A good friend, Ethan Ritter Schrott and I have wanted to co-write a series of articles for some time. He is an ardent Yankee fan and I’m a dyed in the wool Met fan and we’ve had arguments, since our college days, about which team was better. Those arguments are always useless, as a fan will (or should) support his team regardless, but we’ve come up with a unique system for discussing our favorite baseball franchises.
Our method is simple, each of us takes the time to review the situation and make our arguments for the other person’s team. I argue why his Yankees are superior, or have a brighter future and he does the same for the Mets. The results are pretty interesting.
Today’s Debate Topic:
Which New York Team Has the Brighter Outlook Over the Next five Seasons?
A Met Fan Arguing for the Yankees: Were the debate held back to which team is poised to have the better 2016, I’d have a difficult task in arguing my half of this debate. The Yankees are currently saddled with a payroll of $221,574,999.00 with bloated contracts to C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Jacoby Ellsbury and Alex Rodriguez. However, that payroll takes a $90,000,000.00 nosedive in 2017 allowing the Yankees to make moves to make their team anew.
The problem there is that, apart from Yoenis Cespedes and Stephen Strasburg, there aren’t a lot of big-name talents until 2017-18’s expected offseason market. Fully anticipating a Free Agent explosion in the coming years the Yankees will be putting a lot of their hopes on Luis Severino, Greg Bird, Aaron Judge and other prospects, not to mention making trades for players like Jose Fernandez and/or Giancarlo Stanton. The future Yankee success is built into unknown quantities. What happens if Masahiro Tanaka gets injured again? What happens if Bryce Harper decides to become a Boston Red Sock? Yankee fans can have faith in their future because their 2017 payroll, with its $90 Million drop, is still higher than the Mets’ 2016 payroll which is higher than it’s been in years.
Additionally, the team has one of the top bullpens that has ever been put together. Aroldis Chapman is only signed through the end of the season, but the Yankees are likely intent on bringing him back, were he to succeed. Dellin Betances hits arbitration in 2017 but is under contract with the team through 2020 and Andrew Miller is signed through 2018. The Yankees also have a number of promising arms that could make their bullpen one to fear for over a half decade.
The Mets, meanwhile, will need to start making decisions on talent soon as their young pitchers start to reach the end of the arbitrations. By 2020 there may only be two or three of the pitchers currently making up the Mets’ historic rotation and whichever pitchers they retain will greatly limit the offensive talent they can bring onboard. In the end the greatest handicap the Mets need to overcome remains the Wilpons. No evidence supports their willingness to fund the Mets continued success once their pitching staff is no longer inexpensive.
A Yankee Fan Arguing for the Mets:
In 2015 the Mets took advantage of a weak NL East, and made a Cinderella-eque run in the playoffs to make their first World Series appearance in 15 years.
Not only that, but money seems to be flowing once again from the coffers of the Wilpons – a payroll which bottomed out at $73MM in 2013 is all the way up to $123MM in 2016; certainly more becoming of a team who makes its home in the #1 media market in the world. The three-year contract extended to Yoenis Cespedes in the offseason is the proof in the pudding, and it also sends a very important message to the Mets fan base: “We are in it to win it.”
This offseason, the Mets signed Asdrubal Cabrera to a reasonable three year contract, and traded Jon Niese to the Pirates in order to acquire Neil Walker, a solid major league second baseman, filling the hole vacated by Daniel Murphy. These two moves shored up the middle infield, added offense, and removed the possibility of having Wilmer Flores or Ruben Tejada play every day. The unexpected retirement of Michael Cuddyer not only opened the door for the resigning of Cespedes, but it also guaranteed the young Michael Conforto more playing time.
