Keeping Score: Mets Get Little Bang for Their Bucks – NYTimes.com
Posted by Neil Paine on April 22, 2011
Mets Get Little Bang for Their Bucks - NYTimes.com
A brief review of the Mets' perpetually bad marginal dollars-to-marginal wins ratio.
Posted by Neil Paine on April 22, 2011
Mets Get Little Bang for Their Bucks - NYTimes.com
A brief review of the Mets' perpetually bad marginal dollars-to-marginal wins ratio.
April 22nd, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Nicely-written, Neil.
I found the documentation of recent Met history in blog archives 10750 by readers John Q. and John Autin relevant to your article.
The Mets have always been a franchise that intrigued me because they seem snake-bitten in modern times.
Your article almost makes me think it is a disadvantage to have too much money to spend on personnel over the years becuse you don't have to be responsible and make good decisions.
If anyone can restore financial order, Alderson can.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/10750
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Neil Paine, I thought your piece was generally solid and fair.
I would still like to point out that the periods you focused on came right after the Mets' most successful periods. While boom-and-bust cycles are not a sign of good management, it is also not uncommon for a team to have such cycles.
-- From 1984 to 1990, the Mets were in contention every year, with a roster built from home-grown players and savvy trades. You noted their payroll inefficiency in 1991-93.
-- The Mets were in contention from 1997-2000; they made the playoffs twice (winning 3 series), and missed a wild-card playoff by one game in '98. You noted their payroll inefficiency in 2001-05.
-- The Mets contended from 2006-08, reaching one NLCS and falling 1 game short of the division title the other two years. You focused on the period 2009-present.
I also think the table accompanying the article magnifies the Mets' real failings by presenting overlapping 3-year periods. The table has 10 entries; three of them are Mets teams comprising one 5-year period (2001-03, 2002-04 and 2003-05).
Finally (and this is no fault of Neil's), I think that the NY Times's overall relentlessly negative and dollar-centric coverage of the Mets, in the sports section, has become tiresome. Since spring training began, hardly a day has passed without a report on the team's financial problems and declines in attendance and ticket resale prices. The volume of this type of coverage has so far dwarfed reporting on the actual team on the field.
April 22nd, 2011 at 3:30 pm
I see your point about 3-year windows overlapping -- here are the most inefficient 3-year spans if you throw out overlapping years (keeping only the worst 3-year period):
April 22nd, 2011 at 3:49 pm
How are you converting to 2011 dollars? I assume not just by inflation, since salary-increases have outpaced inflation.
April 22nd, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Right. Here's what I originally said in the Times piece (before it got cut out for space restrictions):
"And how do [the 2009-11 Mets] stack up in terms of historical payroll inefficiency? To answer that question, one must first set up a conversion rate between historical MP/MW and today’s rates. Simply adjusting past rates for inflation won’t do, though, because MLB payrolls have grown at a much greater rate than the rest of the U.S. economy. Instead, the solution is to compare the market price for a Marginal Win across seasons, essentially creating a consumer price index for wins. After this step is taken, one finds that the 2001-2003 Detroit Tigers had the most inefficient 3-year stretch of any team since 1988 (the first year of USA Today’s salary database). Expressed in 2011 dollars, those Tigers spent a staggering $9,298,193 per Marginal Win."
Basically you divide raw MP/MW by whatever the league's MP/MW was that season, and multiply by $2,453,390.
For seasons with less than a 162-game schedule (1994, '95, 2011 to date), I also regressed the W-L records to the mean using this Clay Davenport methodology:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3490
So since we're roughly 20 games into the season, a team's regressed winning % would equal .293 * current WPct + .353
April 22nd, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Very interesting article Neil,
The one thing the Mets really have to stop doing is signing these long term contracts with players who are over 30 years old. Even when they're generally successful, i.e, Carter, Piazza the Mets suffer in the last few years of these contracts like in the case of Carter from '87-89 and Piazza from '03-05.
They also have to stop the 3-1 or 4-1 trades for older established stars.
I went back and looked at some of the salaries on those 2002-2004 Mets and it's just mind-boggling, especially the 2003 team.
The top 10 paid players in '03 all of whom except for Cedeno were over 30 years old and 7 of the 10 were all 34 or older. And the only players out of that top ten that were worth the money were Cliff Floyd & Al Leiter.
