A year ago, I placed the Mets at #5 on my list of the healthiest organizations in baseball.

My bad.

Yesterday’s he said-he said recounting of the events surrounding Carlos Beltran’s surgery are just the latest sign that the organization is a ship without a captain. Even the most conservative reading of the events looks really bad for the Mets – at best, their front office lacks the ability to communicate their desires to their team’s best player, at worst the player has reached the point where he simply doesn’t care what they say.

And then there’s the handling of the news. Word began to leak out on Wednesday that Beltran had surgery and that the Mets front office was extremely angry about it. It’s one thing to do a controlled leak of news that will come out eventually, as most teams in baseball do – it is entirely another to bring reporters into what should have been an internal issue. Then, to cap it off, the Mets held a conference call (necessitated by the leaks) that was run by Assistant GM John Ricco, ostensibly because Omar Minaya wasn’t able to find a working phone in the rural back-country known as Phoenix, Arizona.

More likely is that the Mets just didn’t want Minaya on that call for fear of what he might say. Say what you will about Minaya’s roster construction (and I have), but when you don’t trust your GM to meet with the press, you need a new GM. A significant part of the General Manager job is to handle the relationship with the press about the affairs of the team. The Mets apparently do not believe Minaya is fit to fill that role any longer.

Ricco’s handling of the conference call only goes to further confuse the chain of authority in Queens. Minaya is clearly not in charge, as the Wilpons continue to exercise more than a usual amount of influence on the front office. But they won’t willingly admit to running things either, leading to a nebulous power situation where there is simply no clear leader.

This is dysfunction on a large stage. Much like the last days of Jim Bowden’s reign in Washington, you have to wonder whether they’ll be able to escape growing evidence of a lack of control in the front office – never mind the questionable decisions Minaya has made spending the Wilpons’ money.

At this point, they just need to start over. The current situation isn’t working and it’s getting worse, not better. The team has a new ballpark in a huge metropolitan area and some terrific pieces to build around – they should be contenders. They should be well-run. But they aren’t. It’s time for some wholesale changes before things get any worse, if that’s possible.

As we mentioned this afternoon, there continues to be mounting evidence that this is a strong buyer’s market. Adam LaRoche’s signing continued the trend of non-star players receiving contracts in the $3 to $3.5 million per win range, as we’ve seen all winter, and even dating back towards the second half of last off-season.

As we head towards February, players are finding themselves with fewer and fewer options. Rather than having teams bid for their services, they are seeking out one team that may have a spot for them and asking for a contract offer. Wins are cheap and plentiful, as budget conscious teams continue to drive prices down.

And then, something like this happens – the Tigers give Jose Valverde a 2 year, $14 million contract, surrendering their first round draft choice in the process, since he was the last remaining Type A free agent on the market.

Seriously, in a market where everyone else is finding bargains, the Tigers pay $7 million a year for a good-but-not-great relief pitcher, and give up a draft pick for the right to do so. Were they not paying attention to the rest of the contracts being handed out? Did they not realize they were bidding against themselves? How do you justify dumping Curtis Granderson to save money, and then use that money (and more!) to sign a flyball reliever with command problems who has never pitched in the AL?

This isn’t anything against Valverde. He’s got a good arm with a fastball that averages 96 and a knockout splitter that racks up strikeouts, but we’re not talking about Mariano Rivera here. He’s a guy who pitches up in the strike zone and has a history of giving up home runs (which, you know, can be a problem when you’re asked to protect a one run lead) and has below average command to boot (career 3.6 BB/9).

That doesn’t mean he’s not useful – he’s racked up 6.4 WAR in his career for an average of 0.9 WAR per season. That makes him a good relief pitcher – not a great one, a good one.

For one year and a team that had money to spend, the salary wouldn’t be that bad. But two years and a loss of a draft pick? Really? In this market? On a team that is going cheap at second base and in center field?

Sorry, but this is a bad use of resources.

