The Positives and Negatives of Stephen Drew for the Mets

The Mets have spent the last three seasons fielding a lien-up rather than a lineup. Since the Bernie Madoff scandal and the conscious decision to rebuild from the bottom up in part due to finances and in part because it was what they needed to do, the Mets haven’t spent significant money on any players. In retrospect, it will be seen as a positive that the team didn’t overpay and give up a draft pick for Michael Bourn or any of the other players Mets fans were demanding they sign for pretense and little benefit on the field.

Now that they’re free of the onerous contracts of Jason Bay and Johan Santana, the Mets have invested some of their available cash to improve the lineup with Chris Young and Curtis Granderson. They bolstered the starting rotation with Bartolo Colon. There’s a public debate as to whether they should sign the still-floating free agent shortstop Stephen Drew. Let’s look at how Drew fits for the Mets.

Cost

Drew’s market is hindered by the relatively few number of teams that need a shortstop and are willing to pay what agent Scott Boras wants. A year ago, Drew signed with the Red Sox for one year and $9.5 million with the intention of replenishing his value for a big-money contract. He replenished his value all right, but the big-money contracts have yet to present themselves. Drew was everything the Red Sox could have asked for. He was solid defensively, hit for pop with 50 extra base hits, and had an OPS of .777 which was close to his career average.

The problem for Drew remaining in Boston as appears to be his preference is that the Red Sox have a ready-made replacement for him at shortstop in young Xander Bogearts. They also have a competent third baseman in Will Middlebrooks. Neither are expensive and both can make up for Drew’s departure if the price isn’t similar – or slightly higher – than what the Red sox paid for him last season. If his price drops, then the Red Sox will gladly take him back, but it won’t be for a multi-year deal and they don’t need him.

The Yankees have already said they’re out on Drew and it’s not because they don’t need him. They do. But they’re tied to keeping Derek Jeter at shortstop and the idea of signing Drew to move him to third base is insulting to the intelligence of anyone who can see the reality that Jeter will not be able to play a competent defensive shortstop at age 40 as he returns from a serious ankle injury.

Drew has few alternatives other than the Mets and Red Sox. The Mets are being coy and the Red Sox are waiting him out. The Mets can get him if they decide they want him. A decision that they want him would mean they have to pay him. A three-year, $30-33 million deal would probably get it done. Are they willing to do that? Can they afford it?

How he fits

Drew is a clear upgrade over Ruben Tejada offensively and defensively. Tejada can play, but he’s never going to hit for the power that Drew does; he’s similar defensively; and he’s got a reputation of being lazy. The main attribute of Tejada for the Mets is that he’s cheap. But with the signings of Granderson and Young and that they’re intending to start the season with the still questionable Juan Lagares and Travis d’Arnaud in center field and catcher respectively, they’re running the risk of having three dead spots in the lineup before the season even begins. With Drew, they’d know what they’re getting and he would at least counteract Lagares and d’Arnaud. Drew is an up-the-middle hitter and his power comes when he pulls the ball. He wouldn’t be hindered by Citi Field and he’d hit his 10 homers and double-digit triples.

No matter how superlative he is defensively, the Mets won’t go through the whole season with Lagares in center field if he doesn’t hit. They’ll simply shift Young to center for more offense. They’re committed to d’Arnaud and he’ll play every day no matter what. If they want to have a chance for respectability and perhaps more, they can’t worry about whether they’re getting the Tejada from 2013 or the Tejada from 2011-2012. And the Tejada from 2011-2012 was serviceable and useful, but not close to what Drew can do.

With Drew, the Mets would be better in 2014 when they’re striving for respectability and in 2015 when Matt Harvey returns and they clearly have designs on contending.

The Mets pitching staff is not one that racks up a lot of strikeouts. The left side of the infield with Drew and David Wright will be excellent. Daniel Murphy is mediocre at best at second base. Lucas Duda is a solid defensive first baseman. With Lagares in center field, they have a Gold Glove candidate. Young can play the position well. They’re better in all facets of the game with Drew, plus they’re getting offense they will not get with Tejada. The difference between 77-85 and also-ran status and 85-77 and bordering on the fringes of contention might be Drew. That makes the signing worthwhile for on-field purposes.

His Drew-ness

The Drew family has long been known for its prodigious baseball talent. They’re the physical prototypes for baseball players. Along with that, they’ve been the prototypes for Boras clients.

J.D. Drew sat out a year rather than sign with the Phillies when he was drafted second overall in 1997. They didn’t meet his contract demands. The Cardinals drafted him fifth overall the next season and he signed. He was an excellent player for the Cardinals, but flummoxed manager Tony LaRussa with his lack of passion and aloofness. He was traded to the Braves for Adam Wainwright as the Braves expected him to be happier closer to his home. He had his career year and left to sign with the Dodgers. He spent two years in Los Angeles, then exercised an opt-out in his contract to go to the Red Sox.

In short, he was never happy with where he was and was constantly looking for the next opportunity. It could have had to do with money or it might have had to do with a wanderlust. Or he could simply have been treating the game as a business and listening to every single word uttered by the Svengali, Boras.

Stephen Drew has many of the same traits as his brother. Both are injury-prone, though Stephen is not hurt to the extent that his brother was; both are supremely talented and never appear happy where they are; both wanted to get paid and might be making decisions detrimental to their careers in listening to every whisper from their agent.

In retrospect, should Stephen have accepted the Red Sox qualifying offer and tried for free agency in another year when it’s pretty much a certainty that the Yankees are going to be looking for a replacement for Jeter and will be free of any financial constraints? Probably. Does he regret not taking it? We’ll never know because the Drews don’t rattle the Boras cage.

If the Mets go hard after Drew, there’s the possibility that they’re being used to get the Red Sox or the famed Boras “mystery team” to ante up and top the offer. For the Mets, while it wouldn’t be catastrophic not to get Drew, it would extinguish much of the good will they did accumulate by signing Granderson and Colon if they pursued him and failed to reel him in.

