A lot has been written about David Wright and the New York Mets this year. I, for one, have written various versions of the same thing I’m going to write here, and I’m going to keep on writing it until it either comes true or events develop that result in a different ending. In my world, this is what’s going to happen.
(Note – people keep asking me “do I know David Wright”. The answer is, yes, we have met a number of times. I’ve interviewed him twice. We don’t have a relationship past that, but I believe if we passed in the hall, he would recognize me, and say “hey Mack”. Have we ever talked about this? No. In fact, the only thing we ever talked about was the passing of an ex-teammate of his and the size of Bobby Bonilla, who had just entered the clubhouse. I was the lowest of beat reporters allowed in the clubhouse and I knew my place. Wright was not part of my world and I respected that.)
Everybody keeps writing that Sandy Alderson has one of three options here:
1. Extend Wright during the 2012-2013 offseason.
2. Trade Wright during the 2012-2013 offseason if he refuses to sign.
3. Trade Wright during the season.
It is my belief, after talking to people, discussing this with my contacts, (as others put it) making things up, and (as Warner Wolf used to say) going to the video tape, only two or three are achievable.
Wright is not going to re-sign with the New York Mets. I’ve been writing this for close to six months now and even Adam Rubin either is reading me or getting the same chatter because he’s saying the same thing.
Wright doesn’t want to be a Met anymore. And his reasons are pretty simple. He does not want to end his career with a paycheck signed by Fred Wilpon.
Wright will tell the people who put microphones or tape recorders in front of his lips that he wants to play for a ‘winner’. He’s even gone as far last month as saying ‘and, there’s not been that much of that around here’, but that’s all you’re going to hear from Wright during this season, in the off-season and during next season. If anything, Wright is loyal to the uniform and that’s all you’re getting.
But loyalty to the front office stopped dead in its tracts May 2011 when Jeffrey Toobin of New Yorker Magazine printed an article called “Madoff’s Curveball”. In it Wilpon said about Wright: “A really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar.”
Every wheel stopped with that statement.
I can’t prove what I’m about to say. I have three sources regarding it, but I’ve been away from the Mets fire lines the past few months. Still, I feel comfortable in say this:
David Wright has not shared a single word with Fred Wilpon since that article in The New Yorker.
Oh, they’ve talked about each other. They might have shared a text. Wright gave a generic comment about the story and there might be an email or two, but Wright has chosen to no longer have Wilpon in his life.
At the same time, he has seen from afar (i.e. Carlos Beltran) that there is good baseball past being a New York Met.
He continues to tow the company line, especially the one when every beat reporter runs to him after every loss or inane statement out of the front office. Wright handles them better than Mitt Romney is doing with MSNBC, turns and packs his bag, and heads to the safety of the parking lot. From there, he enters his world until he drives back for the next night of chaos.
No, you are going to see David Wright in a Met uniform… for the rest of this year.
If Sandy Alderson is smart, he’ll cut a deal before the season starts next spring and gets the most he’s ever going to get for a guy that probably just had the best season he’s going to have during this decade.
If not, he’s exercise the option and you will see Wright back next year until a deal can be done during the season.
Lastly, the Mets could chose to go down the same insane path they did with Jose Reyes and take draft picks for the face of the team since 2004.
But, what you’re not going to see is Wright put on a Mets cap in 2014. No, that will have to wait until Cooperstown.
Hopefully the Mets’ front office learned from the Jose Reyes situation on how to handle a player in his walk year. I didn’t see anything on Cot’s about Wright having a no-trade clause, so it seems possible they could pick up his option one day and trade him the very next.
I just hope that Mets fans have learned that losing Wright – if it comes to that – will not be the end of the world. I hope that Wright stops striking out so much, rediscovers his power (1 HR in his last 38 games, a stretch covering 159 PA) and becomes the player he was in April & May. But I would rather that the Mets trade him or get the compensation picks than give him a $100 million contract to be the player he’s been since the All-Star break.
“This team is just a lot of fun to be a part of,” David Wright said after Thursday’s walk-off win. “There’s a lot more fun to be had.” 7-5-12 and then the bottom fell out and the Mets were no longer winners and the front office inactivity may have cost the Mets they’re all star third baseman.
So one month later: “You want to be able to win, and I’ve only experienced a little bit of that here,” Wright said, according to Puma. “In a perfect world, we get this thing turned around and going in the right direction and ultimately I get to experience the bad, the ugly and the good here, which includes winning.”“We’ve taken a baby step in the right direction and I still think there’s a long way to go before you can say that we’ve kind of turned that corner where I think that we will,” he said. 8/12/12. Wright never says anything negative but here he is sending the message to management that this is only a baby step.
