Torrealba Signs With Padres

Per ESPN:

Yorvit Torrealba, one of the few remaining free agent catchers, has agreed to a one-year, $1.25 million deal with the San Diego Padres.

Torrealba will play for a $750,000 salary this season, and will receive a $500,000 buyout if the Padres and the catcher don't exercise a mutual option on him for 2011, for $3.5 million.

But here is the REAL kicker:

Torrealba recently tried to engage the New York Mets in negotiations on a one-year deal for less than $2 million, but the Mets indicated that they had no interest, given financial restrictions.

Financial restrictions.

I didn't want Torrealba to begin with, but to say that we couldn't sign or even negotiate with a player interested in a $1.25 million dollar contract because of financial restrictions is damning.

The Mets have spent a lot of money this winter and have nearly nothing to show for it. Two million on Cora, a million on Gary Matthews Jr., almost a million on Henry Blanco, over half a million on R.A. Dickey, the same for Chris Coste, and over a million each for Kelvim Escobar and Ryota Igarashi. In a vacuum, some of these signings even seem wise (Escobar).

But what was the plan?

Did we enter the 2010 offseason with $10 million to spend? That's over $6 million spent on those players up there, plus the big ticket item - Bay. That's $12 million this year with seemingly not even an outside chance at playoff contention, PLUS a contract with Jason Bay which is backloaded to a ridiculous degree[1]. Why? What was the plan? And what do we do now?


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[1] The Mets contract commitments in 2011 are horrific:

Santana: $22.5
Beltran: $20.071
Bay: $18.125
Wright: $14.25
Perez: $12.0
K-Rod: $12.167
Reyes: $11.0 club option

I'll save you some calculator time. That is $110 MILLION committed to just seven players. Our payroll this year, altogether, appears to be somewhere around $120-$125 million. That means that we'd need to spread the remaining money over the other 18 players on the active roster in order to maintain payroll, simply because of the stupidity of the backloaded Bay contract. It is ugly.