The conclusion

The Mets should go after Drew and see whether they can get him at a reasonable price. If Boras will take something in the neighborhood of three-years at $30-33 million, the Mets would have a bridge shortstop until former first round draft pick Gavin Cecchini is ready. They’d be better in the short term and definitely have someone who could help them do what the true intention is: contend in 2015. If Boras is being unreasonable or the feeling is that they’re just waiting for the Red Sox to up the offer, the Mets should move on and figure something else out. If that means they’re hoping that Tejada decides he wants to play and shows up early and in shape, so be it.

var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};

Ruben Tejada’s Possible Grievance Against the Mets

Ruben Tejada is considering filing a grievance against the Mets because they kept him in the minors to save an extra year of service time. The jokes regarding Tejada’s poor play are obvious. Did the Mets intentionally keep him in the minors to prevent him from accumulating the service time? Of course. They were brazen about it and there was no attempt at subterfuge. When he was recalled in September, Tejada fell one day short of reaching the number of days necessary to achieve three years in the Majors and the Mets made the move one day later than they did with their other Triple A players.

The implication that the Mets were sticking it to Tejada just because they could might have some merit. Tejada has done a masterful job of currying disfavor in the organization in spite of playing well in 2012 replacing Jose Reyes. General manager Sandy Alderson has never been shy in saying that he never felt the shortstop position was settled with Tejada and openly prefers to have players who can hit the ball out of the park at least once in a while. Tejada’s shortcomings at the plate could have been mitigated if he’d shown the slightest interest in doing as he was told. The Mets wanted him to come to camp early in 2012 to grow accustomed to working with a new second baseman Daniel Murphy. He didn’t. The club’s annoyance was somewhat assuaged when he batted .289 and played sound defense. After the season, they were still more than willing to include him as part of the package to try and get Justin Upton.

In 2013, he drew the club’s ire once again by showing up to camp slightly out of shape. Only this time, he didn’t make up for it by playing well. When he strained his right quadriceps on May 29 against the Yankees, he was batting .209 and had somehow managed to have a slugging percentage lower than his on-base percentage. He was also playing slipshod defense. The Mets were about to send him to the minors that week. The injury put Tejada on the disabled list until July 7 when they activated him and immediately sent him to Triple A.

While they blatantly kept him in the minors an extra day in September, the Mets argument could be that they were going to send him down before June 1 and probably weren’t going to recall him before September based on his play and, truthfully, that they wanted to send him a message that his spot in the lineup and big leagues is not assured.

This is not a Jordany Valdespin issue where he was angering the organization and teammates because of his behavior. Tejada angered the organization because he wasn’t doing what he was asked to do and was playing poorly. They were well within their rights to send him down and keep him down. In fact, they could make the argument that they were under no obligation to bring him back to the big leagues at all.

var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};

Davis vs. Duda and the Mets’ First Base Decision

The Mets have so many other issues to fill that they’re not going to focus on finding a new first baseman when they currently have two – Ike Davis and Lucas Duda – for whom an argument could be made that one or the other is the right choice.

The Mets need at least two, legitimate middle-of-the-order bats if they think they’re going to contend in 2014. They’re going to have to bolster their starting rotation with the likely loss of Matt Harvey for the season. They have to address shortstop and the bullpen. They don’t need to worry about first base as well. They could move forward with either Duda or Davis and trade the other one to fill a need. What they have to decide is which one they want and they can’t afford to be wrong.

Let’s look at the tale of the tape.

Ike Davis

Davis hit 32 home runs in 2012. In 2013, he was in a daze for much of the season and wound up being sent to the minor leagues. When he returned to the majors, he showed significantly better pitch selection and dramatically improved his on-base percentage. But as GM Sandy Alderson said in an interview with Mike Francesa recently, his power has disappeared. The Mets have to determine whether he’s sacrificing his home run swing to make better contact and draw more walks. Neither of which is a good thing for a hitter who was counted on to bat in the middle of the lineup at the start of the season. Add in that Davis can’t run whatsoever and his walks at the expense of home runs are a net negative. He’s also become a platoon player who is helpless against lefties.

Defensively, Davis has a reputation as a future Gold Glover, but after his rookie season amid flashy gymnastic catches on pop-ups, his defense has grown stagnant if not outright lazy. It could be that he was taking his offensive woes into the field, but he’s not a Gold Glover. He’s slightly above-average defender at the position.

Off the field has been a concern. Davis is one of the most popular players in the Mets clubhouse and that saved him from a demotion in 2012 and for a time in 2013. Eventually, the Mets front office couldn’t take Davis’s wild swings and misses and bewildered approach and sent him down.

Much like the Mets essentially told Ruben Tejada that if he didn’t want to take extra batting practice and show up to camp in shape, then he’d better make sure he hit and caught everything in the field, it wasn’t a problem until it was a problem and the player had no leeway due to hard work. Tejada stopped performing and the organization acted. Like Davis, he’s fallen out of favor with the brass. Davis works hard on the field, but he also enjoys the nightlife. That’s fine as long as the player hits. Davis hasn’t hit, so it’s not fine and the club has a right to say that maybe he needs to change some things off the field so he can succeed on it.

Davis was paid $3.13 million in 2013 and will make at least that in arbitration in 2014. He’s a free agent after 2016.

Lucas Duda

The gentle giant Duda has a tremendous eye at the plate, immense power and is coachable. That can be a problem because he’s willing to listen and implement everything the coaches tell him he needs to do to improve at the expense of his aggressiveness. Letting hittable fastballs down the pipe go by because he’s adhering to the organizational mantra of patience isn’t what’s needed from him. If he can get it into his head that the fine line between patience and aggressiveness is where he needs to be, he can be a very productive and inexpensive player.

Duda is batting .200 against lefty pitchers this season, but he’s far better than Davis at standing in against them and takes his walks.

Defensively Duda’s problem was that the Mets put him in the outfield when he belongs at first base. He’s at least as good defensively as Davis and might even be a little better.

There’s no questioning Duda’s seriousness about the game. He works extremely hard and keeps his mouth shut. Duda made $519,000 this season. He’s not arbitration eligible until 2015 and won’t be a free agent until after 2017.

The choice

With Duda, if the Mets put him in the lineup every day, they can pencil him in for 25-30 home runs and a .350 on-base percentage. After Davis entered camp with the job in his pocket for two straight seasons – and acting like it – can they reasonably still say the same production is coming? They don’t know. It’s often repeated that because he hit 32 homers in 2012, he can obviously do it again. But in 2012, he rode a blazing hot second half to that 32 homer season, then turned around in 2013 and had a worse start than he had in 2012.

