Paul Articulates – Thou shall not covet!

The easiest thing to do as the free agent signing period comes upon us is to wish for last year’s best players to join our team for next year.  How many times on the social media feeds have you seen people calling for the Mets’ front office to acquire Judge, Turner, Kershaw, Rizzo, and others?  All those players did have great seasons, but those seasons are in the past.  The front office is trying to build for the future.  Some players that have great seasons are young enough and talented enough to have more great seasons in the future; they are worth looking at.   

Others that just had a career season now have a price tag that matches their peak, but would not likely deliver at that level again; they are worth avoiding.  The acquisition of accomplished superstars should only be undertaken when there is a very specific need for their particular talent at their natural position.  

This is why the 10th commandment of baseball fandom states, “Thou shalt not covet thy competitors’ star player”.  Let’s look at some examples of star acquisitions that went well and those that went poorly so you can understand why this commandment exists:

1. Bobby Bonilla – Bobby was signed in 1991 for what was then a team sports record $29M 5-year contract.  Bonilla saw his numbers immediately decline in 1992 when he slashed .294/.348/.432 with 19 home runs and 70 RBI. Compared to the .302/.391/.492 with 18 home runs and 100 RBI he had the year prior with Pittsburgh, it was a huge disappointment.  You know the rest of the story.
2. Luis Castillo – He was good for Minnesota, but remarkably inconsistent for the Mets.  And then he dropped that ball against the Yankees……oh, it hurts just to think about it.  ‘Nuff said.
3. Jason Bay – Bay put up some really impressive numbers in his 4-1/2 years in Pittsburgh, then was traded to Boston where during the 2009 season he hit 36 homers in a stadium whose left field wall was almost 100 feet closer to the plate than at Shea.  The Mets gave him $66M for four years and he turned in a .234/.318/.369 batting line and only 26 home runs. 
4. George Foster – a prolific home run hitter for the Cincinnati Reds, the Mets waited until he was 33 years old to acquire him and pay him for the home runs he used to hit.  During his five seasons with the Mets, Foster batted .252/.307/.422 with 99 home runs.
5. Jed Lowrie got $20M to tour the Mets’ medical facilities for a few years.  Oh, and I think he pinch hit in a couple games as well.

OK, all acquisitions of other teams’ stars weren’t that bad.  There were some that have worked out very well for the Mets.

1. Max Scherzer signed for a lot of money last year, but he made the 2022 team and especially their pitching staff much better.  There is a mental toughness about Scherzer that the analytics can’t measure – he passed that on to others in the dugout.  
2. We have to honor one of the historically great Mets - Mike Piazza.  Piazza was such an impactful player that his acquisition propelled the Mets to the 2000 World Series.  He is now in the Hall Of Fame wearing a Mets cap.  
3. Yoenis Cespedes won’t be in the HOF, but his acquisition in mid-2015 was a season changing event that also propelled the Mets into the World Series in 2015.  It just didn’t last as long as the Piazza success story.
4. Carlos Beltran was signed away from the Astros and put up fantastic numbers for the Mets.  If it wasn’t for a single number – strike three in the 2006 NLCS – Beltran would be one of the more revered players to wear the Blue and Orange.

So with all this history – some good, more bad, what have we learned?  Hopefully the front office has studied Mets history well enough to understand the emotional toll on this team when things go bad.  Spending a lot of money on the right player that completes the build-out of a championship contender is a good thing.  Spending a lot of money to bring yesterday’s hero into a town that only counts what you did for us today is a dangerous proposition.  Be very wary, mister Eppler.  In particular, I would advise that we avoid signing the following types of players:

• Players that are at the tail end of their youthful athletic prime.  This happens at around age 32-34 for most players, sometimes earlier for guys that make their mark with quickness or speed, sometimes a little later for pitchers that have refined the art.
• Players that will not be playing their natural position if acquired.  There have been several failed experiments recently with teams acquiring star shortstops when they already have one, then moving one of the two to second or third base.
• Players that have a long injury history.   Just because they happened to stay on the field for most of last year does not mean that they are now durable.  It is more likely that last year was a fluke.

You may think that my list is too obvious.  What possible value does that bring?  Well just listen to the media pundits and the loud opinions on social media clamoring for Steve Cohen to back up the Brinks truck for free agents like Aaron Judge, Trea Turner, Justin Verlander, or the second comings of Justin Turner or Noah Syndergaard.  

The free agent signing season is upon us, starting tomorrow November 11th.  I am hopeful that our team will be wise with their spending and give us a team full of competitive but compatible players.  We don’t need the biggest pieces, just the ones who fit.  Game on!