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Agendas --yea or nay?

Are agendas generally good?

Yea	5 votes
Nay	4 votes

Bret Sabermetric Jan 29 2006 09:05 AM

I like agendas, mine and other people's. In contributing some points of praise for Johnny D.'s points of power SABR talk yesterday, I realized that that what I liked most about JD's talk (and like least about local SABR conferences in general) was that he had a thesis, a case to make, an agenda. If I disagreed with him, for example, that Bing Devine did a good job, was willing to spend money that he might otherwise have saved for Mrs. Payson's checking account, and helped to build the 1969 championship by doing so, I would at least know what I was arguing against. Also, in making a clear case for his beliefs, JD was opening his position to argument if some future SABR speaker wanted to demonstrate how Bing Devine was the devil incarnate, and JD would have to amend his thesis or argue the devil's position, or something of that sort. JD would not be allowed just to go, "Whatever, dude" because he had already argued a clear position. This makes for lively discussions, whether JD would back down or argue back. That's why I enjoy noodging people into clarifying what they're saying around here. It's very easy to be pro-Jose Reyes, as I never cease to point out, though I like Jose tremendously myself. But it's important (I think) to distinguish that sort of support from the less qualified support I feel for,say, David Wright, who has already shown himself worthy of extending a long-term bigbux contract to. I would still argue that it's unnecessary to offer Wright a longterm contract just yet, but he's shown himself to worth one without improving even a tiny bit. Reyes is not, and understanding what Jose needs to do to be worthy of a LTBB contract is crucial to building a good team. Too many of my CPF friends are content to say, "Yeah, Jose should be given a contract" without realizing the downsides of offering one to him before he radically improves his OBP. So I make my thesis, and challenge others to make theirs. Too often, though, this gets labelled an "agenda," and is regarded as a bad thing in itself. I do prefer to make a case, and to try to make it consistently, then to be what (ironically) gets labelled a 'fair-weather fan," changing with the results of yesterday's ballgame. If someone is a bad fielder, I don't think two great catches should suddenly turn that person into a good fielder--he's a bad fielder who made two good catches yesterday. But if I need to change my position on that guy's fielding, well, I need to do that, and to acknowledge that I'd misjudged that person's fielding in the past, or that it has suddenly improved. If I'm changing my agenda every week or so, to accomodate short-term phenomena, well, I'm pretty much labelling my agendas to be flexible, and therefore not worth paying much attention to. As far as I'm concerned, an agenda is just a clear opinion. Edgy, for example, has an agenda that the Mets shouldn't make quite so many trades as they do: Home Boys Only, he called it. I admire that agenda, not because I agree with it, but because it gives the rest of us a thesis to argue with, and Edgy knows his thesis, and what he's willing to defend and not defend. Ms Met, of sainted memory, used to argue that Benitez was worthless, a very hard thesis to defend--when people would try to point out that Benitez had, in fact, some real worth, she would frustrate them by continuing to maintain her original agenda, regardless of other people's points. This was hilariously silly of her, and got her marked for mockery, or mocked for markery, but I don't think the problem was that she had an agenda. The problem was that she had an indefensibly stupid agenda. Edgy's agenda is not remarkably stupid. I don't really agree with it, but it's defensible. If Edgy gets labelled a sentimentalist for hanging onto Mets' players for longer than I might, I think he's willing to defend sentiment as being important to his concept of being a fan, which helps to clarify his overall positions. That's a good thing. So I'm voting "Yea" in this vital issue of agendae.

Nymr83 Jan 29 2006 09:54 AM

agendas are fine as long as you aren't denying that you have one

Johnny Dickshot Jan 29 2006 10:02 AM

Thanks for the kind words. I'm not sure I had an agenda beyond pointing out that Devine was a sharp guy who accomplished a lot in a short period because he was open-minded and decisive. So if someone said he was closed-minded and indecisive and didn't do much, then he'd have an argument from me. But I was only doing my best to review what actually happened. I admire your desire to be concise concerning a position on Reyes, but at the same time doing that can overlook a wash of grey area concerning the definitions of "big-buxx," and big-picture influences (what will the SS market look like when it's time to make a decision? Will there be other financial considerations to make at that time? Will some unknown be knocking on the door at that time?) and other unknowns (suppose, for example, that Reyes hits his projection but overall OBP in the league goes down, etc.), so demanding a concrete position this very second, IMO, can and ought to be hedged.