Defensively, they’re even. Financially, Duda has the advantage. Offensively, there’s a bigger upside to Duda. The Mets front office has been almost begging Duda to take advantage of his unexpected opportunity to play every day for the last month of this season and give them a way to sell trading Davis to pave the way for Duda. He’s hit three homers in 15 September games and posted an .837 OPS. Given the club’s frustration with Davis, that Alderson doesn’t care about perception when he makes a decision and they believe that Duda is the better player, the obvious choice is to deal Davis for a similarly struggling young player and give Duda the job at first base for 2014.

var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};

Reading Between Sandy Alderson’s Lines

Sandy Alderson was a guest with Mike Francesa on WFAN in New York yesterday and said a lot without going into great detail as to what his true intentions are. This is nothing new. Alderson is cautious and makes it a point to give himself room by not saying anything that could later come back to haunt him. But if you read between the lines of what he said, you can come to a conclusion as to where he’s heading for the Mets in 2014 and beyond.

Matt Harvey – surgery or not?

According to Alderson, by next month there should be a plan in place on what to do about Harvey’s partially torn ulnar collateral ligament. While Harvey’s determination to avoid surgery to help the Mets is admirable, it was clear from listening to Alderson that he and the Mets want Harvey to get the surgery done, have his elbow repaired and be 100 percent for late 2014/early 2015.

Alderson is essentially saying what the self-educated “experts” in the media and on social media should say: “I’m not a doctor and we’ll do what the doctors’ consensus is.” If I were Alderson, I would speak to Harvey’s dad, Ed Harvey, who is a notable high school coach and make certain he understands the ramifications of Matt not getting the surgery and express that to his son.

Ike Davis and Lucas Duda

Alderson sounds as if he’s unsure about Davis and likes Duda much better. I agree. The bottom line with the two players is that Duda’s a better hitter. He’s got more power; he’s got a better eye; he hits lefties; he’s got a shorter swing that will be more consistent in the long run; he takes the game more seriously; and he can play a similar defensive first base to Davis.

Alderson brought up Duda’s struggles but made sure to point out that in spite of them, he still had one of the highest OPS’s on the club. Davis improved in certain aspects when he returned from his Triple A demotion, but his power is still missing. He’s walking more, but unless Davis is hitting the ball out of the park, what good is he?

The strained right oblique that Davis suffered in Washington has all but ended his 2013 season. This is a positive and negative for the Mets. It’s a negative because they won’t be able to get a look at Davis over the final month to see if the improved selectivity yielded an increase in power over the final 30 games. It’s a positive because they can play Duda every single day at first base and get a gauge on whether they can trade Davis and trust Duda without it exploding in their faces.

Joel Sherman came up with a ridiculous series of scenarios for Davis including trading him for the likes of Chris Coghlan, Gordon Beckham or Jeremy Hellickson. Coghlan is a possible non-tender candidate after this season and Beckham and Hellickson have done nothing to warrant being traded for a player who hit 32 home runs in 2012.

It’s almost as if Alderson is pleading with Duda to give him a reason to hand him the job in 2014. Alderson clearly wants Duda to put a chokehold on first base so the Mets can trade Davis.

Ruben Tejada

The Mets had implied as far back as spring training 2012 that Tejada’s work ethic was questionable. It’s not that he doesn’t hustle or play hard when he’s on the field. He does. It’s that Alderson came right out and said that Tejada has to be dragged onto the field for extra infield, extra hitting and any kind of after-hours instruction. Whereas players like Juan Lagares can’t get enough work, Tejada doesn’t think he needs it. They’d never gone as far as to openly say it, but now it’s out there. Unless Tejada shows that he’s willing to go as far as he needs to to be the Mets’ shortstop, he’s not going to be the Mets’ shortstop. In fact, it’s unlikely that he’s going to be their shortstop next year whether he suddenly finds a determination similar to Derek Jeter’s. He doesn’t hit for enough power to suit Alderson and he can’t run.

The status of manager Terry Collins

Collins is going to be the manager of the Mets in 2014. While there has been a media/fan-stoked idea that if the Mets tank in September and come completely undone that will spell doom for Collins, it’s nonsense. That might have been the case had David Wright, Davis, Harvey and Bobby Parnell been healthy and if they hadn’t traded Marlon Byrd and John Buck. Now that they’re without all of these players and are on the cusp of shutting down Zack Wheeler, they’re playing so shorthanded that a September record of 10-19 would be expected. If they go 14-15 or thereabouts, Collins will get the credit for overachievement.

How can anyone in their right mind hold Collins responsible if the team has a poor September when they’re going to be trotting Daisuke Matsuzaka and Aaron Harang out to the mound for a number of starts just to get the season over with?

The upcoming winter and spending

I’m not getting into speculation on the Wilpons’ loan payments due in 2014. So many have already done that and the vast majority of them have been completely wrong every step of the way since the arrest of Bernie Madoff and the financial meltdown. From the outside, I’m going to say that the banks are going to let the Wilpons renegotiate the debt. In truth, considering the amount of money they owe, what it will cost to sign a few players – even expensive players – is relatively negligible. It’s not in Alderson’s DNA to pay $150 million for a free agent because as Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Carl Crawford and so many others have proven, it’s just not worth it in the majority of cases. The Mets will be in on the likes of Bronson Arroyo, Carlos Beltran and Jhonny Peralta whose prices will be “what’s the difference?” outlays. Alderson said they have financial flexibility and they do. The Mets are going to spend this winter because they’re out of excuses and they can’t afford not to.

var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};

If You Expected More From The 2013 Mets, It’s On You

Would Mets fans be satisfied if the club had won 3 more games than it has and was sitting at 20-26 rather than 17-29? Would more fans go to Citi Field to watch a still-bad team, but not as bad as this, play? Would there be less media vitriol and fan apathy/anger? Less abuse from opposing teams heaped on a club that they’re supposed to beat on?

No.

So why is there an uproar over the Mets playing as anyone who looked at their roster with an objective viewpoint should have predicted they would? Why the outrage from fans who presumably knew that 2013 wasn’t about anything more than looking at the young players who are on the bubble for being part of the future—Lucas Duda, Ruben Tejada, Daniel Murphy, Bobby Parnell, Dillon Gee, Jordany Valdespin, and even Ike Davis—and determining whether they’re part of the solution or part of the problem? Why is there anger at the Mets playing in line with their talent level?