2003 Mets top ten salaries & WAR:
M. Vaughn, $17.1 million, (-0.4 WAR)
M. Piazza, $15.5 million, (2.0 WAR)
J. Burnitz, $12.3 million, (1.3 WAR)
T. Glavine, $11 million, (1.9 WAR)
R. Alomar, $8 million, (-0.1 WAR)
A. Leiter, $8 million, (3.2 WAR)
P. Astacio, $7 million, (-0.8 WAR)
A. Benitez, $6.9 million, (1.3 WAR)
C. Floyd, $6.5 million, (3.5 WAR)
R. Cedeno, $4.8 million, (0.2 WAR)
That's 12.1 WAR for $96.9 million.
The only thing that saves them from '05-08 is that Wright and Reyes didn't make any money while giving the Mets enormous production. It's interesting to go back and cherry pick a few players that gave little to no productivity and who were paid a lot of money:
'05 Mets:
M. Piazza, $16 million, (0.8 WAR)
K. Matsui, $7 million, (0.5 WAR)
S. Trachsel, $6.7 million, (0.0 WAR)
K. Ishii, $3.5 million, (-0.9 WAR)
'06 Mets:
P. Martinez, $14.8 million, (0.4 WAR)
K. Matsui, $8 million, (-0.7 WAR)
C. Floyd, $6.6 million, (0.6 WAR)
V. Zambrano, $3 million, (-0.4 WAR)
'07 Mets:
C. Delgado, $14.1 million, (0.1 WAR)
P. Martinez, $14 million, (0.5 WAR)
S. Green, $9.5 million, (-0.1 WAR)
P. LoDuca, $6.5 million, (0.5 WAR)
S. Schoenweis, $3.6 million, (-0.5 WAR)
'08 Mets:
P. Martinez, $11.8 million, (-0.6 WAR)
C. Delgado, $16 million, (2.6 WAR)
B. Wagner, $10 million, (1.0 WAR)
M. Alou, $7.5 million, (0.0 WAR)
O. Hernandez, $7 million, (Did Not Play)
S. Schoenweis, $3.6 million, (0.6 WAR)
That Pedro deal was awful $50 million for basically 1 very good year and 3 years of nothing. And that Delgado deal was terrible as well. He gave them one good year, one average year and two years of crap for $56 million. I didn't even include the 2009 season when he made $12 million and barely played.
April 22nd, 2011 at 6:36 pm
John Q,
In addition to who you've mentioned, do you know this year, the Mets are going to pay Bobby Bonilla and Gary Mathews Jr both over a million $s.
April 22nd, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Viewed solely on its own merits, the Pedro deal was a poor investment, and we knew that going in. But most Mets fans and commentators viewed that deal as being as much about signalling serious intent to compete as it was about wanting Pedro for 4 years. The 2002-04 seasons had gone very badly, and the Mets were in the process of wooing Carlos Beltran, the best free agent available that year.
We can't know how much symbolic impact the Pedro deal really had, but the Mets did win the Beltran bidding; and while that contract has had its ups and downs, I doubt that the Mets would have contended in 2006-08 without Beltran's offensive and defensive contributions.
John Q is certainly right that Mets management has not shown a strong grasp of how players tend to age. But in this, they have a great deal of company among MLB teams. The list of players who have received long-term, megabucks contracts that extend past age 35 is long indeed; off the top of my head, I can think of Jason Giambi ... Mike Mussina ... Todd Helton ... Mike Hampton ... Derek Jeter ... Randy Johnson ... Alfonso Soriano ... Magglio Ordonez ... Barry Zito ... Carlos Lee ... Alex Rodriguez ... Torii Hunter ... Vernon Wells ... Mark Teixeira ... Jayson Werth ... Adrian Gonzalez ... and on, and on, and on.