Reports earlier in the winter had Adam LaRoche seeking a 3 year, $30 million contract. That was laughable, as everyone knew he wasn’t going to get that, not in this market. Last week, a report came out that he had turned down 2 years and $17 million from the San Francisco Giants. Now, LaRoche has apparently accepted reality, as Sports Illustrated reports that he’s signed a one-year deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks for something between $4 and $5 million.

Unfortunately for LaRoche, he had to learn the lesson of this market the hard way. A few teams were willing to shell out real money for a few high-end players, but the bottom has completely fallen out of the low-end market. Average-ish players simply can’t get big money deals right now. And that’s exactly what LaRoche is – an average player headed into his decline phase.

Still, this is a pretty darn good deal for the D’Backs. They get a solid first baseman for 2010 at little cost, allowing them to use Conor Jackson in left field. He adds somewhere between +1 and +2 wins to their team, and, if Arizona is not contending, should be a pretty decent trade chip at the deadline for a team that needs a low cost first baseman.

For LaRcohe, I’m sure this is not the contract he thought he would have to settle for. But it’s the reality of this market. The remaining +2 win-ish players looking for jobs should take note. The jobs are drying up, and you better take a deal when you can, because the offers aren’t going to get any better.

A year ago, the Angels won 97 games and ran away with the AL West, once again defying critics who expected a downturn in performance. For most of the decade, the Angels maintained their excellence despite yearly forecasts that this was the year they were in trouble. It’s a credit to their organization that they have been able to continually plug holes from within, often even upgrading when an established veteran leaves.

This winter, they’ve watched John Lackey, Chone Figgins, and Vladimir Guerrero head elsewhere. All three are big names who have had substantial hands in helping the Angels win, but Los Angeles is confident they can replace those three with Scott Kazmir, Brandon Wood, and Hideki Matsui. And, there’s a pretty decent chance that they’re right about that.

However, it may be that the players the Angels should worry about are the ones that are still in LA. Based on the projections for 2010, it’s the holdovers who may be the problem this year.

Let’s look at Torii Hunter, Kendry Morales, Juan Rivera, and Erick Aybar. A year ago, those four combined for +15.2 wins, one of the main reasons the Angels were able to surge ahead of the rest of the division. These four outperformed every expectation, and created a strong nucleus of talent for an offense that racked up runs in bunches.

The CHONE projections don’t think they can do it again, or even really come close. Here’s their 2009 WAR and 2010 projected WAR by CHONE side by side.

Aybar: +3.8, +1.5
Hunter: +3.8, +2.4
Rivera: +3.4, +1.1
Morales: +4.2, +1.7

Total: +15.2, +6.7

CHONE is projecting an 8.5 win drop-off from just those four players. That’s rough. Part of that is playing time, as both Morales and Aybar have lower projected PA totals due to their inconsistent usage before 2009, so you can bump their totals up by half a win or so if you think they’re going to play everyday. But even still, with that adjustment, the regression is huge.

If this is finally the year that the Angels struggle, playing to their projection rather than beating it by 10 games or more, you will hear a lot of stories about how they miss the spark of Figgins at the top of the order, Lackey’s presence in the rotation, or Vlad’s intimidation of opposing pitchers. In reality, though, what they may actually miss the most are the career years of the guys who stuck around.

The threat to the Angels’ dominance isn’t the guys they lost – it’s the guys they kept. Mike Scioscia better be hoping that those breakouts were real and sustainable, or else there’s going to be some problems in Disneyland this year.

If the sabermetric crowd is known for anything, it is their love of acronyms. There are hundreds of statistics, most of which can be broken down into two and three letter abbreviations. FIP, UZR, wOBA, WAR – our language is full of words that are short and fully capitalized.

When written, this does not present any kind of problem. We all generally come to understand what the abbreviations stand for fairly quickly, and we don’t have to spend too much time saying the full version of the names of these things – I don’t remember the last time I said “Weighted On Base Average,” for instance.

However, increasingly, these terms are making their way into conversation. And that means we have to pronounce these things. I am quickly learning that everyone has a very different path to pronunciation for these acronyms, and there is no clear pattern or rules on how they should be spoken.