KC Jan 29 2006 10:06 AM

Sal, what grinds my grits about long posts like that is that you have a habit (I dunno, maybe it's just me and my senility, or alzheimers, or too many years of beer drinking) of slipping in some broadranging falsehood like, "too many CPFr's think bbyyy." Who's clamoring for Reyes to be locked up?

Bret Sabermetric Jan 29 2006 10:11 AM

Sure. I think if I'm saying that if Reyes doesn't improve his OBP by at least .030 points for me to be willing to risk losing him to Free Agency, which is what I am saying, and he improves by .020 points while the league's OBP drops by .010, then I'm certainly willing to argue that my terms have been fulfilled, though not in the way I'd originally supposed. I'd even be willing to take him if he improved by .020 OBP points in a stable OBP league and admit that I was out of line with my original thesis. What I'm arguing here is that it's a waste of everyone's time if I'm unclear on what sort of improvement Reyes needs IMO to get a LTBB contract, or flip-flop on Reyes every time he has a good game or a bad game.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 29 2006 10:14 AM

KC wrote: Sal, what grinds my grits about long posts like that is that you have a habit (I dunno, maybe it's just me and my senility, or alzheimers, or too many years of beer drinking) of slipping in some broadranging falsehood like, "too many CPFr's think bbyyy." Who's clamoring for Reyes to be locked up? Instead of grinding your grits, try reading the Reyes LTBB thread. Plenty of people are claiming they'd like to see him signed up after 2006 if he only continues at his current rate of getting on base or an insignificant improvement. I'm not making this stuff up, just trying to stay succinct. I hate long posts even more than you.

KC Jan 29 2006 10:19 AM

I'll go tally them up, I'm sure it won't add up to the way you make it sound. Be back later.

KC Jan 29 2006 10:35 AM

I apologize. I paulied the thread and I picked the wrong time and subject to play my "sal, you make stuff up sometimes" card and I wish I could pick it up and play it in another hand but now I feel all dumb and what not so I'll just sit here with my tail between my legs and take any lumps any- one wants to hurl my way. Sorry again, my bad. (the thread is on page six if anyone is interested)

Bret Sabermetric Jan 29 2006 10:50 AM

That's okay. I'm sure I make up stuff sometimes, and get things wrong other times, and Paulie old threads a lot myself. Not quite as much as people say I do, of course, but to accomplish that, I'd have to post more than I do or post longer or more argumentative threads than I do, and nobody wants that. You can get your grits pre-ground in many of the finer marketplaces today--they're delicious.

Frayed Knot Jan 29 2006 11:39 AM

I guess that, during my half-decade or so of posting on Met-related boards, I've slapped the more negative sounding label "agenda" on someone's viewpoint when the person spouting it has seemingly no interest in even hearing or discussing anything that might upset his/her already reached conclusion.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 29 2006 12:36 PM

Frayed Knot wrote: I guess that, during my half-decade or so of posting on Met-related boards, I've slapped the more negative sounding label "agenda" on someone's viewpoint when the person spouting it has seemingly no interest in even hearing or discussing anything that might upset his/her already reached conclusion. which I appreciate. But if the choice is between someone having a position that he or she is willing to defend, and someone having no position at all (beyond "I wuv every move the Mets make and will defend even their most clueless moves if only on the basis of LGM/ YBG/BBBYYY") it's really no contest for me. "Agenda" has come to mean "an opinion I don't agree with," which does it a disservice.

Matt Murdock, Esq. Jan 29 2006 07:42 PM

the problem is NOT having a point of view. Everybody's got one, like an orifice often mentioned hereabouts. The problem is when someone looks at every situation through the prism of that point of view, regardless of its relevance. "the man is trying to keep me down", says an oppressed fellow. His friend says, "i really liked that re-run of I LOVE LUCY i saw last night." And our oppressed fellow opines "thats because you've been brainwashed by the man. I LOVE LUCY is the opiate of the masses. It's just another way the man is trying to keep you down." Another example: not everything worth discussing about the Mets has to relate to how incompetent, devious, fraudulent and manipulative you think Mets management is, relative to any other franchise. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes it's just a good smoke, and often both are true regardless of how evil Wilpon is. Which doesn't mean the man ISN'T trying to keep you down. It just means its not always necessary for your view on that issue to be part of the discussion at hand. In other words, the line isn't necessarily between "agenda" and "viewpoint"... it might be between "agenda" and "paranoid, conspiracy theory"

