Ownership v. Management and the #averagejob

Okay Will Davidian, I'll take the bait.

In a post yesterday afternoon, I lambasted the Mets for the terrible situation they have put us in by having $110 million committed to only seven players (or depending on your source, around $112 million to eight). I criticized them for lacking a plan. And finally, I questioned whether the Mets will ever win with the current ownership.

Then, and in a footnote mind you, I mentioned that I thought that Minaya and Manuel are "doing at least an average job." Erm. Well, Mr. Davidian then spent the night poking fun at the phrase via twitter. Since I'm an old fart or something, I needed to get this news from Roger via email:

Nick Evans started Game 162 of 2008. He started three games in September/October of 2009. #averagejob #15org

The manager called a player soft after he suffered a concussion breaking up a double play. #averagejob #15org

Elmer Dessens is getting paid $1M to be terrible. Thanks Omar? @FonzieForever

Mets lost two game on a West Coast trip with Oliver Perez on the mound. K-Rod was unused in either game. #averagejob #15org

Okay, har har, well played. And don't get me wrong - I actually do find these kinds of things amusing. I find it interesting that Mets fans have such a unique community here among the blogs/twitter, etc... in fact, unique not only in terms of media used, but also by team. Mets fans dominate talk radio here in the city, and it seems that they occupy a unique space here on the internet as well -- it is our curse.

That said, I am going to try and defend the statement. There are three points:

1. When I say average, I do not mean the strict arithmetic mean. I don't think anyone does. If I had said "okay" or "decent" the statement would have provided way less material... but I said average.

2. They may well have been average, even by that definition. Could Omar and Jerry have been the 15th best team? I think you could make the argument. Have you watched other teams?

Managers for different clubs make absolutely terrible moves all the time. Just watch out of town games - I promise you, your hatred for Manuel will decrease immediately. In addition, there has been more ink spilled on the uselessness of managers tactical decisions than I feel comfortable talking about. It's just not a worthwhile topic of conversation unless you're at an absolute extreme - and I like that this team likes to play for Jerry.

The job done by Omar Minaya looks even rosier by comparison. Every team is saddled with bad contracts, sometimes several. Take a look at this list by Sky Andrecheck in Sports Illustrated from December of 2009: Vernon Wells, Alfonso Soriano, Barry Zito, Carlos Silva, Kyle Lohse, Oliver Perez, Gary Matthews Jr. ($23 million owed by Angels), Aaron Rowand, Juan Pierre, Milton Bradley.

Big League Stew did a similar list, but this time took the ten worst contracts of the decade. You will see not a single Met contract on that list. Add familiar names like Chan Ho Park and Mike Hampton, and you'll think the Castillo deal meaningless by comparison.

Heck, Minaya barely makes MLB Trade Rumors' list of 10 Worst Free Agent Signings of this past offseason. That list includes the likes of Matt Holliday, Jason Kendall, Jason Marquis, Mark DeRosa, etc. Alex Cora cracks the list at #10, but at $2 million, who cares?

I say this while keeping as objective as possible. Only a casual perusal of the Fonzie archives from this past offseason will show my absolute frustration with the team's moves. But I'm realistic -- Omar has been okay, minus one fatal flaw.

3. The lack of a plan and forced bad free agent signings, I suspect, originate from Mets ownership. This is as close to speculation as you'll probably ever find on this site, but it's a feeling that I just can't shake. Many have complained that the Mets moves over the last two years have been the direct result of the Wilpons' losses in the Madoff scandal, and evidence of that fact is getting harder and harder to refute.

I resisted this insinuation -- always believing that the Mets would sustain themselves through ticket sales and the like -- but the bottom line is that Omar wasn't able to make any kind of move in June when the Mets were in it, and he made one huge boneheaded signing in the offseason, in December when season ticket sales were flagging. A blog entry over at forbes.com does a good job of summarizing the argument for me:

Baseball’s worst owner? Always tough to say, given how subjective the arguments can be. But the Mets’ Fred Wilpon is certainly making a good run at it.

* * *

Wilpon’s general manager, Omar Minaya, makes the big splash every winter (Pedro Martinez, Johan Santana, Frankie Rodriguez, and now Jason Bay) only to find disappointment by the following October. Minaya’s predecessor, Steve Phillips, did the same thing, trying to transition an aging 2000 World Series team on the fly by picking up the washed up Mo Vaughan, Roberto Alomar and Pedro Astacio. Result: four straight seasons finishing third or lower. Both Phillips and Minaya have taken a lot of heat from local fans and press. But who did each work for? Wilpon, under whom the Mets are 639-655 since he wrested full control from former partner Nelson Doubleday in 2002.

