Earlier in the week, we learned the Mets expect to maintain a steady payroll in the low-to-mid-$80MM range. Although the club may prefer to avoid trading from their pitching depth or adding significant payroll, they’ll need to be opportunistic to succeed in 2015, writes The New York Post’s Joel Sherman. The club is well aware that free agent signings can backfire and pitching depth can vanish with the pop of a couple ligaments. Per Sherman, the New York’s perceived plan to spend when fans return to the ballpark is “backwards.” The franchise spends less on player salaries than the mid-market Braves, yet they have powerful potential revenue streams from their Northeast location, relatively new stadium, and TV network. Sherman suggests the club remain open to signing a few veterans like Melky Cabrera, Jed Lowrie, or Mike Morse. An alternative source of value could be to pick up possible castoffs like Matt Kemp or Jose Reyes.
- Alderson is “right” to note that money doesn’t equate to success, says Bill Madden of the New York Daily News. Madden emphasizes the Mets woeful performance in recent free agent markets, but he also believes the club should be open to expanding payroll in the right move – including trades. He mentions Red Sox outfielder Yoenis Cespedes as a sort of ideal trade target.
- Russell Martin is a stealth MVP candidate and the Pirates need to re-sign him, writes David Golebiewski of GammonsDaily.com. Martin blends offense and defense at a critical position. While the Pirates are generally penny pinchers, they should do what is necessary to retain the 31-year-old free agent. In addition to his personal virtues, Pittsburgh lacks a viable internal replacement. MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes believes “a four-year deal north of $50MM” to be possible.
Sandy Alderson strikes me as one of those GMs that are afraid of taking risks in signing FAs.
Mets are going to be a sub .500 club for a while.
a lot of them aren’t worth it. better to sign your existing players to extensions and we have some guys coming due for arbitration that will increase payroll. last year’s FA class only 1 of them was worth the money. Peralta. runner up Ellsbury is a bit overpaid. the rest are overpaid and always injured
Have you watched Nelson Cruz, Tim Hudson, Robinson Cano, and Ervin Santana play this year?
Sure, some FA contracts don’t pan out but that doesn’t mean all of them will be bust. That’s why you do your homework before offering contracts. It is a/should be a calculated risk, emphasis on calculated. You will only get so much from your farm and existing players.
And then you have Omar Minaya…
Nothing to do with Alderson, this has clearly been a Wilpon problem once the Ponzi money dried up. The Budget is set by ownership.
They’re going to win 78-79 games this year without Matt Harvey and with a horrendous, injury plagued year from David Wright, their best player. They have quite a few young, improving players, tons of trade chips and a whole bunch of pitching. All they need to do is swing a trade for a SS, get a decent year from Wright and get Harvey back and they are at 85-88 wins. Sandy’s job this off season is to turn one of his trade chips/prospects (and he has plenty of them) into a solid, MLB SS.
They should have done that a year ago
What makes you think David Wright will ever return to form?
An educated guess. He’s only 31 years old, has a strong work ethic, takes great care of himself, and has an injury which should heal with off season rest. He’s a pretty good bet to come back strong next year.
If you pay any attention to him at all, you very quickly learn Sandy Alderson is afraid of his own shadow.
Yes, you are correct. The Marine who saw combat duty in Vietnam, took over a horrendous A’s franchise and built it into a long term success that won 4 division titles, 3 pennants and a World Series and who recently turned Carlos Beltran and R.A. Dickey into Zack Wheeler, Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard is scared of his own shadow. Sounds about right.
It’s pretty sad when people talk about him being in the military as if it means something today. People who bring that up lose my respect.
May want to look at how he actually runs a ball club. He exhausts every possible option before making a decision, nearly universally hurting the entire franchise in the meantime. His inability to act has hurt the Mets enumerably.
“May want to look at how he actually runs a ball club…”
Ok, like when he took over another moribound franchise (The A’s) as GM, and built them into a powerhouse that won 4 division titles, 3 pennants and a World Series? And how exactly is “exhausting every option” a bad thing? That’s what a good GM is supposed to do, we saw before what happens when you add a middling owner (Jeff) and a directionless GM handing out ill fated contracts, (Omar). That’s what got the Mets into this mess, and Alderson is doing a great job of getting them out of it. It takes time though. Some of these moves he’s made (Wheeler, d’Arnaud, Syndergaard, Dilson) are going to be paying dividends for a long time, and they’re just now starting.
Exhausting every option at the expense of the future is never good, and Alderson does that on a daily basis. Furthermore, the contracts he has given out have been outright disasters.