Frayed Knot Jan 29 2006 09:44 PM

"But if the choice is between someone having a position that he or she is willing to defend, and someone having no position at all ... it's really no contest for me. " And I've discouraged people from spewing opinions and arguing for them when exactly? Lord knows I've spouted enough of my own around these parts. "Agenda" has come to mean "an opinion I don't agree with," which does it a disservice." Like I said, in this context it's come to me to mean some "fact" that the spewer not only won't get off of but has no intention of ever doing so no matter what's brought up for discussion. It's not the conclusion he/she has reached after examining the evidence, it's the conclusion they've started with and a prism though which all evidence new or old will be viewed. I've used the Kennedy assisination conspiracy theorists example here before. When new papers are released which contradict something in the Warren Commision report it's "proof" to said theorists that evidence was being hidden all along and who knows what else is still out there. But if these new releases should contradict their already-reached conclusion, then "it's proof" that a conspiracy not only exists but that the info which shows it is still being actively suppressed.

Elster88 Jan 29 2006 10:45 PM

]"Agenda" has come to mean "an opinion I don't agree with," which does it a disservice." Agenda has come to mean: Pushing your belief and your opinions about baseball and other posters without reading what they write or even considering their opinion. By that definition I say nay. For me, when someone says they like the Benson for Julio trade, it's hard to take them seriously. So I'm guilty of ignoring other opinions as much as anyone.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 30 2006 08:00 AM

="Frayed Knot"]"But if the choice is between someone having a position that he or she is willing to defend, and someone having no position at all ... it's really no contest for me. " And I've discouraged people from spewing opinions and arguing for them when exactly? Lord knows I've spouted enough of my own around these parts. ....Like I said, in this context it's come to me to mean some "fact" that the spewer not only won't get off of but has no intention of ever doing so no matter what's brought up for discussion. It's not the conclusion he/she has reached after examining the evidence, it's the conclusion they've started with and a prism though which all evidence new or old will be viewed. I find most of this post curious. It's acknowledged that I have an agenda, but do you really suppose that I've felt this way about the Mets organization from the start? That my interest in the Mets somehow stems from my opinion that they're an incompetent bunch of money-grubbing weasels? I've changed my opinion about ther Mets about 180 degrees, and that's only since I've started posting on the internet, yet the one identifying trait you use to describe an agenda is that it represents "the conclusion [the user has] started with." As I've said many times, if I held the view that the Mets are the greatest thing since the invention of peanut butter and espoused that position twice as often as I spout my current views, that would be far from an agenda. Why? Because that would be an opinion that you like reading. As far as absurdly innocuous positions like "the Mets are greater than peanut butter" goes, these amount to "someone having no position at all" which I find fairly boring to get through, held by people who don't enjoy thinking all that much. The ultimate agenda, as far as I'm concerned, is "The Mets did X? Well, I'm going to find a way to justify and support X, no matter what my stupid old brain tells me." This specifically includes your standard "You don't know all the facts, Sal" defense. The Mets have traded David Wright for the rights to Hoyt Wilhelm? I go nuts, typically, from such deals and you're all "How do you know that this isn't part of a larger, wiser deal? Why not consider that maybe the front office is aware of a debilitating disease that Wright carries that endangers all of Western Civilization? Show me your proof that MLB isn't about to eliminate the position of third base?" It's true, I don't know a lot of things, but my lack of familiarity with Godel's Theorum doesn't automatically disqualify me from holding a position based on the information available to me. Every move the Mets make could be good or it could be bad--the CPF's stance on agendas, I find, is to label those opinions that the Mets have messed up an agenda, and that the Mets have done well an opinion. I just find it's too easily used as a cudgel to marginalize a point of view that challenges your own preconceptions.