Management has already spoken of a 90-100M payroll so Wright is aware that there is no help coming to protect him in the lineup or improve the current team.
Mack had already mentioned the New Yorker Article.
So would Washington Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman agreeing to a six-year, $100 million extension during spring training on top of the combined $26 million he was due to earn between this season and 2013 be the baseline comp for a Wright deal? Would Alderson even consider that type of expenditure and length? It would be opposite his Moneyball principles.
If the Mets were financially solvent and willing to compete for fans in NY, I would never let Wright go BUT THAT IS NOT THE CASE!
Unfortunately Wright will probably be traded and it should include major league ready talent and not “prospects” that are 3 years away.
Sadly,Mack, I think your article is right and your arguement is presnted strongly.
Mack,
When David Wright spoke about the Nationals, he spoke about them not only as a team, but as an organization. His words about them as an organization were more than the number of words about them as a team. Collectively, they were more than about the Mets.
Sadly, I agree with you. I hope either you are wrong, or that something changes.
He recognized the 3rd basemen for the Nationals, and it may not have been just the Nationals he was thinking about, but organizations who look to build to win. I was surprised that the main stream media did not catch on to what he was saying. He said the usual, ‘right’ things to say, but it was not the Mets organization that he was praising for building a winner.
As to Brian’s comment: As much as we like David Wright and he has been the face of the Mets AND we would love to have an All Star play his entire career in one city…it is not the end of the world.
There are a few players who play third and who may be bumped because of Wright, including Wilmer Flores.
I want Wright to end his career with the Mets. Period. I had a very difficult time, as a boy, when the Mets traded Seaver. It was traumatic for me, at age 15, to see him go, for more than a few reasons. I stopped watching the Mets and baseball for a few years. It wasn’t until I was in a half empty Shea Stadium seeing a 19 year old kid, a few years later, throw a fast ball that I had trouble seeing, even though I was right above the first base area. It took that long to rekindle the flame.
David isn’t The Franchise and given Wilpon and the drama…it may end up well for us, in any case:
*We get real talent in a trade or
We get our third basemen to finish his career here.
Mack I know I’ve posted about David many times on your old site but not here. Look signing Wright is just not a good idea. There are 3 teams in our division that are light years ahead of us and we have way to many holes to fill to even think about what advantage it is to pay D.W. 20 million a year for 6 or 7 more years knowing we’ll be regreting it 4 years from now. Also based on the fact that he hasn’t been the same player since our brillant move into Ebbets/Jackie Robinson/Citifield. Even with the fences moved in and him having a comeback player of the year year he’s got 17 HR’s and 79 rbi. at 29. He’s averaged only 18 HR’s a year in the last 4 yrs and lets face it if you really love David you’ll trade him so he’ll have a chance to go to winner while he can still contribute. In my wildest dreams we can compete by 2015 when David would probably be a complimentary piece at best making 20 million that could be spent better elsewhere(by the way in my dream we have a new owner). In summary I love you David and wish you only the best but its in both our best interests that you move on.
Gary –
Let’s leave the mentions to the old site out. That’s in the past.
It really doesn’t matter if signng him is a good idea. It is financially impossible to burden a team trying to operate in the $100-120 payroll area over the 2013-2015 years to tie up the kind of money Wright will be offerred by other teams.
Financially, the Mets can get three top prospects at $440K each in return for Wright’s services. Hell, one could be the team’s top 3B prospect.
I don’t like the operating plan the Mets are operating under, but I accept the reality of it. The Mets will not be able to add meat until the Jason Bay and Johan Santana contract is in the past. Wright’s option year just happens to be one year short.
A) Mack, you are correct, he,’s outta here, and I don’t blame him.
B) I don’t see him as a HOFer.
Thanks for sharing your insights Mack. That was really the coldest splash of water Ive let myself rationalize on this topic. I hope we can get something out of this. It makes me feel sad, and detest ownership in a way that simply fails to make me conjure the accurate words.
It’s a shame but yeah,he’s going.I’d rather he be the Mets Chipper Jones,spend his whole career in a Met uniform(he holds or will hold the lead in every offensive category).The Mets are a disgrace and I’m just not going to follow them seriously again until that changes.
