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Video: ESPN On Mets K-Rod Signing
Mets Finally Sign K-Rod
The most inevitable signing of the off-season finally happened today. Francisco Rodriguez finally agreed to a 3-year/$37 million deal to come to the New York Mets.
It’s a great move by Omar Minaya on his second day in Las Vegas. And this signing doesn’t seem to be much of a gamble. The Mets were the biggest market team in need of a closer, and K-Rod was the biggest closer on the market.
Initially, K-Rod was looking for five years but that quickly fell apart when a “glut” of closers hit the market via free agency and trade possibilities. The Mets gave Scott Schoenweiss a three year deal, so getting K-Rod for three years is a stroke of genius if not luck for the Mets.
K-Rod will be 27 years old next season and, although his delivery is pretty violent, he’s been remarkably durable during his seven year career. He brings 208 career saves and a 2.35 career ERA to New York. And don’t forget he set the single season record for saves last season with 62.
All we need now is for K-Rod to pass his physical, and the Mets can move on to solving other problems in the bullpen, second base, the rotation, and left field.
Olney: Mets Determine Closer Market
Buster Olney added a blog post at ESPN stating that the Mets call the shots in the closer market. There have been several reports recently that the Mets may make several simultaneous offers to K-Rod, Brian Fuentes, and possibly Kerry Wood. Whoever is the first to jump at the Mets offer gets the job.
The Mets are really sitting in a strong position, as perhaps the only big-market team intent on spending good money on a reliever, and their intention is to present the offers with this marching order: The first reliever who accepts our offer is going to be our closer.
The other teams out there looking at closers right now are the Brewers, Cardinals, Tigers, and Angels. From all of the reports that I’ve read, none of those teams want to be at the highest salary point for a free agent closer this off-season. I agree with Olney that situation does leave the Mets in the drivers seat right now.
Citi Field Naming Rights A Black Eye For Mets And Citi Group
Citi Group’s announcement that they intend to move forward with their 20 year commitment at $20 million per year with the Mets came this past week. Only days later the company announced that it would lay off more than 50,000 employees.
To those of you that work at Citi, or those of us that have friends and family there these near simultaneous announcements came as a bit of a shock. But they shouldn’t. Citi Group gladly accepted a taxpayer bailout of $20 billion two weeks ago, and our tax money secured more than $300 billion in risky loans and securities owned by Citi.
I understand the Mets desire to keep the deal in place. But couldn’t Citi at least attempt to re-negotiate the deal given today’s economic climate and their own financial failures? That’s the part that really surprises me.
I never expected Citi to give up on their marketing efforts, of which naming Citi Field is a part. They’ve got to make a good faith effort to generate revenue despite their current disposition.
In my opinion the Mets squandered an opportunity to gain some good PR by not announcing their intention to negotiate the naming deal down when Citi accepted the government bailout package. Now the Mets are getting our money on tickets and the naming rights deal.
I want to see a championship product on the field as much as the next fan, but double-dipping us isn’t the way to do it.
Audio: Jeff Wilpon Talks Mets Roster
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Bart Hubbach of the NY Post posted this interview with Jeff Wilpon talking about the trade/free agent market being slow to move this off-season. One interesting point to note is that the Mets don’t have a set budget for their player payroll. I’m not quite sure that I believe that. They must at least have a range. I have a feeling that Jeff just didn’t want to get into specifics about it. Listen below.
The Mets Report 