213 Miles From Shea

This offseason has been crazy with large deals for players, and it included yesterday as the Texas Rangers won the bidding rights to negotiate with Yu Darvish. The Rangers submitted a bid of 51.7 million, the highest bid ever submitted (the second largest was 51.2 million for Daisuke that the Red Sox posted).

To put this in perspective, this isn’t 51.7 million for a player, rather just the money to negotiate a deal for the pitcher. CJ Wilson’s deal was about 25 million more, but that was for 6 years, this is just to negotiate.

That being said, Darvish is in an incredible player. His ERA is consistently below 2,  and he constantly has over 200 innings pitched. Even though Japan’s hitters are weaker than the MLB’s, the stadiums are more hitter friendly. The Rangers statement said that Darvish is a once in a lifetime player, and now we will see if he can stay that way with the Texas Rangers.

Personally, I’m just relieved that a team in the American League won the rights, not in the National League East, which is already overloaded with strong pitchers not wearing a Mets uniform.

Welcome to our new home!

Yes, it’s currently under construction.

-Elliot Teichman

Here's some news that stopped me in my tracks today:

“The Mets and the Mariners are now among teams interested in Gonzalez” – Dan Mennella on MLB Trade Rumors via Rosenthal.

Well this doesn't make much sense. I mean, I'm happy we are interested in Gonzalez, and he is a good pitcher who is under team control for the next four years. Under the guise of pure talent, going after Gonzalez makes sense. He consistently pitches over 200 innings and over 150 strikeouts.

The problem is he is the type of pitcher that will be able to demand a lot of money in arbitration. A lot of money the Mets supposedly don't have. This also doesn't jive with Sandy's policy on holding onto prospects. When we talk about “rebuilding” we need a lot of prospects and then to wait and see. Trading for Gonzalez only makes sense if the Mets were making a push to win now. Even without Reyes, the Mets offense is strong but I'm not sure the addition of Gonzalez would be enough “umph” to the rotation to make the Mets a contender.

Matt Cerrone of Metsblog has some good thoughts where he said that Rosenthal may have only heard the Mets because of Andrew Bailey or because of some form of a three way trade. That would make much more sense.

This is just bizarre.

In November, the Mets released Ryota Igarashi and he has now signed with a new team.

There are reports out saying that Igarashi signed a split contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates. If you are like me, and were unsure what a split contract is, well here you go: A split contract is a contract that includes separate salary for time in the minor leagues vs time in the major leagues.

Igarashi with the Mets showed a lot of promise when he first started. At the time he looked like the set-up man of the future. However, after his first injury, when he came back, he was never quite the same. Overall with the Mets he posted an ERA of 5.74 (79 appearances).

The Mets signed him to a 2 year contract worth 3 million.

You know what you can still purchase from MLB.com?

Source

(Ok, I guess if you read the title of the article, you already knew the answer of that question)

Seriously though, WHY DO THEY STILL HAVE THESE?

When it comes to making fun of the Mets, both of New York's tabloid Sport Papers can agree on the best course of action to take:

Source

Source

The Mets have made a collection of small moves in the last 24 hours ranging from the minors to working out the major league roster. The story up to this point is that the Mets needed to make room on their 40 man for Rauch and Francisco, and in addition they needed to figure out who they would tender contracts to at the tender deadline. In the last 24 hours the Mets have completed the following moves:

– Ronny Paulino non-tendered

– Mike Baxter non-tendered

– Mike Pelfrey Tendered

– Manny Acosta Tendered

– Ramon Ramirez Tendered

– Andres Torres Tendered

– Lucas Hay Signed

– Jeremy Hefner Claimed

– Garett Olson Signed

Let's Break This Down:

The Mets were expected to cut Paulino who never really fit on the team. The question now becomes how will the Mets deal with the back up catcher vacancy. They could sign a free agent, or they could save their money for an infielder (or one of the new pitchers that were just non-tendered by another team) and use Mike Nickeas as a back up catcher. The signing of Lucas Hay also seems like a back up, back up option for the Mets behind the plate.

Offering Pelfrey arbitration was expected, Acosta was also expected. Ditto for Ramirez and Torres.

The next questions for the Mets is how they will fit Rauch and Francisco on the roster if they make another signing, especially with Hefner now on the roster.