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I don't like this Pedro business one bit for 3 reasons:

1) Age- Pedro is 33 and we will get him when he's 33, 34, 35 (assuming a 3 year contract, Omar would be nuts to guarantee the 4th when Pedro would be 36)

2) Stamina- avgs 106.0 pitches per start, which is good, but also 15.6 pitches/inning career and 16.0 for 2004 (al leiter avged 17.3 career, 18.8 2004) basically we're buying another 6 inning pitcher (Pedro avg'd 6.5 inn/start in 2004, Leiter avg'd 5.77 per start) to replace leiter and not getting a workhorse. Pedro is CLEARLY a better pitcher than Leiter, but is he really THAT much better?

3) Exorbitant cost- the 3 yr $37 mill offer I've been hearing, and the nasty rumors for a guaranteed 2008 season would drive the contract upwards of $50 mill for a pitcher in his mid 30s. Have the Mets learned nothing from the botched declining, high price free agents of the late 90s (Vaughn, Boo-nitz, Cedeno, Floyd, Alomar(yes, that was via trade), Glavine...)??

It seems to me that Pedro isn't even the best pitcher in this market (Pavano, Milton) and would be a good player for us for a few years but he's 33 and you're getting him on the downside of his career, while Pavano and Milton are on the way up. I love Pedro's tenacity and his willingness to go inside. I also love his k/bb ratio (4.3 k per walk), but its undeniable hat he's in decline.

In the past 4 seasons, consider Pedro's obp against, ops against, k/9, and k/bb ratio

2001 (116.2 in): .252 obp, .526 ops, 12.57 k/9, 6.52 k/bb
2002 (199.1 in): .253 obp, .561 ops, 10.79 k/9, 5.98 k/bb
2003 (186.2 in): .271 obp, .585 ops, 9.93 k/9, 4.38 k/bb
2004 (217.0 in): .299 obp, .698 ops, 9.42 k/9, 3.72 k/bb

What does everyone else think?

First off, Vaughn, Burnitz, and Alomar were all acquired via trade; none of them were free agents. The Mets traded away significant salaries in the Vaughn and Burnitz deals, and managed to get Vic Diaz back when they trade Burnitz away. I'm fairly tired of people harping on those as "bad signings", as they weren't even signings to begin with.

That said, I am not high on Carl Pavano in the least, and don't even get me started on Eric Milton. If the Mets end up not signing Pedro, Matt Clement and Brad Radke should be their next targets.

Gene, good point on Pedro's decline, but you have to realize:

1) It's obviously natural for a pitcher leaving his early 30's to begin to decline. That doesn't mean it's a good trend, it just isn't necessarily a sign of the apocalypse.

2) He has declined from godlike levels. He has certainly regressed, but is still an elite pitcher. The best pitchers have the farthest to fall, as they say. There are better pitchers out there, but none in this free agent class.

I'd walk away if he wants a guaranteed fourth year, but if the Red Sox are willing to offer him three guaranteed, the Mets should as well. Pedro will stand to improve simply by pitching at Shea and facing NL lineups (because pitchers have to hit and because of general unfamiliarity). Pedro will still be a very good pitcher at ages 33-35.

M A T T C L E M E N T

that is all.

Right about the trades. My mistake, I lump them into signings cause we in essence ate a bunch of salary when we traded a young (26 and up and coming) Glendon Rusch, Lenny Harris to the Brewers; Todd Zeile and Benny Agbayani to the Rockies and got back Burnitz and Jeff D'Amico. Rusch and Agbayani never really panned out, but Rusch was widely liked at the time.

Vaughn for Appier was a trade for bad contracts, but Appier had a 14-12 3.92 era in 2002 right after the trade, while mo vaughn just tanked. also mo was owed a LOT more money than appier.

The Alomar trade worked out well for us Matt Lawton has been solid, but unspectacular, escobar flopped, and jerrod riggan never did anything. i didn't like losing billy traber and earl snyder at the time, but snyder hasn't done much and traber tore up his shoulder and wont pitch for a while. alomar was okay for us and got us royce ring (who we will lose in the rule 5 draft since we left him unprotected), but mike bacsik and danny peoples never did much for us.

that being said- the combined $150 mill + for those contracts plus glavine, floyd, and cedeno does not offset the potential of victor diaz, joselo diaz, koly strayan and whatever other parts we got for them. yes the dodgers and white sox ate parts of burnitz and alomar and ensurance ate a bunch of vaughn. (ps why is the proper spelling of ensurance questionable content?)

we have had a stretch of hot stove bad luck recently and we're due to make a good move (cameron was actually a nice pickup), but come on with clement, milton, millwood, radke, pavano out there, why would we offer 3 guaranteed with an option for a 4th for pedro? especially since hudson/mulder get free in 2006.

"we have had a stretch of hot stove bad luck recently and we're due to make a good move (cameron was actually a nice pickup), but come on with clement, milton, millwood, radke, pavano out there, why would we offer 3 guaranteed with an option for a 4th for pedro? especially since hudson/mulder get free in 2006."

Simply put, because Pedro is still a much better pitcher than any of the 5 that you listed. Except possibly Clement, who is still my number 1 choice. Pedro's numbers in 04 - while not omnipotent like years past - were still fantastic. Considering he pitched in the AL, I consider them better than Pavano's.