Regardless of who — if anyone — joins the Wilpons in ownership between now and the offseason, the Mets’ payroll is going down. Way down.
Mets officials continue to say there are not even firm ticket prices for next year and, thus, no set projections to establish a payroll. But general manager Sandy Alderson recently established parameters when he insisted the team could be competitive in the $100 million-$110 million range, which simply reiterates one of the reasons he was hired in the first place: the belief he could do more with less (certainly with less than Omar Minaya was allowed to spend).
Of course, that fits right into what ownership needs and wants in this period, which is to shrink a $140 million payroll to something that permits the Wilpons to stop hemorrhaging money. And actually for the first time this week, a top Mets official said to me what none had been willing to before, either for the record or for background: That one serious discussion being had at the upper reaches of the franchise is whether it would be wise to cut back greatly next year and make 2012 a rebuilding season in which club officials do not go through the annual game of trying to convince fans, if everything breaks right, they can be a playoff team.
Obviously, the public perception will be that such a strategy would be designed specifically to save the Wilpons money. Considering their plight, that cannot be rejected as part of the reasoning. And the Wilpons hate being called cheap by the media and their fan base.
But Alderson is a smart baseball man who has nearly a year on the job now. He can see the
Phillies (even after all their trades of prospects) and Braves have significantly more talent than the
Mets both in the majors and minors, and the Nationals are building a power base on both levels, as well.
The Mets’ best strategy very well could be to continue to: 1) Give youngsters such as Lucas Duda and Dillon Gee experience. 2) Allow key prospects such as Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler time to grow closer to the majors while Jenrry Mejia returns to the mound after Tommy John surgery. 3) Have a second high-risk, high-reward draft in the Alderson regime with the potential of having two more high compensation picks if Jose Reyes leaves. 4) Get one year closer to running out bad contracts to Jason Bay and Johan Santana — both can expire after 2013. 5) Avoid spending on an ordinary free-agent group and save toward what is setting up as a blockbuster crop after the 2012 season — think Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Cole Hamels and Matt Cain.
From talking to Mets officials, I sense they are imagining two different payroll structures — one with Reyes and one without him. If they are able to keep him, the Mets would believe themselves a better team with a chance to motivate more ticket sales, which could push the payroll toward $110 million to a slightly higher range.
Without Reyes, the Mets would be harder pressed to position themselves as contenders and would drop their payroll to closer to $100 million or even less.
However, with or without Reyes, the Mets essentially are returning the team you see with minor alterations, like trying to find next year’s cheap starter alternatives to Chris Capuano and Chris Young, and seeing if they could improve on their poor catching situation. But they will go cheap with Duda in right, some combination of Ruben Tejada, Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy at second and perhaps even Bobby Parnell as the closer.
The Mets will have to decide whether to arbitrate with Mike Pelfrey and Angel Pagan off seasons of regression, or try to trade them and find less expensive alternatives. They know the payroll slashing already has begun because Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez finally come off the payroll and Francisco Rodriguez’s 2012 option never had a chance to go on for next year.
At this moment, they have five players (Santana, Bay, David Wright, R.A. Dickey and D.J. Carrasco) signed for $60.45 million. So if you add Reyes at, say, $20 million annually, the Mets would have roughly $30 million to field another 19 players. So you see why they would go cheap just about everywhere else.
I polled four executives and all expect Reyes, even after two disabled-list stints, will make approximately $20 million annually for five or six years.
“Clearly, the injury history will affect his contract,” an NL personnel man said, “but I still think a brittle Reyes is probably a safer bet than just about any pitcher. In that respect, I think he will still do well on the market.”
Teams will talk now about keeping contracts down — they do this annually — but injuries or not, Reyes will have five or six clubs very interested once the bidding begins.
“This is the rational time of year,” an AL GM said, “and then in November and December everyone forgets everything we say now and goes nuts.”
This is how, for example, Jayson Werth can end up with a $126 million contract. If Werth gets $126 million, Reyes will find at least one team willing to stretch significantly for him.
Will that be the Mets? Well, they do want him and have an advantage in knowing he really does prefer to stay. But that advantage only will help if offers are close, and my suspicion is the Mets are going to set a ceiling well below Reyes’ peak offer.
You know how this is going to play out. Teams are going to propose four years or four with an option during opening bidding, then a club will step out with a five-year bid or five with an option, and the winning team will go to six years in at least the $114 million range.
That is far less than the Carl Crawford dollars (seven years at $142 million) envisioned when Reyes was a first-half MVP candidate. But, still, you wonder if a Mets organization in financial despair and already thinking strategically about playing for a future date is going to go to those lengths for a player it loves, but also fear because of his injury history.
joel.sherman@nypost.com