I don’t know whether or not Wright will be back. But I’ve said this previously and I’ll say it again (and I’m an not trying to be offensive…just disagreeing) I think you are making way way too much about this New Yorker article. As for them not sharing a “single word”…here’s them talking in ST. http://i.usatoday.net/communitymanager/_photos/daily-pitch/2012/03/05/wilponx-large.jpg .
And I’d imagine there are other times they’ve had chats. Just b/c they aren’t buddy/buddy and don’t regularly hang out, doesn’t mean Wright is going to leave. Fred is almost 50 years older than David…I don’t think many people spend that much time hanging out with people who aren’t family that are that much older than them…nor do many players spend that much time regularly hanging out with their owners. And if anything, David and Jeff Wilpon probably have a much closer relationship and get together more often than the typical player/owners do.
Wright may very well decide to leave, but I think it will be for the reasons stated in the mainstream media….he wants to win and doesn’t see a great chance of that happening here. Not b/c of a comment Fred made in an article 1.5 years ago. If he’s disappointed with the Wilpons, I think its much more b/c of their inability to show real commitment to winning and all the various distractions their ridiculousness causes around the team….than one line said to the New Yorker
NYM:
The only reason I bring up the New Yorker article is my ‘sources’ continue to tell me that Wright hasn’t shared one word with Fred Wilpon since that article came out.
This is not healthy and led to my conclusions.
Well I’m just saying based on what I’ve seen/heard. That “haven’t shared one word” stuff is not true.
Wright could go all Derek Jeter and hold a grudge about comments in a paper for years and years (as Jeter did with A-Rod), but I doubt it…and even if he did I still don’t think that silly comment,of all the nonsense that has gone on here in recent years, was the turning point or will be the deciding factor if Wright decides not to re-sign
nym:
Well, as I understand, you work there, so you may know more than I do at this point. I’ll stand by my sources and we’ll wait this out.
That being said, if Fred and David did the Texas Two Step tonight to Chipper playing banjo, he’s still on his way out the door… by choice.
calling him our “Chipper Jones” is a sad reality, but a good point.
saying it is hard to find words to describe the hatred of ownership runs acid in my stomach.
I always appreciate the comments here. I worry that Sandy A was chosen specifically for money ball players to appeal to the cheapness of ownership.
I’ve gone through this before.
Tom Seaver was MY Chippper.
nym,
I think that wanting to win and a comment 1.5 years ago are pretty much one and the same: I think the author’s point was that ownership attitude towards Wright and towards the franchise are one and the same: save money.
TO get a winner, an owner must spend money.
To bad mouth the Mets’ face and star is to negotiate in the press. “not a superstar” Why else would he say something like this if not for not wanting to pay superstar money?
I don’t want to lose him but unless the Mets indicate to him a change in mentality, I think he goes via trade before he goes via free agency. There are a lot of teams out there that think that if they get David Wright and they put protection in the line up behind him, they are getting .300, 100 RBI’s and hustle, leadership and fine play.
I really like him and want him to stay.
Maybe it is the PTSD like symptoms from losing Tom Seaver but I never let my kids get too ‘into’ a player. It is like a set up for disappointment in the modern era.
NYM –
I wish all of you could see how the high-end Mets beat press weave their spells, smile while asking questions, hang out and smooze while the lights are out, and then dip their pens in poison ink.
Trust me, you would have a lot more respect for the Yankees manager this morning.
I don’t think those issues are the same thing. Nor do I think there was any secret motive to Wilpon’s statement. He made that comment in April 2011…Wright essentially would have 3 full seasons to play b/w then and when they’d have to re-sign him or lose him as a FA….so I don’t think that was any kind of negotiating tactic. It was just him being stupid and talking off the cuff…showcasing his tin ear one more time. I think Wright’s feelings briefly being hurt is a different issue than whether or not the Mets try to build a winning team.
nym –
you are correct… it was Fred being Fred.
but David Wright was very hurt that day and has not forgotton it.
This is the first article I’ve read that presented the case for Wright not wanting to re sign here and I have to agree. Very powerful, persuasive and well written piece.
I cannot see five or 6 years being in the Mets best interest either. The only thing that makes any sense is to pick up the option, “be blown away” by another teams offer shortly before ST after as many tickets have been sold as possible and execute a sign and trade to a place Wright would like to go.
That would bring the best return. Failing that trading him before ST while he remains on track to be a FA is the next best option. Taking it to the deadline is dependent on too many variables. Letting him play out his option year would result in just one supplemental round pick due to the new CBA.
