Today I saw this peach of an article at the New York Post. Does there come a time when a New York sportswriter says, “You know what, for once I am not going to write total BS, but will use critical thinking?” That will truly be a great moment, but one for which I am not holding my breath.

It is going to be a long next few years for the Amazins should they try to make a big splash as recommended by the writer wearing a dunce cap, sitting in the corner. This year’s free agent class is rife with risk and uncertainty, featuring exactly the type of players that get a team into the kind of trouble from which it takes years to escape.

What makes it worse is that should they show restraint and save money until 2010, they might actually be able to make a big splash. Making a big splash this year not only increases the odds that they will make a poor decision, it also ensures that they bear a heavy opportunity cost, one that will absolutely cripple them.

Let’s compare Lackey and Holliday to Sabathia and Teixeira. Rather than strain the mind of the estimable Mr. Kernan, we will stick with the basics in the case of the two pitchers, lest he get sidetracked trying to spell sabermetrics.

Clearly Sabathia is a far better pitcher, even without looking at any sabermetric statistics, though for the likes of Kernan K/BB may come perilously close to being a sabermetric stat. And Sabathia is not trending downwards, unlike Lackey. And he does not have any injury history to speak of, unlike Lackey. And he is not on the wrong side of 30, unlike Lackey.

Aside from performance, which strongly favors Sabathia, the other big difference here is that the Yankees already paid Sabathia for that third year above, and while it was not up to the level of his previous seasons, it was still worth $27M, so the Yankees turned a HUGE profit of $13M, assuming the accuracy of the number to any reasonable extension of reality. The Mets will be buying the next in a series of declining seasons.

In the three seasons listed above, Sabathia was worth more than $27M in all three, which is higher than they will pay him annually ($23M from 2010-2015). They only paid CC $14M in 2009, for a profit of $13M. There is simply zero possibility of the Mets turning that type of profit in a given season; they will be fortunate to turn a profit at all.

Lackey’s 2009 was worth a mere $17.6M, after a 2008 that was worth less than $10M. At age 30 (Sabathia is only 28) which way do you expect him to go over the next five years? A hint: it rhymes with frown.

Lackey is looking for a big payday, and the predictions I have seen are in the range of $60-80M for four or five years. Not exactly cheap and very unlikely to be profitable in a given season, much less over the life of the contract.

One big factor that makes a contract profitable is getting a huge profit in a prime season. Just go to fangraphs and pick a superstar, no matter who it is, and you will see that they all return huge profit, despite gaudy salaries, in their prime seasons. So, even when they show a loss in the later years as age catches up with them, the long term contract still turns a profit.

With middling types like Lackey they do not get that one huge season that can carry an entire contract. They turn a modest profit early and a huge loss late. This is why that one year in the books for Sabathia makes a tremendous difference to the team’s bottom line.

What about Holliday and Teixeira? This is a tougher one since the difference is not as stark as with the pitchers, and we have the confounding factor of Holliday’s stint in Colorado and his unexpected surge with the Cardinals.

That aside, there is no strong objection to the proposition that Teixeira is a better hitter is there? Even Kernan will likely agree, but just to drive home the point with our readers, who can actually spell sabermetrics (except for possibly Paul Greco), Teixeira was 7.9 WARP in 2008 and 4.4 in 2009, per Baseball Prospectus. Holliday was at 5.8 and 5.8.

Wait you say, they are very close. They are, but when we adjust for league, which is about 0.5 WARP, we have to adjust Holliday a bit downwards. But we needn’t be so precise here; there is no serious objection to the assertion that Tex is better. We can disagree, but not strongly.

But let’s assume for Holliday’s most ardent proponents that they are equal. As with the case of Sabathia, the Yankees have already paid for a year of that performance. Now the Mets have lost one prime season out of both targets. If you think that is small, think again, because all of these players but Lackey have been worth over $15M in performance in the last two seasons. Tex has been worth $30.4M and $23.2M in the last two seasons; Holliday has been worth $28.0M and $25.6M, and Sabathia over $27M.

What does this mean? Well, it means that they are paying for one less year of prime performance in exchange for a year at the end of the contract. Lackey and Holliday are both older than their Yankee counterparts, and the Mets will be buying one less year of prime performance.

There is a worse scenario for Mets’ fans. What if they lose out on Holliday and then pay for Jason Bay? Now we are talking about a far bigger loss, in that Bay is not nearly as accomplished as Holliday, is one of the worst fielders around, is notoriously streaky on a year-to-year basis and in his best year has been worth $10M less than Tex and Holliday in any of the last two years. For his part, Jason Bay has been worth 13.2M and 15.7M in 2008 and 2009.

This is not about fantasy baseball this is about real baseball and real dollars. And you can guarantee that if the Mets lose out on Holliday they will go hard after Jason Bay; how else can they make the “big splash” that Kernan suggests?

Yes, we have not even addressed opportunity cost. We cannot use hard numbers here, but just looking at the names it is obvious that any money spent in 2009 that takes away from money for 2010 is likely to be money that is poured down the toilet.

Next year’s free agent class includes Joe Mauer, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Albert Pujols (though there is an option that will certainly be picked up), Adam Dunn, Jayson Werth and Brandon Webb.

Bill James once posited a simple rule for Free Agents, and one that, if followed, will rarely lead one astray. That rule is: pay as much as necessary to get Hall of Famers in their prime, and avoid all others. This advice is far preferable to Making A Big Splash.

On the good side, the Mets can always sign Joel Pineiro or Randy Wolf to a fat, multi-year contract, so there is some hope. $200M for Bay, Lackey and Pineiro, ah what a coup for Omar Minaya that will be.

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Lackey
written by Patrick DiCaprio, November 23, 2009

Brian I disagree--assuming that money spent on Lackey will NOT be available next year then it is a mistake to sign him. That is what opportunity cost is about

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thanks
written by Patrick DiCaprio, November 23, 2009

ouch....

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written by Brian J, November 20, 2009

Kernan is an idiot. I used to read every Mets-related article but when I see his name attached to a story I no longer click on it.

Having said that, the idea that the Mets should pursue Lackey is not idiotic. The pennant does not go to the team that has the largest excess between its actual salary and a WAR-driven metric. I'm not dumping on WAR. What I'm saying is that Lackey is the pitcher available who is most likely to add wins to the Mets team. As a big-market team, one of the advantages is that you don't have to pinch pennies.

I don't see the point in comparing him to Sabathia, who is not on the market. The comparisons should be between Lackey (and the other available FA pitchers) and who they would be replacing on the Mets. The only question that matters is how much of an upgrade Lackey would be from Jon Niese, the likely 5th SP for the club right now.

Now, I'm not saying to break the bank for Lackey. But I'd rather see the team use its resources wherever it's going to be most profitable in terms of wins. If the upgrade from Pagan to Holliday is greater than Niese to Lackey, well then Holliday should be the target.

And if the guy they target leads them back to the playoffs, will it really matter that FanGraphs says his dollar value is $15 and his salary is $16?

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