11/2/12

Hot Stove - 11-2-12 – David Wright, David Wrong, The Binghamton/Ottawa Mets


 
Per Andy Martino at http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/david-mets-wright-deal-article-1.1195318, talks between the New York Mets and David Wright (his agent) will “begin to intensify” as early as “this week”. Does this process really need a period of time for it to intensify? It seems to me that the ball is in the Mets court to get this going. Wright has had his option picked up ($16mil) for 2013, so Sandy Alderson should know where to start this process. Also, everyone knows that, no matter what you put on the table, the other party will come back and ask for more. That’s why they call it a negotiation. You have two factors here: number of years, and total dollars paid over that period of years. You can leave the yearly salary breakdown, options, etc. as something you can talk about once the important stuff is done. Lastly, you can’t piss the other party off by making your initial offer too low. Baseball is still a telephone business. No one needs to hop on a plane for a meeting, or back up every offer with a fax like the real estate business. Baseball GMs and agents work every day on the phone and I’m sure Alderson has already put a number in front of the Levinsons. My guess:  5-yrs, $100mil.  

On the other hand, Jim Bowden at ESPN says that the deal with Wright is far from done due to the fact that “the Mets have “shown the same cavalier attitude they had in their contract negotiations with David Wright as they did in their negotiations with Jose Reyes last winter. He also lists Boston, LAA, Arizona, KC, and Texas as matched up trading partners if Wright was to be moved.
I did some peeking at their organization and, figuring that the Mets could wrangle away one top player/prospect and two ‘futures’ for Wright, here’s an example how they could match up:

Boston Red Sox:
          RF Cody Ross, C Blake Swihart, LHP Henry Owens
Los Angeles Angels:
          CF Peter Bourjos, 3B Kaleb Cowart, OF Randal Grichuk

Arizona Diamondbacks:
          OF Geraldo Parra, RHP Trevor Bauer, OF Alfredo Marte
Kansas City Royals
          OF Wil Myers, RHP Jake Odorizzi, C Mike Kvasnicka
Texas Rangers
          3B Mike Ott, RF Joey Butler, C Brett Nicholas 

http://ballparkdigest.com/201211015783/minor-league-baseball/news/ryan-sanders-close-to-buying-b-mets-moving-team-to-ottawa  is reporting that ‘The Ottawa Citizen’ newspaper is reporting that that a company headed by Nolan Ryan, Ryan-Sanders Baseball, is negotiating to buy the Binghamton Mets and move the team to Ottawa, Canada. The link on the BPD site to the Ottawa Citizen has been removed.

I went to the newspaper and the wording was different than what BPD and some blogs are reporting. They said:

Nolan Ryan’s company, Ryan-Sanders Entertainment, which already owns minor league franchises at both the Double-A and Triple-A levels, is believed to be negotiating through Beacon Sports Capital Partners to own a minority share in the Eastern League (Double-A) franchise poised to set up shop in Ottawa in 2014.

Look folks, I’ve been on both sides of these ‘rumor’ type of stories. In fact, I got my ass reamed after reporting the wrong three names for the Sandy Alderson troika-VP system that was coming in.
The information here may all be true and the sale may go through, but, there also is a good chance that it is a slow time of the year and some reporter is trying to spin this a little different than it stands right now.
Let’s say I call you up and ask you if you would sell your truck to me and you say no. Then, six months later, I ask you if you have changed your mind and would you now consider selling me your truck and you say hell no.
A reporter or blogger might turn this into a headline like “negotiations continue on the sale of your truck”, when there never was a negotiation in the first place. All you ever did was pick up the phone and listen to me expressing my desire to own your truck.
This Ottawa-based company has desired to own the Binghamton Mets for over two years, but that doesn’t mean that the current owners are going to sell it.
Wait reports like these out. Some turn out to be true but most go away as soon as some real Mets news starts to develop. 

Players opting for free agency:

          1B Adam LaRoche – Washington - $10mil – no buyout

          P Sean Burnett – Washington - $3.5mil – no buyout

                   (2012: 1-2, 2.38, 1.23, 56.2-IP, 57-K, 12-BB)

Players Signed:

          OF Henry Alvarado – St. Louis – 16-yr. old DR prospect - $150K

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