The statement, “I didn’t think they’d be this bad” misses the fundamental word in the sentence: “bad.” Bad is bad and there are subsets of bad. There’s bad without hope and there’s bad within reason to build something. The Mets are bad within reason to build something.

Yes, they’re looking worse than they would have if Johan Santana was able to pitch; if Jonathon Niese hadn’t struggled; if Davis had hit better than former Mets pitcher Al Leiter; if Tejada hadn’t become error-prone and flyball happy; if Duda fulfilled his potential in a consistent manner, but even in a best-case scenario, where was this team going? In a division with the Nationals, Braves and Phillies and a league with the Cardinals, Reds and Giants, were the Mets going to make a miraculous run similar to that of the Athletics of 2012 or the Indians in the fictional film Major League?

Blaming Sandy Alderson for his failure to bring in any quality outfielders is a fair point, but no one wants to hear Mike Francesa reaching back into his past to pull a “look how right I was about this player” when ripping the Mets for not signing Nate McLouth. This is the same Nate McLouth who endured two lost years with the Braves, was in the minor leagues, was signed by the Pirates and released by them only to sign with the Orioles and rejuvenate his career.

Let’s say the Mets did sign McLouth. Where would they be now? If you go by advanced stats and transfer what McLouth has done for the Orioles this season, his Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is 1.1. So the Mets would have one more win with McLouth assuming he replicated his 15 stolen bases in 16 tries, 4 homer and .810 OPS—a shaky premise at best.

Were they supposed to waste money on players to win 75 games this year? Or does it matter whether they win 75 or 65 to the attendance figures or what their true goal is: to contend in 2014 and beyond?

There are calls for Alderson’s head; for manger Terry Collins’s head; to demote Davis; to do something. But here’s the reality: Alderson has spent the first two-plus years of his tenure weeding out players who hurt the club on and off the field and clearing salary space; he and his staff are concentrating on the draft and development to build a pipeline that will provide players to contribute to the club as Mets or in trades to supplement David Wright, Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Niese, Parnell and Travis d’Arnaud. Firing Collins would be a cosmetic maneuver to toss meat to the fans hungry for blood, but no matter who’s managing this group whether it’s Collins, Wally Backman, Tim Teufel, Bob Geren, Connie Mack, John McGraw or Tony LaRussa, they’re not going to be much better than they are right now with the current personnel, so what’s the point?

The positive thing about Alderson is that, unlike his predecessor Omar Minaya, he doesn’t react to the media and fans’ demands. He replies to it, but doesn’t answer to it. Minaya answered to it and that’s why is reign—which was better than people give him credit for considering the Mets were five plays away from making the playoffs and probably winning at least one World Series in three straight years—is seen so negatively.

This season was never about 2013. They were hoping for the young players to be better; for Davis to build on his second half of 2012; for there to be clear factors to point to in giving the fans hope, but it hasn’t happened. That doesn’t alter the overall scheme that once Jason Bay’s and Santana’s contracts are off the books and they finally get rid of the negativity hovering around the organization with rampant dysfunction and lack of cohesion even when they were winning that they’ll be a more attractive place for free agents to come and the team will have the money available to make it worth their while.

They were a bad team at the start of the 2013 season and they’re a bad team two months into the 2013 season. Does how bad they are really matter?

Share|

//

You Were Expecting More From The 2013 Mets?

For what the Mets lack in on-field success in recent years, they make up for in agendas and alibis. The alibis are coming from the team itself; the agendas from the fans and media. The media loves to roast the Mets for their play and personnel moves (perfectly fair) and for their business dealings such as entering into an innocuous agreement with Amway (unfair and self-serving). The fans either wallow in self-pity, hope the team loses so Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins will be fired, or have secondary benefit from the self-flagellation of being a Mets fan as if punishment in this life of baseball fandom will lead to paradise in the next. Opposing fans who need to worry about their own issues point to the Mets as everything they perceive as “wrong.”

If there’s some paradise a pious Mets fan is looking for, the only virgin they’re likely to run into in a sports-related heaven is Tim Tebow and he’s probably no fun to hang out with; the only Kingdom they have to look forward to is in a storybook.

The key question is this: What were you expecting?

They’re in year three of an acknowledged rebuild.

They have a starting rotation of Matt Harvey, Jon Niese and a mix-and-match array of journeymen.

They have one outfielder (who’s actually a first baseman) in Lucas Duda who can hit and has a 25-30 foot radius of balls he’ll catch, block, kick or swallow.

They have one high potential reliever in Bobby Parnell, two decent veterans Scott Atchison and LaTroy Hawkins and more bad journeymen.

One of their main power hitters, Ike Davis, takes the first two months of every season apparently contemplating the mysteries of life in a “what does it all mean?” hypnotic state as he counts the seams of the next low, outside curveball he’ll swing and miss at while batting .150.

They have the foundation for a decent middle infield with Ruben Tejada and Daniel Murphy, a star at third base in David Wright, and a catcher in John Buck who’s hitting like Johnny Bench when he’s closer to Barry Foote.

Their top catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud, acquired in the R.A. Dickey trade, is out with a broken foot and has had his Flushing debut stalled probably until September; their top pitching prospect, Zack Wheeler, acquired for Carlos Beltran, is embarrassing himself with a little league-level whine about not liking it in Las Vegas and is throwing a tantrum hoping to be sent to a more preferable location.

These are the facts.

What gives you the impression that Wally Backman, John McGraw or Connie Mack as manager; Dave Duncan, Rick Peterson, Leo Mazzone or Mel Harder as pitching coach; and Branch Rickey as GM would make any difference whatsoever with this group?

Judging by the lack of moves they made last winter and the removal of the last pieces of the Omar Minaya regime (Jason Bay was dumped and Johan Santana’s Mets career is over with his injury), did you truly in your heart of hearts expect a shocking Athletics/Orioles 2012-style rise for the Mets in 2013?

This team is playing up to its potential and that potential is currently not good. No amount of screaming, yelling and pronouncements of what would “fix” them or what “I’d do” is going to change it especially if your prescriptions are buried in the simplicity of faux expertise and blatant idiocy that’s ten times worse than anything Alderson’s done or will do. The organization has all but said they’re playing for 2014 and beyond when they’re supposedly going to have some money to spend and the prospects they’ve been acquiring and cultivating since Alderson took over will begin to bear fruit.