The Mets have four prospects listed on MLB.com’s Top 100 Prospect Rankings, and are rated as having the 17th best farm system by BleacherReport.com (two spots higher than the Yankees). Aside from inflated arbitration numbers down the line for the star pitching staff, the Mets have a fair amount of payroll flexibility for the next few years. Three of the eight highest paid players on the Mets are free-agents after the 2016 season, not to mention the possibility that Cespedes (highest paid player) could use his opt-out clause. Curtis Granderson (third highest paid player) is a free-agent after the 2017 season. Juan Lagares is owed $23MM through 2019 (a tidy sum of money for a 5th outfielder). The only albatross contract belongs to that of Captain David Wright who is owed a whopping $87MM through 2020.
Which brings me to the A-Number-1 reason the Mets have the brighter future over the next 5 years: The “Billion Dollar Rotation”. In 2015, the Mets pitching staff had the 4th best ERA in the majors at 3.43 – the Yankees placed 16th, more than half a run higher, at 4.03. It has been suggested that if Harvey, deGrom, Syndergaard, Matz, and (to a lesser extent as he works back from Tommy John surgery) Wheeler, were to all hit the open market at the same time they would obtain a sum of one billion dollars in free agency. In 2016, the Mets are paying those five a grand total of $6,517,625. In comparison, Masahiro Tanaka alone makes $22MM in 2016. There is no doubt that Harvey and deGrom are superior pitchers to the Yankee ace, and it could be argued that Syndergaard is as well. Matt Harvey is the only one who was arbitration eligible in 2016, and the entire rotation is under team control through at least the next three years (Harvey will be a free agent in 2019, deGrom and Wheeler in 2020, and Syndergaard and Matz in 2022).
The Yankees have to contend with aging players and bloated contracts for the next several years. The Mets have a younger roster and reasonable financial control over most of their young stars for the next several years. As long as the wallets of the Wilpons don’t close up, and they’re willing to spend reasonable amounts of dollars to keep this team in contention, there is no reason to think that the Mets don’t have a bright future.
On the surface, I think the Mets have the better near-term future. As long as the pitching stays healthy and the farm system continues to drop useful pieces into the mix, the next three years have a chance to be really special.
On the other hand, the Yankees are far from being hapless stumblebums. That bullpen, with or without Chapman is really good and GM Cashman seems to have a knack for making some prescient moves. I can see them at or near the top of their division again.
Both teams are saddled somewhat with long-term deals. I suspect however that David Wright might just up and retire rather than embarrass himself and the Yankees do seem to have that bottomless pit of money.
So, while the Mets might be better, the Yankees won’t be bad.
Agreed,
The issue the Yankees have is that a lot of their future rides on who becomes available. Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Jose Fernandez, Giancarlo Stanton and others could all be theirs but just because the Yankees will have the money doesn’t mean the players will choose to join them.
As a Met fan it is clear that the Yankees have a history of buying their way out of problems, while the Mets have demonstrated that they cannot. An improving minor league system and the shedding of bloated contracts, combined with an endless supply of money makes the Yankees compelling.
As a Met fan, I just feel that the Wilpons will find a away to alienate the young pitchers and put us back at step 1 by 2020.
I mean, if you’re vouching for the Yankee side, the only argument you need is to say they haven’t had a losing since 1992, and nothing lower than 84 wins in non-strike seasons. End of discussion.
The argument wasn’t who’s been better. If it were there would be no argument.
5 years is a long time and who knows what condition the Mets will be in 3-4 years. However, based on the Yankees track record of 20+ years, I’d put my chips on the table that the Yankees will be competitive.
Yankees are like blue chips stocks that you can bank on year after year. Even their down years are usually pretty successful.
To reiterate what Dave said, this is not a conversation about who has been better. If that were the discussion, it would begin and end with one word, “Yankees”.
Let’s be honest, the New York Mets have had a difficult run of things since they were defeated by the Yankees in the 2000 World Series. From 2001 to 2014, the Mets had a losing season 9 times, and only made the playoffs one time in that span – the devastating 2006 postseason where they swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS, but lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the NLCS when, while tied 1-1, Oliver Perez gave up two runs in the top of the 9th inning. (The Cardinals would go on to defeat the Detroit Tigers 4-1 and win the World Series.)
