Another free agent the Mets were interested in is not coming to New York. This time it’s Joel Piñeiro as he reportedly has signed a 2 year $16 million deal with the Angels. Maybe Carlos Beltran told him not to come.
At the end of last season GM Omar Minaya and COO Jeff Wilpon got on WFAN radio with Mike Francesa promising to be aggressive this off season and improve this team.
The New York Yankees last off season spend a ton of money and win the World Series against our division rivals who acquire the best starting pitcher in baseball this off season. The Washington Nationals for God’s sakes have had a better off season than us!
One of the biggest concerns with this team last year was the starting pitching and the organization has done absolutely nothing to address this issue thus far. Not that I thought Piñeiro was the savior but he would be an upgrade to our current rotation.
At this point, I think we should get Ben Sheets or at the very least get Jon Garland. If we don’t get one of them I think this would be on obvious signal that the organization is not willing to spend the money that they must year in and year out in order to become a championship contender. Either that or they want to leave Omar out to dry.
Things are going to start getting ugly with this fan base real soon, if some significant moves are not made before spring training and I don’t mean signing Carlos Delgado and another back up catcher.
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Fire Slomar Minaya now! You know no free agent wants to come here
“has done absolutely nothing to address this issue thus far. Not that I thought Piñeiro was the savior but he would be an upgrade to our current rotation.”
I wouldn’t say nothing is the best thing to do here, but overspending on older free agents is not the best direction for this franchise to keep going in. Or overpaying on a trade for a younger arm is not appealing to me either.
I don’t mind not signing Molina or Piniero or spending 90 mill on Lackey. The problem is that the Met’s front office is stuck in between trying to get younger, and signing talent to compete at a high level at the same time. Of course the big problem is the state of their farm system, but even if we had some of the guys that were traded for Santana, Putz, and others where we gave up draft picks for signing class A free agents, most of those guys wouldn’t have helped anyhow since basically none of them have panned out to be anything so far. Firing Bernazard was a start here. The time may come soon where they may have to unload a player having a good yr, and pick up some prospects. The Mets need to break the cycle of depending on free agency and not getting the job done while doing so. This team needs to start looking within the organization to stock the roster, but when they do there isn’t much there right now.
I think that this is definitely a rebuilding yr for the team, where it looks like Beltran is already going to miss time. It is not a bad time to experiment, and signing a Ben Sheets to an incentive heavy deal with possible options is not a terrible start.
Don’t lock up too much money in older players. Sign Smoltz to bolster the pen, sign Sheets to slide into the rotation. There could always be a bargain on a legit starting pitcher around mid season if this team is in it.
That lowered expectations article from a few days back is right on. This team needs to take 2 steps back this yr to hopefully move forward five next off season.
This isn’t the NBA where bad contracts hold you hostage for years and years as we’ve seen with the knicks. This is an uncapped sport where you can sign anyone at anytime for however much money you desire. The Mets are also not playing in the middle of nowhere USA. They play in NYC and compete for advertising dollars and tickets purchases with the New York Yankees. I don’t agree with the last statement of taking two steps back to take 5 steps forward. You can get younger and sign free agents to be competitive every single season. That is what I should expect as a met fan, unfortunately as I’ve said before this is the worst run franchise in all of professional sports. Given the resources and the potential revenue these guys just don;t get it.
“You can get younger and sign free agents to be competitive every single season. ”
The catch 22 to that statement is that in baseball when you sign a certain caliber of free agent that is worth anything, and has possibly had arbitration offered to them by their previous team, the signing team loses picks and prospects. There is a difference between being competitive and having a steady contender with a pool of talent to draw from. Omar had to stock our AAA with geriatric Latinos at the end of last off season since they were so depleted. Who did the Mets really call up to fill in that made a real impact last season ? No one. F-Mart tanked, Niese blew a nut out covering first, Murphy started and did not live up to expectations based on last yr.
As we have seen with the Yankees, the buying championships formula only works for so long at a time, and still leads to constant spending.
“This is an uncapped sport where you can sign anyone at anytime for however much money you desire. ”
A few bad choices in who you sign, and if you have money locked up in injury plagued players then your team will have issues. (Ollie). Still paying Bobby Bo, his contract is not necessarily holding us hostage but will be there for the next 20 yrs or so.
Since in an allegedly uncapped sport we have seen no team go over the salary cap in its entire history other than the New York Yankees i would say that the luxury tax pretty much acts as a cap for the most part.
The fact that the Mets have spent something around 370 million more than the Marlins have in the last 10 yrs and only won 4 more games in that span is ridiculous.
Would you really have been happy if the Mets spent money on Pineiro who really isn’t the answer, and locked money up in him for yrs and he tanked ? The pitchers on the market right now will not make a huge difference for the Mets this yr. Only a healthy Ben Sheets would, but there is a risk there. If they can sign him at a bargain, then they have made a smart choice.
The only way the Mets would be able to make a pitching move that would make a huge difference other than finding a diamond in the rough this off season would be to facilitate a big trade. Most people believe that the Mets really do not have the chips in the farm system at this time to pull off a big deal for a big name player to make a significant change.
That is why I say to take a step or two back. I think that rather than to just spend, they need to be patient and let the cards fall their way, and not try to overplay a weak hand.
Yeah, I think the mets should give Sheets a one year deal with a lot of incentives (games started). You can’t go wrong with one year deals … even if you pay 7 to 8 million, which might seem like a lot but there aren’t really a lot of starters left. I just read that the Brewers have agreed with free agent left-hander Doug Davis on a one-year, $5.25 million. Please lets try to avoid Erik Bedard.
JP