun, so let's check in on his team plus a few others in the two Eastern divisions…
- SI.com's Jon Heyman says that while the Rays will look for a bat to replace Manny Ramirez, they won't have his full $2MM salary at their disposal. Felipe Lopez ($1MM) and Casey Kotchman ($750K) are two recent call-ups cutting into the team's budget.
- Within the same article, Heyman says that Bengie Molina could be an option for the Red Sox, who will reportedly address their catching situation within two weeks. Bengie recently said he's retired "for now."
- Joel Sherman of The New York Post says that it's probably for the best that the Mets have the worst record in the NL at 5-12 because "cleaning house is what will help speed the process toward the Mets' next good team and away from this unacceptable lot."
- In a second article, Sherman muses about a possible David Wright trade, but not as a pure salary dump. "[The] Mets have to be open to the possibility that a team in contention … would be willing to pay $1.25 for $1 worth of talent."
This is what I don’t get about the Mets holding onto Reyes to start the yr:
They coulda packaged Reyes (11mil) and Oliver Perez (12mil) for prospects on the condition that somebody pay into Perez’s deal. Instead of eating the full 12mil on Perez, maybe they only pay half of that while also dealing the Reyes money.
Sure, the prospects they would have gotten in return would certainly reflect having their trading partner essentially overpay salary-wise (when you combine both proposed sums) on Reyes for the year, but the Mets could’ve saved 17mil, or so.
If they trade him mid-yr they’ll get a much better offering of prospects, but they’ll have spent near 18mil on the Reyes/Perez combo. Plus, they’re SCREWED if Reyes goes down w/ a major injury (always likely in his case) and all they get is a possible compensation pick.
Not a Mets fan, so maybe I’m speaking out of turn–but seeing as how they’re in a rather unique situation, I would think it demands a rather unique solution.
I won’t say your post is idiotic, just not well thought out. Reyes is in his walk year, no team is going to trade for him AND pay Perez’s salary and risk Reyes going on the free agent market next year. Reyes will command a bigger salary next year unless he gets hurt, whatever team has him assumes that risk. He will either sign an extension with an increase or will test the market in the off season.
Dear Oakland, please trade for Wright, and resign him… and resign Dejesus.
oh wait, you won’t because you want a new stadium first. FML
Wright won’t be available in a trade for a while, unless you offer EVERY young pitcher they have with at least moderate upside.
Resign DeJesus? He’s a solid player, but he’s played 13 subpar games with the A’s. You want to extend him after 13 games and a .603 OPS?
And a new stadium isn’t a bad idea at all.
a new stadium is a great idea and i’m all for it, even a move to san jose. but i want them to fork out some money now for payroll.. I like dejesus, even if he hasn’t been that great for us yet, i’d like to see him stay on the team. I like the way he plays the game.
david wright to oakland is a hot roumor going around but dont say that with all the mets fans around they get angry about that they think it will kill thier fan base but the mets have always had a strong fanbase i dont think 1 player will hurt that yall migt get a new young star to like
Trading wright would be dumb. Trade everyone except him, Davis and Mejia. Done.
This year trading wright is probably dumb, it’d alienate the fans too much. I love wright but he needs to not be the main bopper a team has, he can’t handle it. Trading wright would be the best thing that happened to his career, it’d help him more than it’d help the Mets.
The Mets would be able to get top prospects (hopefully pitching) so it would benefit both of them. Hell, throw Murphy back at 3rd for the time being where he originally was.
Mejia? May not be shared by the majority, but I like Niese a bit more. I’d hang on to Dickey as well. Feel he can be very effective, but I wouldn’t blame them for selling high(assuming he’s having a good year).
But yeah, Wright needs to stay. Davis, Neise, and Wright(maybe Mejia) are the only untouchables I see in that organization. And Neise is borderline to me, but they should hang onto him if they ship Dickey and Pelfrey elsewhere. And they should trade Pelfrey, I’ve never liked his stuff. Extremely hittable…..
