In the video above, Ted Berg from SNY sat down with Alex Belth from BronxBanter.com, in this week’s New York Baseball Today. Aside from talking about the Yankee Alex Rodriguez, they discussed Pedro Martinez and the drama over his contract. Martinez is complaining over the small-sum, incentive-based deal to sign as the 5th starter. He is demanding a guaranteed, higher paying contract or he will not play for the Mets. The Daily News yesterday quoted Pedro saying:
"Yeah, I would like to be back (with the Mets). But I'm not just gonna follow the Mets. They have their own plans and they have their own thought process."
"Yes, I would love to go (to Citi Field) and hopefully have the same success I had at Shea. Shea was a great stadium for me. I hope the new Shea pretty much follows up on the old one."
"But I have my goals and I have my things that I want to achieve in life. If it's not with the Mets, it will be with someone else. But if they want a fifth starter who's been there - I don't know how much they want me - I'm available."
The manager for the Mets, Jerry Manuel told reporters today,
“Pedro is a Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the greatest pitchers of our time, but I feel very confident in the people we have in camp that they can get the job done. Do you like Pedro? Of course, you love Pedro. But you have to be fair to the people that we have here.”
Pedro is one of the best pitchers from his time and for his age, throwing fastballs as hard as 91 mph on the radar gun. But in my opinion, there are two major issues signing the world famous Martinez as the 5th Starter for the Mets:
1. His age and his susceptibility to injury. Pedro's injury history is not one of the best and at his age, he is only becoming less and less flexible and more and more prone to injury. Take last year for example, he was pumped, trained and ready to win 15 games and blew it right away with his injury. Over the past three years, the Mets have spent nearly $35 mill on his lousy control-less pitches and multiple rehab injuries.
Even though he is capable at his age to pitch fastballs at 90 mph, he still has no control over his pitches. Honestly, whenever he opened last year, I would be at the edge of my green mezzanine seat (I miss Shea!) in fear and doubt. Strikes were surprising and walks/hits were expected from him.
Right now, they are going for fresh and young new players to deliver the Mets and I think it’s their best bet.
2. The economy this day and age is horrendous. At a time when we are in one of the deepest recessions, Pedro is going to stomp his feet, whine and put up a fight over more money? I think that's more than just selfish considering the current economic/financial situation, the several millions we have already given him in the past three years for undelivered pitches and the fact that he is actually being offered deal at all. I think Martinez is displaying a horrible greedy athlete characteristic. He needs to stop crying over not being able to afford another Lamborghini and realize his age, the economy, and his current lack of talent and just take the incentive-based deal.
Ted Berg says in the New York Today Baseball interview, that even though he is one of the best pitchers of all time, Pedro is "nuts" to look at the economy right now and not take a small sum of money in order to play. He hasn’t done anything in years and if he wants to come back to the Mets, he needs to take a pay cut. With his injury and age concern, he needs to, "swallow some pride and take the deal or go fishing."
good post! We dont need a pitcher who can only throw maybe 100 innings for us.
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