Tom Brennan - IS IT TIME TO STOP DOING LONG TERM PLAYER DEALS?

We all get old.  Players get old quicker.

What a wild, wild win in Philly last night.

As soon as Hoskins hit his homer in the 9th, I shut the game off...only to find out it wasn’t a homer after all.

Seventeen sorely needed hits...with the big free agents Lindor and McCann somehow, however, combining for just one of those hits in 10 ABs. So, on to my article:

I recently did an article comparing Francisco Lindor, the man just extended for 10 years through the year 2032, and who through Mets' game number 21 was, on May 1, hitting an increasingly concerning .182 with just one home run (MAY DAY! MAY DAY!) to one Zoilo Versalles.  

Zoilo was a fine star in the mid-1960s who garnered an AL MVP at 25, something no Mets offensive player has ever done, and then precipitously declined in subsequent seasons.

No long, multi-year contracts back then - apparently, Versalles made all of $42,000 that year. Imagine that.

Virtually no downside financial risk back then.  

There sure is nowadays, though.

When Mack chided me a bit the other day about comparing Lindor to a totally obscure 1960s MVP like Zoilo (one more MVP than Lindor, by the way), I thought of another former Clevelander, Carlos Baerga, who had terrific stats (as did Lindor) in his early to mid 20s, and then quickly slid into mediocrity for the rest of his career - including a so-so .267/.302/.373 slash line as a Met at ages 27-29.

So, let’s look at the wisdom of ultra-long contracts and age related hitter decline, by considering some specific examples.

The Mets Friday night were playing the Phillies, for whom Andrew McCutcheon was hitting .169.  

He had won an MVP, and was 3rd and 5th in MVP voting in two other years.  All three of those years were in his mid 20's.  

Thereafter, he has largely been a somewhat above average player, at best.   No All Star games, no All Star teams, since he last excelled in 2015 at age 28. Terrible in 2021 so far.

Considering those 3 examples, I'm sure there are quite a few other examples of similar performance, so one has to wonder: short of a Mike Trout type, why extend any hitter (like James McCann) to a contract spanning several years?  

More likely than not, it seems, you may find yourself to be very disappointed.

And why not...here are some other examples of underperformers to chew on.

Think David Wright extension...Yoenis Cespedes extension.  Hugely costly, with little to show for it.  Jason Bay, anyone?

Elsewhere, Ken Griffey Jr. was an absolute beast through age 30. 

But over the next 10 years, he hit only 210 of his 630 career home runs.  Past performance did not provide a reasonable projection of future superstar performance, not at all.

Albert Pujols hit like Lou Gehrig through age 30. Well over .300 with enormous power and RBI production every single year for 10 years.

Thereafter, he still had some very productive years, but his roughly .330 average of his first 10 seasons turned into about a .260 or lower average for the next 10+ seasons.  Big drop in average, power, and RBIs.  That huge Pujols extension was not terrible, but it was expensive, production-wise.

Troy Tulowitzki?  Boy was he great through age 26. Why not give him a 10 year extension? He was still very good the next 4 years - except for one little thing - he averaged just 100 games a year.  His last 2 years - age 31 and 32 - he was in steep decline.  Age 33?  He was out of baseball.

And the poster boy of the horrors of a long term contract...Chris Davis of the Orioles. Davis hit 47 homers - and fanned over 200 times - in 2015. Ignoring the strikeout warning sign, they extended him for 7 years, $161 million. At the same moment, they tied a millstone around the neck of their franchise.

Davis did hit 38 homers in 2016, but his average slipped towards .200. In 2017-2020, years 2 thru 5 out of 7, he hit about .180, and was essentially an enormous liability. He has not played this year and I find it hard to imagine he ever will again, but he is owed northward of $40 million for 2021-22.

Meanwhile, the Orioles signed Matt Harvey this year. How much? One year, $1 million. He is a useful 3-1 for them so far.

Thinking about it all, I would make a strong suggestion: 

No more extensions for offensive Mets players - trade them before they decline.  Do like the Tampa Rays.  

That means Alonso...Smith...Conforto...McNeil...Nimmo.

Why?  It's a young man's game.  Age 28 an up gets awfully dicey for a lot of players.

Maybe a 2 or 3 year extension. If they don’t bite, it’s time to take flight.

IN OTHER WORDS...TRADE BEFORE FADE.

BECAUSE FADING IS PART OF BASEBALL.

JAY BRUCE JUST FOUND THAT OUT.

OTHERS GOING FORWARD WILL, TOO.

Jay hit .223 as a Met in 2018 at the age of 31. Traded, he hit .216 at age 32. In 2020 and 2021, at ages 33 and (just turning) 34, Jay hit just .162 in 141 at bats. Which Mets player reminds me most of Jay, you might ask, who was quite a hitter in his 20s?  Michael Conforto. Let the Extender Beware.

At “just turning 34”, by the way, the age at which Jay Bruce was hanging the spikes up, Lindor will have 4 full seasons left.

Jose Reyes, who could easily be comped against Lindor, won the batting title at age 28. The Mets chose not to extend him. He was decent but not as good over the next 4 seasons, then mediocre the next 2, then at age 35, he hit .189 in 251 plate appearances.  He...just...lost...it.

At the same age, Lindor will still have 3 more seasons.

Guys keep popping into my head. Just one more here, promise.

Former Met and Card, Vince Coleman, in his first 4 years, ages 23-26, remarkably stole over 400 bases. Skipping ahead, at ages 29-33, he stole less, was still effective, but averaged just 90 games, so he was far from the Coleman of his first 4 seasons in that regard.

At ages 34-35, he deteriorated and had just 14 hits in 98 at bats, and was done. 

At the same age as Coleman’s retirement age, Lindor will have 3 full, expensive years left.

I’ll stop there. You get the picture.   Thoughts? 

My brother Steve was asked. He reminded me of Eric Campbell and Danny Muno, and of this team’s long history of developing few in-house offensive forces, and said KEEP SPENDING, GET SOME WRONG, GET SOME RIGHT. so, there you go...the flip side.