We HAVE beaten the Mets up for so many years over bad business practices — I’ll see your Oliver Perez and raise you a Luis Castillo — that we should acknowledge how well they are playing the R.A. Dickey negotiations.
Are the Mets low-balling their best and most popular pitcher? Yep. And that’s clearly making Dickey edgy and miserable. But this is a rare moment when the Mets have all the leverage, so why shouldn’t they use it, like the majority of players do when the power swings in the other direction?
If the Mets do nothing, they have the Cy Young winner on a team-friendly $5 million pact for next year knowing Dickey can’t roll up into an aggrieved ball because he still would have to pitch for his money. They know Dickey badly wants significant financial security as soon as possible to the point where he admitted yesterday he is asking for less than market value to seal a deal. Plus, the Mets recognize many clubs remain hungry to add top-of-the-rotation pieces.
The Mets are low-balling Dickey to see if they can either sign him to yet another team-friendly, multi-year contract or stall to see if an interested team decides it cannot find a high-level starter elsewhere and surrenders a touted prospect plus another piece or two to make moving the righty appealing.
This is negotiating Four Corners: The Mets have stalled their best and final offer to Dickey to let the Zack Greinke and James Shields markets resolve and then see if the aftershocks make teams more willing to meet their asking price. Greinke’s six-year, $147 million agreement with the Dodgers — the second largest package ever for a pitcher — seems to have moved a few teams off of the boutique free-agent market.
The trade of Shields (in tandem with Wade Davis from the Rays) removed another starting option from the marketplace and showed the depth of quality prospects a team, the Royals, was willing to give up for a top-of-the-rotation piece. Thus, doesn’t it behoove the Mets to make sure — then double sure, then triple sure — no desperate team will blink and make moving Dickey more than palatable?
Especially because the Mets have at least some worries about paying Dickey into his age-40 season and about whether all of his off-the-field endeavors will chip away at his effectiveness and/or popularity within the clubhouse. Those are just more reasons the Mets seem to be leaning toward a trade or, at the least, being positive they have exhausted all reasonable possibilities to move the knuckleballer.
Obviously, this does not work on Dickey’s clock. But he forfeited rights to control the pace in these negotiations when he accepted a two-year, $7.8 million pact with a $5 million option for 2013 after the 2010 campaign. At that point, Dickey had made around $1.5 million in a vagabond career and was happy to gain his first strong monetary foothold.
If Dickey had failed to follow through on his 2010 breakout, the Mets would have had yet more Perez/Castillo dead money on their books. Instead, Dickey became a Cy Young winner. The Mets gambled and won.
Dickey tried yesterday to create fake leverage by telling reporters he would be unlikely to return to the Mets in 2014 if an extension were not done soon. But what is the power of a threat that cannot be enacted for 12 months? Between now and then, Dickey has to pitch another season and could lose further leverage if his results dim. Dickey seems to enjoy the spotlight and off-the-field perks from his newfound celebrity, so would he really flee New York if the Mets make a strong offer sometime beyond an arbitrary deadline?
Also, at the end of next season, the Mets could tender Dickey — though with rising salaries this offseason, the tender could climb from about $13.3 million to $15 million — forcing him to decide whether to play for that amount for one year or try free agency at age 39 with the market potentially chilled because the tender means teams would have to forfeit a draft pick to sign him.
“When people say it’s business, it’s not personal, that just means it’s not personal for them,” Dickey told reporters after appearing at a Mets holiday function at Citi Field.
But it was business for Dickey, too. He did not have to attend this event. He did and then used it as a platform to try to swing public pressure against the Mets by making clear both his humble asking price and the team’s stingy response. The Mets front office was not pleased he used their forum to be so openly critical.
For now, the Mets have improved their offer from two years at $14 million for 2014-15 to two years at $20 million. It is under-market, as is Dickey’s request of $26 million. Still, the Mets think they moved and, thus, Dickey must make the next counter-proposal. Just another piece of Four Corners.
The Mets have the leverage and are determined to get the best deal possible — sign or trade — with Dickey. It is not fair to criticize the Mets for all their bad business and now bash them for doing the prudent thing, just because Dickey is popular and the organization is not.