TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

As always, salary info courtesy of the awesome Cot’s Baseball Contracts and stats courtesy of the awesomer Baseball Reference.

1B - Carlos Delgado: 2008 salary - $16M. 2009 salary - $12M club option, $4M buyout. As of this writing, Carlos Delgado’s option has been executed, effectively removing them from the Mark Teixeira Absurdly-Inflated-Contract Extravaganza. I’m happy about that. Some of the contract ideas floating around for Mark Teixeira (some of which dwarf Albert Pujol’s deal) are just insane. I know that most in the mainstream media won’t make the contention that Delgado was pulling a Sheffield until Wiile got axed, but I’m also saying his general surliness and inability to get the ball out of the infield was closely tied to Willie’s embarassing exit. Regardless, you’re not replacing 38 HR and a .871 OPS for less than $12M and he can keep the seat warm for a couple of the Mets’ prospects who are still finding their footing in Binghamton. At the worst, a $12M contract isn’t untradable if someone trading bullpen relief needs a 1B/DH.

2B - Luis Castillo: 2008 salary - $6M, 2009 salary - $6M, $18M guaranteed through 2011. I find it necessary to again fully disclose that I’ve defended this contract signing on more than one occasion. I understand the guy has nothing more than top of the infield power… I also understand that he’s normally a single/walk machine with a bit of speed. I’ve formed the opinion over the last couple of years that OPS can tend to overrate slugging a bit. I think I’d rather have a guy with a .400 OBP and a .200 SLG than a .200 OBP and a .400 SLG… I don’t know. Regardless, the Mets only other option at the moment is to hope that Daniel Murphy, last year’s call-up savant, can learn a serviceable 2B in the Arizona Fall League and doesn’t fall in to a horrible slump next season. The Mets are probably going to flirt with Orlando Hudson for a while this offseason and, if they can’t sign Manny Ramierz, will probably offer him a deal.

3B - David Wright: 2008 salary - $5M. 2009 salary - $7.5M. Ah David Wright… the man whose launched 1,000 debates. Wright is a type of player that’s become common in the last few years. He’s a fantasy darling… he puts up 120 RBI and 30 HR every year but has been relatively horrible at collecting hits late in games. Only about 26% of his career hits and 21% of his career RBI have come in innings 7-9. Yes, I understand all the counter-arguments — hits at the beginning of the game are just as important as hits at the end of the game… RISP/On-Base stats are small sample sizes… I get it. There’s not a thing you could look at in David Wright’s stat-line and peg him as a sub-standard player. Wright does, however, have a terrible, terrible time collecting timely hits. All THAT said, Wright takes a lot of unfair heat because of the shortstop across town who single-handedly won a World Series his first full year in the league. That doesn’t happen to everyone and Met fans shouldn’t expect it to.

SS - Jose Reyes: 2008 salary - $4M. 2009 salary - $5.75M. Met fans have to understand that Jose Reyes is the over-celebrating douche that you hated in some league you played in at some point in your life. A guy bouncing around the bases, dancing, and being obnoxious is going to raise everyone’s ire. This Mets’ team has to realize that if this guy is going to be annoying that every single team in the NL East is going to get up to play them. If you’re good (like the Yankees, historically) you can deal with this. If you’re mediocre, you’re going to get your ass-kicked. The Marlins, two years in a row, came to Shea with nothing to play for and knocked the Mets out of the playoffs. A lot of this is because the Mets have a guy who everyone hates. This is why the 2006 Cardinals did a Jooooseeeee chant in the clubhouse after knocking the Mets out of the NLCS. This is why the Phillies made fun Victorino for celebrating around the basepath with “Calm Down, Jose” and taped “Jose Reyes” on his locker. If you want to be dicks, that’s fine… just understand that you need to play at 125% every night and no one is going to give you an easy time of it. With that rant done, Reyes isn’t going anywhere nor should he.

The Mets’ infield is really the least of their problems. One of the more interesting positions on Thursday… left field.

One of my every day reads is Gothamist. It’s worth the time to sort through the bad writing and jackass commenters (redundant?) who enjoy showing the tolerance of New Yorkers by adding predictable racist/anti-semite/anti-immigrant comments. It’s also an amazing place where I’ve learned that every New Yorker who is cool was born here, no one of worth has every contributed anything to the city that moved here from anywhere else, Rudy Giuliani’s a terrible person for cleaning up crime in the city, and Carrie Bradshaw is the worst thing that’s ever happened to New York. The blog has two sports writers… both of whom are Yankee fans and, far as I can tell, watch nothing else. They make “summary” posts about New York games that seem cobbled together from ESPN’s recaps with general digs at anyone who isn’t the Yankees.

Yesterday, one of the two took the time to put together a few paragraphs on The Stephon Marbury Saga. Long story short — Mike D’Antoni benched both Marbury and Eddie Curry for the Knicks’ first game. By the second game, Marbury was placed on the inactive list and the team has no intention of playing him. Marbury is owed $22 million this season on an expiring contract. So, Gothamist wrote about how it’s time for the Knicks to cut ties with Marbury, buy him out, and send him on his way.

As I read it, and as I’ve read on various other sports’ opinion sites, it occurs to me how many writers write about the NBA on one hand while certainly never watching the NBA or even a remote idea of how the NBA salary cap works. There is not a Knicks’ fan alive who thinks the Knicks are turning the season around this year. EVERYONE understands that it’s going to be at least 2010 before the team is even competitive. Some out of contention team is going to try to dump salary. Hell, if the Knicks called the Suns tomorrow and offered them Marbury and Zach Randolph for Shaq and Boris Diaw they’d at least kick the tires on it and figure out what they could get out of Amare. The Cavs might even take a gander at Marbury/Randolph for Ben Wallace, Long Island’s Own Wally Szczerbiak, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas just to dump the salary if it wouldn’t specifically help the Knicks clear cap space to sign LeBron. Besides the point — some contender is going to be willing to take a flyer on walk-year Marbury for players and draft picks. You force them to take Randolph with him. It’s just a waiting game.

The Knicks have exactly two things they need to do right now. First, negotiate a buyout with Eddy Curry. He’s inexplicably owed $30M over the next three seasons. There’s not a team in the league that’s going to trade for an out of shape center who doesn’t care about anything and pay him $10M for the next three years. The second is to try and get Zach Randolph’s deal of the books. His contract is the only eight-figure deal the Knicks have carrying over in to 2010/2011 other than Curry. It has to go. Waiving or buying out Marbury is maybe the 25th thing on the “Stuff That Needs To Happen” list.