The Mets Are Not Like a Box of Chocolates

Sandy Alderson joked Wednesday that he should have sent Jose Reyes a box of chocolates. Forrest Gump's mother compared life to a box of chocolates because you never knew what you were going to get. But with the Mets, we now know what we're going to get. And it's not good.

Earlier today, the David Wright trade speculation was interrupted by a rumor that the Mets were shopping Ike Davis. Are Met faces of the franchise turning into Spinal Tap drummers?

Now Jon Heyman is tweeting that Jon Niese is on the block. If Niese goes, he could set a record for shortest tenure as one of the players pictured at the start of SNY telecasts. (Then again, considering that Jason Bay has also joined the opening montage, maybe SNY should just open their Mets programming with pictures of Shake Shack.)

Last week, ESPN's Keith Law ranked the top 50 players age 25 or under. No Mets made the list. But one Met was mentioned among those who just missed being in the list - Niese.

Supposedly, the Mets are getting younger and building for the future with a focus on pitching. One would think that they would want to hold on to a well-regarded homegrown young lefthander who has already shown that he can pitch in New York.

This is not to say that Niese should be untouchable. But if it turns out that the Mets are trading him for even younger players just to avoid having to go to arbitration with him in a year means the Mets are turning into the Oakland A's, who are desperately trying to trade young pitchers like Gio Gonzalez because they can't afford to keep anybody. Not what we thought we were getting with Moneyball East.

Meanwhile, Matthew Cerrone talked to an agent who speculated that the Marlins would trade Reyes to the Yankees once Derek Jeter's contract is up. And the Post's Kevin Kernan speculated that David Wright could eventually replace Alex Rodriguez at third for the Yankees.

I remember when Met and Yankee fans debated over which team had the best left side of the infield. It would be intolerable to see both Reyes and Wright reunited in the Bronx.

Sure, it's a worst-case scenario, but who would have thought that Darryl and Doc would win more rings with the Yankees than with the Mets?

Despite it all, I'll continue to root for the Mets. But I'm beginning to wonder if that's because, to use another quote from Forrest Gump's mother, stupid is as stupid does.

Visit to Citi Field: Vision of a Dark Future

I nearly went to Thursday's game, but ended up at Wednesday's instead. Big mistake. Instead of seeing a spectacular comeback that will no doubt end up in the slim catalog of SNY Mets Classics, I got to see what a Met infield would look like without Jose Reyes or David Wright.

I did not find out until well after the fact that Terry Collins was even more annoyed than I was about the shoddy infield play that resulted in a steady stream of infield hits and helped the Pirates turn a 2-0 deficit into a 9-3 win. But what Collins really needed to be annoyed with was that Willie Harris is still on his roster and that Sandy Alderson has been no better so far at building a bench on the cheap than Omar Minaya was.

Things got a lot brighter Thursday when Reyes returned to the lineup and Harris returned to the bench. And then there was that comeback for the ages. So I deleted the gloom and doom post I started Wednesday night. After all, I did have a good time going to my first game of the year.

But ownership should know that even if fans can still have fun at the ballpark watching a lousy lineup playing a lousy game, my tickets in the fifth row of the promenade behind home plate were only $6.50 each, plus StubHub fees. And unless I missed it, they didn't bother to put the attendance on the scoreboard. It wasn't too long ago when the Mets would ask you to guess the attendance and put up four different figures, all much higher than whatever they are drawing now.

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If the Mets want to reduce the gloom and doom surround the club, how about putting an end to rumors that they might aim to keep Reyes, but then they would have to move Wright. What's next - Shake Shack will only have hamburgers or shakes, but not both? I actually read somewhere that this could be the best time to trade Wright, before his value goes down more. Yeah, when he's on the DL with a stress fracture in his back - that's the time to move him!

Wright, like Reyes, is a very good player who has done well in New York, unlike, say, Jason Bay. Nobody should be untouchable, but moves just to cut costs can help you end up with an infield like Wednesday night's - Daniel Murphy, Justin Turner, Ruben Tejada and Willie Harris.

Fred Wilpon: Steinbrenner Without the Success

I am not a fan of George Steinbrenner, but he did resurrect the Yankee brand and bring multiple titles to the Bronx. However, Fred Wilpon's Steinbrenner-type comments on several of his stars in the New Yorker betray a mindset that won't result in any titles and could further damage the Mets' image.