Frayed Knot Jan 30 2006 09:33 AM

You're so vain, I bet you think that post was about you ... doncha, doncha? In fact it wasn't, I was discussing my definition of "agenda" in general. Although, now that you bring it up ... "Every move the Mets make could be good or it could be bad--the CPF's stance on agendas, I find, is to label those opinions that the Mets have messed up an agenda, and that the Mets have done well an opinion." Y'know, you're right. No moves, trades, managerial decisions, hirings, firings, signings, or general directions are ever criticized or even objectively discussed here. I don't know what we'd do without you.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 30 2006 09:51 AM

The post might not have been about me directly, but I embody the most obvious refutation of your definition of "agenda," since I've obviously changed my mind radically about what you have labelled my agenda. And I equally obviously feel that the criticism of the Mets' judgment around here tends to be milder than it needs to be, and is more tortured in its attempts to paint things orange-and-blue. To say, "We're not all 100% actively supportive of the Mets' decision-making all of the time, even when we're sleeping" is not to say that you're viewing the Mets with objectivity, either.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 30 2006 10:20 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: And I equally obviously feel that the criticism of the Mets' judgment around here tends to be milder than it needs to be, and is more tortured in its attempts to paint things orange-and-blue. To say, "We're not all 100% actively supportive of the Mets' decision-making all of the time, even when we're sleeping" is not to say that you're viewing the Mets with objectivity, either. Maybe it's because we don't go around obsessing over every last detail to that kind of degree. It's not important enough to rant over - it's ok if we want to follow the team without analyzing every little thing to death. If I want to worry about every painstaking detail about something, I'll go back to the Bar Mitzvah planning.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 30 2006 11:27 AM

A false distinction, I feel. You're interested (some of you) in examining every picayune detail down to four decimal places, but when I'm advancing my "agenda" in fine detail, it somehow becomes obnoxious to be obsessed on such a small particular scale. I have no problem with your not buying into my beliefs, but I'm just criticizing the somewhat disguised terms you employ to persuade yourself that you're doing it for the reasons, or on the basis, that you claim. That's my problem with all this agenda talk--some of it just isn't honest. I'd much rather hear, "I don't appreciate all this anti-Mets stuff, Bret" rather than "Stop giving us your agenda" as if that's not what much good posting does.

MFS62 Jan 30 2006 11:43 AM

ScarletKnight41 wrote: If I want to worry about every painstaking detail about something, I'll go back to the Bar Mitzvah planning. Oooh! Please do. We're waiting breathlessly to find out your decision-making process for the font you'll use to write the name and date inside the give-away yarmulkas. Later

metsmarathon Jan 30 2006 11:45 AM

i think i'm that "everything the mets do my little brain must be tricked into thinking is aces" guy that sal keeps on talking about. or maybe i'm just the "everything sal says must be wrong - its just gotta!!!!" guy. i keep on forgetting. i'm not sure if i have an agenda. it sure sounds like a lot more trouble than its worth to have one. it's just so much easier to say "sure, whatever, omar" actually, i probably do have an agenda. and its probably an apologist agenda. i'll admit it. i try to make sense of the moves the mets make. it seems to me a more interesting exercise than reacting instantly and loudly. players are traded or signed or released for reasons. i like to try to understand those reasons, and then think about how well the trade accomplished the desired effect, and also wether or not the reasons for the transaction make sense. rarely are transactions executed for incompetences' sake (tho maybe zambrano's being here would be one example). i often find myself in a position where i may not particularly care for a trade, but understand the reasons for the trade to the point where i have a hard time hating the trade. i'm never quite sure wether that means i should check off dislike, ambivalent/neutral, or like in the subsequent poll. f'rinstance, the benson trade. i don't particularly care for the trade, and think we should have been able to get better return (tho that doenst mean that teams were willing ot give us better return) but i understand the motivation for the trade - to deepen the bullpen and improve the club while gaining financial flexibility, by thinning a strength position. so does that understanding of the trade make me like it, even tho i don't care for it? i dunno. you tell me. is the reason behind the trade sound? i actually think it is. i think we had more of a need for bullpen depth than we do of extra rotation-bailout-options that would be ill-suited to relief duty. now, the benson trade makes me like the seo trade less, i'll admit. so there you have it. an admission of my own agenda to derive lukewarm opinions of all player/personnel transactions. so, agendae, yay. but quietly and without conviction.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 30 2006 11:52 AM

