This too is from Adam Rubin’s chat yesterday, and really explains the math well.
I feel badly for Sandy Alderson in one respect. If you’re told you can spend $95 million (estimated) on payroll and Johan Santana, Jason Bay, David Wright, R.A. Dickey and Mike Pelfrey account for roughly $65 million, you’re in an untenable situation. That does not mean he has $30 million to fill out his team. You have to understand that you go through more than 25 players a season, and even if everyone else made the major league minimum — which is impossible — you have to add another $10 million in costs roughly. So he may really have $20 million to spend over the major league minimum for the rest of his team. And then subtract $2 million or so for D.J. Carrasco and Tim Byrdak over the minimum and you’re down to $18 million. You basically need an entirely new bullpen, center fielder (or subtract $4 million to $5 million you’re playing Pagan), a starting pitcher, etc. And you’re accepting Tejada instead of Reyes.
And if y’all can figure out a way to pay Reyes $20 million in this scenario, please let Sandy know.
Does that include the $2.5 Million they are paying in 2012 to Omar and Bobby Bonilla?
somewhere Adam Rubin’s high school math teacher is weeping.
They have to spend money to make money!!!!
I’m being facetious, sort of. I am a proponent of what I think Sandy Alderson is doing with the resources he has available to him.
What I want the New York Mets to be is a perennial contender. I believe that the way to become a perennial contender is to develop the farm system so that it annually produces viable major league players. Then as those players evolve, determine which of those are the cream of the crop and offer them lavish contracts in exchange for buying out their free agent years while they are still a year or two (or more) away from reaching free agency, thus ensuring that those players are Mets during their peak years of production. That is the time when I hope this current front office will “spend money to make money.”
Then, when those players reach roughly the age of 30, you let them go get a lucrative contract elsewhere via free agency and trust that your minor league system is on the cusp of providing an able replacement at low cost.
That way, the franchise should always have some semblance of financial flexibility, unlike now.