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:21 pm
John Q's list @6 is useful and valid criticism of the Mets, but similar lists could be produced for a number of teams. Consider the 2004 Yankees, who came within a whisker of going to the World Series. Here are 7 players who were each paid at least $3 (most far more) while producing at rate of at least $6 million per WAR:
-- Mike Mussina, $16 million, 2.1 WAR, $7.6mm/WAR
-- Kevin Brown, $15.7 million, 2.5 WAR, $6.3mm/WAR
-- Jason Giambi, $12.4 million, -0.2 WAR, worthless
-- Bernie Williams, $12.4 million, 0.4 WAR, $31mm/WAR
-- Jose Contreras, $8.5 million, -0.1 WAR, worthless
-- Steve Karsay, $6 million, 0.1 WAR (7 innings), $60mm/WAR
-- Paul Quantrill, $3 million, 0.4 WAR, $7.5mm/WAR
April 22nd, 2011 at 8:39 pm
@7 Duke,
I knew about the Bobby Bonilla thing which is just bizarre. It's such an odd thing because it doesn't even show up in Mets' Payroll. I didn't know about the Gary Mathews jr. until I read it at Cot's Baseball contracts and I was kind of shocked.
April 22nd, 2011 at 9:18 pm
@John: The Delgado deal was not signed by the Mets. The Marlins signed him in 2005 to a five-year contract. Then the Mets traded for him after one season had expired on it. And, they traded, essentially, nothing for him.
@7 Dukoeofflatbush: The Bonilla contract is a deferred contract and not all that bizarre; it's pretty common.
April 22nd, 2011 at 9:36 pm
John A,
The Yankees exist in their own Universe. They could seriously spend $50-60 million on players that are injured and can't play and they wouldn't even feel a thing.
A four year deal to Pedro at the time was widely seen as a bad move. I loved watching Pedro pitch and I got all caught up in that 2005 season but in hindsight it was a bad move. 4 years was far too long at his age and his fragility. And in the end it handcuffed them as to the moves they could make in 2008.
As far as Beltran goes I think he would have signed with the Mets regardless either with Pedro or without. Beltran/Boras were looking for the most money/best contract and the Mets offered it to him. At the time he was ready to go to the Yankees but the Mets offered him something like 10-12 million more.
I liked the Beltran signing because he was legitimately an elite player.
The only thing I don't understand is why they signed Mike Cameron the previous year. Seriously it's like they just decided after the 2005 to sign Beltran. Sometimes it just seems like they make things up from year to year on the fly. Take Daryl Strawberry, they didn't want to pay him but then they overpaid for that waste Vince Coleman and then the following year they greatly overpaid for Bobby Bonilla. It's like WTF?
Or take John Olerud, why didn't they overpay and try to keep him? The thing that is very frustrating with the Mets is sometimes they become very penny wise pound foolish.
All That being said, I really like this group they brought in to run this. It's by far the best group they've had since Frank Cashen.
This year is going to be a clean-house year and then there going to really start to rebuild this team next year.
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:10 pm
@11 Darren,
Well the whole point about Delgado was they were responsible for the remainder of that contract. The Marlins signed him to a back-loaded contract so the Mets owed him $55 million over 4 years (2006-2009), when he was going to be 34-37 years old.
He was good in '06, terrible in '07, awful the first half of '08, great July and Sept/Oct of '08, and he missed almost all of '09.
The one thing you can't do is blame him for those two collapses because he was very good/great during both Septembers in '07 & 08. But overall he was terrible in 07. He had a line of .258/.333/.448 in '07. compare that to other first basemen around the league with 450 plate appearances.
Delgado's 2007:
His .258 batting average ranked 21/24 among mlb first basemen.
His .333 On Base Percentage ranked 21/24 among mlb first basemen.
His .448 Slugging Percentage ranked 19/24 among mlb first basemen.
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:26 pm
John Q -- I agree with most of what you said above, especially the ad hoc approach.
There are shadings to a few other things:
About Olerud -- as I've heard it, the Mets really tried to re-sign him, but he was determined to go and play in his home town. And it's worth noting that, after he had 3 good years for Seattle on his first deal with them, they gave him another 2-year deal at $7.5 million per which they very quickly regretted
About Strawberry -- I agree that they should have re-signed Straw, but they had some concerns about his off-the-field behavior (which turned out to be pretty valid); and in the end, he only had one good year with LA, so actually that decision turned out well for the Mets.
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:37 pm
John Q @13 -- Agree with most of your take on Delgado. But I would note that it is not necessarily fair to compare a hitter whose home is Shea Stadium to other hitters, on the basis of raw BA/OBP/SLG; I would use the park-adjusted metric of OPS+. Despite my quibbling, though, Delgado's 2007 ranked 20th out of 25 first basemen with 450+ PAs, so the conclusion is unchanged -- he was bad.
