CY YOU LATER? Mets Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey showed up at the Winter Meetings hotel in Nashville yesterday, a reminder he should command a lot of attention from other MLB clubs.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It fits perfectly with R.A. Dickey’s narrative, a term he utilizes when discussing his Dickensian tale of perseverance, that he made a personal appearance Sunday at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.
“I’m really just here as a formality,” the Nashville resident explained to a handful of reporters.
Ray Ramirez, the Mets’ head trainer, was here at the Winter Meetings, and Dickey — who had abdominal surgery in October — said he wanted to check in with Ramirez.
Eh. Ramirez could have driven to Dickey’s nearby home and we would have been none the wiser. But Dickey, like his old Rangers teammate Alex Rodriguez, is drawn to the spotlight like a moth to a flame, and he came to the right place. For sure, the 2012 National League Cy Young Award winner will dominate the chatter of these meetings as much as anyone else.
By the end of this week, we should have considerably more clarity on whether Dickey will be traded shortly or remain a Met for the next few years.
“R.A.’s situation needs to be resolved, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be resolved here in Nashville before Thursday,” Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said after arriving at the meetings. “I think we’ll have a lot more information both in terms of his negotiations and other options, but I don’t think we have to have resolution by Thursday.”
Dickey, who is signed for 2013 at $5 million and can be a free agent a year from now, met with Alderson and other Mets officials yesterday for about 10 minutes.
“Non-contract related chat,” Alderson said.
Dickey is too sharp to negotiate a contract extension without the presence of his agent Bo McKinnis. Those negotiations haven’t yet reached a critical juncture, according to Alderson.
“I don’t think we’ve gotten to the point where we have two positions that can’t be bridged,” he said. “We may get to that point, but I don’t think there’s been enough to and fro at this point to know that.”
Talks have progressed, Dickey said, since David Wright signed off on his eight-year, $138-million arrangement early Friday morning. At the same time, though, the Wright commitment seems to have alleviated some public-relations pressure for the Mets to keep Dickey, too, especially when they have such obvious holes to fill in the outfield, at catcher and in their bullpen.
Not surprisingly, there is considerable interest in acquiring Dickey. Kansas City, Milwaukee, Texas and Toronto are among the teams that either have expressed interest in him or have past connections with him— Milwaukee general manager Doug Melvin and Texas GM Jon Daniels both know Dickey from the Rangers. And plenty of other clubs need frontline pitching.
It’s all business, despite Dickey’s visceral connection with Mets fans, and both sides know it. When asked to describe his level of optimism over finishing an extension, Dickey said: “I don’t really know if I can put a percentage down on it. But that’s my hope. That being said, you never want to be taken advantage of.”
This isn’t a slam-dunk decision for the Mets. You can make a strong case for trading Dickey for the proper package to fill the team’s obvious needs at outfield and catcher; you could reasonably argue a 38-year-old knuckleballer should pitch effectively into his 40s and therefore is worthy of a multi-year commitment; there also is the option of going into the season on the bargain $5 million deal and seeing where things take you.
The last one appeals least to the Mets.
“I wouldn’t say it’s an ideal situation for him, or for us,” Alderson said. “In part because we’d be talking about this for the next 11 months. That’s a situation I’d prefer to avoid and see if we can’t focus on the team on the field as opposed to these ancillary topics.”
So it’s up to Alderson and his crew to gather as much information as they can the next few days and start to come to a decision on Dickey. It doesn’t have to be a final final, as they say; circumstances could change. Yet it’s time for the Mets to start moving in one direction on their celebrated right-hander. They know it, as does Dickey.
Only with a resolution will we stop discussing Dickey. He might not necessarily like that. But he and the Mets would get peace of mind in return.