For instance, some of them I spell out, while others I pronounce. Why? I have no idea. It goes this way across all the numbers. Some get spelled, some get said, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

Acronyms I say:

FIP – rhymes with hip.
wOBA – woah-buh, emphasis on first syllable, rhymes with toga (sort of?).
SLG – slug, like the animal.
BABIP – bab-ip, rhymes with nothing, no idea why I say this.
ISO – eye-so, this is actually a word, so that helps.
WHIP – pronounced like Indy’s weapon
LOB% – lob percentage, said like it’s the rate of soft-tossed pitches
WAR – said like a really big fight

Acronyms I spell:

E-R-A – not sure why I don’t say era, like a period of time, but I don’t.
O-B-P – are you down with OBP? Yeah, you know me.
O-P-S – not ops, as in operation, and never heard it said that way.
U-Z-R – someone once called it “oozer”, and I tried not to laugh.
W-P-A – can’t even figure out how I would say this? “Whoop-a”?
W-R-A-A – no way I’m going to say “were-aahh” to someone.

So, that’s my list. I know everyone does it differently, though, so I’m curious: which ones do you spell and which ones do you say? And does anyone have any idea why?

With the rumored acquisition of Casey Kotchman, it looks like the former first round pick is getting one more chance. Heading into his age 27 season, coming off two highly disappointing performances, Kotchman is headed for a make-it-or-break-it year. He showed offensive ability in the minors, then had a good season as a 24-year-old in 2007.

But he hasn’t just stagnated, he’s regressed. His power has dried up, as he posted a sad .114 ISO last year, and he doesn’t hit for a high enough average to make that lack of power work. In fact, Kotchman is getting dangerously close to Ben Grieve territory.

Grieve, you’ll remember, was the hot shot top prospect of the A’s who came up in 1997 and made an immediate impact. In 1998, his true rookie year, he posted a .372 wOBA as a 22-year-old, showing both patience and power. He had two more good years, in fact, and looked like on of the better young hitters in baseball. And then he fell apart, and was out of baseball before he turned 30.

Austin Kearns is on a similar career path right now. Once a higly touted prospect, he experienced early career success, but has been terrible of late, and is now relegated to a non-guaranteed, minor league contract with the Cleveland Indians. If Kearns doesn’t show some life in his bat this year, he probably won’t get another shot.

Kotchman isn’t quite there yet, but if he doesn’t hit in 2010, he’ll probably never get another look as a starting first baseman. Defensively, he’s good – everyone knows he can pick it. But he’s great contact skills and a frame that should produce power, but it just hasn’t.

Seattle should be a good fit for him. Safeco Field is friendly to LH hitters, with a short porch down the right field line that turns line drives into home runs. He won’t have to hit 400+ foot shots to get them out to right in Seattle. But he’s going to have to hit 350+ foot shots more regularly than he has.

Right now, Kotchman is unfulfilled potential. He has the talent to be a good player, even if not a star. At 27, it’s time for him to show what he can really do. It’s time to put up or shut up. He won’t be viewed as a guy with potential for much longer. He either shows he can hit in 2010, or he might not be around much longer.

When asked about his plan to improve the Red Sox earlier this winter, GM Theo Epstein emphasized a need to upgrade the defense, noting that his club was not very good in the field a year ago. He wasn’t kidding around, as yesterday, Boston signed Adrian Beltre to take over at third base, adding another premium defender to the earlier acquisition of Mike Cameron.

Beltre isn’t just a good defender. He is in the conversation of the best defensive third baseman of all time. Since 2002, the first year we have UZR data available here on the site, Beltre has put up a total of +104.5. That’s an average of +14 per 150 games over an eight year span. Forget complaints about small sample size or year to year variations – +14 UZR/150 over eight years is impossible to fluke.

It isn’t just the numbers, either. When you watch Beltre play third base, you are amazed at the things he can do. He has perfected the charge on a bunt – no one in baseball comes in on the ball as well as he does. His lateral range is hilarious at times, as he regularly fields balls that are hit directly at the shortstop, just because he can. He has a great arm, often throwing lasers across the field without transferring his weight, showing pure arm strength.