I still loved him as a Met, though. One of the few players who didn't seem to shrink from the pressure, and I don't say that just because of the numbers he put up in September of 2007-08.
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:24 am
Side note, but important to me at least: he was also a great patriot, and refused to back down from his political stances despite great pressure from the fans and media to be politically correct during the Bizarro Bush years.
Back to the point, though, I think we're losing the big picture here somewhat by focusing on 2007 with Delgado. He was awful, but he finished his Mets career with a 121 OPS+, which is far from a disaster.
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:46 am
@14 John A,
Yeah the "Ad Hoc" approach was really an annoying thing about a lot the past 20 years of Mets baseball. That was kind of like the Eddie Murray signing at 36 years old when they gave him about '$7 million for two years which was a lot of money in '91. But basically he ended producing exactly what Magadan would have produced for about 4 times the money. I never fully understood why Frank Viola wasn't resigned after '91.
Then when when Cone becomes a free agent they don't have the money to re-sign him because they blew all their money making Bobby Bonilla the most expensive player in baseball.
Seriously it's like why the hell do sign Mike Cameron the year before if you want to sign Beltran? What all of a sudden in the fall of '04 it's like "we have to have Beltran"?
Olerud was one of my favorite Mets so I might be biased. I know the story was that Olerud wanted to go home but I wonder what was the Mets offer and how much would it had taken to get him to stay in NY. What they paid him in for his 3 years in NY is almost laughable. The Blue Jays paid $5 million of his '97 contract so the Mets only paid him about $1 million for that year. Then they paid him about $8 million for '98-99 which was a steal.
It looks like the Mariners paid him about $20 for 3 years, '00-02 which was a great deal for the M's. I wonder if the Mets offered something like $25 million for 4 years would he have stayed? Anyway, I've never heard what the Mets actual offer was but I would imagine it was kind of a low-ball offer. I've also heard that Phillips wanted to clear some payroll to make a run at A-Rod in '01 so he didn't want to be bogged down with an Olerud contract. Then Texas blew everybody out of the water with that crazy contract.
I never fully believed Phillips' "Olerud wanted to go back to Seattle so we had no chance" story. If that's the case why did he come back to NY with the Yankees and then why did he sign with Boston in '05?
As far as Strawberry goes, ok they didn't want to sign him but why waste $12 million on Coleman???? Why not put that money towards Viola or Cone?
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:59 am
> Seriously it's like why the hell do sign Mike Cameron the year
> before if you want to sign Beltran? What all of a sudden in the
> fall of '04 it's like "we have to have Beltran"?
Well, the Cameron signing was bad on its own. But it's unfair to judge it in context with the Beltran decision because the Mets fired the GM and replaced him in between those two moves.
Phillips made the Cameron deal; Minaya made the Beltran deal.
And frankly the Mets were not exactly brimming with OF prospects at the time so having two CFers was not the worst dilemma in the world anyway. Problem was that Cameron got hurt in 2005 and only played in 76 games (actually he had his face broken when he collided with Beltran).
> Olerud was one of my favorite Mets so I might be biased. I
> know the story was that Olerud wanted to go home but I
> wonder what was the Mets offer and how much would it had
> taken to get him to stay in NY. What they paid him in for his 3
> years in NY is almost laughable. The Blue Jays paid $5 million
> of his '97 contract so the Mets only paid him about $1 million
> for that year. Then they paid him about $8 million for '98-99
> which was a steal.
I would have backed up the Brinks truck for Olerud. But, if he wanted to leave, he wanted to leave. The real issue was that they compounded the void left by his departure by throwing good money at Todd Zeile who was awful.
> I've also heard that Phillips wanted to clear some payroll to
> make a run at A-Rod in '01 so he didn't want to be bogged
> down with an Olerud contract. Then Texas blew everybody
> out of the water with that crazy contract.
Well, the Mets took themselves out of the running for A-Rod before anything Texas did.
And frankly I don't think that was such a crazy contract. He was the best player in baseball at the time, and if you're the Texas GM, you need to outbid everybody if you're anticipating that you have to get someone to turn down New York, and what was at the time a pennant-winning team, to play in a non-baseball town like Dallas. They set their sights on A-Rod and they did what they had to do.