I definitely don't agree that Bret is obsessing over every detail. Indeed, the frequent, if not willful overlooking of nuance on Bret's part is a large aspect of many of the disagreements here. (the introduction of nuance in turn is interpreted dismissingly as "waffling" and we're off arguing about that). Just for example: We've been repeatedly tripped up by Bret's use of the terms "long-term" and "big-buxx" interchangably, or synonymously when they might imply very different things when it comes to a specific decision on a player. Like that. PS: I agree very much with what mm says above. As a fan, I tend to want to understand why even the silliest moves are justifiable. My rooting interest is in the team being right, of course, but that's because my rooting interest is in the team. I disagreed strongly with the Tom Glavine and Roger Cedeno signings, just to name a few examples, but given some thought it wasn;t that hard to see whatever benefits they might derive from them either. Well, Cedeno was hard.

Elster88 Jan 30 2006 12:08 PM

]is the reason behind the trade sound? i actually think it is. i think we had more of a need for bullpen depth than we do of extra rotation-bailout-options that would be ill-suited to relief duty. Just reading this post makes me angry. You are arguing that it helps the team by trading to add a pitcher to the bullpen, if dealing from a position where there is more players (here the starting rotation). And we lowered payroll as a bonus. How can you not see the fundamental flaw in your argument? By your argument, trading Pedro for Julio would make sense. In fact, it would make more sense because that's even more financial flexibility. We got a shitty reliever. And the pitcher we gave up was average to above average. Adding "bullpen depth" does not help if you are adding crap. Removing a good player just because you have other options at the same position does not help. There is no goddam reason under the sun why this trade makes sense. If you want to add bullpen depth, do so by trading away a player who is equal in value to the one you are acquiring. Seriously, I just don't know how else to say it. From any logical standpoint this trade makes no sense. Not seeing that this trade is horrible is showing a complete lack of knowledge in the sport of baseball. (This entire post is operating in the assumption that we are not adding another pitcher. Which is a very safe assumption to make, IMO. Until we add a starter, this post is completely true.)

Elster88 Jan 30 2006 12:12 PM

] it's just so much easier to say "sure, whatever, omar" I begin to see Bret's point. I was wrong every time that I argued that there is no one here who blindly will accept any trade that is made. But to what JD was saying, I think almost all of the people on this board to not have the "sure, whatever" attitude. ]actually, i probably do have an agenda. and its probably an apologist agenda. i'll admit it. i try to make sense of the moves the mets make. it seems to me a more interesting exercise than reacting instantly and loudly. It's not an interesting exercise if the move makes no sense whatsoever.

