Devil's Advocate: Final Edition

For those of you who haven't seen, I've been posting a running comparison of many of the players that the Mets were rumored to be interested in last winter vs. the players that we actually ended up with.  (See part I here, part II here and part III here)  This will be the final and decisive comparison to decide once and for all what Omar truly should have done last offseason.

                                                   Winner:  

• Obviously Omar should not have signed Perez to that contract, we all know that.  I tend to think he'll bounce back next year but that's mostly just blind faith more than anything.  But his AVG against was way way up and I have a hard time believing his stuff left him that quickly.
• However, the prevailing idea that Lowe was a slam dunk last winter was pretty inaccurate as well.  He took a big step back and at age 36 that is definitely not a good sign.  Even his bread & butter GB/FB was a career worst 2.18 and w/ his K/9 declining too he really needs those gb's to succeed.  One positive, his BABIP of .330 was way too high and should regress in 2010 but will it be enough to bring him back from mediocrity?
• The clear winner here was Randy Wolf especially when you compare his 1yr/$5M contract w/ the monstrosities Perez & Lowe got.  But while he had a very good year it's pretty clear that he got pretty lucky to do so as his results don't match his peripherals (his tRA is a full run higher than his actual ERA).  In addition a very low BABIP and nearly a career high LOB% helped him keep his final numbers artifically low.  I think the time to acquire Wolf has passed as he'll be looking for a bigger contract and will almost definitely regress a lot.

                                                    Winner: 

• This was an interesting race all year but ultimately Castillo's lack of range in the field killed him.  However, in a good lineup Castillo's '09 would have been quite valuable in terms of his OBP; unfortunately ours wasn't.  And while his BABIP looks high, it's really not considering his .333 career mark.  There's no reason he can't continue to put up seasons like this offensively as his ratios were all stable but his diminishing D is a serious concern.
• Hudson had an odd year in that he was benched by Sept. but it really was a good season.  And like Wolf, when you take into consideration his contract (1yr/$3.4M) it becomes very good.  Like Castillo, Hudson sports a high career BABIP so his '09 mark isn't far out of line and he maintained many of his key peripherals so he should be fine going forward; though his once vaunted defense is now definitely fading.  Also like Wolf, he'll likely expect a bigger payday this winter making him less attractive despite his apparent dream to play in Queens.

                                                    Winner: 

• So apparently it wasn't the great year for FA closers we all thought it was.  K-Rod for one had his worst year to date; most of his key peripherals continued to decline especially the ever-important K/BB.  He still strikes out enough guys to succeed and he really isn't any easier to hit, but he's just putting WAY too many men on base via the walk.  That and his HR/9 jumped which will probably normalize a bit next season.  For what it's worth, IMO his decreased/sporadic usage in the 2nd half had an adverse effect on him (post-ASB 6.75 era & drastic increase in BB/9).  Ironically, the much ballyhooed declining FB velo. actually climbed by almost a full MPH in '09, so maybe he was telling the truth.
• Fuentes was nearly about as bad and what's worse, he posted a 5.02 ERA in the playoffs.  Fuentes saw some even more serious erosion of his peripherals and w/ a .255 AVG became very hittable.  And no, it wasn't the BABIP (.301), he just sucked.  I'd be even more worried about him going forward.
• To be fair Hoffman was never seriously linked to the Mets but he was the clear winner in this bunch.  Incredibly, he saw huge increases as compared w/ his career #'s and had one of his best seasons at age 42.  He suddenly became ultra-difficult to hit and while some of it was definitely luck (.240 BABIP), he looks quite solid going forward.
• Wood was another popular option around these parts and he was another disaster.  He is actually a very similar pitcher to K-Rod in that while he's observing continued declines across the board, he can still strike guys out, he walks WAY too many and gave up a ton of HRs, though his stuff is a bit more hittable than Frankie's.  And believe it or not, he made even more $ in 2009.
• Street is the one non-FA closer up here so it's not quite fair to list his salary as he would have also cost players but he was definitely available and linked to the Mets.  Instead we traded for Putz.  But Street had a tremendous season by simply striking out a ton of guys, allowing very few walks and limiting hits.  Simple enough, right?  However, Street did post a 9.00 ERA in the playoffs.

So we can conclude that Omar did pretty terribly last offseason.  He lost out in each of the 3 major positional "upgrades".  He also somehow managed to group together most of the lowest WARs from these lists while also collecting some of the highest salaries.  This should come as no surprise to anybody here but Omar is not very good at maximizing his dollars.  Exhibit A:  Omar's 2008 offseason group was worth a total of $4.9M in 2009 (in terms of their WAR's) yet received $26.5M from Omar.  Ouch.  But hey, maybe this offseason will be better.