The most successful big-market teams use their payroll advantage to overpay some players. The Yankees, with their $200 million payroll, can land a CC Sabathia by giving him tens of millions of dollars more than any other team. A.J. Burnett got a contract that seemed crazy at the time and seems crazier now. But the signings of Sabathia and Burnett, along with Mark Teixeira (who appears to have gotten market value), produced a World Series title for the Yankees in their first season.

The Red Sox and the Phillies have had plenty of questionable signings- John Lackey and Raul Ibanez, just to name two recent ones. Cliff Lee is 32 with a five-year contract. What are the odds that he will be great all five years?

But the willingness of the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies to spend big on several players, knowing that not all of them will justify their investment, that most if not all will offer diminishing returns over the life of their long contracts, results in these teams being perennial contenders.

The Mets have shown all too often that simply spending lots of money is no guarantee of success. But they have also shown that overpaying for stars can quickly bring a team to the brink of the World Series.

The Mets won 71 games in 2004. Over the next two offseasons, they signed Pedro Martinez, Carlos Beltran and Billy Wagner and traded for Carlos Delgado. In 2006, the Mets won 97 games.

Beltran finished fourth in MVP voting that season and Delgado finished twelfth. Wagner was sixth in Cy Young voting. Pedro made the All-Star team in 2006 before he got hurt.

Combining these expensive pieces with another acquisition, Paul Lo Duca, and homegrown stars Wright and Reyes (who both were top 10 in MVP voting in 2006) got the Mets to Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS.

Many Met fans probably agree with Wilpon that the Beltran signing didn't pay off in the long run. As much as I like Pedro, his signing was not a success - he was only healthy for a year and a half out of four. Both Wagner and Delgado saw their Met tenures cut short by injuries.

One could argue that all four of these players failed to return full value on their contracts. But thanks to this combination of players, the Mets were a top contender for three seasons - 2006-8.

Say what you will about Beltran, but the Mets would not have been a contender in those years without him.

And Fred Wilpon regrets signing him.

Beltran is a Scott Boras client who probably wanted to leave the Mets even before the latest mess. The Mets are unlikely to retain him at anything approaching a reasonable value.

But Reyes is a much different case. The Mets may well have to overpay for him, but what the Mets consistently fail to realize is that it's better to overpay for a great player than try to save money by signing a lesser light to a still-big contract.

Two years ago, there were a couple of power-hitting left fielders on the free agent market. The Mets got Jason Bay for $66 million while the Cardinals got Matt Holliday for $120 million. Holliday didn't seem to be twice as good as Bay, so it looked like the Mets got a good deal. But as of now, Bay is almost worthless, while Holliday is a perennial MVP candidate on a pennant contender.

After the 2008 season, the Mets might have signed Derek Lowe for $60 million. Instead, they signed Oliver Perez for $36 million. Lowe has not been that great with the Braves and this year he has been charged with a DUI. But Lowe won 31 games with the Braves in 2009-10. During those years, Perez won three.

If the Mets had spent more money on Lowe instead of less on Perez, things could have been a lot different the last two seasons.

Yes, the 2011 Mets show the perils of overpaying too many players. But if you're going to overpay anyone, Reyes and Wright, two regular All-Stars when healthy who are still under 30, are a good place to start. And think of the potential alternatives:

The Phillies may be in a market for a shortstop next year, with the declining Jimmy Rollins also in his contract year this season.

What if Derek Jeter hits .240 and the Yankees miss the playoffs? Does the Yankees signing Reyes still seem so unlikely?

What if David Wright decides to become a free agent right around the time the Yankees are ready to shift A-Rod to DH? Oh, and Wright also would be a big upgrade at third for the Phillies.

Think the Yankees and Phillies wouldn't love to stick it to the Mets and pilfer their biggest names? The Phillies are so eager to show up the Mets that they even signed Luis Castillo after the Mets cut him. The Yankees turned all-time Mets Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden into important Yankees as well.

Reyes is no Tom Seaver, but at least M. Donald Grant didn't send The Franchise to the Yankees.

Last year, the Twins signed Joe Mauer to a huge contract. Now Mauer is hurt and his catching days may be numbered. It's unclear whether Mauer will justify his contract.

But the Twins realized they had no choice but to retain the face of their franchise. Now, even though the Twins have the worst record in baseball, per-game attendance is barely down from last year, when the Twins debuted their new ballpark. Twins fans know that the previously cheap team can now hold on to their stars.