I point this out not to cause Mets fans to seize in front of their computer screens in some sort of epileptic fit, but rather to point out that it’s always darkest before the dawn. That dawn, so it appears, has just come over the horizon. The loss in this past World Series must have been heartbreaking, but it could also be classified as bittersweet. After all, who at the beginning of the season had thought that the Mets would be playing meaningful games in September, let alone October? Also, take pride in the fact that even though the Mets were defeated by the Kansas City Royals (seemingly a team of destiny) 4-1, you held the lead at one point in each of the 5 games, and the Royals needed extra innings in two of those games to claim victory, including the decisive 12-inning Game 5.
Gone are the days of Jim Duquette and Omar Minaya. Forgotten are the times where General Manager Sandy Alderson would joke about the financial situation of team, commenting that he hoped the team bus didn’t run out of gas on the way to spring training, or comparing the status of the Mets front office to the time he spent in Vietnam. (In fact, he might have made one of the greatest Mets trades of all time when he managed to ship R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays for both Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard.) The Bernie Madoff situation seems to have been brought under control. (Though the Wilpons do need to show future consistency with an expanded payroll, and the free agent market.)
Things are looking up for the Mets.
The Yankees have to hope that Jorge Mateo, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird, and Gary Sanchez can become another sort of “Core Four”. If they do not live up to lofty expectations, then the Yankees 5-year future is almost entirely tied to free agent acquisitions and a soaring payroll.
Very thin arguments. You guys seem to believe players only come from free agent signings or drafts. Do your homework — many successful teams are built on trades (e.g., the Cubs), and the Yankees got A-Rod (who resigned), Pineda, Castro, Eovaldi, Gregorius, and Chapman in trades for nothing much. They’re all playing huge roles this season — 2/5 of the rotation, No. 3 hitter, closer, starting 2B, and starting SS (my God). Just because you take a cursory glance at the farm doesn’t mean you know what’s coming next. Also, didn’t see much of anything in the way of Mets position players. Do they have anyone other than Conforto to be excited about? The ‘billion dollar pitchers ‘ didn’t carry the team early last year, so why would they 5 years from now?
I understand your point.
However, I would argue that the vast majority of teams 25 and 40-man rosters have a far fewer number of players acquired through trades, as opposed to the draft and free agency. While every team has acquired star players at some point in time, every major league team builds from the draft and free agency before they build from trades.
It’s true that trades can often yield talent that plays huge roles. For the purposes of this article, though, it would be difficult to argue trades as a pretense for who is going to be better through the next five years. After all, how does one know what players an organization is targeting, or what they are willing to give up to get it done? How do we know if it would be a good trade or not? There’s no practical way to analyze it because it would all be based on speculation. I did mention the Jon Niese – Neil Walker trade because that’s something tangible that we can discuss, and to Dave’s credit he did mention that the Yankees would be interested in trading for Jose Fernandez and Giancarlo Stanton (but, then again, who wouldn’t be?).
I’m fascinated by this Yankees team and I find they are maybe the hardest team to predict for this coming season. If you’re a Yankee fan you have to just cross your fingers that Tanaka’s elbow holds up and that ARod, Beltran and Tex don’t all wind up on the DL. If they can stay reasonably healthy, this is a very talented team with a ridiculously good bullpen, a potentially good rotation and a good lineup if the above mentioned can stay off the DL.
Beyond this season, they have Tanaka, Pineda, Severino, Eovaldi, Betances and Miller as the foundation of a good staff. They’ll need to add a big bat once ARod, Tex and Beltran retire, but they’ve got good defense up the middle, a solid 1-2 at the top of the lineup, and good prospects coming up like Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge and Jorge Mateo. Given how deep their pockets are, they might not even need to trade those guys to get their next bopper.