* * *

But that one step back that’s usually required to move two steps forward is one that Wilpon has never been willing to take. The Mets have become a franchise with a handful of stars supported by a soft underbelly...

One look at the Mets moves from the last couple of years shows that the Mets are willing to make one big addition as the last year's big addition comes off the books. They get to maintain the status quo in terms of payroll while being able to tout a new addition to the team.

Welcome to the team, Carlos Beltran? No mention of the goodbye to Mike Piazza.
Nice to see you, Francisco Rodriguez? You'll be replacing Billy Wagner.
Thank you for joining us, Jason Bay! You'll be batting fifth, because we're parting ways with Carlos Delgado.

There is no way this doesn't come from the ownership. There is no way that you go out and sign Jason Bay to a mega-contract yet choose not to part with a young prospect at the deadline for help for the playoff push if you are "going for it". For that matter, there is no way you look at the team as it was constituted last offseason and truly believe that Jason Bay is going to make the difference on the field. And what of the things that Minaya can control? Excellent drafts and a plentiful farm system. R.A. Dickey. Hisanori Takahashi. Trading for Santana.

The problem is that the Mets exist in perpetual limbo. They had a good run from 2006-2008, but so much of that was just luck -- we managed to develop two of the best players in the league, and two players who may end up as the two best Mets hitters of all time, at the exact same time. They supplemented a core of free agent stars.

Now, David Wright and Jose Reyes are becoming expensive. Jason Bay's contract is back loaded. The window of opportunity to capitalize on their youth is passed, and Johan Santana isn't getting any younger.

I'm not saying the Mets can never win, I'm just saying that they can't win so long as the current ownership continues to require Minaya to make a ticket-selling "splash" each offseason and then ties his hands otherwise. In light of all this, I think Minaya has been doing an average job.-

To the Amazin Avenue Community

I normally wouldn't do this (and also, just about nobody gives a crap about "blogger, responding to blogger for criticizing original blog" posts) but I was pretty taken aback at the fierceness of the post published by Sam Page over at Amazin Avenue this evening.

Let me start by saying to Sam Page, individually, that I am sorry if you feel like I somehow personally attacked you in my prior post. It certainly wasn't my intent. In fact, the reason that I even bothered to link to Amazin Avenue and what you wrote is because, in particular, I respect the blog and its writers, and I find that what it has to say is relevant. It matters. It's not any other internet blog noise. Because of this, I did not intend to call you out or start "blog warz".

None of this, however, makes the response posted tonight any petulant. If you had wanted to engage me in some sort of conversation about the Mets roster moves on either a macro (they are good or they are bad) or micro (the GMJ move was okay or the GMJ move was awful) level, I would have loved to do that. But to have the entire article parsed in some kind of juvenile, Fire Joe Morgan style type of thrashing is way beneath the quality of most Amazin Avenue content. Certainly, it is misleading at best to claim that I was advocating that "we should be kissing [the] feet" of Mets management.

The reason this matters is because Amazin Avenue is the current standard bearer for forward-thinking Mets fans on the internet. The discourse that takes place - both by the bloggers and the commenters - is so much more advanced than that which can be found on any other blog, newspaper, or local bar, that it is amazing. I look forward on a regular basis to reading the work of Eno Sarris, Eric Simon, and Howard Megdal. I enjoy the links that we at Fonzie Forever get on a regular basis from Joe Budd and James Kannengeiser and the comments that follow.

I take solace in the fact that so many of the commenters over at Amazin Avenue who seem to have actually read my blog post seem to be in agreement that my basic point was not so unreasonable. The Mets have made a lot of the right decisions this year. Basically every single one of those old-timey blogger meltdowns that we used to have (remember "Free Heath Bell?!") has been addressed.

As I said in the original article:

No, they haven't been perfect. No, not all the moves have come as soon as we may have liked them. And no, they have not yet gone out on a limb with the sabermetric folk and done some of the very outside-the-box things we would like them to. But the basics? The obvious moves? And even some of the not-so-obvious ones that we simply wish they would make? They've made them.

* * *

Perhaps I'm setting the bar too low for their performance. Should Mejia have been in the minors all year? Probably. Should Jacobs have ever touched the field of play as a Met? Arguable. But the point is that once those issues were no longer matters of debate, for which there was a defensible position, the Mets bit the bullet and made the correct choice.

