The Mets have yet to put up a For Sale sign when it comes to their major players. Two executives who feel they definitely would be alerted if the Mets suddenly put out feelers for veterans such as Jose Reyes and David Wright told me that, at this point, there are no signs of imminent movement.
Nevertheless, both anticipated it is just a matter of time.
The two executives — a general manager and a personnel head — both viewed the Mets as non-contenders who will, at the least, have to gauge the market value of Reyes, Wright, Carlos Beltran and Francisco Rodriguez to see if it provides an avenue to hasten rebuilding.
Both executives, though, cautioned Mets fans to lower expectations on returns for the various, high-profile pieces, because teams are hesitant to give up major prospects if a player falls into any of the following categories:
* Walk year (Beltran, Reyes and perhaps Rodriguez).
* Injury history (Beltran, Reyes and now Wright with his back issue).
* Big contract dollars (all three, plus the potential that K-Rod’s contract will vest at $17.5 million for next year).
* Not as good as perception (Rodriguez and Wright).
COLLINS RIPS INTO METS AFTER LOSS TO PIRATES
KERNAN: COLLINS’ RANT LONG OVERDUE
DESPITE TURNER’S BLAST, METS BATTLING CITI POWER PROBLEM
“You look at the history of the July deadline, and position players heading into free agency do not get big value,” the general manager said. That would be Beltran and Reyes.
When I pressed the general manager on Reyes, the executive pointed out that as desirable a player as Reyes could be for clubs such as San Francisco, Tampa Bay and Cincinnati, the limited number of games before free agency were a huge stumbling block.
“Think how little the Braves got for Mark Teixeira,” the general manager said.
Atlanta received just Steve Marek and Casey Kotchman for Teixeira on July 29, 2008. The best walk-year player traded in 2008 was Matt Holliday to St. Louis, and Oakland only received Shane Peterson, Clayton Mortensen and Brett Wallace.
Last year, Washington held on to Adam Dunn and Toronto to Jose Bautista, despite overheated rumors, because they did not feel the return met the quality of a player performing near his prime. Instead, older players such as Manny Ramirez and Lance Berkman were traded for tepid returns, which may be a view of what the Mets could get for Beltran, though he is having a better year now than Ramirez or Berkman last season, and offense appears a more wide-ranging need than in recent seasons.
But the personnel chief countered, “No one is going to forget that Beltran is making $18 million this year, and I can’t imagine the Mets eating any significant portion of that. And no one is going to forget he is one misstep on bad legs away from not being able to play for you at all.”
Wright can be controlled through the 2013 season. But though Fred Wilpon was the wrong man to deliver the assessment of his third baseman, the sentiments summed up the league-wide perception of Wright: He is not viewed as a superstar around the game.
The comparison I would make is to Eli Manning, who is probably, what, the 10th-or-so-best quarterback in the NFL, but often is viewed as a superstar because of his last name, his Super Bowl MVP and association with New York.
Wright also is elevated by being with a New York team. He is looked at as a better player here than he is around the baseball landscape. Now there also is fear over the condition of Wright’s back and if, at 28, he is trending the wrong way. The general consensus I get when I ask outside teams about David Wright is, very good player, but would be best served if he were the third- or fourth-best player in the lineup and not asked to hit third.
Of course, the Mets would get offers for Wright. There certainly are organizations that feel that he has been overwhelmed by the combination of Citi Field’s size and the seemingly ceaseless Mets problems. He is just 28. But the reality is that even interested teams are going to make offers based on who Wright is and not what he might become liberated from the Mets.
That puts the Mets in a difficult spot with Wright, and really all of their desirable, moneyed players: Do they make the best deals possible as a way to a) turn the page, b) renew the vitality of the farm system as best as possible and c) put the team on a better financial footing, which would probably appeal to ownership at this moment?
And the one other item to consider with Wright is, if the Mets do not deal him soon, his value will slip as he moves toward free agency at the same time the Mets will be faced with their Reyes-esque question two years from now about their third baseman: Do they go long term with a fan favorite, but one who they are not sure will be a good long-term buy?