Interesting tact by Wilpon, if true. He has basically told Minaya that he either sinks or swims with Willie, his call. I do have to reiterate that this is the 2nd year in a row that the Mets have had a September meltdown and finished poorly. While clearly Omar and the players bear a huge amount of the responsibility for this debacle of a season, this particular aspect has to be on Willie.
Oh, and in case you needed another reason to hate Scho.
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It appears that Omar is going to have his work cut out for him, since most of the top free agents available are not at our needed positions. Key big names are available in CF and 3B, but it appears almost no one of interest is available at SP, RP, C, 1B...
I think Mets made a mistake not going big for Teixeira this year, trying to trade Delgado as part of a 3-way deal.
Perhaps they go for A-Rod, move him to short, trade Jose?
I would sign free agents in positions we already have though, for trade value. For example, sign Torii Hunter. Now you have some options. One is to move Torii or B-tran to LF or RF, and now you can trade Milledge or Gomez or Endy or Green. Or, you can trade B-tran or Torii and get a monster in return (#1 pitcher). unfortunately delgado's trade value is probably in the toilet given contract $$ and broken hand, on top of sore wrist he had at start of season.
I think Mets will need to acquire at least one of Santana or Kazmir, possibly both. Suppose you get Torii as FA and Kazmir as FA if he goes arbitration and rejects offer. Then sign A-rod as FA. Now you can trade Milledge or Gomez, plus Heilman and Reyes to Twins for Santana. So our rotation is Johan / Pedro / Kaz / Maine / Perez, with Pelf and Humber still available as starters or trade bait.
Drop Delgado, Glav, Duque and Green to shed over $40 M in salary. Pick up a 1B by offering Duque + Pelf (or Humber) as trade.
Reyes for Johann Santana.
Duque is not under contract, right?
This is Wilpon saying to the GM, "you have the authority, and you have the responsibility. Don't talk to me about Willie. Just win baby, or your out."
No question Willie may still be under Omar's gun, but he's definitely not under Wilpon's gun--Omar is.
BTW, I think you can keep Reyes or Millege, but not both. There's only so much bad attitude that can be allowed to congregate in one place before it destroys the team.
you might have to throw wags into that mix as well. While not apparently a "bad apple", he seems to have serious enough issues with peterson and willie that either need to be worked out or he's gone. I'm sorry, but how can any pitcher have an issue with peterson? The improvement he has on pitchers is remarkable.
This is not the first time Wags has spoken out about willie: last year he called him out for bringing him into yankees game with 4 run lead, and this year when he wasn't used in a specific game and willie called him "unavailable", he told reporters after the game that he was available. He needs to resolve these items with willie behind closed doors, not in media.
Over at the geek there is a blog about whether or not we should trade reyes. Most seem adamantly against it, but they seem to miss the point of the blog which is that in order to get a player of value in return, you generally need to give up someone of value. Unless someone has a payroll or other issue they are dealing with, we are not going to get a front line pitcher by offering the dregs of our team. And with no good options available by FA this year, we have to resort to the trade. That said, I would NOT trade reyes unless you get a real superstar (e.g. santana, webb, beckett) in return.
totally agree, if you can get a staff ace back for Jose, I'd consider it.
Nobody will eat Wags contract, so he's back for another year at least.
Mark Hale in the Post says the Mets should go after Cordova from the Brewers who had 40+ saves this year, and make him an overpaid set up guy, with the understanding he'd become the closer once Wags' contract is up. Supposedly Wags and Cordova have the same agent which could make the negotiations a little more feasible.
I agree it's highly unlikely anybody will eat Wags' contract in full (or delgado's for that matter), but perhaps the mets should consider eating a portion if it means we can trade them and get something in return. Certainly someone would take wags at $5-6 M per year if we ate the other $4-5 M.
I think we need to drop the average age of this team. That said, I'd like to keep Alou all things being equal, assuming that Gomez + Chavez could cover for him (and assuming we trade green and milledge starts in right). This would give Gomez time to develop, and gives us a solid bat in Alou.
I think Glav and Duque have to go (too much money for too much uncertainty), unless Mets are willing to eat Duque's salary in the pen. He'd be an overpaid reliever, but an unbelievable asset in that role. I think Delgado and Green should also be gone. Not sure about catcher. Love PLD's spirit and attitude but his bat is a killer. That said, Castro's defense and poor inability to throw anyone out might offset his bat (if it is real and not a fluke good season he had at the plate). Trades? Or maybe pick up an old posada and overpay for him on FA market, and then keep castro as backup?
In any case, I have a hard time seeing how the Mets will be better next year without having their payroll balloon to at least $120-130 M. They have too many gaps that I just don't think their young cheap players are legitimately ready to fill. I just don't know what you can really expect from Pelf, Humber, Gomez, and Chavez next year (or even in the future, I still have questions given their AAA numbers). I assume Milledge gets better (if willie would play him consistently and lose his blind adherence to "veterans first" approach), but maybe he doesn't.
I think at the end of the day there's only two players on this team you consider untouchable now, and that's Wright and Pedro. Everyone else should be on the table, if we get the right set of skills and talent in return. I go back to the fact that I think they need to pick up as many top FAs as possible to open up trade options. For example, pick up hunter and then trade him or beltran.
A quick note on PLD: despite being 35 and beat up, he hit 290+ with over 20 Ribeyes in September.
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