Hopefully last night was the first of many quality performances by the Mets newest first baseman Ike Davis. As Gary Cohen said during the broadcast there is a certain level of “excitement” that comes with the debut of a homegrown player. We saw that with Jose Reyes, David Wright, Lastings Milledge, and to a lesser extent, Jenrry Mejia. In the age of information not all were happy with the promotion due to concern that Davis’s arbitration clock now has been accelerated a full year if he spends the entire season on the big league roster.
From a business standpoint those detractors are 100% correct, but the Mets need to focus more on winning and less on “moneyball ideology.” That kind of bean counting is for teams like Tampa, who can’t afford a $140 million dollar payroll. The good news is Davis will be under control till 2016 because of the delayed promotion to the big leagues. In a perfect world Carlos Delgado would never have gotten hurt and the Mets could have allowed Davis to spend the year in Buffalo. Unfortunately, reality often doesn’t cooperate with the textbook and the Mets needed offense at a position which produced .167/1/3 line going into last night’s game.
Remember a few things about arbitration. First, winning a case isn’t the easiest thing. Any agent will tell you that. Most teams don’t like the process because it forces them to bash their players publicly. This potentially causes acrimony between player and team. Also, the Mets historically haven’t gone to arbitration and take care of their players. If Davis performs anywhere close to expectations, he will likely be bought out for his remaining arbitration years (see Wright and Reyes). In essence the argument is moot. There is actually more reason for concern about the process of how he was called up versus the actual financial implications.
Is Davis going to save the season? By himself no, but he is an important piece to a team that is trying to fill out a complete roster. If he hits as he did in Buffalo the fans will soon forget the “playing with numbers” semantics and be happy he is here. Remember, it’s about winning, not winning with “value.” The value is great, but can’t always be achieved in an imperfect world.
Original Story:
http://nybaseballdigest.com/?p=23830