April 23rd, 2011 at 1:12 am
@16 Darren,
I respect Delgado for his stance, that took a lot of courage to stick to his convictions especially in that environment. And I think overall he was making a valid point.
It's not just '07, he missed almost all of '09 and the Mets had to pay him $12 million. And don't forget that first half of '08 when he hit .248/.328/.455.
As far as his 121 ops+ from 2006-2009 it's good but you have to put it in context for first basemen and what they were paying him. Adam Laroche had a 120 ops+ from '06-09 and he cost the Pirates about $15 million Delgado cost the Mets about $55 million. Delgado was at best an average fielder so he doesn't get any boost with his glove.
If you take all the 1b with at least 1200 plate appearances from 2006-2009 Delgado ranks 15/27 with his 121 ops+
I ran hot & cold with Delgado. When it came crunch time he was great and he was great to have on your team. In the '06 playoffs he was fantastic as well as Sept/Oct '07 & '08. But he could be fickle if things didn't go the way he wanted.
April 23rd, 2011 at 1:18 am
> It's not just '07, he missed almost all of '09 and the Mets had
> to pay him $12 million. And don't forget that first half of '08
> when he hit .248/.328/.455.
I don't think that separating years into "halves" or parts is a productive way to approach this discussion. All players have good and bad months; you have to look at the totality of what he did for any of this to make any sense. In 2008 he hit .271/.353/.518 with a 127 OPS+. That's a good year and worth what they were paying him.
In 2009 he was hurt and that's a strike against him, and weakens the value of the contract.
> As far as his 121 ops+ from 2006-2009 it's good but you have
> to put it in context for first basemen and what they were paying
> him. Adam Laroche had a 120 ops+ from '06-09 and he cost
> the Pirates about $15 million Delgado cost the Mets about $55
> million.
But, I'm not saying it was the best contract ever signed. Just that it wasn't an unmitigated disaster. And doesn't belong on a list of failed Mets contracts IMO (especially when it was the Marlins that signed him to that contract, but that's another issue).
April 23rd, 2011 at 1:31 am
@18, Darren,
As far as Beltran/Cameron, Douquette made the deal, Phillips was gone already. It's just a question about ownership and the decisions they make. It seems like there was no intention of signing Beltran until the fall of '04 which just seems odd to me. To spend that kind of money and make that kind of commitment on a spur of the moment is odd. I think the SNY money had something to do with the willingness to spend big bucks.
Having two proud center fielders was a serious problem because they collided in August of that year while they were chasing a wild card spot. Cameron never came back and Beltran struggled the rest of the year.
They never said what they offered Olerud so I don't know, but I agree with you on the Todd Zeille. I've always firmly believed they would have beaten the Yankees with Olerud at first in the 2000 WS.
As far as the A-Rod contract, once word got out what Texas was going to offer all the other teams went away.
It was a crazy contract especially for a team like the Rangers because it basically bankrupted the ownership. The former owner Tom Hicks called it the dumbest thing he ever did.
April 23rd, 2011 at 1:45 am
> As far as Beltran/Cameron, Douquette made the deal,
> Phillips was gone already.
No, Cameron was signed in the preseason preceding 2004, by Phillips. Phillips was fired during the season, on June 12th, and replaced with Duquette.
> It's just a question about ownership and the decisions they
> make. It seems like there was no intention of signing Beltran
> until the fall of '04 which just seems odd to me. To spend that
> kind of money and make that kind of commitment on a spur
> of the moment is odd.
Well yeah, that's why I said the Cameron signing was bad. It lacked foresight for the following offseason when a much better CF was available.
But at the same time, it's pretty unfair to criticize the Mets for having an inconsistent philosophy between 2004 and 2005, when they actually fired the GM during that time for the express purpose of changing the organization's team-building philosophy. It SHOULD be different, shouldn't it?
> I think the SNY money had something to do with the willingness
> to spend big bucks.
Well, the Mets already had a big payroll in 2004 (~$119 million). It did jump to ~$140 million in 2005, but I'm not sure how that had anything to do with SNY which didn't start up till 2006.
> Having two proud center fielders was a serious problem
> because they collided in August of that year while they were
> chasing a wild card spot. Cameron never came back and
> Beltran struggled the rest of the year.
