Mets GM Omar Minaya joins WFAN’s Boomer & Carton to hype up the Oliver Perez signing and address free agent Manny Ramirez’ status.
Month: February 2009
Video: Omar Minaya Talks 2009 Mets Offseason
Video: Mets Announce Oliver Perez Signing
Audio: Oliver Perez Talk On WFAN
The Mets signing of Oliver Perez to a 3-year/$36 million deal is bringing comments from several regulars on WFAN. First, Mets beat reporter talks to Steve Somers.
Second, SI.com’s Jon Heyman joins Boomer & Carton to talk about the Perez deal and Manny Ramirez.
Video: Mets Jeff Wilpon Grilled About Citi Group
Mets, Citi Still In Naming Rights Deal?
There are various reports today that Citi Group is set to back out of the 20-year/$400 million naming rights deal signed in 2006 for Citi Field. Clearly, it’s bad PR for Citi to be spending lavishly on naming rights for a stadium when they’re laying people off and accepting public funds to stay afloat.
The Wall Street Journal states that Citi Group is exploring options on how to break the deal. They would owe the Mets quite a sum of money to bail out at this point, especially considering the Mets have been promoting this thing non-stop for three years.
To no one’s surprise, the Mets official site is claiming that Citi Group isn’t backing out of the deal. What else would you expect them to say? It’s a binding contract that Citi signed three years ago, and it’s going to stand.
My expectation is that Citi Group will quietly negotiate with the Mets to extricate themselves from this contract after the season ends.
Mets Re-Sign Oliver Perez To Three Year Deal
Media outlets are reporting the Mets re-signed starting pitcher Oliver Perez to a 3-year/$36 million contract. The native of Mexico will be 28 years old in August. Perez has been with the Mets since being traded at the deadline in 2006 with Roberto Hernandez for Xavier Nady.
Perez is 26-20 since he joined the Mets and is noted for his high ceiling and inconsistency. He did seem to flourish last season after pitching coach Rick Peterson was fired and Dan Warthen took over the coaching duties. He went 6-2 after Warthen took over in June.
It’s nice to see that Mets GM Omar Minaya is keeping the length of contracts to pitchers to a minimum. By signing Perez and Francisco Rodriguez this offseason to three year contracts the Mets are able to maintain financial flexibility by not locking into long term contracts.
Flickr photo courtesy of slgckgc
The Mets Report 