These are your 2013 Mets. This is it. Deal with it. Or get into therapy. Or just shut up.

Share|

//

Mets Signing of Marcum Linked to Other Moves and Issues

The timing of the Mets’ decision to sign Shaun Marcum to a 1-year contract coincides with Scott Hairston signing a 2-year contact with the Cubs, so perhaps the Mets were waiting until Hairston made his decision before allocating the Hairston money elsewhere. By that logic, the currently undisclosed salary that Marcum is getting should be around $2-3 million plus incentives.

Let’s not make this out to be more than it is. Marcum is a decent mid-to-back rotation starter who has had multiple injury problems in his career. He had shoulder soreness before the 2012 season and missed two months during the season with an elbow problem. He also underwent Tommy John surgery in 2009, costing him the entire season. He’s surpassed 195 innings twice in his career in 2010 and 2011. The Mets aren’t expecting him to turn into a horse with 220 innings pitched in 2013. Marcum’s splits on ground balls/fly balls are about even—link—and he relies heavily on a changeup, a slider and command of his cutter. He doesn’t throw hard and never has, but velocity isn’t as important to a pitcher like Marcum as long as his changeup is working and he’s locating well. He won’t surrender a lot of homers at Citi Field. Three-quarters of the Mets’ infield defense is solid; the outfield defense as it currently stands could present challenges for Marcum.

For the Mets, this is a multiply-pronged decision and a wise one. No one can say what they’ll get out of Johan Santana or Dillon Gee rebounding from injuries. The rookie Matt Harvey probably won’t be pushed much further than a maximum of 180-185 innings. If Zack Wheeler is recalled, it won’t be until mid-season. Marcum gives the team needed rotation depth.

The Mets are currently weighing what it’s worth to sign Michael Bourn in exchange for a large chunk of long-term cash and the 11^th pick in the first round of the June draft.

When looking at Bourn, several of the same reasons the Mets didn’t want to sign Jose Reyes to a long-term deal apply. Bourn is a speed player who turned 30 in December. Once he begins to lose his speed and defensive range, what good will he do? On the other hand, he’s not injury prone as Reyes was and the Mets had a ready-made replacement for him at shortstop with Ruben Tejada, plus their financial situation is far better now than it was when they plainly and simply couldn’t afford to keep Reyes even if they wanted to. Their center field options are limited to Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Collin Cowgill and Matt Den Dekker. The club has to look at the upcoming draft and determine which would be more useful, Bourn or the draft pick.

Marcum is a solid signing for the club in the moment, but it’s also heavily connected to decisions yet to be made. Getting him makes it easier to pull the trigger on other moves in the coming weeks.

Share|

//

The Meaning of the David Wright Signing

A week after Black Friday, it was Blue and Orange Friday as the Mets signed their star third baseman David Wright to an 8-year contract extension for $138 million. Of course this decision elicited reactions far and wide. Let’s take a look at the reality of the Wright contract for everyone involved.

—

For David Wright

I wrote about Wright’s decision to re-sign with the Mets yesterday.

Wright had the choice of waiting until his chance at free agency after next season and face the prospect of being traded or getting hurt. Maybe he would have had a career season and put himself in position to make perhaps $20-30 million more on the open market; maybe he would’ve been traded to a preseason/mid-season title-contender.

Or it could’ve ended badly.

Wright saw what happened to his friend and former teammate Jose Reyes when he chased the money, went the the Marlins and now is playing for the Blue Jays in Canada on artificial turf for the next five years. There was the added attraction of Wright being a Mets icon who will rewrite their record book, be the best position player in their history and to never wear another club’s uniform. The offer was on the table, he wasn’t going to do much better as a free agent and didn’t really want to leave apart from a fleeting, “what if?” curiosity of what it would be like elsewhere.

In the end, he chose to stay in the only baseball home he’s ever known.

—

For the Mets

There’s no getting around how important it was for the Mets to keep Wright not just because he’s a top 5 third baseman in all of baseball and their most popular player, but because they had to undo the perception of the club being broke and having little interest in: A) spending money; B) give the fans what they wanted.

Like Carlos Beltran functions as a symbol of the near-miss of the 2006 team; Jason Bay the symbol of the desperation to hold onto the shriveling tendrils of contention; Reyes the star who spiraled down the drain like the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme money that gutted the Wilpons’ finances, Wright is a bridge to the better times of the Mets and can be the elder statesman for the future.

It was important for the club to step up, show the fans, media, and the rest of baseball that they were willing to do what it took to keep the one player they had to keep. It wasn’t simply an on-field maneuver. Truth be told, the rebuilding might have been expedited with a lower payroll had they traded Wright for a package of prospects—in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were loud voices in the front office that wanted to do that exact thing. But for the same reason they didn’t trade Reyes when many were screaming that they should, there were collateral reasons not to pull the trigger on Wright.

And here’s a flash about Reyes: the Mets did want him back. To say that they didn’t is silly. What they didn’t want to do was give $100 million to a speed player whose defense was markedly declining and who had had multiple injuries over the years when they knew they were also going to need money to sign Wright. What they were hoping was that the Reyes market crashed and he had to return on a deal the club found reasonable. Had the Marlins not jumped in with their backloaded $106 million deal, that’s exactly what would’ve happened. In addition, the Mets had a big league ready replacement for Reyes in Ruben Tejada. No such replacement on or off the field existed for Wright.

It didn’t have racial undertones of choosing the handsome, steady white guy over the flashy and injury prone Dominican. It was a cold baseball decision made by the front office—exactly the type of rationality they wanted when the hired Sandy Alderson as the GM to replace the “I want to make people happy immediately regardless of long-term cost” Omar Minaya.

As for the repeated reference to Fred Wilpon’s ill-advised comment in the New Yorker Magazine that Wright wasn’t a superstar player, it was a year-and-a-half ago. Do you really believe that Wright and Wilpon haven’t since spoken and hashed it out? The Mets paid him like a superstar and Wright will be the first one to tell you that he’s not an Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez in their primes. How many true “superstars” are there in baseball? Not many and Wright, along with many other All-Star players, is not a prototypical superstar. It’s not the insult it’s portrayed to be and in the end, what’s the difference?

—

For the rest of baseball

Wright is very popular around baseball and if he’s willing to invest the rest of his career to the Mets, it’s a signal that the circumstances are getting better around the entire franchise. Because of the lack of money and last four seasons of steady decline and rebuild, the Mets were a “no go” destination unless a player had no other choice. As we’ve seen with the Orioles and Athletics on the positive side and the Red Sox and even the Yankees on the negative side, that is more of a function of how they’re viewed in the moment.

With Wright onboard and the young pitching Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler and Jonathon Niese that has much of baseball salivating to get their hands on them, along with NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, the Mets have the foundation in place to make a serious move into legitimate contention.

Wright signing and the Mets paying him tells the rest of baseball that the talk of wanting to keep Wright wasn’t lip service to placate without a true intention of following through. They followed through.

—

For the fans

Even the most miserable Mets fan who didn’t want Wright back, who is still complaining about the supporting cast they’re surrounding the third baseman with, has to feel some sense of happiness that they’re keeping someone and not masochistically pleading for a repeat of the flogging they took for their dealings with Reyes.

They kept Reyes rather than trade him because, as said before, they wanted to keep him; and they also wanted to sell a few more tickets in a lost season. It was a retrospective mistake, but it was more understandable—given the circumstances—than the simplistic entreaties that they “should’ve traded him” would suggest.

Mets fans will still complain, but it won’t be about not holding onto their own players. For now anyway.

—

For the media

As usual, the Mets can’t win with the media. Whatever they do, it’s twisted to suit the narrative of a moderately brainless idiot who occasionally and by mistake manages to get something right.

This is exemplified by today’s passive aggressive piece in the New York Times by Tyler Kepner. Amid the begrudging credit given to the club for keeping their third baseman, Kepner took the cheap shots that have become a prerequisite in this market by, of course, mentioning the Wilpon comment; rehashing past mistakes such as Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo; questioning the wisdom on the part of Wright and the Mets in staying together; and naturally making sure to mention the supposed superiority of the Yankees who, according to Kepner, have a “business model sets them up to contend for the title every year.”

That same Yankees’ business model that: has an array of immovable contracts; Derek Jeter appearing as if he’s packing on the pounds to audition to be Engelberg in The Bad News Bears—20 years later; ancient players from top to bottom; lost Russell Martin to the Pirates; and has, topping their catching depth chart, the equally horrendous Eli Whiteside and Chris Stewart.

Referencing the Yankees as anything to admire right now is an outrageous display of clinging to the past and a none-too-sly shot at the Mets during a brief moment of happiness.

Kepner offhandedly points out the acquisition of Wheeler from the Giants for Beltran in the tone of the Mets being a broken clock that manages to be right twice a day, then contextualizes it by equating the decision to trade Angel Pagan—a talented player who is baseball-stupid—as the Giants getting “even.” Like the Wright signing, the Pagan trade made sense at the time. It didn’t work, but the way to judge any trade/free agent signing/draft pick is whether it was logical. Anything other than that is second guessing.

What the Mets have done under Alderson is to retreat from the Wilpons’ prior modus operandi with GMs of the past and, instead of concentrating on doing what the media wanted them to do to garner good press, are pushing back and running the club as it should be run. The same press that had Minaya thinking everyone is his friend is intimidated by Alderson because the GM sees right through them and won’t respond to their tactics—tactics that Kepner again employs and will be roundly ignored if not ridiculed by those who know better and understand his intentions with such a transparent piece.

—

This is a positive move for the Mets. They did what needed to be done in keeping Wright. That is the only way in which this signing must be judged. It makes sense now, therefore it makes sense, no matter what happens in the future and over Wright’s career that will be as a Met and a Met alone.

Share|

//

Longoria, the Rays, and…Wright

On the heels of Evan Longoria agreeing to a contract extension with the Rays that will guarantee him $100 million through 2022, the news is out that the Mets offered David Wright a 6-year, $100 million extension. Naturally, as is the case with anything the Mets do, this is cast as a lowball, “show me,” “look we tried,” proposition when the offer is legitimate and reasonable considering what comparable players have received.

The main differences between Wright and Longoria are leverage, age and perception. Wright is a free agent after 2013; prior to the new contract, Longoria was locked up by the Rays until 2016. Wright is about to turn 30; Longoria just turned 27. Longoria is considered a big game player because many of his hits have been considered “clutch” (with good reason) and Wright is more of a steady performer whose numbers accumulate and he’s unfairly been seen as a central figure in the disappointment of a Mets team that stumbled at crunch time.

In reality, they’re pretty much the same player. In fact, Wright has the advantage of durability that Longoria doesn’t have. Longoria has had quadriceps strains, hamstring tears, and wrist problems. Wright got hit in the head and suffered a stress fracture in his back, both of which he’s recovered from.

In his career, Longoria has traded his arbitration years and window to freedom for security. He signed a contract as a rookie (shortly after he arrived in the big leagues) that guaranteed him $17.5 million and could have made him as much as $44.5 million. Now, as an established star player, he’s got his $44.5 million and an additional $100 million on top of that. There’s not a no-trade clause in the deal with Longoria’s only recourse if the Rays decide to trade him is waiting until after 2017 when he’ll be a 10 and 5 player (10 years in MLB, 5 years with the same team) and subsequently can reject any deal. But before then, if the Rays choose to move him due to financial constraints or because they receive an offer they can’t refuse, there’s nothing he can do about it. It’s a trade-off that both sides made. Longoria gets his guaranteed money, the Rays have flexibility. Because Longoria is locked up until 2022, it doesn’t mean he’ll be a Ray for that entire time. That’s the way the contract was designed and the manner in which the Rays operate. The Rays said, “We’ll give you more security in exchange for flexibility.” Longoria accepted that.

The Mets are not in the position of the Rays where they have a terrible ballpark and limited fanbase. The Mets’ financial problems are not related to baseball’s structure, but are a byproduct of circumstance and will presumably end at some point. For the Mets and  Wright, the offer that has been made public isn’t for public relations purposes, but is a reasonable, market-driven deal. That doesn’t mean Wright’s going to take it. For all the talk that the Mets are dragging their feet, the Wright camp is probably also taking a wait-and-see approach to know where the dollar figures are for players in this year’s free agent class. If there’s a team that tosses a record amount of money at Zack Greinke and rolls the dice on Josh Hamilton; if a club gets crazy for Wright’s childhood friend in Virginia B.J. Upton, then Wright can say he’s going for the big money next winter and unless the Mets pay him and pay him big now, he’s not signing anything. But if the deals these players get aren’t what’s expected; if the number of teams that are still willing to go overboard as the Angels did with Albert Pujols is limited to one or two; if no club other than the Dodgers is spending wildly, then Wright isn’t going to do much better than the 6-years, $100 million and will be more willing to take it.

The Jose Reyes comparisons are simplistic and stupid. Those negotiations weren’t “negotiations” in the truest sense. The Mets wanted Reyes back, but they didn’t want to give him $100 million (money that they didn’t have and certainly didn’t want to spend on him) and they knew they had a reasonable—if significantly less flashy—replacement for him with Ruben Tejada. It’s a different matter with Wright. The Mets want him back and know how hard he’ll be to replace on and off the field.

The common sense approach from the Mets to Wright is to be conciliatory and ingratiating. They should not imply that because Longoria and Ryan Zimmerman took $100 million over six that Wright should know what’s good for him and do the same thing. The Mets should approach Wright with the facts. Those facts are that he’s not going to do much better on the market than 6-years at $100 million with a reachable option to make it 7-years at $125 million and perhaps an eighth year option as well; that the Mets are in position to get markedly better and contend by possibly 2013 and definitely 2014 with all that young pitching and money coming off the books; and that, like the Rays and Longoria, it behooves both sides to come to an agreement. A no-trade clause isn’t even necessary for the new deal because Wright will be a 10-and-5 player after 2013.

The Wright-Mets extension talks aren’t in a holding pattern because the participants staked their positions with no room for compromise and a pure impasse. 6-years at $100 million was a start. If a deal gets done, it won’t be until the other pieces currently making the free agent rounds come off the board and there’s a clue as to what the numbers have to be and could be to make it worthwhile for the Mets and Wright. In that context, the Wright and Longoria comparisons are equal and like Longoria, I’d expect Wright to eventually sign an extension with the Mets, but it won’t be until the new year.

Share|

//

A Simple Solution to Cure the New York Times’ Implied Disease of Being a Mets Fan

If it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, the end result was closer to finger-in-throat.

Combine pompous verbiage and inept analysis and you get this—the New York Times article by Michael Powell about the New York Mets that has some calling it the “best” piece written about being a fan of the Mets they’ve ever read.

I suppose it is if you consider “good writing” to be maudlin whimpering masquerading as insightful poignancy.

Powell writes the Gotham column in the Times. That and his identification as a Mets fan somehow qualifies him to speak for the entire fanbase regarding how difficult life is rooting for a struggling, rebuilding team.

First, the writing is a study in attention-grabbing, overuse of horrific metaphors and ludicrous assertions. Some examples:

We step through the turnstiles to find 22 ticket scalpers, lost souls all, clustering around us.

We walk in, a beaut of a stadium with fans scattered in so many nomadic clumps amid acres of green seats.

22? Exactly 22? Did he stand there counting them for accuracy in his portrait? Or is it a nice round, ridiculous number to punctuate the absurdity of what the Mets have become—something similar to just about every other team that is playing out the days of a season in which their playoff hopes are gone?

“Nomadic clumps amid acres”? Good grief!!!

Ruben Tejada, our shortstop, steps to the plate. He’s a soft-bodied, sweet-fielding kid who is hitting .286, an average made up almost entirely of little tear-drop singles to all fields. He replaced Jose Reyes, our rangy and powerful All-Star shortstop whom the Mets, in their infinite wisdom, chose to let walk away without first trying to trade him.

Naturally, without context it sounds like a farce. Is Tejada supposed to imitate Reyes and be something he’s not? Try to steal bases, hit triples, pop 12 homers a year and, I suppose, spend a substantial amount of time on the disabled list?

The Mets didn’t trade Reyes when they had no intention of signing him unless he got hurt and/or his market crashed. This is true. But the Mets were still trying to attract fans to the ballpark in August and September and, misguided as it was, they had no chance of keeping him if they traded him. If they kept him, maybe he would’ve stayed. It was a retrospective mistake, but not a catastrophic one. In fact, it was understandable in a business sense.

The only team that did offer Reyes the $100+ million he wanted were the Marlins, and the Marlins are the team the Mets have beaten in the past two days; the team that spent the money the fans (and apparently Powell) wanted the Mets to spend, but didn’t because: A) they couldn’t; and B) they’ve tried that in the past and it didn’t work.

The Marlins are also the team that will keep the Mets out of the basement in the National League East. They are an organization in far worse shape on and off the field with a new, empty ballpark that has their ownership under investigation because of alleged financial chicanery that got the thing built.

But they have Reyes who, by now, must be growing comfortable playing for teams that are viewed as disappointing at the high end and disastrous on the low.

The most exhausted and cynical Mets fan looks at the Marlins and says, “I’d hate to be rooting for them.”

…[Jason] Bay might recover his stroke and Lucas Duda might stroke homer after homer deep into the periwinkle skies over Flushing Bay.

I’ve mistakenly used the same word twice in short order, but I’m not writing for the New York Times nor do I have an editor supposedly perusing what I’ve written and gently nudging me in a preferable direction. “Stroke” and “stroke” twice within six words? And periwinkle? Good grief!!!!!

Oh, and I looked up “periwinkle.” I had to because I didn’t know what it meant. It means a pale, bluish purple. If nothing else, I’ve learned a new word I’m never going to use.

What’s our choice? To root for the triumphalist Yankees is to describe an impossibility, like walking through Manhattan chanting: “Goldman Sachs! Goldman Sachs!” Instead, we adopt the mien of Scottish highlanders facing the English army — loss is assured, but let’s go out with panache and a touch of humor.

There’s an obsession that Yankees fans have of Lording (in keeping with the rancid English army allusion) their success over the Mets. 27 World Series, blah, blah, blah. Never mind that the Yankees have been in existence over 60 more years than the Mets; that the bulk of those championships were won long before anyone had even formulated the concept of the Mets, but this inferiority complex on the part of Mets fans when it comes to the Yankees and the Yankees superiority is based on absolutely nothing other than an inveterate desire to bully or supplicate. There’s no connection between the two other than what’s created by dueling fanbases and a biased media.

