Jason Bay and the New York Mets today announced a negotiated early expiration of his contract. The agreement provides Bay his unconditional free agency while the Mets gain roster flexibility. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“Jason is a great teammate, hard worker, stand-up guy, and true gentleman,” said Mets Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wilpon. “Like Jason, we had planned for the kind of production here that he enjoyed in Boston and Pittsburgh, where he established himself as one of the game’s top players. We wish Jason and his family success and happiness in the future.”
“Jason has a tremendous work ethic. There was never any question about it,” said Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson. “Unfortunately, the results weren’t there and we are in a results-oriented business. We thank Jason for his efforts and wish him well.”
“I still feel I have plenty to give to this game and that I can play baseball at a high level. But after serious consideration, both sides agree that we would benefit from a fresh start,” said Bay. “I’m grateful we were able to reach an agreement to allow that to happen. I’m excited to keep playing and have no intention of just walking away. I enjoyed my time in New York. I have no regrets in signing with the Mets, other than that I wasn’t able to play to the level that the team, the fans and I all expected and that we weren’t able to win more games. I move on with nothing but an appreciation for the organization and its fans and best wishes to all my teammates there.”
Repoz
Posted: November 07, 2012 at 02:50 PM |
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1. There are no words... (Met Fan Charlie) Posted: November 07, 2012 at 03:03 PM (#4297062)So Bay will make more money next season because he sucked than he would have if he had excelled.
Cost himself a ton in the long run, sure, but not in 2013.....
Oh no, Bay picked up the tab for the lunch.
Bay's owed $16M for 2013 and a $3M buyout for 2014.
Right, so why the extra 2M?
That Jason Bay-Bobby Bonilla outfield will make the Mets a force to be reckoned with in 2030.
EDIT: Coke to Steve M.
They are presumably saving a little money with this agreement. It is likely that if they DFA him at some point in the future, no team will offer anything in trade for him and so he would get released with the Mets on the hook for the entire amount on the contract.
A roster spot is a useful thing.
It's also a terrible thing to waste. Surely they can find someone more useful/productive than the exoskeleton of Jason Bay.
Is ash a kind of food?
Most likely multiple debilitating injuries, including shoulder problems and two concussions.
Last year was .165/.237/.299.
So extremely cooked.
Hmmm... How cooked is he? (I've not paid much attention.) Would he be worth taking a flier on for the Red Sox? They do lack a LF, and if it's for 1 year/cheap $ why the heck not?
90 OPS+ over the last 3 years
47 last year
I think that's much more likely.
Bay won't ever be good again, but I wouldn't be completely shocked if he hit .260/.340/.425 somewhere. With decent fielding that ought to be worth something, right?
That would have been a 111 OPS+ in Citi last year which would certainly have value if paired with average fielding and baserunning. I have a hard time seeing Bay put up a 111 OPS+ unless it's in a small sample size or unless Citi was disproportionately sapping his bat, but I'd like to see it happen even if it's for another team. He seems like a good guy.
I agree. So why not DFA him in the tail end of the 2012 season? Maybe an NL playoff team wanted a DH-type capable of getting hot for a week at the right time.
Or why not just send him to the minors forever and ever, putting him on the Kei Igawa program? That will cost you about the same amount of money, but there's no chance another team picks him up and he bashes you over the head.
They can't do that to a player who has enough ML service time.
But he's not a decent fielder and he has a leg injury in his past.
They could (and presumably did) have trade talks with other teams - there was no need (and only downside) to DFA him to find out if some playoff team wanted him.
He tried hard, never embarrassed the franchise, and never badmouthed his teammates. Unfortunately, Major League Baseball is a meritocracy.
I need a new handle.
Didn't he become an American a while back?
It was a godawful contract the nanosecond it was signed, it just turned out to be much, much worse than we thought.
I'd like them to sign Upton, but I know it's not going to happen.
Dreifort.
Dreifort signed his big deal in 2001 ... a long time ago now. He gave the Dodgers 200 innings of 87 ERA+ over 5 years. The deal was 5/$57. That was real money in those days. To put it in perspective, McGwire was getting $11 M in 2001; Maddux and Sosa $12.5. It was a crazy time -- not just Dreifort but Hampton and Neagle were signed that offseason.
That deal was also terrible in that Dreifort had no record as a good starter. In the 3 years prior to the contract he was 33-34 in 550 innings with a 98 ERA+ ... perfectly cromulent but he was getting paid like a top starter. Bay at least had a track record of success. The Bay contract is closer to the Chan Ho Park contract -- overpriced but at least a track record of success. Even there, for all his faults, at least Bay had one decent season for the Mets (his first) and ended up with positive WAR.
The Bay contract was bad but have a bit of sympathy for the rest of the world -- it wasn't as bad as Soriano, Wells, Zito, Crawford or as out of the blue as Werth (which is looking truly awful -- 1.6 WAR to date, 5/$99 left on the contract). We're well past the point where 4/$66 can be shockingly bad. The equivalent to Dreifort these days would be somebody signing Edwin Jackson for 7/$150 or something.
I should add that the hip and shoulder problems were known to be a significant issue going forward at the time the Pirates traded him to Boston. That is, in large part, why the Pirates traded him rather than extending him in the first place.
Except that Edwin Jackson is a much better pitcher than Dreifort was.
We're usually not that picky are we?
If your father spent a weekend in Halifax as a kid I think you were eligible for The Greatest Canadian.
I think the word is 'crestfallen'. It seemed like such a typical, dumb Omar signing. A corner guy with declining numbers and an injury history. Too long, and too much money, and that's if everything went reasonably well. There was also a credible rumor the Red Sox were offering far less than the Mets eventually paid Bay, but the Mets were understood to be a lousy team to play for and had to shell out a premium. Remember when Bengie F. Molina declined to sign? Aargh.
With his concussion history, he can be the new Corey Koskie!
Feature, not bug.
#47, Everyone: The Bay signing was NOT seen as a massive overpay at the time. I aggregated some reactions the day after the signing:
Metsblog said, "…i like it… i don’t love it… i mean, i don’t think the Mets will regret signing him at any point during the next four years…"
Ed Ryan from Mets Fever says, “Nice job, Omar.”
According to John, from Metstradamus, “This is a good move. In a vacuum, it’s a great move.”
On the other hand, while Mets Grrl likes Bay, she explains why her reaction was just, ‘ehhh.’
Mike Silva of NY Baseball Digest explains, “When it’s all said and done, the Mets needed Bay.”
It was widely considered to be an overpay, but a necessary evil. A minor headache the Mets could deal with. Everyone was wrong.
Later in the thread I described the move as decent, for the price. It's also worth considering that I (and others) noted that Daniel Murphy led the Mets in HRs in 2009, with 12, so the addition of power was a bit of a necessity.
The bubble I was in at the time was death on longish deals for corner guys over thirty, and thought the failure to sign two starters was extreme dereliction of duty.
Okay, here's fangraphs WAR.
There seems to be a real discontinuity in Bay's performance that does not fit a clear trend.
A five year deal for a 31 year old who had one year of the previous three that exceeded the yearly value of the new deal (assuming something like 1 WAR = $5m)? I'd say he 'projects very poorly'.
I'm really not seeing this. Your example isn't about projection, it's about WAR relative to worth. Doesn't a projection have to do with production, not comparison to whatever the free-agent market might deem someone be paid that year?
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