Jaerocks the house: “It’s a movement to transform and change the heart of the dark part of New York City”
Wright will end this year as the Mets’ career leader in hits, runs, runs batted in, walks, doubles, total bases and sacrifice flies, and with about 40 wins above replacement. That’s basically what Derek Jeter did through the same age, and the only players who did meaningfully better in New York in their 20s aren’t just Hall of Famers, but icons: Mantle, Mathewson, Ott, Gehrig, Seaver, Ruth, Snider and DiMaggio. And for all that, if Wednesday is Wright’s last game as a Met, it probably will be for the best.
This isn’t because of anything Wright has done or left undone—there’s nothing bad to say about him—or even because of the Mets’ finances, which, bad as they are, still will allow them to pay Wright as much as or more than any other team. Rather it’s because of the radical changes in baseball over the past few years, which somewhat perversely give the Mets every incentive to move Wright while they can.
...All of this is cold, but so is baseball: Mathewson, Ruth and Seaver all moved on from New York, and sooner or later, so will Wright. If the Mets trade him now, it won’t undo any of what he’s already done, which is enough to establish him as the sort of player who ought to have a statue made of him when he finally ends his career, and it certainly won’t harm him a bit. The man turns 30 in December, and unless he turns out to be a Jeter-like freak, he probably has only two or three years of real stardom left in him.
It might be nice to see him spend them in a place where fans turn up to the ballgames, and cheer when they do.
Repoz
Posted: October 01, 2012 at 05:31 AM |
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1. Walt Davis Posted: October 01, 2012 at 06:14 AM (#4249693)I was curious. He mentions two or three. The first is that everybody good is locked up already. This is linked to what might be considered the second change, all the TV money around to spend now. I get confused there because having lots of money to spend and nothing to spend it on would seem to be a reason for the Mets to keep Wright.
His remaining season is the 5th WC spot which he surmises greatly increases the value of a win for the top teams -- i.e. they need to win it outright now. He points to the Dodgers taking on $100 M of wasted contracts just to land Gonzalez. Maybe but again the Mets _should_ be one of those teams although it's reasonable to think they won't get there soon enough to take advantage of Wright's remaining prime.
But he also surmises that Wright's FA price will be about twice what he makes now -- i.e. $32 M. Yikes a momma!
By his logic, who would give him that? It would have to be a team that's confident they're very close to the best in their division:
Angels for 3B/1B/DH
Rangers for 1B/DH (Young coming off the books soon)
Phils for 3B but the Mets would never trade him to the Phils
Braves as Chipper replacement? Same argument
Nats for 1B? Same argument
Yanks as part of a 3B/1B/DH mix?
Dodgers if they really think they're there ... but they have zero room under the luxury tax and Hanley can't really stay at SS can he?
In theory, the Red Sox make sense and have money to spend but are they really close enough to clinching that division to sink $30 M into Wright? The Cubs of course have tons of money but are ages away from competing.
In fact, if this season is teaching us anything, it's that nobody is particularly close to having a stranglehold on their division. Of course maybe that expands the market for Wright, driving up his price.
I guess the case for trading David is that Murphy can move to 3rd and be decent offensively (and take Murphy away from 2nd). Then the team needs OF, 2nd and catcher. Good luck.
They have the money, he's the franchise icon, and nobody is giving you 3 or 4 good prospects for a rent-a-player anymore.
He loses it once they exercise.
The White Sox have tougher decisions on the Peavy and Youkilis options.
Who needs a 3B, wants to take on big salary and has lots of talent to offer? Certainly has less appeal as a DH or 1B at that age. Boston's trading for Gonzales, signing him to big money and then unloading him to Dodgers where he is having a weak season is a cautionary tale.
He has a 143 OPS+, 137 wRC+, which is right in line with his great seasons.
Plus, both BRef and UZR love his D this year.
Wilpon has some Rogaine left over from the Madoff days.
This is what I was going to say.
Also this:
and his K rate, elevvated after his beaning a few years ago has fallen back to his pre-beaning norms
I think Justin Upton?
That's what I thought earlier in the season, but who knows anymore. K rate:
Shea Wright (pre-2009): 16.4%
Strikeout prone Wright (2009-2011): 22.9%
2012: 17.0%
but,
First half: 13.2%
Second half: 21.5%
I haven't watched much Mets baseball in the second half so I don't know what if anything has changed, but it is worrying. Again.
What's the one dimension?
Power? Batting eye? High average? He is one of the best at all 3. He also won a gold glove.
Turns out Votto's one dimension is 'baseball'. He can only play baseball extremely well. Try to get him to bake you a cake and you'll find out he is just one-dimensional.
It takes eternity for a bunch of monkeys at keyboards to type out the complete works of Shakespeare, but they can crank out Wall Street Journal articles on a daily basis apparently.
Basically, he looks like the bad Wright of 09-11. Still the best player on the team, but ... I have no confidence predicting what type of numbers he'll put up in the next few years.
So he swings a foot over every single slider away?
Power? Batting eye? High average? He is one of the best at all 3. He also won a gold glove.
Turns out Votto's one dimension is 'baseball'. He can only play baseball extremely well. Try to get him to bake you a cake and you'll find out he is just one-dimensional.
It's because of the metric system.
You weren't kidding, +17 per 150 after being -10 or worse the last 3 years.
Anyway I agree with Snapper. He's the face of the Mets and it's not likely anyone is going to back up the truck in a trade. The Mets should get back to running payrolls int he $120-130 million range at some point in the next few years, so $18-20 million or whatever it'll take to sign him won't be debilitating.
Well it's not like he's Jay Payton all of a sudden, but he has ABs where he looks lost or you just don't understand what he's up to. That wasn't happening in the first half of the season.
Also, his fielding has indeed been very good. He's got the range that he had in his GG years and is making less nervous throwing errors than ever before.
Good line, I'm stealing it :)
Isn't Kevin Youklis a baldy 3B?
Can't see D'backs taking on such a big salary. No real financial advantage to that trade as both players are going to want big money to sign a new contract with the team that trades for them. Neither franchise has much money sitting around.
Because in any given month there are more articles stating that the Mets should trade Wright than I can recall ever having seen about any other Mets player in their entire career over the entire history of the franchise.
DB
But I agree with the consensus, the Mets can afford Wright; it would be a PR disaster to trade him for prospects; and Daniel Murphy is not anyone who should be determining the fate of your superstar, especially when he's more valuable at 2B anyway. Other than swapping Wright for Justin Upton or other "willing to be overwhelmed" scenarios, you keep him. It will, of course, be expensive; I don't think it will be $30M a year, though.
I wouldn't knock Marchman in general as a monkey, I think he's very good. (Although I do agree that Joey Votto isn't "one-dimensional", or if he is, it's the type of one-dimensional that is just fine in baseball. Then again, that is a scary contract.)
I knew at least a couple of Arizona baldies when I attended grad school at ASU.
Power? Batting eye? High average? He is one of the best at all 3. He also won a gold glove.
And he can play a better SS than Jeter! :-)
I was surprised to discover that he's also 41 for 61 in steals although he comes out at -9 career on overall baserunning.
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