I don't mean to start your Monday morning off with bad news, but its becoming more and more likely that the Mets can't afford free agents this winter. Over the weekend, Mike Puma of the New York Post reported that the Mets fear they will be priced out of mid-market free agents such as Curtis Granderson and Nelson Cruz.
Have no fear though, its because Marlon Byrd's shiny new contract with the Phillies worth as much as 3yr/$24MM, has sent the market soaring, not because the Wilpon's have no money. For a third consecutive offseason, the Mets front office doesn't want to pay market price for anything resembling a competent major leaguer. Remember..the free agent prices are "scarey", said Jeff Wilpon last week.
Despite Sandy Alderson reassuring fans that the organization plans to spend more on the free agent market than it did last winter (a whopping $5MM), I remain increasingly skeptical. Look, I can sympathize with the Mets not wanting to blow half the budget on one player, but something has to give here. Fans want to see players they can get excited about, not another cheap crop of low risk/high reward has beens.
The Mets like to say they don't want to commit too much to a player with obvious flaws. That's a swell way of thinking until you realized that the players who aren't flawed are the ones who will make in excess of $100MM this winter. There are no perfect players when your trolling the same shallow end of the free agent pool where Sandy has set anchor in previous offseasons. The Mets aren't entrenched there because they want to be, they are being priced out of the market because they can't afford them. Its that easy...
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