Is that what he did in Oakland? You know, when he took over a team in the toilet and slowly turned them into a powerhouse? (A fact you continue to ignore) How exactly is trading aging players for dynamic young talent, “at the expense of the future”? He took over a farm system that was consensus 25-30 and turned it into a consensus top 5-6 system. I guess that’s damaging their future as well? It took Cashen 4-5 seasons to build the Mets back up from the disasters of the 70’s, Alderson is doing the same thing, in a very similar way.
ownership strikes me as someone who puts blame on ticket sales on the reps and the fans instead of themselves. Mets need to drop this “what else will go wrong ” attitude. Owners don’t help but I am tired of excuses.
Martin is a having a good season, no doubt. MVP? That’s crazy, he’s not even the best catcher in the league let alone best player.
Agreed. He not even the MVP of that team, although he is having a very fine season.
I say he is 3rd on the team behind McCutchen and Harrison
For a catcher, I would say spectacular.
Even so, and as important as he is, I think a four-year, $50 million deal is ludicrous, besides the fact that entertainers get far too much money.
McCutchen took a very team-friendly deal that has an AAV of slightly more than $9 million. If Martin is as important as McCutchen, he should still not get more than $11 million per year.
Lastly, even someone in his shape will exhibit wear by 35. I would definitely go three, maybe even with an option, but four years is too much. I’m looking for three years, no more than $35 million.
This once again raises the idea for me that MLB should apply the qualifying offer like the franchise tag–top five (maybe more in baseball) players in the league at the position.
Another team will gladly give him more than 3/35. Pretty much everything you said here is severely flawed logic. Martin is a FA so the team friendly deal that Cutch took doesn’t matter. Baseball teams make more money than they spend on player salaries so the “entertainers are overpaid” doesn’t make much sense. I don’t see what a franchise tag would do to make the Martin situation easier. It wouldn’t work in baseball, where payrolls differ significantly more than football.
You misunderstand.
I didn’t say the team-friendly deal mattered. I was saying I don’t think he’s worth $12 million per year, even if another team will give it, which I know it will.
I was throwing the overpaid entertainers (and owners even more so) as an aside point not at all related to the deal.
And I didn’t say franchise tag. I said qualifying offers should be applied to the top five of a position like football, instead of the $14.1 million. No way do you give that to certain positions. For catchers, it’s exceedingly rare to do.
I think you underestimate the amount of catchers making much more than that. Posey, McCann, and Molina all make more. Montero averages to around the same. While there are less big money catchers, the top five do get paid. Russell has shown that he could command a salary similar to that. With a one year deal, team’s are more willing to overpay since it’s not a longterm commitment. The QO shouldn’t be a big factor here. If the Pirates weren’t so stingy, this wouldn’t be an issue.
That I agree on. I also wonder how important the team or destination is for Martin. People can say whatever in media and then do something wholly contradictory.
I think that low payroll will substantially increase the next several years. It just took some time to build.
The award is not for the best player in the league. It is for the Most Valuable. There is a difference. Often it can be the same guy, but sometimes a player whose numbers are less than others, can be more valuable. The Sporting News used to have a “Player of the Year” award that went to the player with the best numbers.
Not so crazy, I don’t think. He’s a great defensive catcher with an insane .409 OBP, which might end up leading the league. Fangraphs has him as 11th in WAR in the NL, which might understate his case a bit because catcher defense isn’t measured very precisely (doesn’t factor in pitch framing, for one).
And he may not be the best catcher in the league, but the others contending for that title (Posey, Lucroy, Mesoraco) are all potentially MVP candidates too.
I don’t think he’s the MVP, but in the absence of a clear cut winner, a reasonable case could be made for him.
He’s having a very good season, but he’s also been incredibly lucky. His BABIP is almost 60 points higher than he career. Not to mention when all is said and done he will have missed about a third of the season, whereas other catchers like Posey and Lucroy can still contribute when they’re not catching. The main thing for me at least is the idea of him as a stealth candidate. I tend to think of that as top 5 to to maybe top 10 finish. Martin is having a great season but he’s not at that level. He might end up somewhere around 10-15th or so in MVP voting which is great… but as others have pointed out he’s not even the top guy on the Pirates.
Mets should try to acquire Alexei Ramirez from the Sox. Maybe for Pawlecki or D’Arnaud. If not Nimmo or Montero.
Signing Lowrie and trading for Cespedes should solve the left field and shortstop problems
It’s not Alderson, but the Wilpon’s will make it look like it is. I just hope that this new scandal with the Wilpon’s (pregnant employee) doesn’t just go away. Even though the media isn’t paying any mind to it (thanks Ray Rice!!). It would be a great way to get the Wilpon’s out and mlb would have no choice but to force them to sell.
How about 1 big trade with the blue jays; niese,murph,kirk,plawecki and colon for bautista and reyes solves mets OF and ss problems and a leadoff hitter that we havent had since reyes left and a cleanup that mets havent had since piazza lol.