Meanwhile, Rays' attendance and TV ratings are plummeting, even though the team is percentage points out of first place. But the Rays said goodbye to Matt Garza, Carlos Pena and Rafael Soriano. And they refused to give Carl Crawford money to Carl Crawford. Rays fans know that whatever success the team has will be short-lived because they can't hold on to their good players.

Fred Wilpon wanted to bring back the era of the 1950s by modeling Citi Field after Ebbets Field. Instead, he may end up bringing back the era of the late 1970s, when Grant's unwillingness to pay his stars turned Shea Stadium into "Grant's Tomb."

Rangers' Mark Teixeira Trade Bad Model for Mets

No Met should be untouchable. But if the Mets are going to trade a franchise player like David Wright, it shouldn't be for prospects.

The Wall Street Journal's Brian Costa offers three things the Mets can learn from how the Texas Rangers succeeded despite their financial difficulties.

1. Don't be afraid to trade a franchise player, if the timing is right and the market is strong.
2. Don't skimp on the draft.
3. Find value where others don't see it.

All three of his suggestions are valid, particularly the second one. It's a disgrace, as Costa points out, that the big-market Mets are next-to-last in spending on draft picks over the last five years.

But there are a couple of problems with Costa's explanation of his first suggestion:

The first major step in the Rangers' rebuilding process was trading Mark Teixeira to the Braves in 2007. Now, two of the four prospects the Rangers acquired in that deal, shortstop Elvis Andrus and pitcher Neftali Feliz, are vital (and inexpensive) components of their present and future.

The equivalent for the Mets would be trading David Wright. We're not suggesting they should do that, but if they find themselves out of contention in July, they would have to ask themselves: Are we another year away from competing for a championship? And if not, would trading Mr. Wright now make us more likely to compete for a championship in 2013 and beyond?

The Rangers' haul for Teixeira was one of the great acquisitions of prospects in recent history. How many times does a team land not one, but two impact players in such a deal? I can only think of one recent example off the top of my head - Montreal's trade of prospects Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore and Brandon Phillips for Bartolo Colon. And that trade had the mitigating circumstances of Montreal facing contraction, compelling Montreal GM Omar Minaya to mortgage the future to try to win immediately.

Even if the Mets manage to land one prospect that quickly pans out in a trade for Wright, it won't be long before that player needs some big money as well. After the 2008 season, the Rockies traded franchise player Matt Holliday for a package including prospect Carlos Gonzalez. Just two years later, Gonzalez finished third in the MVP balloting and recently signed a seven-year, $80 million deal.

Trading someone like Wright is only worth it if the Mets plow the savings into helping the team. The goal should be to land players like Gonzalez, and then pay to keep them around.

The contracts for Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo are a waste of money. Carlos Beltran is likely to be quite overpaid this season. The jury is out on Jason Bay.

But just because the Mets have made some bad choices and have had some bad luck with many of their big-money contracts (I still think the Beltran deal was worth it, since he lived up to it when he was healthy), doesn't mean that all big-money deals are automatically bad. If the Mets are going to be a big-market team, they must have a big-money payroll.

The financial uncertainties surrounding the Mets should mean that the Mets may face temporary spending difficulties. It can't mean that big payrolls are suddenly bad, as Sandy Alderson appeared to imply recently. Alderson was supposedly brought in to spend money more efficiently, not to spend less of it.

The Mets also need to think about their history and how few homegrown stars have played most of their careers with the team. Maybe a franchise player shouldn't be untouchable, but those "face of the franchise" players can still get fans out to the ballpark when the team is out of contention.

Snooki and the Mets

When Squawker Lisa told me that one of the most recognizable women on TV had recorded a video about the Mets, I hoped that it was Christina Hendricks, but the way things are going for the Mets, I'm not surprised to find out that it was Snooki:



It's not the first time this year that the Mets have been associated with "Jersey Shore." At the start of the season, David Wright recorded a video with The Situation. The video begins with Wright being asked the following:

Hey, David, last year was tough, but the team looks good this year so far, and you look fantastic. what did you do differently to get in shape?

While Wright's homers/RBI have jumped from 10/72 in 2009 to 23/92 this year, his average has fallen from .307 to .287, his strikeouts have stayed high and his .851 OPS is not much better than 2009's .837. So maybe swinging a bat at The Situation's abs is not the best workout regimen after all.

As for Snooki, it turns out that her video was recorded over three years ago. It includes references to Billy Wagner and the Mets having "two Carloses." Apparently, even Snooki isn't about to record a tribute to the current group. But there's always next year - maybe we'll hear Snooki sing about how Dillon puts the Gee in GTL.