Having Pedro on board helped the Mets outbid the Astros for Beltran by one whole year and over a dozen cool millions (US currency). And it totally scared the Yankees from going after Beltran.

And let's not deny the legitimacy that Pedro brought to the Mets. Shea hasn't seen a stronger legitimator since Joe Namath brought his swagger to Flushing

Didn't the yankees have an internal meeting where Steinbrenner (pere) asked those present who they'd rather have, Johnson or Beltran and the consensus was Johnson? I thought that was the yankees' calculation there. Money enough for one but not both. I don't think anyone scared them off. Did they?

No doubt that the Red Sox made the right move, but I think the Mets can be forgiven (a little) for taking a chance on a legitimate superstar with some injury questions. The one thing that I remember being said at the time was that the Red Sox knew that Pedro had something like a 90% labrum tear and was certain to miss time soon. So if that was true, and the Mets ignored it, they were pretty foolish. Then again, the Red Sox were apparently willing to go to 3/39 for Pedro, which would have been a pretty awful contract as well.

Except it wasn't his throwing shoulder that caused most of his absences, it was his legs.

i thought he missed almost all of 2007 because of the shoulder?

Then again, the Red Sox were apparently willing to go to 3/39 for Pedro, which would have been a pretty awful contract as well.

it wouldnt have been that bad if they repeated in 05 and it resulted in never having Wells on the team.

The Red Sox also spent money on Clement that offseason who didn't exactly stay healthy or pitch that well either for them.

Pedro can't be blamed for the 2007 collapse as he was very good during that 17 game stretch where the Mets went 5-12. He does deserve more than his fair of blame for the 2008 season as he was pretty awful.

It's going to be interesting to see where Pedro lands and how he pitchs next season because he certainly could rebound but it's a tough thing to gamble on.

Pedro can't be blamed for the 2007 collapse as he was very good during that 17 game stretch where the Mets went 5-12. He does deserve more than his fair of blame for the 2008 season as he was pretty awful.

well you don't have to blame him, but in a season when you miss the playoffs by 1 game you really miss the 25 or so lost starts that he couldnt pitch.

well you don't have to blame him, but in a season when you miss the playoffs by 1 game you really miss the 25 or so lost starts that he couldnt pitch.

Oh, I agree about that (although how much help could he have been considering how he pitched in 2008) but when I said collapse, I meant the last 17 games, where Pedro made three starts. He pitched well for the Mets during that stretch.

The chances that Pedro's contract would be a disaster were exponentially higher than those that Clement's would be. The Red Sox understood this all along, I think, which is not the same thing as saying it's 'guaranteed' to turn out that way.

Pedro's deal with the Mets was dumb on day one unless you consider it part of a cable deal---if that is really the case, then you have to do a lot more calculating to figure out if it was a realistic gamble or not.

The Mets didn't miss anything because of Pedro specifically, but because of Omar's and the Wilpons' willingness to sign not just one older player who was an injury risk, but a ridiculously high number of them. If you're going to sign a player who might well get hurt, at least sign a great one. Pedro is certainly that.

The chances that Pedro's contract would be a disaster were exponentially higher than those that Clement's would be.

Then again, the chances that Pedro's contract would pay off hugely were also exponentially higher. Those two things kinda balanced each other out.

The Sox ended up paying $26 M for 256 IP of 90 ERA+. The Mets paid $52 M for 487 IP of 107 ERA+. Even in hindsight I'm not sure the Mets came out worse -- nobody got what they paid for but the Mets paid twice as much money and got at least twice as much performance. (To be fair, maybe this is what you meant about "no guarantee it turns out that way.")

At the time, Clement was entering his age 30 season with a career 97 ERA+. He was coming off 3 very good seasons with the Cubs (about 600 IP and an ERA+ of 112) and had been durable to that point (6 straight seasons of 170+ IP). I expected him to be one of the better pitcher signings of that rather strange offseason (that was also the offseason of Wright, Pavano, Lowe, Milton and I think a few others). If I had just said Lowe instead of Clement, I would have aced that offseason. :-)

Pedro was only 3 years older, had a career 168 ERA+. He was coming off 600 innings of mostly godlike performance. There were warning signs in 2004 (a huge jump in his HR rate, "only" a 125 ERA+) but he was still K'ing more than 9 per 9, giving up less than a hit an inning and had thrown 217 IP and just one season in the last 11 under 190 IP. Exploding HR rate or not, rumors about injury or not, there was simply no comparing him and Clement.