Arizona’s looking to dump some salary maybe we make a trade for miley so mets have a LH sp
mets lineup; reyes,lagares,wright,bautista,duda,d’araund,grandy and herrera
rotation; harvey,wheeler,miley,degrom and either gee or syndergaard
That makes no sense from the Jays perspective.
I would love to see Martin resign with the Dodgers
Russell Martin is in no way an MVP candidate.
The only way the Mets get Cespedes is if they cough up a pitcher not named Colon, which seems unlikely.
Niese has about a year left as well
That could happen I guess, but it’s unlikely. I think Castillo and Cespedes are the two outfielders guaranteed spots in the lineup next year. They aren’t going to want to trade him.
The Mets should trade Niese, he absolutely has to be playing for another team in 2015. Murphy should be gone as well. I don’t think they should trade Colon, but they could. That would save about 25-35m off the payroll, which you could spend on a lot of other things.
Money does not equate success but it is really hard to succeed being in the bottom third in payroll
Mets will not look at Reyes because if they wanted him in the first place they would of made an offer 3 years ago. I rather them look to sign Yasmany Tomas , Kang Jung-ho and Michael Cuddyer to fill the holes. They need 1 OF and a SS so those would be my targets.I also rather seem them look into a 4 year deal to Daniel Murphy. That is all they can do since the glaring holes are LF/RF and SS.
They just signed Grandy for 60M. He is not going to sit on the bench even if he hits worse than he did this year. Wilpons or Alderson will not admit they made a mistake, and pay 15M a year for a pinch hitter. He’s playing somewhere in that outfield.
wait you think the team will spend money on all 3 players hahaha All I said was those 3 players should be looked at. I know the Mets are cheap but I hope they sign Cuddyer. You don’t have to remind me of Curtis. He should be “excited” that he gets a paycheck
I don’t think the Mets will sign any of them You are the one who said they should look to sign Thomas, Kang Jung-ho AND Cuddyer to fill the holes. hahaha
link to mlbtraderumors.com
I’m not “fanboying” him, I’m disagreeing with what you wrote and supporting it with logic and fact which is probably what is making you uncomfortable. I don’t agree with every move he’s made. He got hosed on the Pagan trade (obviously) I wasn’t a huge fan of the Colon signing nor was I excited about the old bullpen retreads (Frank Francisco) he’s gone after. But every GM makes mistakes and in the grand scheme of things he has this team looking very good moving forward. Next year is the year where they will be expected to be in the playoff race and I think you will see him be more aggressive in the trade market. And let’s face it, the trade market is all they can do because the owners are broke. You can’t force somebody to trade with you, which is why he has picked his spots but the last few trades he’s made have been really, really good.
You’ll be firing every single GM in the existence of baseball if you expect them to bat 1.000. The overall picture and foundation is starting to take form, you’re at the point where you let it ride out nothing but our future payroll looks bleak. Besides, Granderson is not an albatross yet, it’s not a good move, but it’s not an albatross, and what else were you going to spend that money on anyway, free agency is dead, it’s just the cost of doing business most of the outfielders signed last offseason are now in albatross contracts, the best looking one is Marlon Byrd (Nelson Cruz is not an outfielder) and teams won’t even trade for him cause they’re afraid of his 3rd year vesting.
When your official rebuilding plan is sitting back and hoping rival GMs make mistakes, you’re not doing your job very well.
I don’t expect a GM to be perfect, I do expect them to at least attempt to avoid making horrible decisions on a regular basis.
Yes, that’s his whole plan. Just like in Oakland! Oh, that’s right… that never happened. What is your opinion on the Mets farm system right now? You know, the one ranked in the top 5-6 by most minor league evaluators. How is building a farm system with tons of quality prospects not a rebuilding plan?
What horrible decisions is he making? What players were moved that fit a need and he wasn’t in on? The only horrible decision being made in the Mets FO on a regular basis is the decision to let Jeff Wilpon in the building each morning.
Failing to put Wright on DL.
Failing to cut losses with CY in a timely manner.
Keeping aging relief pitchers who are providing tremendous negative value rather than allowing young pitchers up to pitch.
Basically you can breaking it down like this: If Alderson had the choice between keeping an atrociously bad player and allowing a player who isn’t atrocious to play, Alderson has sided with the bad player.
1. Faiing to DL Wright: Agreed. Bad move although some blame lies with the player as well.
2. CY: They only gave him 250 AB’s, he stunk but it’s not like they had other options and apparently they should have told him he was a Yankee lol.
3. I said before I didn’t like his reliance on vets in the pen but this year they have done a really good job at working the kids in IMHO. A vast majority of their pen innings have gone to the kids and they have done what they had to do to maintain innings counts, service time, etc.
“They need 1 OF and a SS so those would be my targets” guess you forgot to read that and like I said I rather them “look” to sign Yasmany Tomas, Kang Jung-ho and Michael Cuddyer. I never said they will sign them.