What does that have to do with having two CFers though? It was a freak accident.
> It was a crazy contract especially for a team like the Rangers
> because it basically bankrupted the ownership. The former
. owner Tom Hicks called it the dumbest thing he ever did.
How did it "bankrupt the ownership"? They spent roughly $80 million a year on non-A-Rod players; that was more than most teams were spending at the time. If they had spent that money wisely they would have been a legit contender, but they wasted it on crap like Chan Ho Park. A-Rod was certainly not hindering their finances.
April 23rd, 2011 at 1:57 am
Again you take Delgado's 127 ops+ in the context of a first basemen for 2008. His 127 ops+ ranked 11/23 out all first basemen with at least 450 plate appearances. His WAR for 2008 was 2.6 which ranked 12/23 among first basemen with at least 450 plate appearances.
It's a solid season about average for a 1b in 2008. It's not worth $16 million. I think 1 WAR is worth about $4 million so that season was worth about $10 million.
Yeah the Marlins signed him but the Mets assumed the bulk of that contract. He was probably worth about $30 million for that contract not the $55 million they paid him. It was a risky contract going into it because he was already 34 years old in 2006. Not an unmitigated disaster, I agree with you but disappointing overall.
His Mets career basically went like this:
'06 Good Overall, Great post-season.
'07 Terrible overall but was great in Sept/Oct when most of the rest of the team collapsed.
'08 Average overall but was awful in the first half yet played brilliantly during Sept/Oct of '08 while the team collapsed again.
'09 Missed basically all of the season.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:05 am
> Again you take Delgado's 127 ops+ in the context of a first
> basemen for 2008. His 127 ops+ ranked 11/23 out all first
> basemen with at least 450 plate appearances. His WAR
> for 2008 was 2.6 which ranked 12/23 among first basemen
> with at least 450 plate appearances.
>
> It's a solid season about average for a 1b in 2008. It's not
> worth $16 million. I think 1 WAR is worth about $4 million
> so that season was worth about $10 million.
But here's the essential problem: real life is not that linear. A team like the Mets, with a huge loyal fanbase, in a giant market, when it is in position to be a contender, can afford to "overpay" for above average production, when the situation calls for it. They were coming off a year (2005) in which they made strides toward being competetive, after 3 brutal years; lost Mike Piazza; and saw an opportunity to trade basically nothing for a big time power bat, when there was no other really good 1B on the FA market, or in their system (Jacobs doesn't qualify).
That's a situation where it makes sense to "overpay" to get a guy you need into the fold.
Yes, sometimes you pay for it at the end of the contract, but it's a give and take.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:07 am
@ Darren,
Phillips was fired in June of 2003 and replaced by Duquette. Cameron was signed in December of 2003 by Duquette.
As far as Beltran/Cameron goes. Essentially when you have two proud GG center-fielders there's a tendency for both players to be aggressive even though one of the players is now playing right field. There was an article in the New York Times or Newsday during the pre-season of 2005 warning about a possible collision between Beltran and Cameron.
Valid points on Rangers ownership. Hicks was quoted as saying that was the dumbest move he ever made.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:11 am
@24 Darren,
You made some very Valid points.
It's late, I have to get up in about 5-6 hours, good back-forth. I'll check this thread again tomorrow.
peace.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:16 am
> As far as Beltran/Cameron goes. Essentially when you have
> two proud GG center-fielders there's a tendency for both players
> to be aggressive even though one of the players is now playing
> right field.
I'm not buying this. They both managed somehow to make it 4 1/2 months through the season without egregiously colliding with each other.
CFers move to RF all the time. By the same logic, we should expect Beltran to have a face-to-face collision with Pagan.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:30 am
@16/ Darren & @19/John Q -- Thanks for bringing up Carlos Delgado's courageous political stances. I admire him deeply for that.
Darren, you also made a couple of points that I had been thinking about -- no reason to parse Delgado's 2008 into halves, and nothing inherently wrong with having two CF-capable outfielders (as long as you don't have an overall glut of OFs). I've seen plenty of teams praised for just such an alignment.