To say signing Pedro was dumb from day one is ... not smart? The only debate anybody was having was over whether you give him the 4th year. The $13 M annual salary was relative chump change for a pitcher of his quality -- the owners were loving that market "correction."

The only debate anybody was having was over whether you give him the 4th year.

It was one of those "the Red Sox must know Pedro's health is much worse than is publicly known" situations, supported by random Gammons rumors. On SoSH, the debate was over whether the Red Sox not matching the contract was because of off-field stuff, which was supported by the Boston Globe.

Look, the Red Sox may have had medical records showing Pedro to have been an awful risk. Pedro might have been a huge douche, and not worth bringing back at any cost. But based on what was known at the time, without insider info, it was a fine signing. It's not like the Mets signed Mike Hampton to a 4 year $52M deal.

Pedro for 4 years and $52 million might not seem like a bad idea on the surface, until you realize that the money Pedro got could have instead been used for 5 years of Carl Pavano or 6 years of Matt Clement. Both 5 and 6 > 4.

That's not really true about the discussion on SoSH though obviously you may well have missed parts of the discussions there about Pedro as they were quite voluminous. In fact, the discussion there on the whole was to a good degree about stats (in paritcular, that there was already a noticeable and steady decline in his stats) and health for the great majority of the debate (and essentially all of the analysis). The facts about his health were also pretty clear in a sense---he had significant shoulder damage, potentially both labrum and rotator cuff damage. How bad they were wasn't clear, and it's unclear if the Sox knew anything different than what was publically reported, but what WAS publically reported was more than enough to add a significant 'health discount' to the already-evident statistical questions facing Pedro after 2004, and this was widely stated there and elsewhere (and proven correct, ultimately, as well).

The combination of these realities---the statistical and the health, plus the clearly declining stuff--is no doubt why the rest of baseball wouldn't even go three years on Pedro at the time. Hey, I absolutely loved Pedro in his prime and still rooted for him as a Met...but the facts were what they were at the time, too. Pretending they weren't there, weren't being talked about actively here and on SoSH, and weren't reflected in teh lack of interest in the market in Pedro is just totally revisionist. All of this suggested at the time, and obviously now looking back, that the Mets offer was a terrible one (at least if we put aside the cable contract aspect). All the stuff being said now about the risks was said on SoSH at the time, and the fact is many people just didn't want to hear it about Pedro.

I also believe it is just inaccurate to say that the Sox not matching the contract was strongly reported by the Globe to be because of off-field stuff. Feel free to post the quotes you think suggest that, but I think you're confusing what some of his biggest fans assumed with what was really going on there. Derek Lowe, on the other hand, and Orlando Cabrera were (it seems to me) pretty regularly reported to have been let go because off-field considerations, so perhaps you're confusing your recollections amongst the group instead.

Frankly, what there was on SoSH outside of the performance/injury stuff was a lot of discussion of whether the Sox 'disrespected' Pedro by not offering him enough...funny in retrospect, obviously.

To say signing Pedro was dumb from day one is ... not smart? The only debate anybody was having was over whether you give him the 4th year. The $13 M annual salary was relative chump change for a pitcher of his quality -- the owners were loving that market "correction."

That's really not what the only debate was at the time, I don't believe.

First, you can't have the discussion without considering health. Giving $52 mil to a pitcher who was declining in stuff and results AND who had significant shoulder problems is a big part of the problem. All pitchers can break down, but all pitchers are not equally likely to break down.

Second, really, saying "someone else crapped out as well" is a very weak argument; does that make the Pedro signig great becasue he wasn't as useless as Carl Pavano? I think that's an unrealistic standard and a faulty analytical approach. Clement being signed made sense to me at the time, but it obviously didn't work. That's a separate issue from Pedro's contract, seems to me, and though it may be relevant to "how well did Henry and company assess the pitching market" I don't think it really is to Pedro's contract with the Mets specifically.

We don't really have to guess at what info was out there in the market on these things, either...if it was anything close to a good decision prospectively, why wasn't anyone else in MLB willing to even offer what the Sox were, much less what the Mets did? I think you're underestimating how good the market was at assessing this one. And thus, overestimating by a good bit the quality of the Mets thinking.

I'm shocked...SHOCKED...that Bob Klapisch(!!!) would write an article critical of the Mets.

Go figure...

And let's not deny the legitimacy that Pedro brought to the Mets. Shea hasn't seen a stronger legitimator since Joe Namath brought his swagger to Flushing.

I'm not sure what the precise definition of a "legitimator" is, but I'm thinking that Dwight Gooden in those mid 80s years had to qualify as one.