But don’t take my word for it – take the word of the fans who filled out Tom Tango’s scouting report project. Beltre grades out as the best third baseman in the game, rating a 4.56 out of a possible 5, and only five players in the game were graded out higher than Beltre. Or, you could take the word of Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon:

“[Beltre is] clearly the best [third baseman] I’ve ever seen in person,” said Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon. “I think [Evan Longoria] is good, I used to think Scott Brosius was really good. … [Eric] Chavez was good, but Beltre was stupid good. I think Beltre is the best who I’ve ever seen with my two eyes – defender, not just third baseman, but defense.”

Maddon isn’t the only one who feels that way. It is impossible to watch Beltre play third base and not be impressed. There isn’t a question over whether he’s a great defensive third baseman. The only argument you can have is where his glove ranks with the all-time greats.

The Red Sox just signed a great defensive player, but the value for them doesn’t end there. Offensively, Fenway Park should be a huge boon to his numbers, as Dave Allen showed how well Beltre’s game is suited towards a park that is friendly to right-handed pull hitters. He’s leaving the hardest park in baseball for a right-handed hitter and going to one that famously improves the performances of players with his offensive approach. Beltre has been a league average hitter while toiling in Safeco Field, and he has the chance to be much more than that in Boston.

This is simply a tremendous addition for the Red Sox. They got a +3 win player with upside, at age 30, on a one year deal for $10 million. They significantly upgraded over Mike Lowell, and put their defense back on track to being an asset, not a liability. Theo Epstein saw an opportunity to add undervalued assets and made huge improvements to the team by bringing in both Cameron and Beltre.

Boston fans, get ready to be spoiled. You’ll never see another third baseman play the hot corner as well as you’ll see it played in 2010.

Based on early returns of published Hall Of Fame ballots, Jack Morris is getting support from about half of the voters who elect players to Cooperstown. Let’s be entirely honest – Morris has no case if you eliminate Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. His reputation is heavily dependent on that classic performance, a 10 inning shutout that gave the Twins the championship.

From that performance, the legend of what Morris was has grown. He was a bulldog, an ace, a true winner, and the kind of talent who shines when the spotlight is brightest. Or, at least, so his supporters will tell you. That game drastically altered the perception of what Morris was. As a human watching the game, it’s almost impossible not to get wrapped up in that kind of fairy tale performance. When his team needed him the most, he delivered.

One shining moment of greatness in October is a huge part of Morris’ candidacy. Yet, for these same writers, the performance of Edgar Martinez in the 1995 ALDS is not even considered. And I’m here to suggest that Martinez’s performance may have been even more impressive.

In Game One, the Yankees beat the Mariners 9-6, but it wasn’t for Edgar’s lack of effort. He reached base in four of his five trips to the plate, going 3 for 4 with a walk, a run scored, and an RBI.

In Game Two, the Yankees would again prevail, winning 6-5 in 15 innings. Martinez went 3 for 6 with a double and a walk. Despite his hitting, the Mariners were on the verge of getting swept out of their first ever playoff appearance.

In Game Three, the Yankees decided to stop pitching to him. He was 0 for 1 with 3 walks, scoring a couple of runs as the Mariners would win 7-4 and push the series on.

In Game Four, he had his Jack Morris performance. The Mariners won 11-8, and it was almost entirely due to Martinez. He went 3 for 4 with 2 home runs, the first a three run shot and the latter a grand slam in the bottom of the 8th inning that proved to be the decisive blow. John Wetteland, one of the elite closers in the game, couldn’t keep Martinez from extending the series to a final fifth game.

In Game Five, Martinez went 3 for 6 with a pair of doubles, the last of which ended the series in the 11th inning. In Seattle, it is simply known as “The Double”, and it will stand for eternity as one of the most dramatic hits in baseball history.

For the series, Martinez came to the plate 27 times and reached 18 of them. He was 12 for 21 with 3 doubles, 2 home runs, 10 RBIs, 6 runs scored, and 6 walks. He hit .571/.667/1.000 for the series. He had the three most important hits of the series, carrying the team to victory in Game Four and then coming up with the clutch hit to end it in Game Five.