John Q, what is the basis for saying that "Beltran struggled the rest of the year" after the Cameron collision? Offensively, Beltran was at .267/.325/.434 before the collision; after missing 4 games, he hit .263/.340/.365 afterwards without missing another game. So his SLG was down, but his OBP was up; more of a loss in SLG, but OBP is the more important measure. His run and RBI rates were not substantially different. All in all, I don't see a significant difference in Beltran's offense after the collision. He just didn't hit well that year, period.
Also, it's easy to say in hindsight Beltran and Cameron collided because they were both natural CFs. But there have been many other OF collisions that did not involve 2 CFs. Last June, Nate McLouth and Jason Heyward had a serious collision that put McLouth out of action for more than a month, while Heyward went into a month-long offensive tailspin. In 2009, Endy Chavez missed the 2nd half of the year after shredding his knee in a collision with SS Yuniesky Betancourt.
Finally, about A-Rod's Texas contract: If Tom Hicks calls it the dumbest thing he ever did, that cracks me up. Isn't he the same guy who signed Chan Ho Park for $64 million over 5 years? When I look for financial inefficiency on the Rangers teams that A-Rod played for, his contract isn't anywhere near the top of the list. For instance, on the 2002 team, I see JuanGon making $11 million while producing 0.2 WAR; Carl Everett, $8.7 million to produce 0.1 WAR; Park (whose contract was backloaded) earning $6.9 million for 0.2 WAR; Rusty Greer, $6.8 million and -0.1 WAR; and John Rocker, $2.5 million and -0.5 WAR. A-Rod made $22 million and produced 8.2 WAR. Those other 5 got paid almost $35 million and produced nothing of value.
Somehow, it has become conventional wisdom that "it's financial disaster to spend more than [30-40%] of your payroll on one player," with A-Rod's Texas deal being cited as Exhibit A. It's bull. First, A-Rod never was paid even 30% of Texas's payroll in any of his 3 years. Using B-R payroll figures and the average annual salary of his deal, A-Rod earned about 25% of Texas's payroll over his 3 seasons combined. Second, paying top dollar for championship-level players can't be anywhere as disastrous as paying big dollars for unproductive players. Third, if there was a problem with A-Rod's deal, it was the LENGTH, not the average salary. Over the first 7 years of that deal, A-Rod averaged 7.5 WAR, or about $3.33 million per WAR -- which is not far from the market rate. But in the last 3 years, he averaged 4.2 WAR.
Texas erred by not having a clue how to build a pitching staff -- not by signing the best player in the game to the top salary.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:36 am
I'd better stop -- every time I post after drafting for half an hour, I find that Darren has beaten me to the punch on virtually all my points.
Good night, gents!
April 23rd, 2011 at 9:46 am
John, John, & Darren,
I have absolutely nothing to contribute to the discussion baseball-wise, other than to say I have read every word of your collective dissection of the Mets managerial moves and other big-contract signings.
You have an impressed audience of at least........one!
April 23rd, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Thanks, I've enjoyed this discussion too. It's hard to find any rational, patient discussion of the Mets online when they're in a down cycle -- most forums consist of flamewars between trolls vs. neurotic, self-loathing Mets fans.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:42 pm
@31
Yeah, but, Darren, this cross-market community of baseball followers around North America is unjudging and hopefully checks emotion at the door when they log in...... unlike fan forums. Objectivity rules.
April 23rd, 2011 at 3:20 pm
The Mets need to do what NY teams find VERY hard to do-----bite the bullet and clean house. The Knicks kept putting band-aids on shotgun wounds and look what happened to them over the last 7-10 years.
I know there's no cap in MLB (unlike the NBA), but the Mets have a limit to spending----and they're at it, so in essence they are at their cap. They need better ball players for their buck. They need more homegrown guys on the cheap so they can cherry pick their FA stars and overpay if necessary to GET and KEEP them.
It's very hard to rebuild and contend at the same time. If you fool yourself into thinking you can get to where you want to be by overpaying 2nd tier stars and by giving flotsam and jetsam types lengthy contract terms, you're doomed. Take the hit. Keep the pipeline of young developing talent flowing from your own system----overpay to sign draft picks (it's cheaper in the long run)----and be very choosey with who you throw the bank at.
You may stink for a few years--------but you'll be irrelevent in the longer term of you don't.
