Does Omar or whoever is making decisions have any idea what they are doing? The Mets traded Billy Wagner for some reason I still haven't figured out. Wagner signs with the Braves and the Red Sox receive the 20th and 39th picks in the draft as compensation. The Mets then signed Jason Bay to a $66 million or $80 million contract. In the process the Mets gave up their 2nd round pick (# 57 overall). So instead of having the 20th, 39th and 57th picks in the draft and getting three young players at relatively cheap prices the Mets got a minor leaguer and Jason Bay. Bay is a nice hitter, but certainly not worth the money and giving up the draft pick. When is the mets front office going to understand that if they want to be good for the long term they need to stop signing type A free agents on the wrong side of 30? When will they figure out getting more picks and paying over slot is the easiest way to improve your team without spending a fortune?
A 31 year old outfielder that's only going to get worse as his contract gets worse. In two years they will be begging some other team to take his contract while the Red Sox have some 22 year old pitcher developing making no money.
I said that months ago! The mets should have kept wagner and the picks. Carter will never be more than a bench player. This stupid move is also why the value or hype over the Mets early pick gets so out of wack. They have to take more major league ready college players because they cannot afford for these picks to go to college or be complete busts.
The Wagner trade gave us Chris Carter, who, for those of you who are forgetting, saved at least 2 or 3 games for us already this year. Important games.
The Wagner trade was about saving loot. People weren't at Citi field spending money in August and September, so they did it to cut costs.
If Catolanato hadn't gone blind Chris Carter would not even be here. I like Chris Carter but he is not like he is the only person who can make those plays.
Wagner no longer wanted to be a Met, he was the only guy in the locker room at one time that had the balls to speak up and call out teammates and make the right person accountable for whatever reason why the mets sucked in 06, 07, or 08. he also didnt get a long with the hispanic ballplayers, who avoided the media at all costs. i wish he was still a met but i think the leadership now with guys like johan, barajas, blanco, frenchy and pretty boy wright is enough.
who cares if he wanted to be a Met at the end? It was like 2 months and he would have been gone anyway. By trading him for a bench player (who has been playing well) we lost two top 50 picks in the draft. It puts pressure on our farm system as a whole and the top drafted players to perform right away rather than having time to develop.
The reason the Mets traded Wagner was that in order to get the two draft picks they would have had to offer him arbitration after the season, and they were afraid that he might accept it. Since he wanted to be a closer, there was no chance that he was going to accept arbitration; Theo Epstein understood that, which is why he was willing to make the trade (he wasn't going to be the closer in Boston, either). This points out the key fact about Minaya as a GM - he simply doesn't understand how the system works, and he is easily fooled by a player, his agent, and other GMs into worrying about things that are very unlikely to happen, and makes bad decisions as a result. It also shows that the Mets were worried about the money - they saved $3.3 million last year, and didn't risk having to pay him an arbitration salary this year. That's pretty pathetic for a team in NY with a brand new ballpark and their own TV network. Under no circumstances can this be viewed as having been a good move - the Mets made it for all the wrong reasons.
Well put! As for lynx post: Yes, the draft is a crap shoot that is why it is better to have more chips. The Mets have one draft pick in the top fifty while several other teams have 3 or 4. So they have 12.5 to 1 chance to get a star and we have 50 to 1.
