NL East Notes: Mets, Bay, Phillies, Wright, Dickey

Here’s a look at some news out of the NL East following the Marlins’ shocking trade earlier this evening..

• The Mets made an offer to David Wright and the third baseman’s representatives responded with a counter-offer, a source tells Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (via Twitter).
• The $15MM that is being deferred to Jason Bay will be paid out over a two year period, writes Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com.  That means that the Mets are only saving about $850K on the full $21MM Bay is owed.
• The Phillies are wide open in their search for a third baseman, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.  The club could look at multi-position types like Marco Scutaro and Jeff Keppinger as well as someone like Kevin Youkilis.
• At a charity event earlier today, Mets owner Jeff Wilpon said that the the Mets remain focused on signing David Wright and R.A. Dickey, but added that they would be remiss to not explore the trade market in the process, tweets Andy McCullough of the Star-Ledger.
• Wilpon said that the club hopes to sign both Wright and Dickey with a trade of one or both as their backup plan, Mike Kerwick of the Bergen Record tweets.
• A Mets source tells Andy Martino of the New York Daily News (via Twitter) that “nothing has changed” for the club since the GM meetings.