metsmarathon Jan 30 2006 03:21 PM

see, elster. i disagree. but not entirely. we should have been able to get more for benson, but i dont believe julio to be shitty. well, maybe i'm hoping that he's not shitty. i'm certainly rooting for him not to be shitty. i'm hoping that '05 was an aberration for him, and you should too. i'm having a hard time getting any good info on his 05 season to tell me anything otherwise (granted, i can't find corroborating evidence either), so all i have is hope. as far as trading a starter for a reliever, im certain that if we were to trade zambrano, who, for whatever strange reasons seems destined to start for us in 06, for a reliever, there would be a chorus of cheers. much as if pedro were traded for julio, there'd be a chorus of boos. yes, even from me. as to the question of "are we a better team with benson in the rotation and heilman in the pen, or with heilman in the rotation and julio in the pen?" i think we may be better in the latter than the former. and i think it is better for the long term prospects of the team that heilman be a starter than a middle reliever. i like heilmen in the rotation better than in the pen. i don't think trachsel would be a good option out of the pen. and for whatever reason, i think the mets are making a big mistake by not having considered zambrano for the pen. so if you asked me if i would have done the benson/julio trade, i'd probably say "yes, i would, but only if i can take back the seo trade" see, the benson trade is made bad by the seo trade, which is made bad by the benson trade. me, i would have traded benson for julio, kept seo in the rotation with heilman, and given zambrano the bump to the pen, where he'd have to prove himself worthy of anything more important than the 7th inning. i think right now, we have a weaker rotation than we started with, but not by much, and a stronger bullpen than we started with, but by a greater margin, and by one that makes the team perhaps better as a whole. wether or not we'll wish we had those discarded starters is something that remains to be seen. wether or not we'll need the relievers we gained is a given. also, when you factor in such things as money, potential upside, and anna benson, i think the benson/julio trade comes a bit closer in value, tho i agree we end up on the shorter end of the stick. but that in itself does not a terrible hateful trade make.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 30 2006 04:45 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jan 31 2006 06:17 AM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Just for example: We've been repeatedly tripped up by Bret's use of the terms "long-term" and "big-buxx" interchangably, or synonymously when they might imply very different things when it comes to a specific decision on a player. Like that. Then let me clarify why I think, in certain contexts, it's not very important to define. When a player (let's say Reyes) is approaching his FA years, the club can either take the stance that this player hasn't yet shown that he's worth signing to a long-term contract, so they'll try to gain more time to assess him before making that commitment, at the risk of alienating him, and possibly losing him to free agency the first chance that Reyes gets to declare himself a FA, OR they try to sign him to a longer contract voluntarily, at the risk of wasting resources if Reyes turns out to be nothing special. Everything under choice A is a shorter-term, lesser bux type deal, even if the yearly salaries are equivalent. The team is on the hook for less money overall than with choice B, which is a serious investment in the players' future. Choice B is LTBB, choice A is not. If you want to argue that there are intermediary steps between choices A and B, that the issue is not as simple nor as "binary" as I make it, I'll say Sure, I may be oversimplifying, but this isn't rocket surgery or brain science. You're willing to commit or you're not. There's only so far you can mediate the two extremes. You could offer a slightly-longer, slightly richer contract than Reyes would now get from an arbitrator but that's going to be nowhere near Rollins' contract, and Reyes might be less than furious at getting it, and might be more amenable to viewing the Mets as a good employer, but basically it's a sweet short-term, fewbux contract. If you sweeten it enough to make it comparable to what Rollins is geting, then you've taken the LTBB route. I just don't think there are that many options between paying Reyes for the here-and-now or paying him for his value over the long term for it to be worth dwelling in that middle ground for very long I'm not dismissing the intermediary points in order to oversimplify the issue for my own pernicious reasons, IOW, but because I see introducing the middle ground as essentially digressive. It allows you to avoid what I see as the important issue, whether or not Reyes should be offered the sort of money that he might be getting on the open market for a long-term deal. After we've discussed thoroughly the philosophical direction we're willing to go, I think we could usefully fine-tune the amounts and years we'd be willing to go with, but I think we need to do some risk-assessment first. I promise you, I'm not just oversimplifying for agenda-advancement purposes. OE: fixed spelling

metsmarathon Jan 30 2006 07:10 PM

i think its my anti-sal agenda that reads that last sentence "I promise you, I'm not just oversimplifying for agenda-advancement pu(r)poses" as "i'm oversimplifying for agenda-advancement purposes, but also for some other reasons too"

Frayed Knot Jan 30 2006 11:07 PM

"You're willing to commit or you're not" Or you're willing to commit but only up to a certain amount & length unless further progress is shown. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

Bret Sabermetric Jan 31 2006 06:10 AM

="Frayed Knot"]"You're willing to commit or you're not" Or you're willing to commit but only up to a certain amount & length unless further progress is shown. Why is this so hard to comprehend? Because you can't have it both ways. Reyes, and his agents, aren't stupid. Offering him a minimal commitment, in terms of years and dollars, send a strong message: we don't think yo're that good, and if you don't improve, we don't really care if you walk. o on, and good riddance. Offering him top dollar and top security (comparable to Rollins' deal) sends him the equally strong message: you're our guy--if we get rid of you anytime in the next X years, it will hurt us very badly. Intermediary steps send minor variations on those two messages. Offering him 50% more than they are absolutely obliged to offer for a one-year deal now sends the message "Yes, we are hopeful you'll improve, and we want to have you on our roster as a contented player," etc. but they understand that sort of deal represents no serious commitment, as they understand that a multi-year deal that pays a half-million below Rollins' deal shows that the Mets are seriously tying their future to Reyes'. There are an infinite number of fine-tuning options that Reyes could be offered in a contract, and I think it's silly to account for every single possiblity, especially when we haven't yet clarified the basic issue I'm trying to discuss: Do you want to offer him a LTBB contract if he has the kind of year in 2006 that Dickshot projected (or a variation on that deal) or not? This issue is still very much in play, from what I gather, and I think we should resolves it before we start fine-tuning it.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 31 2006 06:11 AM

