Interpreting Oliver Perez's 2009

that disregards market dynamics. (I recognize that you have addressed them, in some ways, elsewhere.) This is the best Mets blog going, but I don’t think you’ve been sufficiently attentive to those dynamics in this whole Omar-Lowe-Opie-Sheets saga.

After the first tier starters signed (Sabathia and Burnett), you were really left with Opie and Lowe in the next tier. I totally agree with you that the performance gap between the two is substantial and that Opie hasn’t even really distinguished himself from some of the other starters in the same tier. Opie is an above-the-median starter, and that’s probably it, barring some unlikely-to-happen epiphany.

But once Lowe was off the market, it became clear that the non-Opie alternatives in the 2nd tier all came with big fat “buyer beware” tags because of age-related decline, injury risk, and more commonly both. Perez became the dominant alternative, warts and all, once it was clear that teams are avoiding Ben Sheets like the plague.

The best possible outcome would have been Lowe. And, perhaps Omar (don’t forget the Wilpons) is rightly criticized for not throwing in the extra $ and the 4th year for him. That seems to be the major thrust of this ongoing narrative. I get that. At the same time, however, I don’t think it’s quite fair to characterize Lowe-to-Atlanta as a botched process by Omar. First, signals of Atlanta’s interest were non-existent-to-mild-at-best until just before Lowe signed. Second, and more importantly, I am inclined to believe—based on what we’ve seen this entire off-season with Manny, Adam Dunn, and others—that Omar has some hard-and-fast salary constraints despite the Wilpons’ public denials of such. I believe the team has said that salaries must be at or below last year’s totals, and nothing long-term (i.e., 4 year) under pretty much any circumstances. Given that we’re all inferring process based on what we’ve seen publicly, I think there’s enough out there to warrant granting Omar some benefit of the doubt.

In his time in NY though, Omar’s been pretty good at closing the deal for the best (or perceived best) player available. When the Mets have made their play he’s demonstrated that he’s pretty competent at that part of the job. Constructing a bench? Different story. I believe that given what we’ve seen this off-season that there’s a failrly strong circumstantial case to make that a 4th year for Lowe was an absolute deal-killer for the Wilpons. Did they order the code red? Probably not. But hell, Omar’s been a Manny guy for a long time. I find it hard to believe that the lust has waned so much that he wouldn’t even be willing to kick the tires without some strong disincentives.

As for the notion that he bid against himself for Opie, I think the lesson we just learned is that markets can come out of nowhere. But even without speculating that some mystery team out there perhaps started kicking the tires on Opie, overpaying even when you’re the only suitor is a pretty common fallacy. That doesn’t make it okay, but the fact that it’s nearly universal makes the criticism a little less profound. Yeah, he bid up at the end to scare off other possible suitors and get the guy to FL on time. That makes the final numbers on the contracts Opie and Lowe received tantalizingly close, ramping up the frustration of not getting Lowe. But I think there was a bright line Omar wasn’t going to cross and wasn’t so much about money as the commitment.

And let’s not start acting like FIPS is some perfect predictor of anything, because if it was, everyone would be using it and there would be nothing to discuss. The mere fact that PECOTA is anticipating a 72% chance of improvement or breakout suggests that at least one indicator to which many people have come to view as a better predictor than most is optimistic regarding Ollie.

As I said in a previous posted comment, this is a paid for potential deal. And, when you consider that Oliie knows and can play in NYC and that several of the other options might or might not be able to handle the concrete jungle, the more I think about this deal, the more comfortable I become with it.

And, how do we know the Mets raised the offer against themselves. I just hate that. Really, as if you know. Just stop it, please stop it. I’ll buy the FIP vs. ERA luck argument. I’ll buy the contract is not worth the predicted value wins. But, let’s not start regurgitating rumors that no one can substantiate as a fact to be used in an analysis. You’re better than that.

In closing, I agree they paid more than I would like. However, they paid for potential on a young player and I prefer that over paying for past performance on a declining skills player. As far as bad contracts go, I still think Ollie has a better chance of reaching his salary in value wins than Wagner ever did in any season with the Mets or that Castillo ever will.