Well, it looks like Michael Salfino, a
writer for the Wall Street Journal and Yahoo! Sports, has back pedaled a little
on his reports that the Mets are broke.
He has now printed that what he said was “hearsay” which is a
nice way of saying that the WSJ told him to distance himself from this or risk
ever writing again for them.
This doesn’t mean his source was wrong. It just means you
better have it right and be ready for the heat that follows.
Regulars here remember when I reported that the Mets would
have a three-VP system under Sandy Alderson. My
source was someone that had a relative that worked for the New York Mets and it
was 100% solid, but I screwed it up when I printed one of the names wrong (I
don't remember now, but I think I said it would be Alderson, DePo and Chip Hale, instead of JP). Anyway, the beat reporters
ignored what I wrote, but the bloggers jumped on me right away, questioning
both what I had said and whether or not I had the contacts to get this kind of
information. My source immediately pointed out to me that I had it wrong and I
erased the post; however, it cost me dearly in the community as to whether or
not I knew what I was talking about.
Look, I think Salfino is correct. My ‘sources’ have been
telling me for six months that the banks have cut off any additional lending to
the organization.
If you own a business that takes in less than you have coming
in, you must go to your kitty. In the case of the Mets, the cupboard is bare.
You next try to borrow more against your assets and that seems like impossibility
right now. Lastly, you dip into your own bank accounts.
Fred Wilpon’s mindset has
never been to sell this team under any condition and it will take the
Commissioner of Baseball to step in and force any sale.
I will tell you one thing…
this story does one thing. There goes any agents that are still out
there trying to sell the Mets to any of their clients.
o
The players were ranked based on
their 2012 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on
this site some time ago. To keep things manageable and avoid skewing the
numbers, players were only considered if they amassed 350 plate appearances
over the course of the year. The replacement level was also adjusted to account
for players eligible at multiple positions. The valuations are built for $260
budgets and traditional 5×5 roto fantasy leagues.
Buster Posey was ranked 1st with an ‘SSS’ value of 23. Josh Thole came in last, at 26th with an
‘SSS’ value of -16. (Jarrod Saltalamacchia was
12th with an ‘SSS’ value of 1).
It’s hard to find anything good to say about Thole right now. He’s taken
an awful lot of shit from both the writers and the fans and I hope he gets
another year to prove his worth, but making a change here seems like the best
thing to do.
-
It absolutely sickens me to see that BA has released its top 10 Chicago White Sox prospects and OF Courtney Hawkins is already listed at number one. He
was available to the Mets in the first round and actually was picked by Chicago
as the the next pick after SS Gavin Cecchini.
Her’s an organization begging for outfielders and what does DePo do? He adds
another shortstop. Nothing against Cecchini here… I’m just ranted over the
needs of the team. Hawkins is rocketing up the minor league levels and his ETA
is now 2014. Amazing.
- Cot has made their adjustments
involving the Jason Bay payout. They how list
Bay’s 2012 payout at $18,125, and show only a $3,000 figure for 2013. This
lowers the overall ‘existing’ 2013 payroll at $74,175. The Mets can lower this
by an additional $21mil if they trade RA Dickey and
David Wright for minimal wage players. Al I’m
saying here is… one of Fred Wilpon’s plans has
to be to save this team would be to trade both Wright and Dickey for 4-6
prospects, operate this team in 2013 well below the $100mil figure as reported,
and basically start over with a team of young, talented kids.
Let’s say Dickey to Boston for LHSP Andrew Young and
OF Jackie Bradley
Then Wright to Toronto for C Travis d’Arnaud,
3B Brett Lawrie, and OF Anthony
Gose.
How would 2014 look then?
I asked Eno Sarris:
Eno Sarris - @enosarris - I'd use $74m as current 2013 outlay for Mets.
That assumes releasing Torres, Acosta & Pelfrey. To find that number, I used cot's current
outlay http://bit.ly/nk6MGt and added in
@Matt_Swa projected arb numbers http://bit.ly/T0dk52 . So that's $56.05 in current Mets contracts,
plus $11m in arb raises, plus $400K times remaining roster spots. Mets have
$56m in contracts w/out bay, $8.5m arb (no Torres, Pelfrey, Acosta), 16x$400k =
6.4. $71m without Bay.
So, you take off the $20mil for Wright and Dickey, and it’s $51m
Fangraphs had a fascinating story about the 10
top part time players in baseball. Guess who was number 1?
1. Carlos Gomez:
452 PA, 98 GS / 137 GP, 3.5 WAR
It took six seasons and three organizations, but Gomez finally
turned in an above-average season at the plate. He still proved to be fairly
allergic to taking a walk, and he swung at more pitches than ever, but when he
did make contact, the ball went further, as his HR/FB of 14.3% was a
career-best. Much of his improvement can be traced to his performance against
right-handed pitching. In 163 PA against righties in 2011, Gomez posted a
paltry .254 wOBA. In ’12, that bumped up to a career-best .329 in 288 PA. He
also had a career year on the bases, placing fifth in the National League with
37 steals and eighth in the NL with a 6.3 Bsr. Combine all of that with his
trademark good defense, and you have a very useful player.
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