* * *

We shouldn't be falling over ourselves to praise the Mets for getting themselves out of pickles that they created... So yes, the Mets haven't been perfect. But since the clock turned to 2010, they have been very, very good.

To the Amazin Avenue community, thanks to those of you who clicked through to read. It is a pleasure knowing that we've had a place in the ongoing discourse surrounding our team - hopefully one which has had a positive impact on our enjoyment of the game as fans. I hope that you will continue to challenge me when you disagree, but also that you approach my ideas (some of which are very outside-the-box) with an inquisitive mind.

And to Mr. Page, I am once again sorry that you felt compelled to respond to my original entry in the manner that you did. Next time, before you go ahead and call the writing of other members of the community "laughable", "nauseating", and "ridiculous", please take a moment to reconsider. Instead of a flame-war, this could have been an opportunity to discuss issues and allow your readers to make up their own minds.

I wish you the best, and figure that you will soon realize that there is a reason why boys blogging from their mother's basements do not recieve offers to become major league general managers.

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Note: If anyone actually would like to discuss some of the issues raised in the original blog, I would be interested in discussing them.

As I've mentioned, I don't think that the GMJ trade was terrible. There is a distinct value to a commodity that is reliable, even if it is reliably poor. Between that, and the comment about Tejada remaining in the majors (we could have used Cora instead), there is plenty to talk about.

Jason Bay is a Colossal Mistake: How Bay-watch became Omar-watch

The News
The Mets signed Jason Bay to a four year, $65 million dollar contract yesterday. It has an easily-attainable option which would push the contract to a staggering five years and over $80 million dollars.

This is it - the beginning of the end for Minaya. This is EXACTLY the kind of move that ends a tenure as a GM. That, while receiving lukewarm approval from the fanbase and newspapers today, will be a complete and utter disaster by the end of the contract.

You do not sign low-average, defensively-challenged sluggers to five year contracts when they are 31.

Bay is not a terrible player. We have analyzed Bay extensively at this site, and many others have done so as well elsewhere. He's been an above average player for a number of years. He is a good complementary piece. But that is NOT the way in which mega-contracts should be evaluated. In my last post on Bay, I asked:

Is this the guy we want to occupy 10% of our payroll with? Is this the kind of player we want to shape the rest of our roster around? Is he a cornerstone for the next Mets World Series team? I don't think so.

He's' a great hitter for the six-hole on a contending team. But he's not getting paid like that. He's getting $16.5 million dollars a year UNTIL HE IS 36. He's being given one of the largest free agent contracts ever awarded by the Mets.

The Folly of Mega-Contracts
Long-term contracts usually don't work out. By definition, signing a guy for five guaranteed years is a huge risk. Five years is a very long time to forecast ANYTHING to happen, much less that an athlete will maintain his phenomenal peak performance.

You wouldn't want to buy a stock that you couldn't sell for five years. You wouldn't want to take a girl on one date and then sign a five-year contract with her --- unless of course, she was Heidi Klum. Some singular talents are worth taking a risk for. Heidi Klum, Brooklyn Decker, Gisele Bundchen, Carlos Beltran. Risks this big should be reserved for superstars.

Cot's Contracts has a list of players, sorted by highest average annual value on their contracts. Here is the list of outfielders who have EVER averaged more than $13 million dollars a year.

Vlad Guerrero: $14M - 5 years
J.D. Drew: $14M - 5 years
Magglio Ordonez: $15M - 4 years
Carlos Lee: $16.6M - 6 years
Alfonso Soriano: $17M - 7 years
Carlos Beltran: $17M - 7 years
Vernon Wells: $18M - 6 years
Ichiro Suzuki: $18M - 5 years
Torii Hunter: $18M - 5 years
Andruw Jones: $18.1M - 2 years
Manny Ramirez: $20M, $22.5M - 7 years, 2 years

This list is occupied by one type of player -- players better than Jason Bay. Above him on the list are generational talents, the guys who we will look back at this era on and remember as superstars: Manny, Andruw, Ichiro, Beltran, Soriano.

Some of the contracts on this list worked out okay. Beltran is one. Vlad Guerrero is another. But half of them did not -- and those were for players who were better than Bay. Does anyone really think that Jason Bay belongs on this list? Should his name be in the same sentence as Vlad Guerrero, Magglio Ordonez, or Alfonso Soriano? Even the Carlos Lee signing, which was broadly dismissed as a mistake, is a better signing than this.

Jason Bay is not one of those players.

