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Jason Bay Signs with Mets; Queens is the New Beirut

Dec 30, 2009, 4:45 PM UTC

â†µJason Bay will be the latest big-ticket free agent to put on a Mets uniform with the hopes of rekindling a seemingly-directionless franchise, agreeing to a four-year $66-million deal with New York, pending the requisite physical. The deal reportedly has a fifth year as an easily-attainable vesting option for more than $14 million which means the deal could be worth more than $80 million over five years. The Bay signing doesn't come as much of a surprise because the Mets had to do something this offseason. The tenor of the deal is described appropriately by the NY Daily News' John Harper:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â‡¥The way the winter was going, it seemed inevitable that some other team would jump in and steal Jason Bay at the last minute. Only it didn’t happen, and so while Bay is hardly a cure-all for the Mets, landing him is at least reason for them to believe that the curse of 2009 won’t carry over into 2010.â†µâ†µNow, Harper goes on to laud the team, and Mets GM Omar Minaya, for sticking to their guns and not offering a fifth year – it will remain to be seen how easy this option year does, in fact, vest to determine if this was just PR spin to an actual five-year agreement – but he’s right in the fact that the Mets had to do this deal without making it look like they rolled over and took one. And while the deal is worth about $6-million more than the Red Sox were offering, Peter Gammons mentioned last week that the deal is so back-loaded that the Mets are actually offering far less in present-day value than Boston. So the Mets got an even better deal than we think? Perhaps not, writes R.J. Anderson over at FanGraphs:â†µâ†µâ‡¥â‡¥Present-day value is important because $100 today is more valuable than $100 a year from today. If the two offers were equal in dollars, however constructed differently, with one deal being front-loaded and the other back-loaded, then the agent should have his player sign the front-loaded contract. That scenario doesn’t match reality though. Boston reportedly offered four years and $60M while the Mets offered four years and $66M. More present-day value or not, Urbon and crew were correct to take the Mets offer.â†µâ†µThe post explains that the Mets deal would have to be back-loaded more than 10 percent, or an increase of nearly 30 percent from first year to last, for the Red Sox offer to be close on the money. And if you really want your head to spin, read some of the comments to that post, some which attempt to refute Anderson’s claim by factoring in things like state/federal taxes and the Bush Administration tax cuts that expire after 2010 and how that will impact a back-loaded deal. Talk about inside baseball.â†µ

â†µSo, even if the Mets did offer more money, it's somewhat surprising that Bay would rather play for a little more cash in New York than take a discounted deal to stay in Boston to play for a contender. Here's what Gammons had to say about that on WEEI Radio, just one week ago:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â‡¥“I think he’d rather be playing in Beirut than Queens. The sad part of this is that sometimes there’s so much competition between agents that the players become pawns ... And he obviously doesn’t want to play there. And they’re scared of having him play left field there for four years. It’s really a shame it’s worked out this way.”â†µâ†µIt’s not as obvious today that Bay obviously doesn’t want to play in Queens. Obviously. I can’t imagine any player who is worth this much money just letting his agent pick one team over another, or one city over another – heck one career legacy over another – for a few million bucks. Gammons is right, however, about the fact the Mets should be scared of Bay in left field. Per FanGraphs, UZR has Bay at -54.7 runs over four years, including some pretty terrible years in Pittsburgh. To say he’s below average could be an understatement. â†µâ†µAnd here’s another interesting thing to note about Bay at the plate. Of his 185 career home runs, 79 have been hit to left field and another 30 hit to left center. He’s hit 61 homers at PNC Park with another 18 at Fenway, 15 of those coming last season. Clearly not all the homers at PNC or Fenway were hit to left or left-center, but just last season alone, 10 of his 15 homers in Fenway were. PNC Park is 325 to left field and 389 to the power alley, but the wall from left to left-center is just six feet high. In Fenway, obviously the left field wall is much higher (37 feet), but it’s just 310 down the line and 379 to the alley.â†µ

â†µâ†µCiti Field is 335 down the line and 379 to left-center. The wall is 12 feet high at the foul pole and rises to 15 feet, eight and a half inches in the gap. It will be interesting to see how many of the 30-plus home runs per year Bay has hit in his career will translate into homers in 2010 for the Mets. But for a franchise that didn’t have one player hit more than 12 home runs or knock in more than 72 RBIs for the team in 2009, Bay’s production has to help. â†µ

â†µâ†µBesides, have you seen how high the walls are in Beirut?â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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