Yeah Pelf is really inconsistent. Never has been dominant yet we treat him like he is. Also Matt Harvey is pretty good so keeping him might be a solid idea too.
Well, Niese has certainly shown he can be a serviceable back-end starter, which has value. But Mejia has a lot more upside. I understand that there’s uncertainty there, but I’d place my bets on Mejia.
They should probably trade Dickey if the right deal comes along since he won’t be part of the next contending Mets team.
Pelfrey is OK, really a back-end starter at this point. Good FB with some life, but never developed any consistent off-speed stuff.
Mets need to reload on young prospects, Wright would clearly get you that. The longer the Mets keep Wright, the slower it takes to get pieces into place to contend.
TRADE THE CORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“[The] Mets have to be open to the possibility that a team in contention … would be willing to pay $1.25 for $1 worth of talent.”
Quick, whose got a buck and a quarter handy? The Mets have resorted to panhandling!
The Mets have resorted to panhandling!
No, but the Wilpons have. See MLBTR’s posting about Bud Selig’s ‘old boy’ handouts (sometime within the last month!).
Have the Red Sox checked in on David Ross?
Since joining the Braves, he’s put up a .281, .386, .494 line in 113 games, leading the team in OPS in both years. Beware of the SSS though, so……
…..in his last 1,122 PA’s since the start of 2006, he has a .802 OPS.
Point being, send Ellsbury over and he’s yours. Perfectly reasonable trade, right? Of course not, but what about Cameron?
Ahh, the joys of rosterbating in April….
Does anyone honestly think if Reyes is traded it’s gonna be for prospects only. There has to be a major league player involved and prospects who are ready to play now with an impact. And who replaces Reyes at SS. Who bats leadoff? If he is traded the Mets are going to expect alot in return. And I mean alot. I think Beltran will be moved come July also. And they are going to expect alot for him also because both of these players can be the pieces to contending teams as pieces they need to win it all.
imagine the farm system the mets could have if they dealt all of wright, reyes, beltran, bay, santana, pelfrey, k-rod etc. etc. etc. etc.
then again people in new york have never heard of a farm system so imagine what would happen if there were a sellout of the mets.
They aren’t the Athletics. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to blow up the entire roster and start from scratch with a $15M payroll. Because of the crapshoot nature of prospects, the likelihood of getting a return that is superior to what the Mets would be trading away is around nil.
Top flight third basemen and shortstops do not grow on trees. There is a very good reason both are in the top five in the league. Not only are they great players, the drop off is very, very steep when it comes to offensive production from the position. Finding solid fielding, great hitters at either position is a heckuva lot more difficult than it is to find the same in a corner outfield or at first base. Positional scarcity is very real.
No, the Mets have a ton of money coming off the books at the end of the season and that should be more than enough for them to rebuild and restock. They’re not the Rays, they don’t have to build solely through the draft. It’s the nice thing about being in a large market.
I’m going to single out Santana. He would be the most difficult to move for health and salary reasons. Doubtful anyone wants to touch damaged goods with how much he is getting paid, so it would be more of a salary move (Veron Wells trade comes to mind) instead of top prospects.
yup mets havent heard of a farm system…which explains why most of their roster came from the farm system…
Screw it this team is going nowhere, just blow up the roster and start over. I mean really. Trade beltran/reyes/wright and if santana has a strong second have trade him in the offseason. Start over from scratch and build around davis/bay. Your ownership wont be able to afford top free agents anyways so you mind as well cut payroll and get some good prospects to build up and then whe you can finally afford free agents go get them.
build around jason bay?
u mean the 33 year old LF coming off the worst year in his career and only has 2 years left on his contract?
great plan !
“Build around Bay” that is laughable! Also if you are going to trade a CORE player it should be Jose and NOT David Wright. People who say trade Wright have no idea what they are talkng about.