The Cost of Losing

Willie Randolph is on the hot seat in New York because the Mets stink...and for some reason that is coming as a shock to everyone but me. Everyone else I know predicted the Mets to win the NL East; I had them coming in at third behind Atlanta and Philly...we'll see if that holds, I may have them at fourth now, but I digress.

It is frustrating, to say the least, to hear everyone bitch about Randolph because of the 138 million dollar payroll he gets to work with. With that much money thrown around, he should have winner, right? He wasn't the guy that shelled out that bank though, and if you crunch the numbers, some things get startling...

No Brainer section:
Pedro Martinez - 11.8 Mil and on the DL - not a shock considering this guy has always had health problems and is in his late 30's. Counting on him to back Santana the whole year was a pipe dream.
Orlando Hernandez - 7 mil, and on the DL. This is on the idiot who signed him. ESPN has him listed at 41, giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was 32 when he played his first MLB season. He claimed he was 28, but most people assume he was 35, possible even 38 when he broke into the majors. That puts him anywhere between 44 and 47. Hang 'em up dude.
Carlos Delgado: 16 mil. Why the mets did not try to move him is because of his Amazin' contract. They were out of their minds paying a guy this much who clearly was not going to be as productive anymore in his career.
Moises Alou - 7.5 million and older than Dirt.
Total - 42.3 million on guys they should not be paying. Bringing them down to about 96.

Paying for Mediocrity division:
Oliver Perez - 6.5. Maybe a stud, but hasn't proven it
Schneider - 4.9. Who?
Castillo - 6.25. Decent, but worth 6.25? No.
Jose Reyes - 4.375. I can not begin to tell you how much they overpaid this kid. He could be the most explosive player ever, and he is hell on the basepaths, but he is a kid and should be treated as such before he gets big money. I have two words for you: Rey Ordonez.
Carlos Beltran - 18.6. The single most overrated player in baseball and the best case of a player who reaped the benefit of ONE great season on a contract year. Is he a five tool player? Yes. Are any one of those tools so high that they make him a superstar? No, just a really good player. Really good players don't deserve 18.6.
Total - 41.625. These guys all deserve half of what they're earning, so let's call it 20.8 million that should be paid and the payroll is down around75.2

Should be paid more:
David Wright. Period. If anyone should be making double figures on this club, it's him. Give him an extra 5 mil a year and that brings the adjusted payroll up to 80.2. Which is much more agreeable to me, because frankly, on baseball economics as they stand, the mets are playing like an 80 million a year team, and we can't fault Willie for that.

More to come, but for the meantime...
-Jobimoto out.
"Christ, you don't need a quadrophonic Blaupunkt! What you need is a curveball!"