Hi everyone. This will be my first of hopefully more than one journal entry on Metsgeek.com, I hope you enjoy it.

In order to make perfectly sure you do not enjoy this entry, I’ve decided to make it the exact same thing that every Mets fan, nay, every baseball fan begins to formulate from the moment that their team is unfortunately eliminated from the playoffs, my off season plan. I have put a reasonable amount of thought and research into this, and have attempted to make it extremely realistic monetarily, and only using trade possibilities that have already been rumored. That being said this is a dream plan and it is extremely likely this will not come to pass.

First of all we must look at the contracts coming off the record for 2008:

Pedro Martinez -$11.8m

Moises Alou -$7.5m

Orlando Hernandez -$7.0m

Oliver Perez - $6.5m

Luis Ayala - $1.7m

Matt Wise - $1.2m

Total: $35.7m

The good news here is that nearly every contract coming off the record here is at or above market value for these players at this time, meaning we can use that money to improve at those positions. The only below market contract on the list is Oliver Perez, and considering the rest of the mets rotation, and the $18.8m coming off from other starters we are in very good shape in these terms.

In my opinion the second most important thing to look at at this point is something that fans often forget to consider, players getting raises this year.

Scheduled raises for 2009 are:

David Wright +$2.5 m

Jose Reyes +$1.75m

Johan Santana +$1m

Ramon Castro +$.65m

Endy Chavez +$.25m

Marlon Anderson +$.1m

Total: $6.25

and arbitration eligible players (along with my guess as to their raise) are:

John Maine +$3m

Ryan Church +$1m

Aaron Heilman +$.5m

Pedro Feliciano +$.5m

Duaner Sanchez +$.2m

Total: $5.2m

Adding up all of those numbers, and subtracting it from the amount of available money, we find ourselves with a total of $24.25m available in order to match our payroll from the last season.

The next thing to take into mind in order to come up with a budget for next year is how much the Mets would be willing to raise their payroll. To do this I have averaged the percentage payroll raise for the last 8 years and applied that same raise to the 2008 payroll. This is obviously not an accurate forbearance to the mets current mindset, but considering the humiliation of the Phillies winning the world series this year and the additional revenue that will be generated by Citifeild next season, short of Wilpon suddenly going cold on Minaya I would expect that the Mets be able to go above my prediction if they so chose. I will save you the math and reading here and just tell you the mets since 2000 have on average raised their payroll by 7.3%, which would allow for an additional $10.1m being added to the payroll, which brings up our total amount of money which can be spent to $34.25m this off season.

Finally, it is time to get down to the brass tacks of talking new players. I’ll start with the most likely moves.

1. Trade Castillo ($6.25m) and Schoenweis ($3.6m) to KC for Carlos Guillen ($12m).

I know, I know. “But Carlos Guillen is a terrible club house influence and his production has fallen.” Well, first of all, one odd thing about Carlos Guillen, is that for someone who is such a terrible influence, he has seemed remarkably quiet of late. That could just be because no one is paying attention in Kansas City or Seattle, or because he has calmed down a bit in his 30’s. Either way, he will be 33 most of next season, and only has 2 years left on his contract, meaning we shouldn’t have to worry about his production declining much, and if he can get his average and power numbers to his average going back to 2003, we are looking at a .275 hitter, with 20-25 hrs and between 80 and 100 rbi with below average defense but a spectacular arm. His lack or range would be offset by Church and Beltran, and give us a very good if not great overall outfield defense while providing a solid right handed hitter with decent power, and we get out from under Castillo and Schoenweis.

2. Aaron Heilman (est $1.7) to TB for Andy Sonnanstine ($.4m)

Honestly, I don’t undestand why TB allegedly wants to make this trade. Actually it sounds like we might be able to get him or Edwin Jackson. If that is true the question is would you rather have the guy with high risk high reward (Jackson has a great arm, but bad control) or the lower risk option (Sonnanstine does not have nearly the live arm Jackson does, but he conversely has great control, and well developed off-speed pitches) for my money, as i am slotting him in as our 5th starter for next year, I’ll take Sonnanstine’s advanced approach, and hope that getting him out of the AL east and his progression will be enough to shave his ERA to below 4.00.

3. Sign Derek Lowe for 3 years + an option for $36m

Derek Lowe is one of my favorite pitchers in baseball. I love a guy who can get a ground ball. He has been extremely consistent in his years on the Dodgers, and despite his age he has lower mileage on his arm than one might expect due to his years as a closer and his easy motion and the fact he doesn’t need to throw a lot of breaking pitches. Another reason Lowe would be great is his similarities in style to Pelfrey. I think Lowe could take Pelf under his arm and teach him a lot. He also eats innings, which is important from a 2/3 starter.