If Not a Star, Then What...?
He is a clearly second-tier talent with a profile which indicates that he is a higher than average risk of collapse. So who is Bay actually comparable to? There are some players which come to mind -- here are their stats per 162 games and through their age 31 seasons:

Jason Bay: 33 home runs, 86 walks, 157 strikeouts, .280/.376/.519.
Geoff Jenkins: 29 home runs, 54 walks, 148 strikeouts, .279/.350/.499
Jeromy Burnitz: 30 home runs, 83 walks, 130 strikeouts, .259/.365/.498
Richard Hidalgo: 28 home runs, 60 walks, 120 strikeouts, .273/.350/.497 (through age 30)

Jenkins was out of baseball two years later. Hidalgo was already out of baseball. I don't have to tell you what happened to Burnitz. Jenkins and Hidalgo are high up on Bay's baseball-reference.com list of similar players. Burnitz is a Mets-related example.

Another guy who he really reminds me of is Danny Tartabull.

Jason Bay: 33 home runs, 86 walks, 157 strikeouts, .280/.376/.519.
Tartabull: 31 home runs, 90 walks, 157 strikeouts, .278/.374/.505

His next year, with the Yankees and Oakland in 1995, he hit .236. He bounced back in 1996 to hit 27 home runs while batting only .254. The next season, he was out of baseball. Two years later.

His MOST SIMILAR player -- and this is not a joke -- is Ryan Klesko. Klesko was a legitimately good hitter. He was underrated. Through age 31, Ryan Klesko hit 30 home runs per 162 games, drove in 100 runs, struck out only 103 times, and batted a robust .285/.372/.528. Klesko and Bay had identical OPS+ marks of 131 through age 30. This would seem to be the most helpful comparison Bay could ask for.

From age 32 to 36, Klesko hit only 54 more home runs. He batted .264/.366/.432, missed his age 35 season entirely, and was out of baseball the next year.[1]


The Impact

Metsblog did a great job aggregating the reactions from around the blogosphere:

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.”

I disagree. The Mets needed to use their money wisely and did not. The Mets did not need to give Vladmir Guerrero money to the next Danny Tartabull, Bobby Higginson, or Geoff Jenkins.

Shortly after the trade, my friend texted me this: "Let me know how that expensive DH in a huge NL park experiment goes." He's right. Even setting aside all the talk about Jason Bay's defense for a moment -- Jason Bay is going to need to hit just about as well as he has for the next FIVE years in order to come anywhere close to justifying his contract. And the odds of that are enormously long.

When all is said and done, Jason Bay will own the third largest contract on the Mets.[2] I believe that Jack Moore over at fangraphs nailed it on the head in his short article about Bay:

This deal definitely improves the Mets’ offense for 2010 ... Bay’s bat combined with Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and David Wright gives the Mets a scary top of the order for opposing pitchers. That’s about where Bay’s effectiveness ends.
***
Of course, the real interesting point of the contract is the dollar value...Given the current market, $3.5M per WAR, the Mets are expecting 4.5 wins per season out of Bay. Is Jason Bay the type of tier-2 superstar that deserves this contract?

The Mets can afford to overpay given their place on both the revenue curve and the win curve... [but] this move appears to be one of the more significant overpays of the offseason, and it by no means vaults the Mets into the playoffs. Much needs to go the Mets’ way for this contract to work out as planned[.]

On the field, the Mets are going to be better with Jason Bay than without him. That is not the question. The question is whether they will be more well-positioned to be successful with Bay and his contract than without him, both this year and in the future. I believe that the answer to that question is no.

Mets fans were antsy for a move and they got it. The reaction today is relief. I believe Roger also nailed it when he called his post about Bay "The Sound of Settling." But when history looks back at the Minaya regime, I believe this signing is going to be one of those OBVIOUS mistakes.

I certainly hope not. I will be rooting for Bay.

-----------------

postscript: When we acquired Bobby Bonilla, he had the exact same career OPS as Jason Bay, at 131. He averaged 21 home runs per year, and struck out only half as much. He was a superior player to Bay at the time, and younger. As a Met, he almost replicated those numbers, posting OPS+ marks of 121, 132, 128 and 160.

However, he was so grossly overpaid that the fans reviled him. In fact, the Mets had to trade him in the midst of a season he was hitting .325/.385/.599, for an OPS that would have placed him fourth in the NL ... behind only Bonds, Piazza, and Larry Walker.

Mike Vaccaro actually had an excellent article equating Bonilla and Bay over at the Post a few weeks ago. He is wrong on some of it, calling Bay "a better player than Bonilla," for one ... but generally, his premise is sound. He asks the Mets this:

How many times do you need to have anvils fall on your head before you take a step out of the way? How many times do you have to sign Kevin Appier and Bobby Bonilla before you recognize the difference between attracting the cream of a good free-agent class (see Sabathia, CC, and Teixeira, Mark) and the prettiest homecoming queens of Homely High?

