Quick Math

So Bob Klapisch is all over the Wilpons for letting Reyes walk without any sort of fight or attempt to sign him:

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/Klapisch_Mets_are_too_broke_to_even_compete.html?page=all

I'm not surprised about that "stuff," but what about the tidbit about the Mets drawing 4 million fans in 2008? Didn't they play in that now-departed Shea Stadium? Yes, yes they did. So 4,000,000 (attending fans) divided by 81 (home games) leaves us with 49,000+. The new stadium (Citi Field) doesn't come close to a capacity of 49,000 (it caps at 41,800 or 45,000 depending on how you count). Wasn't Citi Field supposed to be for the fans AND for making the team more profitable? Tsk tsk.

-StanO

Hmmm....What?!

Way to instill confidence, Sandy. Here's my take away from this article:

-The Marlins will probably sign Reyes for 5 years, 18-20M
-The Mets cannot offer Reyes anything near that money
-The clincher: when asked if the Mets' decreased payroll affects their ability to sign Reyes, "I wouldn't say that was necessarily the case," said Alderson. How very ambiguous of you.

Sandy Alderson doesn't seem like he's invested much, if any, energy in trying to court Reyes. In fact, to sum up the correspondence he's had with Reyes's agent, Alderson used the term "phone tag." I play phone tag with an old friend I know I'll be seeing for the holidays. Not a key free agent for whom I am supposedly doing all I can to re-sign. Well, not supposedly, but ?I think should be. And listen, I'm not saying that Alderson should offer whatever money is necessary to woo Reyes, but at least let the guy know you're interested.
Maybe now I'm just talking as a fan. But even if they know they couldn't go higher than, say 80 over 4 years, or even 80 over 5 whatever the number, the Mets should be aggressive at least with what resources they have. That way, at the end of the day, Mets fans can at least say "we did what we could." It's a lot better than "I left him like 3 messages."
*
Oh, and did I mention this? I'm not sure if you could argue that Kemp and Reyes mean as much to their respective clubs as one another, but:
Both play key defensive positions; both are coming off career years; one is 27, the other 28; both are fan favorites.
Now, the Dodgers don't have an owner and they are somehow able to commit $160,000,000 to one player. Who is writing his checks? Spam, I realize you and I spoke of this earlier, but what the heck? Met ownership has less money than Dodgers ownership, who - if I may repeat myself - is undetermined!

But seriously, putting money aside, why do I get the feeling like the Mets are not at all motivated to go after Reyes? It just seems to me like Alderson should be more vocal; if he really feels like he's unable to go after Reyes, say so. If going after isn't the game plan for health concerns or any other strategic reason, it would be nice to know that management is at least following reason and not being guided by the wilponzis.

This is going to be a long off season, which may not quickly enough turn into a long season.
-Natron

Are Jew Serious

Okay, I have more important things to do than sound off on former major league players who happen to be of Jewish descent gearing up for Israel's entrance to the WBC. Now, if A-Rod is eligible for the Dominican Republic and Piazza can help out Team Italy, I see no issue with these players helping out Team Israel. But, I do think it would be somewhat odd if the players mentioned all suited up for a country they probably have no intimate connection to. Now, on the other hand, if these players had a pre-existing connection to Israel - friends, family, or just personal interest - then that would be another story. But I've never heard of Ian Kinsler or Danny Valncia discuss how best to prepare matzoh balls.

Having said all that, it would be interesting to see this "dream team" of Jewish baseball players. Here's my starting lineup (assuming these players actually identify themselves as Jewish). The retired players I name here were those specifically named in the article:
C Brad Ausmus
1B Ike Davis
2B Ian Kinsler
3B Kevin Youkilis
SS Danny Valencia
LF Ryan Braun
CF Sam Fuld
RF Shawn Green
DH: Gabe Kapler (I think the WBC uses the DH throughout)
SP: Jason Marquis
RP: Scott Feldman, Craig Breslow, John Grabow, Scott Schoenweis (no telling how many you'll need to follow Marquis)

This list owes a tip of my hat to bleacherrport.com and a playful wag of my finger to dandykoufax.com. The idea of tip my of my hat/wag of my finger, of course, pays homage to Stephen "I'm not Jewish but that Stuart guy is" Colbert.

NB: It's true, it's true, I am a J-E-W.

-Natron

New Math

From Mike Mazzeo at ESPNNewYork.com:

"The Mets already have $65 million committed to pitcher Johan Santana, third baseman David Wright and left fielder Jason Bay"

Am I missing something here? Here are the salaries of these players, respectively, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts (which, by the way, I love): 24, 15.25, 18.13 = just over 57 Million dollars. That's a lot of money, but entirely different from $65M. Why does ESPN continue to forgo fact checking? I'm not suggesting 8 Million dollars will determine if the Mets can sign Reyes to a long term, 100+ million dollar contract - but $8M is a lot of money. Enough to determine other free agent signings this off season, to be sure.