4. Sign Darren Oliver for 2 years for $4m and Juan Cruz for 2 years 7m +1 year option

Darren Oliver has been as great as an Angel as he was here. He is 38 years old, but his era this season was sub 3, he gives up very few walks, and can still go multiple innings. Righties hit him last year at a .271 clip which is reason for concern, but only slugged .381, meaning they didn’t get too much wood on the ball. In addition his 3 year splits against righty’s are a much more comfortable .242. As for Cruz, I agree 3.5 per is still too much to spend on a middle reliever, but lets face it, we are going to need to buy at least one middle reliever this off season, and it might as well be Cruz. Why? because he can be dominating and he had good splits against batters on both sides of the plate for the last 3 years (Although his slugging percentage against righties is a bit alarming). His funky delivery causes some injury concern, and the shortened season last year does not help that much, but he will only be 31 next year, and those concerns might be able to help us curtail the length of the deal he would require. In addition his high k rate shows he could close if he had to.

5. Sign Francisco Rodriguez for 4 years $60m or Brian Fuentes for 3 years $33m

Mets need a closer. I offer both of them the dollar amount they want at a year less then they are asking and see which one blinks first, my bet is K-Rod would take the deal before Fuentez who will have more suiters on the market who could afford the contract, although i would honestly perfer Fuentez. In order to help take some of the strain off of having Wagner on the payroll this year, see if you can back load around 35-50% of the 2009 pay to later years in the contract. If neither of them blink at the extra year, take Fuentes for 4 years $44m w/ a back loaded deal.

Now for the less than likely moves:

1. Sign Mark Teixeira for a 6 year $150m contract.

Players like Teixeira don’t come along too often. He is not only one of the better and more consistant power hitters in the game, he is also a switch hitter, an excellent defender and under 30 years old. This is not to mention he walks a ton and strikes out very little for a power hitter. That not enough for you? how about the fact that he hits righties and lefties roughly equally well. Simply said, other than Puljos, there is not a better first baseman in baseball, and their comparisons are closer than one might think. A remarkably complete player, the Mets would be foolish to over look him.

Trade Carlos Delgado ($12m) to the Angels for Mike Napoli ($.4m)

This is another good reason to sign Teixeira. The Angels have said they would be interested in trading for Delgado should they not be able to retain him, so lets force that hand. The Angels are also one of the teams with the money to take all of Delgado’s contract, and they have Jeff Mathis waiting in the wings so they would be willing to deal Napoli. This brings me to a different question. Whats with all the good hitting young catchers coming up these days? Better question, why don’t we have one? Sure Napoli might not be the best defensive catcher in the game, but he isn’t Johnny Estrada either. What he is is a 27 year old catcher who had a .960 ops last year, including 20 hrs in 227 abs. He is a slight injury risk, but what catcher isn’t?

Brian Schneider ($4.9m) to Bos for Manny Delcarmen ($.4m)

I doubt the Sox are going to be willing to trade Clay Buchholz for one of the Rangers catchers when all is said and done. I also don’t think they are going to want to give Varitek the money or years he is looking for. Schneider will offer equivalent or better offensive production, and roughly equivalent defensive production to Varitek at this point in their careers, and will do it cheaper with less years on the docket. The Sox have a glut of young pitching, and would probably be willing to give up Delcarmen in order to get a serviceable catcher if it means they wont need to give up buchholz.

If the Mets made all of these moves, they would be adding about $38.25m in payroll for next season, not counting how much they might be able to back load the contract of whichever closer the Mets can get. This is only $4mil over the $34.25 I estimated the Mets could have to spend. I am pretty sure that you could convince at least one of the free agents to defer that for one year, preferably either K-Rod or Fuentes

Boy oh boy am I ever long winded. Well, we are now reaching the end of my journal, but what fan off season plan would be complete without a listing of the Mets in 2009 the way I would like to see them position by position?

Lineup

SS. Jose Reyes

2B. Daniel Murphy

3B. David Wright

1B. Mark Teixeira

CF. Carlos Beltran

LF. Carlos Guillen

C. Mark Napoli

RF. Ryan Church

Bench

C. Ramon Castro

Util. Damon Easley

LF/1B. Marlon Anderson or 2B/SS. Argenis Reyes

3B/LF/1B. Fernando Tatis

OF. Endy Chavez

Rotation

SP. Johan Santana

SP. Derick Lowe

SP. John Maine

SP. Mike Pelfrey

SP. Andy Sonnanstine

Bullpen

Cl. K-Rod/Fuentez

Setup-Manny Delcarmen

Setup-Juan Cruz

MR-Duaner Sanchez

Roogy-Joe Smith

Loogy-Pedro Feliciano

LR- Darren Oliver

This is the end. Please comment and let me know your thoughts.