When you look around many teams have existing contractual commitments with their third basemen and many other teams have a young prospect close by and some have both these situations. Detroit with Cabrerra and Castellanos and Texas with Beltre and Olt. Scratch KC (Moustakas), Minn (Sano) Boston (Middlebrooks) Toronto (Lawrie), NYY (A-Rod + lowering payroll), Tampa (Longoria), Baltimore (Betemit/Machado), ChiSox (Youkliss for 2013 on a 1 year commit) LAA (Cowart) That leaves Houston, Oakland, Cleveland. Indians have a severe need for a RH bat and a third basemen but I don’t see a sign and trade deal to them and I highly doubt Houston or Oakland are in play.
National League wise I can’t see Chicago being buyers, Washington (Zimmerman/Rendon) Pittsburgh (Alvarez), Milwaukee (Ramirez), St. Louis (Freese), SF (Panda), SD (Headley, Spangenberg, Gyorko), Colorado (Arenado), AZ (Davidson) That leaves Philly (Utley?) Atlanta (Prado?), Miami(Zach Cox?), Cinn (?) and LA is a real wild card if they do a restructuring.
Inter division deals are problamatic and further complicating matters is that there could be a few third basemen moved in the off season. Headley, Rendon and Olt could be on the move or Atlanta could wait on Joe Leonard for 3B and Todd Cunningham for CF who will be in AAA next year so I see them going with bookmarks at those spots to preserve options (after losing Chipper and Bourne) and that could involve moving Prado to 3B if they went bookmark for a LFer instead of 3B and why wouldn’t they because by waiting to see if Wright makes it to FA they could get him without giving up anything albeit a year later and wait to see if Prado is needed to replace Uggla. Miami could jump the gun with Realmuto and Ozunza being about the best you could hope for.
I don’t see a lot of teams lining up to pay Wright 100 M over 5 years and it would probably entail a 3 team deal to get it done, position changes and might even mean the best offer isn’t the best fit and additional deals will need to be executed to shore up catcher and the OF.
Most likely Wright is discretely shopped after his option is picked up, no deal is able to be consummated and the Mets have to hope some injuries hit among multiple contenders to develop a market. At that point it’s 50/50 if we get something worthwhile or take the pick.
Ultimately the shame of the whole matter is that the two best position players we have ever developed at the same time were never filled in around with similar (or close to it) talent that played next to them for 6-8 years in their primes. This team is only 5 real good young players away from being as good or better than Atlanta even with the payroll logjam. and the five 1st and 2nd round picks forfeited for free agents, the 4 supplemental round picks not taken back and the three 1st or supplemental picks sold to avoid paying the signing bonus combined with drafting under slot reach selections when we kept the picks from 2005-2010 has killed the chance of this team competing for a solid decade yet again.
7Train
Thank you for your kind and professional thoughts
7Train:
Remember… Wright is outplaying many of the current 3Bmen playing on the teams you rule out.
That current 3Bman could easily be part of a package with two prospects.
Good point Mack. At the same time most teams might have more pressing concerns elsewhere than upgrading some fairly big producers or highly regarded prospects, and they have more choices than just DW.
If they have the farm they could get guys under control for anywhere from 2-6 years that don’t require a 100 M dollar investment.
Mack—very perceptive comments—good work!
7train—impressive and thorough.
Metsense—excellent research.
The sad truth is that the competency of Brian Joura and his accomplices on this site is well-above the level of the present ownership of the Mets.
Aloha David, whenever.
In the end, i think the stuff like relationships with owner/GM/other players don’t really matter to most free agents. Heck, winning doesn’t even matter. They want their money, and they’ll sign with whomever gives them the most. It’s really that simple. Money talks.
My personal feelings on this subject, the ones in the deepest parts of my guts that are continually twisting my heart strings into a mesh of spider web like jubilee, is that David will be completely and totally mishandled in every way, leading to the only likely outcome…disaster! No matter what happens, wether traded or signed, my gut tells me the Mets will suffer for it. That’s just how the Mets’ most important decisions usually play out. Sign him to a lucrative and lone term contract and watch how his production dwindles down as fast as the Mets attendance has. OR, trade him for somebody’s top prospects and watch how they never fully mature into players even close to what David will be over the next four years. The best we could hope for is that Sandy is able to send Bay packing in the same deal. Take one less prospect, pay half Bay’s contract and we’ll call it even. Immediately frees up 24 million and you only have to replace the third baseman.
Why would anyone even go watch a game at Citifield?Seriously,the teamdoesn’t care,the owner doesn’t care.They play worse at home than any team in baseball.The visitors are liker the home team.