Can you imagine if CNN reported the GNP with a 12% error? Or if the New York Times reported that the annual salary of some CEO was 12% off from what it actually is? They'd have to dedicate an article to correcting their erroneous ways. I don't know why I get so annoyed when I find errors like these on ESPN. Maybe it's because I feel like I could do a better job at it. Maybe because I think it takes away from the good reporting that they do have on their site. Or maybe I'm just anal.
-Natron

Addendum:
Case in point
Rod Barajas did NOT hit 50 homers over the last two years. He's hit 33. Going back to the last 3 years, he has hit 52 home runs. ESPN is turning me into a curmudgeon. A curmudgeon, I say!

Update to Addendum:
Seems someone up there (in Bristol, that is) likes me; they have changed "50" to "33" (as of 8:46 pm tonight).

Still Cold Here (not just talking about snow)

Well, it's officially hot stove season. Even though nothing major has happened, some moves are being made. The Yanks signed a pitcher they promised 4 years/$92 mill, now up to 5 years for $122M. The Dodgers are being sold. Remind me again how the Wilpons are still allowed to own their financially-accursed club? Theo Epstein fired his manager before signing a single new player. Rumors of a Theo-Tito reunion already abound. Oh, and R.A. Dickey has officially decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro: can't help but wonder what t-shirts might come of this?

This is all great, especially that last factoid, but I can't wait for contracts to get signed. With the recent initiation of Free Agency, we should start to hear a lot more rumors going 'round. Pujols, Fielder, and Mark Buerhle round out my top 3 FA's. By the way, doesn't it seem odd how under-appreciated Buerhle is these days...I mean, the guy has a no-no and a perfecto! and in that no-no he picked off the only batter he walked. Who was that batter? Answer below). Now, for all the anxiety, don't expect the Reyes to sign with the Mets any time soon - if at all. I heard Joe 7 Evan on 660 WFAN bandy about a 4 year 100 million dollar offer to Reyes. If the Mets are going to have a payroll around $100, I don't see how you can afford to pay (yea I'm rounding here) Reyes 25, Santana 25, Bay 17, and Wright 16. For those (not) calculating at home, that leaves $17 million dollars left to field 21 more players, including an entire pitching staff (with or without Johan, which remains to be seen). Ok, this post has turned from prospective to depressing, so let's move on...

Well, this is good to finally happen, though I'm still not clear as to how this will affect the Mets' offense vs. defense. At the very least, the walls will now be Met Blue instead of Suicidal Soot (yea, that's right, I said soot).

Here's to the hot stove season.
-Natron

Beltran and the $100 Million Contracts

I think they did get what they paid for in Beltran, with the knowledge that contracts over $100M usually produce dire results. Centerfielder Vernon Wells, Kevin Brown, Mike Hampton, Jason Giambi, Griffey, Zito, and Carlos Lee all were disasters. Not-so-great 100M signings include Todd Helton, Alfonso Soriano, Beltran... Many are in progress and need hindsight to judge (Tulowitzki, Miguel Cabrera, Tex, CC, Cliff Lee, Ryan Howard, A-Rod, and Santana), but I'd say the two best deals are probably Manny and Jeter.

I got the list from sporcle, actually: http://www.sporcle.com/games/baseballs_richest.php (just hit "give up", or try it out and guess).

I was actually gonna point out to you two that the Yankees have allowed fewer runs this year than the Bosox - and that boggles my mind in so many ways.

-Natron

I think you have to give Tex and CC - and to a lesser extent A-rod - a successful grade for the simple fact that, with those guys, the Yanks won a World Series. Also take into account that each of them were major contributors to winning that championship, which adds to my argument. I think if Beltran had won a WS with the Mets and played at least as well during that year you could call it a success. But given his uneven numbers and recent spat of injuries I think overall for what the Mets thought his impact would be, it was a failing grade or at least a "D."

I do agree most $100+ million contracts end up being bad ideas. Sadly there are a lot of ex-Yankees on that list Natron produced. A-Rod is sort of an enigma. He won the WS but creates a LOT of distractions by just being a complete moron in the best cases and an outright cheater in the worst. He also doesn't seem to learn from any of his mistakes (see poker and the fact that he still employs his cousin whom he said gave him steroids). That being said, his presence has generated a TON of money for the Yanks (through television ratings, ticket sales, jerseys and other merchandise sales, etc.) and also add to that a WS title during his tenure and he's a passing grade, although sometimes he does feel like a failure.

Jeter, for all the talk about how overrated and overpaid he is, was always a great signing for the Yanks. Maybe he wouldn't have been on other teams, but for the Yanks he's worth every penny. BTW, he's been hitting the hell out of the ball lately and has his average up to above .280. Perhaps rumors of his demise were a bit premature. He might not be what he once was, but a shortstop in that lineup batting .280 with a flare for the dramatic is more than passable.

-Ronjaya

Just a quick chime-in: Natron poined out (during a real life conversation!) that A-Rod may be producing at a high clip - we're just talking about the on-field production - but is he producing numbers that are almost twice as good as Beltran's? Because his contract pays him an average of $27.5M per year versus Beltran's average of $17M.

-StanO

Beltran's Met Legacy

Here is an extremely well-written piece on Carlos Beltran by Rany Jazayerli:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6827109/the-case-carlos-beltran

It essentially talks about Beltran being a very clutch player for his career. Thankfully, it also reports that the Mets got back a prospect with very high potential.

-StanO