True, with Cohen the money doesn’t matter. But given that, why tie up your roster when you can wait and know more. You can be flexible as circumstance allow.
I’ll go with your inflation idea - fair point. Each guy signs a 10 year extension after they’ve show success in their first 3 months: Harvey $10M per for 2013-22, wheeler $10.5M per for 2014-23
DeGrom $11M per year 2015-24
Matz and Syndergaard $11.5M per year 2016-25
Lugo and Gsellman $12M per year 2017-26
Probably no different results for the team from 2013-2019 because they had all the guys under control. I don’t think theyd have been able to trade Harvey in 2018 with $40M+ left on the books, but if it were a Cohen like owner all that time, they’d DFA him and eat it. 2020 might have gone better. We’d have a healthy Wheeler and DeGrom anchoring a rotation with Matz, Lugo and Gsellman. Would we have picked up Porcello and Wacha? Whether or not they had traded for Stroman tge orevioys season (provably not) they’d have had a problem when Syndergaard went down with TJ surgery, they probably would have brought up Peterson. Who after his success over a couple of months that year would now be locked up at about $13M per year until 2030. Might they have made the playoffs with Wheeler added to that team? Probably.
But by 2021 Wheeler there but no Stroman. Matz there, but no Taijuan. Did we ask get Carrasco in the Lindor deal? (Did we even make the deal? Did Cleveland want Gimenez and Rosario with long term contracts in excess of $80M? And then when DeGrom and Peterson go down, bring on Megill and a few months later extend him at $14M per year until 2031 and still need to pick up Rich Hill? I don’t think the season ends any better.
And no way we bring in Scherzer for 2022. And Verlander and Quintana and Senga now. We’d be heading in to 2023 with a rotation of Wheeler, at a great deal, and big question marks with DeGrom, Noah, and Matz, Peterson and MeGill.
And we’d be paying huge money to JD, and Dom, and Conforto. Where’s it end?
Hindsight is 20/20. But maybe not yours? Sorry can’t resist. If they had signed those pitchers to 10 year $150M contract extensions when each premiered with a bang starting with Harvey in 2012, by this off season we’d be feeling more regret than satisfaction. Sure we’d be thrilled to have Wheeler for such a price, assuming he ever felt motivated enough to fight his way back from his elbow reconstruction in 2015, knowing he had generational wealth guaranteed whether he ever pitched again or not, and we’d have been high fiving over those 2 Cy Young awards deGrom got in 2017-8, but by tgat offseason he’d have been griping about his contract. As we know, he did over a far bigger deal tgat ge recently opted out of after hardly earning his pay over the last 2 seasons when he rarely made it to the mound. But we’d also be looking forward to finally being out from the albatross that the Harvey deal turned out to be, with him having been DFA’d after we finally gave up on him after 3 dreadful season back in 2019. And we’d be hoping Syndergaard is finally ready to return to some semblance of a $15M per year starter after 6 years of underperformance and injury. And don’t think we wouldn’t have given these same deals to Matz. And Gsellman. And Lugo. Hey why not Peterson and Megill?
It’s just not as simple as that.
The McNeil deal is outstanding for all. McNeil needn’t wait two more year until he is entering his age 33 season to reach the free agent market. Remember, he didn’t get to the majors until he was 26 years old, and he hadn’t been a top prospect with a high signing bonus in the bank. Then he had a crummy season just before his first arbitration year, so the bar was set at just $3M. This year he might have earned $7. Next year perhaps $14. If all goes right and he doesn’t get injured. The Mets just offered him generational wealth. Of course he signed. No brainer for both sides.
True, with Cohen the money doesn’t matter. But given that, why tie up your roster when you can wait and know more. You can be flexible as circumstance allow.
I’ll go with your inflation idea - fair point. Each guy signs a 10 year extension after they’ve show success in their first 3 months: Harvey $10M per for 2013-22, wheeler $10.5M per for 2014-23
DeGrom $11M per year 2015-24
Matz and Syndergaard $11.5M per year 2016-25
Lugo and Gsellman $12M per year 2017-26
Probably no different results for the team from 2013-2019 because they had all the guys under control. I don’t think theyd have been able to trade Harvey in 2018 with $40M+ left on the books, but if it were a Cohen like owner all that time, they’d DFA him and eat it. 2020 might have gone better. We’d have a healthy Wheeler and DeGrom anchoring a rotation with Matz, Lugo and Gsellman. Would we have picked up Porcello and Wacha? Whether or not they had traded for Stroman tge orevioys season (provably not) they’d have had a problem when Syndergaard went down with TJ surgery, they probably would have brought up Peterson. Who after his success over a couple of months that year would now be locked up at about $13M per year until 2030. Might they have made the playoffs with Wheeler added to that team? Probably.
But by 2021 Wheeler there but no Stroman. Matz there, but no Taijuan. Did we ask get Carrasco in the Lindor deal? (Did we even make the deal? Did Cleveland want Gimenez and Rosario with long term contracts in excess of $80M? And then when DeGrom and Peterson go down, bring on Megill and a few months later extend him at $14M per year until 2031 and still need to pick up Rich Hill? I don’t think the season ends any better.
And no way we bring in Scherzer for 2022. And Verlander and Quintana and Senga now. We’d be heading in to 2023 with a rotation of Wheeler, at a great deal, and big question marks with DeGrom, Noah, and Matz, Peterson and MeGill.
And we’d be paying huge money to JD, and Dom, and Conforto. Where’s it end?
How many seasons would they have had better pitching staffs than what they ended up with? How many World Series would they have won?
Hindsight is 20/20. But maybe not yours? Sorry can’t resist. If they had signed those pitchers to 10 year $150M contract extensions when each premiered with a bang starting with Harvey in 2012, by this off season we’d be feeling more regret than satisfaction. Sure we’d be thrilled to have Wheeler for such a price, assuming he ever felt motivated enough to fight his way back from his elbow reconstruction in 2015, knowing he had generational wealth guaranteed whether he ever pitched again or not, and we’d have been high fiving over those 2 Cy Young awards deGrom got in 2017-8, but by tgat offseason he’d have been griping about his contract. As we know, he did over a far bigger deal tgat ge recently opted out of after hardly earning his pay over the last 2 seasons when he rarely made it to the mound. But we’d also be looking forward to finally being out from the albatross that the Harvey deal turned out to be, with him having been DFA’d after we finally gave up on him after 3 dreadful season back in 2019. And we’d be hoping Syndergaard is finally ready to return to some semblance of a $15M per year starter after 6 years of underperformance and injury. And don’t think we wouldn’t have given these same deals to Matz. And Gsellman. And Lugo. Hey why not Peterson and Megill?
It’s just not as simple as that.
The McNeil deal is outstanding for all. McNeil needn’t wait two more year until he is entering his age 33 season to reach the free agent market. Remember, he didn’t get to the majors until he was 26 years old, and he hadn’t been a top prospect with a high signing bonus in the bank. Then he had a crummy season just before his first arbitration year, so the bar was set at just $3M. This year he might have earned $7. Next year perhaps $14. If all goes right and he doesn’t get injured. The Mets just offered him generational wealth. Of course he signed. No brainer for both sides.
But they’re not all created equal.