I think the Mets have better management now. I think they will be headed in the right direction with the current group--------but ownership has their own black cloud that may be overshadowing the good that management brings.
I dunno.
April 23rd, 2011 at 4:18 pm
@33
Sean,
You are saying, I think, that Mets' nation will not allow a rebuilding period of 2-4 years. They cannot stand an uncompetitive year.
How much is this driven by the presence of the Yankees in the same city? The NY market is unique in all of baseball. After all one must keep up with the Jones.
Not even the Bay area, with Oak-SF is comparable! I pity Mets' believers who live in the shadow of the older NY franchise. They will always be second best in the media..... in international opinion etc.
Not meaning to be unkind, but tell me i'm wrong.
April 23rd, 2011 at 4:22 pm
@Neil:
> Not even the Bay area, with Oak-SF is comparable! I pity Mets'
> believers who live in the shadow of the older NY franchise. They
> will always be second best in the media..... in international opinion
> etc.
>
> Not meaning to be unkind, but tell me i'm wrong.
You're wrong. The Yankees went through about a 30-year period where they were considered -- even during their rare times of success -- a classless, disorganized nuthouse. During those times the Mets ruled the city in fan support, even during down times in terms of W/L record.
That said, Mets management has definitely let the Yankees' recent success influence their decision-making at times in the past 15 years.
April 23rd, 2011 at 5:48 pm
@35
Darren, with all due respect, which 30-year time period was that?
Certainly, it has to be in the post-1962 era, after the Mets came into existence to be relevant to this discussion. I have no wish to stir up Mets vs Yankees controversy just for the sake of discussion.
I can't think of a 30 year period when the Yankees were a considered a "classless, disorganized nuthouse."
April 23rd, 2011 at 6:07 pm
@Neil:
From the late 60s to the late 90s, possibly even including the first 2 1/2 years of the Yankees' run, they were plagued by media miscalculations and known as an organization that couldn't stop shooting itself in the foot in the PR department, as the Mets have been over the past few years.
From 1965-1996 the Yankees won 2 championships, and even those 1977-1978 teams were marred by infighting and ego clashing between ownership, players and coaches. The result was that it was an organization some free agents were known to shy away from.
Some famous amusing quotes from that era:
"I want out. I'm sick of everything that goes on around here. I'm sick of all the negative stuff and you can take that upstairs to the fat man and tell him I said it." -- Goose Gossage, 8/16/82
"Oh Butch, you're not going to have to go to that animal farm, are you?" -- Butch Wynegar's mother on hearing that her son had been traded from the Twins to the Yankees in 1982
"They asked me to take it for a year and see if I liked it. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't." -- Yogi Berra who managed the Yankees one season, won the pennant, and was fired.
"The more we lose, the more Steinbrenner will fly in. And the more he flies, the better the chance there will be a plane crash." -- Dock Ellis, spring 1978
"The two of them deserve each other. One's a born liar; the other's convicted." -- Billy Martin, on Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner
"You know, this team... it all flows from me. I've got to keep it going. I'm the straw that stirs the drink... Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink, but he can only stir it bad... The rest of the guys should know that I don't feel that far above them... I mean, nobody can turn people on like I can, or do for a club the thing I can do, but we are still athletes, we're all still ballplayers." -- Reggie Jackson, June 1977
April 23rd, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Your quotes make the Yakees look very dysfunctional.
I remember clearly the Billy Martin quote and, of course, Reggie's; they have been immortalized. But I had forgotten that Yogi was a caretaker for for one year. (sorry)
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:22 am
This thread's probably dead, but anyway, a couple of points about the Mets' status in fan support over the years, as compared to the Yankees':
The Mets have had periods of better attendance than the Yankees, but I think Darren's claim of a 30-year period of superiority is overstating the case.
Here's who won the NYC attendance battle since the Mets were formed.
If the difference is less than 100,000, I'll call it even.
1962-63, Yankees
1964-75, Mets
1976-83, Yankees
1984, even
1985-91, Mets
1992, even
1993-2011, Yankees
It's true that George Steinbrenner's heavy hand in all things created a certain feel of chaos and dysfunction from the time he took over the team through the early '90s, and there were periods when the organization seemed clueless. But let's not forget that the Mets went through their own dark times. In the end, winning -- not being classy and composed -- is what makes the turnstiles tick.