="Frayed Knot"]"You're willing to commit or you're not" Or you're willing to commit but only up to a certain amount & length unless further progress is shown. Why is this so hard to comprehend? Also, you're going to lose Reyes to FA, or at least risk it, without a multi-year, megabux kind of deal that he may well not deserve. If his agent comes in after 2006 and tells Omar "We need Rollins-type money now. Anything lelss and we go FA as soon as we can," he may be telling the truth (maybe the market value Reyes higher than I do), or bluffing, or hoping for a compromise, and I'm trying to figure out whether or not it makes sense to negotiate with Reyes on anything like a Rollns-type deal. IOW, if his agents come in and ask for 4 years @ 5 mil per year, and maybe they 'd be willing to go as low as 2 years @ 4 mil per, but your best assessment says it's totally insane to go for a penny more than 2 years @ 1.5 mil and that's pushing it, then you have to tell him, "Okay, go FA," don't you? If someone wants to pay Reyes many times what his true value is, don't you have to let him go? I'm trying to figure out what people think Reyes' true value is.

Frayed Knot Jan 31 2006 09:21 AM

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Yancy Street Gang Jan 31 2006 09:36 AM

I think the question is this: When it comes time to negotiate with Reyes and his agent next winter, are you willing to give him a multi-year contract? If so, how many years and how many dollars? What's the threshold? If you don't give him enough, you risk disgruntling him and losing him to free agency after the 2009 season.

seawolf17 Jan 31 2006 09:40 AM

Didn't we have the Reyes contract offer discussion a few weeks ago? It's like deja vu all over again.

Frayed Knot Jan 31 2006 10:18 AM

"When it comes time to negotiate with Reyes and his agent next winter, are you willing to give him a multi-year contract? If so, how many years and how many dollars? " And that - as Seawolf points out - has already been discussed in great detail. It's the long-winded rants about why any answer which lies between offering a big buxx FA deal 3 years before it's required or kissing him goodbye is somehow unacceptable, unheard of, and unpossible that are making about as much sense as a conversation between George Bush and Courtney Love with a bottle of vodka thrown in.

Elster88 Jan 31 2006 10:21 AM

]making about as much sense as a conversation between George Bush and Courtney Love with a bottle of vodka thrown in That is a very impressive analogy. Full marks.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 31 2006 12:53 PM

="Frayed Knot"]"When it comes time to negotiate with Reyes and his agent next winter, are you willing to give him a multi-year contract? If so, how many years and how many dollars? " And that - as Seawolf points out - has already been discussed in great detail. It's the long-winded rants about why any answer which lies between offering a big buxx FA deal 3 years before it's required or kissing him goodbye is somehow unacceptable, unheard of, and unpossible that are making about as much sense as a conversation between George Bush and Courtney Love with a bottle of vodka thrown in. But why would anyone with reading skills more refined than a chimpanzee actually conclude that is anything like what I'm saying?

Bret Sabermetric Feb 01 2006 07:16 AM

After some thought, which I probably wouldn;t have done without FK's and JD's prodding with a pointy stick, I've come to realize that there is much more of a middle ground possible here than I had supposed. The Mets could offer Reyes, to continue with that example, a two- or three deal after 2007 that would extend through his first (or second) FA year, giving them some extra time while Reyes is showing whether or not he has the stuff they want in a middle infielder/leadoff hitter, and giving him at the same time enough money to satisfy him for the time being. Two years would certainly not be long-term, and the money we're talking about may fall short of big bux. Further I can see where if you were to offer him big bux, there are circumstances (such as Reyes') where that wouldn't necessarily be long-term, and perhaps there are contracts which are long-term, providing security, but not qualifying as big bux (though I can't think of any of these--if a player doesn't get the big bux, there's a higher than usual chance that he will be inadequate in a few years). Sorry to have been needlessly stubborn and ill-mannered in this discussion.

Vic Sage Feb 01 2006 10:44 AM

]Sorry to have been needlessly stubborn and ill-mannered in this discussion. as opposed to which other discussions?

Bret Sabermetric Feb 01 2006 11:02 AM

Pointy stick well taken.