Free Agent Outfielders Left to Consider

[fanofclendennon]

Spam musubi

???

[milominderbinde]

How would signing Hairston for 2/8 blow the Mets long term plans? This is just indefensible cheap *** unwillingness to put a remotely competitive product on the field, a giant middle finger to the fans. These guys must have absolutely no money.

[cambovenzi]

Hairston had a career year, while being completely coddled against RHP, and he still wasn't all that good.
Chances are he will be worse next year, especially if put in a full time role.
This is the same guy everyone and their mother wanted cut from the team not too long ago. Now when we don't auto-sign a generally backup-caliber OF to a multiyear 8M deal, everyone freaks out?

Not to mention he is entering his mid thirties

[milominderbinde]

You would be right except that for this team Hairston represents a massive improvement over what we now have. The Mets do not have one legitimate starting major league outfielder. And its only a two year contract for a 32 year old.

[fanofclendennon]

Hairston had a career year, while being completely coddled against RHP, and he still wasn't all that good.
Chances are he will be worse next year, especially if put in a full time role.
This is the same guy everyone and their mother wanted cut from the team not too long ago. Now when we don't auto-sign a generally backup-caliber OF to a multiyear 8M deal, everyone freaks out?

Not to mention he is entering his mid thirties

The generally backup-caliber OF of which you speak is the best hitting outfielder on the team. He has been since he came out of his funk following his ridiculously slow start in early 2011.

That said, i wonder if Sandy suspects roids?

[StoicSentry]

If this is true. will someone please explain this to me?

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME????

HOW IS OUR BEST HITTING OUTFIELDER NOT WORTH PAYING $4 MILLION A YEAR FOR 2 FREAKING SEASONS???????

WTF?????

WHO IS SANDY GOING TO GET CHEAPER WHO CAN GIVE US THE KIND OF OFFENSE HAIRSTON HAS BEEN PROVIDING FOR THE LAST TWO SEASONS?

WTF?????

Oh yeah, and how much did the Mets want to charge me for the those upper deck right field foul pole seats again?

Exactly.

Like we're supposed to believe that committing to an extra $4m next year is such a big deal when we have almost no one under contract. Worst comes to worst and we fix some of our outfield problems next year, he's still a trustworthy righty with pop off the bench. So give me a break. Sign him already.

[cambovenzi]

Call it cheap or whatever you want, but Sandy isn't going to be able to rebuild the team into a real contender by jumping at every 1st offer that hits the table on every average player he comes across.

Being the best OF'er on this team is only relative, and not much of an accomplishment. His concrete numbers are less than spectacular.

Don't get me wrong i'm not totally against bringing him back.
Maybe we can grab him for 1/3 or 1/4. who knows.
He might realize we offer him the most playing time, and quite possibly the most money anyways.
If not maybe we can pick up someone younger and better.

[nymetsrule]

How would signing Hairston for 2/8 blow the Mets long term plans? This is just indefensible cheap *** unwillingness to put a remotely competitive product on the field, a giant middle finger to the fans. These guys must have absolutely no money.

Only the Mets would be absolutely ruined by $8 million over two years.

[fanofclendennon]

Call it cheap or whatever you want, but Sandy isn't going to be able to rebuild the team into a real contender by jumping at every 1st offer that hits the table on every average player he comes across.

Being the best OF'er on this team is only relative, and not much of an accomplishment. His concrete numbers are less than spectacular.

Don't get me wrong i'm not totally against bringing him back.
Maybe we can grab him for 1/3 or 1/4. who knows.
He might realize we offer him the most playing time, and quite possibly the most money anyways.
If not maybe we can pick up someone younger and better.

Dude.

Hairston's first demand called for 3 years and double digit millions. I applauded Sandy for turning that down.

But $8 mill over 2 is entirely reasonable for this team. Unfortunately Sandy doesnt care. Or the Wilpons don't care. They're banking on fans staying interested in this team no matter how piss poor they are.

And the thing is, with Reyes, Dickey, and Hairston, they already were piss poor, for reasons other than those three guys. The problem is those reasons are still here but R, D, and H are not.

You do the math.

[StoicSentry]

This is just unacceptable at this point. I don't know a better word than that: unacceptable. You had one of the worst outfields in the league last year with no starting quality players and you can't add a starter? You can't even bring back a platoon player in Hairston that was already in that craptastic outfield? You can't do anything to improve the bullpen?

When the season begins, and you lost a CY Young winner, and you lost a batting leader the year before that, and a good closer and a perennial all-star quality outfielder before that, and "Colin Cowgill" is listed as your #1 MLB-level acquisition, that's just sad.

Much as I hate to admit it, we are in full blown Kansas City Royals mode. But even Kansas City is bringing in players...

[fanofclendennon]

This is just unacceptable at this point. I don't know a better word than that: unacceptable. You had one of the worst outfields in the league last year with no starting quality players and you can't add a starter? You can't even bring back a platoon player in Hairston that was already in that craptastic outfield? You can't do anything to improve the bullpen?

When the season begins, and you lost a CY Young winner, and you lost a batting leader the year before that, and a good closer and a perennial all-star quality outfielder before that, and "Colin Cowgill" is listed as your #1 MLB-level acquisition, that's just sad.

Much as I hate to admit it, we are in full blown Kansas City Royals mode. But even Kansas City is bringing in players...

Agreed.

The operative word is

unacceptable.

[cambovenzi]

Dude.

Hairston's first demand called for 3 years and double digit millions. I applauded Sandy for turning that down.

But $8 mill over 2 is entirely reasonable for this team. Unfortunately Sandy doesnt care. Or the Wilpons don't care. They're banking on fans staying interested in this team no matter how piss poor they are.

And the thing is, with Reyes, Dickey, and Hairston, they already were piss poor, for reasons other than those three guys. The problem is those reasons are still here but R, D, and H are not.

You do the math.

Ok so if the team is piss poor and rebuilding with young talent, why the need to lock up an old mediocre outfielder for multiple years?

[Marty Mcfly]

The team is currently on course for a $71M payroll, right now, we have 'spent' less than $60M, I don't care if the Mets won 20 games last year, $71M in NYC is absolutely unacceptable.

[fanofclendennon]

Ok so if the team is piss poor and rebuilding with young talent, why the need to lock up an old mediocre outfielder for multiple years?

Because you still need to field a team for this season. Last I checked the Mets were planning on playing the 2013 schedule. Hell, there are even rumors floating around that they actually plan on charging for tickets to these games.

Sure, Hairston can be described as mediocre but he's also a powerful bat from the right side in a predominantly left hand hitting team. For $8 mill spread over 2 seasons, it just makes sense to have him especially since we literally have no other outfielders who can hit with any consistency.

[Marty Mcfly]

I'm still staggered that Ny'ers think it is ok to have a terrible baseball team, in any season. The 2013 will be YEAR 5 of lousy baseball. YEAR 5. We're just throwing away season after season after season, and it's fine?

None of the mooted moves cost anything but Coupon dollars, or hurt the precious future, so what is the problem here?

Is that people just are too afraid to acknowledge the elephant in the room here? that all Sandy's fine words that have you all so enraptured may be just fine words? and that there's no money next year either, or the year after?

When Fred implied that the fans would have to pay for the team in advance, just maybe he wasn't joking....

Maybe the truth is, is that austerity baseball is here to stay, that Fred Wilpon is perfectly happy running a low payroll, low revenue team? maybe he sees that as the safest option for his continued ownership?

Sorry, but the 'we need to get bad deals off' line has expired, the deals all barring ONE are off, and they still won't spend...ANYTHING.


Isn't it time some of you actually started questioning what is going on here?