In 5 games, two of which went into extra innings, he made a grand total of 9 outs. He destroyed Yankee pitching and was the reason the team knocked off the Bronx Bombers in 1995.

Morris’ Game 7 performance may have come on a bigger stage, but Martinez’s 1995 performance was every bit as incredibly clutch. With the whole world watching, Martinez proved that he was a dominant offensive force.

So, Morris voters who do not elect Edgar, please call MLB and get a DVD of the 1995 ALDS. Watch that series again. Experience post-season greatness in a form other than a memorable Game 7 start. Pitchers don’t have a stranglehold on amazing October performances, and you’re doing the Hall Of Fame a disservice by not using the same standard for Morris and Martinez.

After a few months of shopping around, the Cubs finally settled on Marlon Byrd as their new center fielder, signing him to a 3 year deal worth a reported $15 million. What should Cubs fans expect from their new center fielder?

Essentially, the epitome of an average player. Byrd is, across the board, about as average as it gets. His career wOBA is .332, and that’s based on a skill set that is neither strong nor weak at any one thing. He walks some, strikes out some, and hits for some power, though he’s not a slugger.

Given that this is a big time buyer’s market, pretty much any deal is going to look good in comparison with other contracts signed in prior years, and this one is no different. In over 4,000 innings in center field, his career UZR/150 is 0.0.

Jack of all trades, master of none, thy name is Marlon Byrd. To be fair, he’s been a bit above average the last few years, but the Cubs are signing him for his age 32-34 seasons, so they should be building some regression into his past performances. Projecting him as a +2 win player going forward is fair.

$5 million a year, even on a three year deal, is a good contract for the Cubs. He fills a hole and should provide a solid performance at a cost of less than $3 million per win. Even in this kind of market, that’s a move worth making. Byrd is not a star, but he’s good enough at everything to be a useful role player, and the price was right for the Cubs.

Until last year, baseball had seen steady salary inflation of nearly 10 percent per season for over a decade, as free agents cashed in on ever growing contracts. Teams counted on this inflation to justify long term deals, as the assumption was that a player would not decline much faster than salaries grew, keeping his relative value fairly steady even if he lost value on the field.

That assumption has to be thrown out the window now, however. Despite signs of economic recovery in the U.S. (the stock market is going to close up 20 percent in 2009), we’ve seen a significant pullback in spending for the second consecutive year – Jason Bay notwithstanding.

Trying to project future inflation now is just a guessing game. Will salaries increase again in the future? Probably. How quickly? No idea. Teams are learning how to restrain themselves from spending sprees in the winter, finding value in players they used to overlook. The acceptance of concepts such as replacement level have taken some of the mystique away from veteran players with track records, as teams are less willing to pay for what a player did in the past.

What I think will be interesting to watch is how this unpredictability of future salary growth will affect how willing teams are to pour money into scouting and player development. During the age of booming inflation, players with 0-4 years of service time were remarkably valuable, as they could provide production at minimal cost.

If we do not return to that kind of inflation, however, the relative salary difference between young players and veterans will be significantly smaller than it has been in the past. And with a smaller gap in cost, it may be become more viable to build a team with established players.

For instance, this winter, teams have been able to sign useful major league players for a couple million dollars. Kelly Johnson got $2 million from Arizona. Adam Everett got $1.5 million from Detroit. A ton of average-ish infielders signed for $5 or $6 million per year for one or two years.

If that remains true in future years, then it reduces the desire to spend millions on prospects with fractional chances of making the majors. The previous cost differences were great enough to make it worth investing in a lot of prospects, reaping the benefits from the ones who make it, and building a team of good young players to avoid having to pay the market premium. But now, if we continue to see years where near average players can be had for $2 to $3 million per win, then the player development calculation makes less sense.

If we don’t see a real up-tick in spending next winter, expect some teams that have traditionally focused on building from within to do less of that going forward. Buying wins in free agency, rather than developing them through the farm system, may be the new trend if inflation doesn’t return.