Mets360 GM project is underway

Don’t know if you heard but the Mets are in the World Series! Also, I’ve got two projects with work going on right now – the first one was supposed to be a brief one (ha!) but has gone over its budgeted time and shows no signs of ending soon. The other should be done Friday, he said optimistically. And this week was auditions and start of rehearsal for the kids’ Christmas play. They’re part of a great group, which has unfortunately roped me into being on the Board of Directors, so there’s a bunch of other stuff to do besides making sure the kids get there on time.

So, what better week to have our GM project!

As you might recall, last year around this time, we did a simulation where I got 30 people to take over as the 30 MLB GMs and we conducted the offseason in a week. Well, we’re back again. The ballpark estimate is that half of the group participated last year and half is new blood. We’re running smoother this year than last year but it’s not like this year’s version is without its problems.

Regardless, we have a budget and we are tackling arbitration, trades and free agency. Without a doubt, the biggest improvement from a year ago is that MLBTR came out with their arbitration numbers earlier this year and we were able to use those for this simulation. Last year we had to make a bunch of tweaks on the fly to try to come up with an acceptable formula. Given the constraints we were under, we did okay. But I’m glad to have this resource available to us this year.

Last year we started off limiting owners to three trades per team. During the project, the limit was raised to four. Then there was a bunch of trading among the real GMs last year, with the Padres seemingly trading their entire roster. With that thought in mind, this year’s trade limit was raised to five. There was a flurry of trades on Monday, the opening day of the project. But there were only a handful yesterday and none so far today. My expectation is we’ll see an uptick in trades the rest of the way, even if we don’t approach Monday’s volume.

Because the 30 people doing this are spread throughout the country and are doing this for free, it makes conducting free agency a massive challenge. Last year we did a blind bid process, which led to some (okay, too many) funky winning bids. We have little choice but to do this via blind bid. But this year we are doing 10 players a day, compared to last year when they all went off on the same day. There are still going to be guys who end up with completely unrealistic contracts. But there will be fewer of them and hopefully none who had big years in 2015.

Everything is done on a one-year contract basis. It’s just too much work to determine for every single free agent if a 3/$36 offer is better than a 5/$50 offer. You’ll be interested to know that Justin Upton got an $18 million contract while Zack Greinke got $25.625 million. Tonight Yoenis Cespedes and Johnny Cueto are on the block. It’ll be interesting to see if that duo’s World Series performance so far affects their price.

You’ll see a lot of familiar faces involved in this project. From the site currently, there is Patrick Albanesius, David Groveman, Dan Kolton, Julian McCarthy, Matt Netter, Rob Rogan and me. Former writers Scott Ferguson and Joe Vasile are also participating. There are people with former ties to minor league baseball and people who run fantasy sites. And this year we have a celebrity among our ranks. He’s a best-selling author and if you read sports books from the 70s and 80s, chances are you’ve read something by him. No Mets titles by him jump to mind, but he’s written many books about the Yankees.

All 30 of the GMs will be offered the chance to write about their experiences and my hope is that the vast majority of them will. These will start hitting the site next week. At the very least, the 360 guys will spell out their week. My team is the Brewers and you will find out if I go down the Sandy Alderson path and continue to cut payroll and stockpile young assets or if I use my surprising payroll availability to chase free agents and look to compete with the Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates.