THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

That’s no as bad I thought it would be.  Since that $18m didnt seem to stop the Mets from spending on other FA or push them in to payroll penalties I would say it was worth it.  Of course I’m also not the one cutting the checks.

That’s true but his influence on the young pitchers was also a big factor in the Mets getting him.  He was also a big factor in allowing the Mets to acquire Beltran and pursue Delgado through free agency.  This to me is worth at least $15MM.  Just look at the Mets if they wouldn’t have had Beltran, Delgado, especially in 2006!

Certainly, it’s possible that they managed to get 18MM of value from Pedro outside of his own performance.  That is, that 18MM could act as a “loss leader”.

The Mets didn’t acquire Delgado through free agency. They traded Mike Jacobs to the Marlins for him.

The main article on the ESPN baseball page is an article by Bob Klapisch, who seems pretty dismissive of the notion that Pedro’s presence had anything to do with Beltran’s decision. I’m not implying that we need to assume Klapisch is right about everything, but he probably has much better sources than any of us.

Yes there was definitely some non-performance benefits to having Pedro on the Mets.  I’m not sure what the extent of those benefits are tho.

cannatar,
You’ve misread my comment I clearly stated:
“and pursue Delgado through free agency” I didn’t say sign I said pursue.  You should take a few more minutes to look over someone’s comments before you jump to conclusions.

Ari,
I read your post correctly, I just thought it was a little unclear.
You said “look at the Mets if they wouldn’t have had Beltran, Delgado,” which implies that the acquisition of Delgado was somehow influenced by Pedro’s presence on the team.
I’m a Mets fan and recall the Delgado trade; most people on this blog aren’t Mets fans. I was simply trying to make it clear to those people how Carlos Delgado became a Met and whether it had anything to do with Pedro.

I’m also a huge Mets fan and if you’d like, you can click my name and it’ll send you to my website which I talk about the Mets a lot on.  I know, the Delgado trade happened on a Wednesday, the day before thanksgiving, I remember that day vividly.

What’s the actual value of Pedro helping the Mets try and sign Delgado and then fail? I’m not the most math savvy person, but wouldn’t it be ZERO?

I’m also a huge Mets fan and if you’d like, you can click my name and it’ll send you to my website which I talk about the Mets a lot on.  I know, the Delgado trade happened on a Wednesday, the day before thanksgiving, I remember that day vividly.

Matthew,
Very good.  You probably aced 1st grade math.  You obviously missed my point.  The point was to show you that his job wasn’t solely to perform but also to attract other high end players.  It wasn’t if he succeeded in the task or not, that’s besides the point.

Delgado’s job was also to help his team score runs. If he had failed in that respect, no one would argue that that failure is beside the point. If you’re going to argue that part of Pedro’s value was to attract marquee players, you shouldn’t cite instances that added nothing to that value.

What does Delgado’s production have to do with what I said?