Regardless of the Mets' motivations, giving Wright a big, long-term contract really might not be a great baseball move anyway.

Terry Collins has a low tolerance for injuries, making him baseball's version of Tom Coughlin.

huh? When have the Giants or Coughlin played games in the media with injured players or tried to rush them back from injury?

giving Wright a big, long-term contract really might not be a great baseball move anyway.

What do you think Wright's market value is? GMs do enough wacky wacky stuff that I would never claim to know what the highest bidder would be willing to pay, but it should be clear that Wright's value has taken a major hit in recent years. And that would be factored into Wright's new contract with the team.

Wright is a mystery to me, but I HATE the loss of Reyes, and I'd want the Mets to try and keep Wright if it's at all reasonable. The Mets should be able to hang onto guys that are in their late 20s and already dominate the team record books.

At various times in his career with the Giants, Coughlin has talked about injuries as being as much a "mental thing" as anything else. I know he made remarks about it two years ago and when he first became the Giants' head coach about eight or nine years back. When the Giants have been hit with waves of injuries, Coughlin has sometimes expressed his frustration, talking about needing to "correct" the problem.

I don't know that he has ever tried to rush players back from injuries. But he has expressed his impatience with injuries at times.

The article appears designed to assign responsibility for how the Mets have handled player injuries. But it fails to account for two different front offices and two largely different on-field staffs. The only person in management who Megdal even mentions by name is Terry Collins, about whom Megdal writes, "Manager Terry Collins has reiterated that he hopes and expects Wright to play against the Phillies on Friday."

Follow that link and I'm not certain how Megdal came to use the word "expects." Here's what Collins said in the Daily News article: "I’m not a doctor, and I don’t mean to step on their toes . . . but when they give us a final diagnosis of the whole thing, my gut is you’ll see him (play) Friday."

Everything else in Megdal's piece simply refers to "the Mets" or "they." Should we assume the Wilpons and Katz are handling injury evaluations? If yes, why aren't they named? If not, then who? When the Mets briefly revoked Howard's credentials, he wrote that he "certainly will not shy away from the topics that I believe need to be addressed." I'm not seeing that in action here.

pwnt

Jose Reyes' traveling name is Tego Calderon and the winner for the "it defeats the purpose of an alias" award goes to Hanley Ramirez who uses the alias Eminem.

#5. Is there anything wrong with that? A coach or manager needs to determine who is hurt and who is actually injured.

I see "my gut says" and "expects" as reasonably close in meaning. Both imply that it's his opinion and that it's likely.

PF, you're definitely right about wanting to see him stay emotionally. And the casual fan likely feels that way far more strongly than the more analytical fan. Wright leaving will be taken as a huge sign that the Wilpons are still running things on a shoestring and that there is no foreseeable hope for the team. Without reading TFA, it sure looks to me like Megdal is underestimating the power of that motivation to the owners (although obviously at the end of the day, if they feel like they simply cannot afford to re-sign him, they won't.)

As for how much $, it's tough for me to say, because I haven't been following the market all that closely but I know there have been some big deals recently. I see Brandon Phillips got $72.5M/6 yr. That'd be fine, but don't you figure David Wright (especially considering the flip side of what I described in the first paragraph -- Wright has power in a negotiation with the Mets that he wouldn't elsewhere...) gets a lot more than Brandon Phillips? Maybe not, I dunno. Naturally, David's season this year will make a huge difference.

It's almost silly to talk about now. In terms of contract comps, he could be anywhere from Beltre's $100 million to a show-me $10 million single year, depending on this year's results.

Instead, they issued a public statement that made it clear any absence by Wright is Wright’s decision alone. He can, in their words, “return to baseball activity as tolerated.”

Manager Terry Collins has reiterated that he hopes and expects Wright to play against the Phillies on Friday.

The more things change...

They're calling it cramps ... surgery on Thursday.
- Jerry Manuel