Glass Half-Full: Mets' Non-Moves May Be the Best Moves

Met fans, by nature, are a frustrated bunch.  This is because there are consistent promises of hope with every offseason that precedes an unfulfilled reality at season’s end.  Met fans sometimes look at the team through a prism, longing for sustained excellence like that other team across the river. If the Yankees can do that, why can’t the Mets?  It’s easy to get caught up in that viewpoint, but at the end it leaves Met fans disappointed.  Met fans have grown to expect the worse which is a way of shielding themselves from continued disappointment.  They have a glass-half empty mentality and it can be contagious.  In an effort to try to avoid that pessimistic approach, this blog will periodically put together posts that will look for the silver lining in what otherwise may be viewed as unfavorable circumstances.  It’s an attempt to look at the “Glass Half-Full”

So let’s begin.

The 2010 season has yet to begin and spring training is still about a month away, but Met fans are already full of angst and frustration at the team’s lack of off-season moves.  It’s understandable since at the beginning of the offseason Mets’ management broadcasted the message that they were going to do what they had to do to put a winning team on the field.  Jason Bay was a positive addition filling a void in leftfield. But other than a few minor moves, not much else has been done.  It hardly looks like the aggressive approach that the front office had been boasting about back in November.  Met fans should probably take a collective breath and exhale all at once, because the players that are currently assembled are going to be, more or less, the team that is going to represent the Mets for 2010.

It may be that the best thing to happen to the Mets this winter is not the moves they made, but rather the moves they didn’t make.  This passive approach may be the right course for them in the present and could very well help them in the future.  Rather than pushing a panic button and feeling the need to pick up a player because that’s what’s expected, the Mets have done themselves a better service by not being seduced by the current free agent class.  They opted to avoid players that are injury risks (Ben Sheets), over-valued (Jon Garland), over-priced (Joel Pineiro) and handing out extended contracts for aging players (Bengie Molina).  The Mets have far too many players on their books that fall into those categories.

Wins Over Replacement player (WAR) is a great statistic that breaks down the actual contribution a player is making to their team and how it translates to actual wins. The nice thing about WAR is that it can also be converted to a dollar amount so that we can see if a player is performing above their salary or below.

The following chart lists position players with a minimum of 300 plate appearances that are currently on the Mets 40-man roster.  The columns show their’09 WAR, their estimated salary based upon WAR, their actual ’09 salary and the difference between what their WAR salary is and their actually salary.  The current market price for a win is estimated at around $4.5M to $4.75M.  This identifies some of the players who are either over or under performing based upon their last season statistics in relation to their salary.

From the data above, it’s evident that there were some players that were significant bargains for the Mets last season in relation to their pay: Angel Pagan and David Wright were strong contributors and Jason Bay had positive output for the Red Sox. More concerning is the output from Carlos Beltran who didn’t earn his salary and Gary Matthews Jr. who thankfully won’t bleed the Mets as badly as he bled the Angels, simply because the Mets are only investing $1M a year for his services. Obviously, the omission of players like Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado had significant negative impacts on the Mets success as they were injured for most of the season.

Now let’s look at pitchers who are on the Mets 40-man roster that pitched in excess of 50 innings last year.

The chart above may contain some surprises and some pretty obvious disappointments. Mike Pelfrey turned out to be the best bargain of the year compared to his salary where Johan Santana and Francisco Rodriguez significantly underperformed. And of course, it’s no surprise that the biggest culprit was Oliver Perez who underperformed by more than $15M.

Judging from the charts above, it’s obvious that pitching was the main area of underachieving which has been a focal point for the Mets all offseason. But perhaps the biggest piece of information that we can take away from the above chart is that the Mets have been getting burned on the big contracts. It’s no wonder that this offseason management has been making decisions more carefully, scrutinizing the player more closely and not willing to commit to players that are mediocre just because that’s what the market happens to be offering this year. They don’t need to make a signing just to make a signing.

The Mets may lack the pitching to make a true run at the division title this season but they should be a competitive team. They have some very talented players, who if healthy, can make for some exciting baseball. And who knows what will happen when the games are actually played? But showing restraint this offseason will probably serve the team well next season. There are some elite pitchers who will be free agents next year, Cliff Lee, Brandon Webb, Josh Beckett, Ben Sheets, Rich Harden. Many of them have something to prove this year and may be better targets to take a chance on in 2011. The Mets prospects will also have another year of development under their belts and players like Ike Davis, Fernando Martinez, Wilmer Flores and Jenrry Mejia could be the kind of players that are worth bridging the gap for.

Based upon how this offseason has gone, Mets fans may feel the impulse to jump in front of the #7 train, but let’s take a step back and appreciate the bigger picture. Maybe, just maybe, the Mets management has a plan in place and it starts with making strategic moves (or not making moves) that may serve the team better for the future. Signing Joel Pineiro would have helped the rotation but it hardly would have catapulted the Mets into a first place team. The pieces are just not there this offseason and it can’t be forced. So perhaps the Mets management should be applauded for taking the more conservative route. Perhaps the non-activity will payoff larger dividends down the road and Met fans will need to be patient and see what develops for the present future.