Can the Mets Afford Reyes? Yes, Easily, and Then Some

If the Mets want to take a maximally inactive approach this offseason, then their team next year will look something like this:

C: Josh Thole                     SP1: Johan Santana
1B: Ike Davis                    SP2: Jon Niese
2B: Daniel Murphy                    SP3: R.A. Dickey
SS: Ruben Tejada                    SP4: Dillon Gee
3B: David Wright                    SP5: Mike Pelfrey
LF: Jason Bay                    
CF: Angel Pagan                    CL: Bobby Parnell
RF: Lucas Duda                   

The bench and bullpen, meanwhile, will be filled with a bunch of rather low-level players from within the organization. My rough estimate is that such a team would have a payroll of approximately $86 million. There's a little bit of further downsizing they could do, too, if they wanted to, like replacing arbitration cases Angel Pagan and Mike Pelfrey with current minor-leaguers like Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Chris Schwinden, that could shave another few millions.


Now here are my ideas for how they should upgrade that team, if they want it not to suck:

1. Sign free agent shortstop Jose Reyes, shifting Tejada to 2B and Murphy to super-utility
2. Sign a good starting pitcher who would be the rotation's #2 or #1a, and non-tender Mike Pelfrey
3. Make the middle-relief corps genuinely good instead of mediocre
4. Make the bench genuinely good instead of mediocre
5. (Optional) Sign a free-agent closer, shifting Parnell to a set-up role

If they signed Reyes for $20 million in 2012, that would raise payroll to about $106 million. That's still below the team's 2011 mark, and way below their 2010 mark. If you earmark $15 million for the #2 starter, given that we're also ditching the expensive arbitration case Pelfrey, it only takes you to about $116 million. That's still nearly identical to this year's number. You could then sign a bunch of high-quality backup types for the bullpen and bench and end up with only the very slightest fiscal expansion over this offseason, while simultaneously making the team a hell of a lot better (mainly with the #2 starter and the better bullpen).

The secret of the Mets, financially, is that they've got a starting catcher, first baseman, second baseman, and corner outfielder, and two starting pitchers all of whom have yet to hit arbitration, and who are therefore wicked cheap. And they're also pretty good, the lot of them. We're talking Thole, Davis, Murphy or Tejada, Duda, Niese, and Gee, quality players all. The surplus the team accrues from those guys gives it a lot of flexibility to spend big on Wright, Reyes, Bay, Santana, and another starter, and still have only a middling payroll.

If the Mets want to say that they can't afford Reyes, that means that they want to be bad and cheap next year. It means that, in the biggest market in the nation, they want to have a below-average payroll. Honestly I don't really see why the one crazy GM who's willing to go above and beyond the rational market deal for Reyes shouldn't be Sandy Alderson. I know he has a reputation for being non-extravagant, but Reyes is also almost certainly a better fit for this team than for any other, both because he's a fan favorite and long-time franchise player but also because he loves hitting at our ballpark. At the very least there's no reason at all why they shouldn't go up to the limit of rational market value: they can afford him easily, even without backloading the contract as is fairly standard. Basically, the Mets have no excuses: if they don't get Jose Reyes, it's because they don't want him, not because they can't get him. And if they don't want him, then they're just being idiots.

EDIT: Oh, and the other item on my list of potential upgrades, "Release Jason Bay, shifting Duda to left field and making Nieuwenhuis the right-fielder" would also be easily affordable, as it only adds Nieuwenhuis' negligible salary to the team. Now, if Bay is genuinely heating up and there's reason to expect that we can get something like the .500-slugging, 30-home run hitting career-norm Jason Bay, then we should obviously keep him. But if we're going to get .251/.334/.387 like he's hit so far with this team, then there's really no point, when we could get better production for near-zero additional cost.