We’re just in time to watch the manager pull Dickey for a pinch-hitter. His chances of winning 20 games officially are on life support; you want to page Manager Terry Collins and point out that Dickey has a better chance to get a hit than any of the Ghandian hitters on the Mets’ bench.

Ghandian?!? GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!

“I have a lot of faith in the Wilpons,” Commissioner Bud Selig told Newsday’s Marc Carig on Wednesday. “I have a lot of faith in Sandy Alderson.” He went on: “I’m very confident about the Mets. Very confident.”

The Mets have, after a fashion, constructed a very 21st-century New York team. Crony capitalism by Flushing Bay, with Selig in the role of crony enabler.

Going back to the Wilpons’ $25 million loan taken from MLB nearly a year ago to meet operating costs, it’s been expected that the financial circumstances surrounding the club due to the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme would sink them once and for all. Based on speculation and extrapolation, but not fact, it was taken for granted that the Mets would be unable to pay all their debts.

Well, to the disappointment of many, the Mets paid back the MLB loan when they settled the case with the government’s trustee of the case, Irving Picard, and still own the team.

Selig is the commissioner of baseball, a position of considerable power, but still an employee of MLB owners. He is not in a position to force an ownership to sell anything. Selig is the crony enabler? Of what? He’s the commissioner, not the King.

Getting past the words and scouring the content of the article itself, I’m having trouble seeing the point.

What was the purpose of this other than to add to the attempted embarrassment lavished on the Mets and to make the fans feel as if they should be ashamed to support their team?

There is a segment in Mets fandom, propped and promoted by the media—Mets haters and not—that takes joy in attacking the organization no matter what they do. It’s a story with a secondary benefit. “Oh, we’re Mets fans. Poor us. We’re destined to suffer.” But is there a team anywhere, including the Yankees, that has a gaudy enough record in recent vintage that would make it a hopelessly losing endeavor to be a Mets fan that a non-self-loathing fan, as the article implies, should abandon the club or accept the lot in life of loser?

The Dodgers were recently a financial nightmare due to the alleged misuse and abuse of the financial coffers on the part of former owner Frank McCourt and are now again one of the high-end destinations in baseball and spending insanely with Magic Johnson as the frontman of the new regime.

The Orioles have launched themselves back into the playoff picture for the first time in 15 years after their reviled owner Peter Angelos ran off one baseball man after another and treated the club as if it was an underachieving, poorly managed offshoot of his law firm.

The Phillies, the losingest baseball franchise ever, became a champion and turned into an incarnation of the Yankees, spending, trading, signing amid fan-booing their way to a $170 million payroll and a .500 record in 2012 with an entire roster laden with stars in their early-to-mid 30s and rolling over the hill.

The Yankees, whose main metric is based on winning a World Series otherwise the entire season is a failure, have achieved their goal once on the past decade with a payroll that dwarfs every other team in baseball.

The Red Sox, the totem of how to rebuild a dysfunctional mess and rejuvenate it to become a contender on an annual basis has come apart with worse infighting and dysfunction that the hard-partying, drugged out, underachieving Mets of the late 1980s never could’ve fathomed.

Being a fan guarantees nothing. Because you like Tom Cruise doesn’t mean you’re going to love every movie he appears in. If you enjoy the writing of John Grisham doesn’t promise the endless enjoyment of every book he writes. And being a fan of whichever team in any sport doesn’t mean you’ll wind up being able to gloat—and that’s the main idea—about “your” team.

The meme transferred from one entity to the other is rife with a egomaniacal narcissism. “We predicted the team would be this bad.” This comes from Mets haters like Michael Kay; from Mets antagonists like Mike Francesa; and self-proclaimed Mets supporters, openly despondent at the state of the franchise, Bob Klapisch and Howard Megdal.

I didn’t hear anyone in June saying the trash they’re saying now because it would’ve made them look foolish and, in a strange way, honest had they so baldly betrayed their poorly hidden agendas by ripping the Mets while they were playing well. Instead, they waited until things came apart. Now, they were “right.” Their “predictions” of doom and gloom came to pass.

Except they weren’t right; their predictions didn’t come to pass in the spirit of honesty.

The theme in the Times article appears to be one of imprisonment. “Woe is me, I’m a Mets fan.” But there’s a solution for Powell and for anyone involved with the club in any fashion as a player, beat writer, a front office employee, or any individual whose life is somehow diminished by being a Mets fan or chronicler. I’ve said on multiple occasions, the Mets have to stand up and tell those who revile the club and themselves to this degree that they’re compelled to write it in so histrionic a manner. It’s simple.

Leave.

Go root for another team. Go play for another team. Go cover another team. Go work for another team. We’ll get someone else. If you have become so jaded that the current situation of your baseball team is infecting your being so you can’t be a professional and need to project that hurt in multiple, self-destructive ways, then say goodbye. Move on. It was this one act that the Rays of 2007-2008 began their rise into annual contender while they were a laughingstock for their entire existence, running into one another like a slapstick comedy with an empty park and no hope. They said, with their actions, that they didn’t want people who didn’t want to support them and be happy to be members of the Rays organization and fanbase. This is what the Mets have to do.

Leave.

Go elsewhere. But you can’t come back. And you can’t whine. And you can’t cry. And you can’t derive the clear supplementary boost you get from identifying yourself as a Mets fan with a shrug and an eyeroll as if it’s a terminal disease for which there’s no cure.

But there is a cure. A simple one. Excise the disease.

Leave.

We’ll start a registry and track you so you can’t come back. But you can go. You’ll be free. With such burdens in everyday life, the last thing I would want is my diversion of a baseball team making it worse.

It’s tragic, it’s horrible, it’s depressing. So end it.

Leave.

In a way, writing is like a mathematical formula without numbers. It’s artistic; it doesn’t have limits; there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to do it, but either it works or it doesn’t. When there’s a forced shoehorning of bad use of language and rotten word choices in an effort to anoint oneself the representative of a large group of people who didn’t nominate you, didn’t elect you, don’t agree with you, and don’t want you, you get the New York Times piece on the Mets by Michael Powell. It’s poorly written, pretentious, self-indulgent pabulum.

And my solution to Mr. Powell is simple. So simple that I’ll say it again.

Leave.

Trust me. We’ll be fine.

The article is entitled “Turn Out the Lights.”

Fine. I’ll turn them out. After you leave.

And don’t come back.

Ever.

Share|

//