Bay is going to have a huge contract to live up to, and that is going to affect the way that he is perceived.

Dan over at Amazin Avenue asks whether Jason Bay is going to be the Mets' best hitting LF of all time. He may well be. I've also heard him be compared to Cliff Floyd minus the injuries. All these sound good only until you consider the price.

In fact, Cliff Floyd from age 24-31 (the ages Bay has been in the majors) hit a robust 28 home runs per 162 games, with 115 strikeouts and a .289/.370/.515 line and identical 131 OPS+! Sounds great right? Sure ... until you consider that Floyd earned only $6.5 million a year as a Met. Even the world's strongest proponent of Bay cannot come close to justifying investing $82 million guaranteed dollars.


---------------------------

[1] For anyone who worries that I am cherry-picking, others who made his list of comparables include:

Tim Salmon - 60 home runs after age 31, batted .262, out of baseball by 35

JD Drew - In the middle of his contract now but performing well

Bobby Higginson - The poster boy for inexplicable collapses, batted .235 and was out of baseball in three years

Jim Edmonds - Who is not actually comparable to Bay at all in that he was a phenomenal athlete who played center field

George Foster - Who is also not comparable because he was a vastly better hitter than Bay, had three top-six MVP finishes and a 54 home run season before he was 31... though for what it is worth, he proves our point, batting only .258/.316/.434 from age 32 to the end of his career.

Willie Stargell - Another player a universe better than Bay, with an OPS+ of 142 entering his age 32 season and with five years with MVP votes, including a second place finish.

Kevin Mitchell - Similarly to Stargell/Foster, already had an MVP win and a career OPS+ of 142. For what it is worth, the next five years of his career he only had 702 at-bats and only once played more than 65 games in a season.

[2] When they hit free agency, Wright and Reyes will surpass him, but for now, only Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran, two of the best players in the game, were awarded larger contracts. If the contract is backloaded (as is being reported by Metsblog), when 2011 rolls around, our payroll is going to look like this:

Santana $22.5M, Beltran $20M, Bay $21M, Perez $12M, K-Rod $12.1M, Wright $14.2M, Reyes $11M ... that's $113 million committed to 7 players. That is going to be VERY ugly.

The Sound of Settling

Weeks after being offered the contract, Jason Bay has reportedly agreed to a 4-year, $66 million deal, with a vesting option for a fifth year. (Which would bump it up to 5-year, $80 million.) This was announced by Mike Francesa on his radio show at 2:05PM EST this afternoon and was immediately confirmed by Jon Heyman.

Mike Francesa? That was strange. Why have Francesa break this story? There are a few theories floating around. For one thing, there's the possibility that the Wilpons are absolutely scared to death of the prospect of Omar Minaya announcing anything anymore, following the Adam Rubin incident. For another, the Mets offices are closed this week, so they couldn't make any announcement. However, they wanted to make sure the fans got hold of this news before January 1st. Why? That's the deadline for season ticket holders from last year to renew or update their ticket plans. Oh clever clever Metsies.

My bitter cynicism aside, I kind of like this deal. I don't LOVE it on account of all I keep reading about Jason Bay's terrible defense, and I simply don't believe Bill James's prediction of 32 home runs and 102 RBI's for 2010 factored into the possibility of him playing half of his games at Citi Field, but my gut instinct tells me to look at the lineup now. I mean, look at the projected Opening Day lineup now:

1.Jose Reyes SS
2.Luis Castillo 2B
3.David Wright 3B
4.Carlos Beltran CF
5.Jason Bay LF
6.Jeff Francoeur RF
7.Daniel Murphy 1B
8.Henry Blanco C
9.Johan Santana P

Not terrible. I'm just glad to see Francoeur out of the 3-4-5 area to be honest. I do feel a little bad for Angel Pagan, who hit .306 and had 11 triples in only 88 games. Theoretically, couldn't Minaya build the Mets around pitching and speed? That would be ideal for a team playing at Citi right? It doesn't sell tickets though. And to be fair, Pagan has never stayed healthy. Nono...I like the Bay signing. I'll stop complaining. The press conference next week should be fun. I really hope Bay doesn't flat out lie and say his dream has always been to play for the Mets. That'd be kind of bad. Of course he can end up charming us all with his rye Canadian wit. You just never know.