Pedro to Mets ~ 50 million
 

Good Luck to you Mets Fans!!!!! I hope he can hold up. I can't imagine he'll head hunt now that he gets behind the plate again.

:wall: :yak6:

Not to jinx us, but I think Pedro is going to suck wind.

-spence

Mike I knew you'd do that

4 freakin' guaranteed years for an arm that won't last two :af:

Effin' Wilpon. Didn't learn his lesson wit Mo :doh:

See ya Pedro:wave:...not feeling bad about this one guys! In time it will prove to be a great decision!;)

you got him now:laughs: :laughs:

I'll miss him but I guess he wanted more than the Sox would give up.

Are the mets desparate?:laughs:

I wish the Soxs could have kept him but there is no way the Mets should have went 4 years. I thought Pedro would have still signed for 3 with the Soxs but I guess it is true, it is all about the money. I cannot blame Pedro but he better get used to losing because the Mets are not going to be that good.

I wonder how the rotation will work out when the Mets play the Yankees every year :D he may have to hit against their pitching:laughs: :laughs:

Thanks for the memories:D :happy:

Let's see if he shows up to spring training late and take Pedro time off when he feels like it:smash:

He had to go to the NL, the Al had him figured out, the first inning or two throwing 75-85 mph.

good luck petey, it was great while it lasted. 4 years big $, wow. i think our braintrust will fill the void quite well.

No middle relief, no closer, not a lot of hitting, and with Piazza back behind the plate, every walk or hit batsman is almost an automatic double :rolleyes:

50 million is crazy, but if he returns to great form, the Mets will have the best. Love him or hate he is a hall of fame pitcher. I've never enjoyed watching a pitcher more than him.
Good Luck Pedro!!

the sox are in trouble imho. pavano is a yankee pedro is gone replaced by DAVID WELLS. this is settin up not so good ;P still time left but uh oh not lookin to good here

Bring on Hudson...:D

No offense Fishsmith but if Pedro is the most enjoyable pitcher you have ever watched then you need to watch a little more baseball.;) As for the hall of fame.....he may squeak in....there are about 100 pitchers better than him I can name....not a big Pedro fan, can ya tell?:D

pedro was a great pitcher not anymore. let him go make his money and take his 4 ERA with him :D

Ya, how is a 6 inning pitcher gonna win a Cy Young award with the Mets?:laughs: :smash:

Sorry Mike:(

I guess the "respect" Pedro is always talking about is a one way street. I knew all year he wasn't going to re-sign. And he has the balls to say it isn't about the money? For him respect = $


Let's see how he likes going 11-14 :smash:

Good riddance to pedro.

He is not, and never was a team player.

And let's see if he passes his physical with the Mets..

If he fails, his value will drop considerably.

Who Cares, Who Cares, Who Cares...We're the WORLD CHAMPS...WOOOHOOOO!!!!


We all new that the team was going to be going through some major changes this year. pedro leaving is no big shock, we pretty much knew he was leaving 2 years ago.

Love him or Hate him he came through for us in the play-offs and we won the World Series.....I wish him well.

I trust the guys in the front office to do what they can to put together the best team they can. It'll feel good to start a season anxiety free for a change. :D

Bigfish, Bigfish, Bigfish,
Pedro is a shoe in for the hall of fame, and 100 better pitchers, no way. He was and is the most exciting pitcher to watch, only rivaled by the other great who the hall overlooks - my man Oil Can Boyd :laughs:

The Dad Fisherman, you're right Go Sox and keep the faith in our front office. They did it for us last year.

:smash: :smash:

By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com

"They're going to have their chances to get me back in that uniform. If they don't get me, it's probably because they didn't try hard enough."
-- Pedro Martinez, after his final game with the Red Sox

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Oh, they tried. The Red Sox tried harder to "get" Pedro Martinez than many people in their organization wanted to try. They tried harder than Pedro will ever acknowledge they tried.

Pedro Martinez
Pedro Martinez's ERA ballooned to 3.90 last season.

But hard as they tried, Martinez will never throw another pitch in that Red Sox uniform. We know that now.

We know because on Monday, he said yes (at least tentatively) to the New York Mets, to an offer of $50 million over four years that is as close to a definition of insanity in baseball as we have witnessed since -- what? -- the Mike Hampton contract?

The Red Sox were never going to guarantee this man four years. They weren't particularly excited about guaranteeing him three years.

They know -- everybody knows -- Martinez has a tear in his labrum that's practically as wide as the San Andreas Fault. One informed estimate put that tear as 90 percent full.

So there is a stupendous chance that one of these days, Pedro will go from being Omar Minaya's most famous acquisition straight to being the Mets' next Mo Vaughn.

Minus the insurance, that is.

We surveyed a half-dozen baseball men Monday, after word of Martinez's stunning I Love New York tune began to leak around the winter meetings. The question we asked was this:

What are the chances of Martinez making it through four healthy seasons as a Met -- no muss, no fuss, no trips to the DL?

And the unanimous answer won't surprise you: Zero. None. Nada.

Pedro's clock is ticking. And the always-wary city of New York will be watching.

We wish him the best, because it has always been a blast watching him perform his inimitable magical mystery tour on every mound in America. But the way he worked these negotiations, the way he misled the Red Sox on his way to exotic Flushing Meadow, will not go down as his finest hour.

The complete details of this negotiation may never become clear. But this is how this deal went down, from what we know now:

On Saturday night, the Red Sox were just about 100 percent sure he was coming back. He had asked them to guarantee three years. So grudgingly, they guaranteed three years and $38 million.

He had asked them for perks and planes and privileges that Bronson Arroyo will never even envision, let alone ask for. But grudgingly, the Red Sox gave him virtually all that, too.

That was supposed to be that. Instead, Pedro did nothing more but use that astounding offer to squeeze more out of the Mets.

His agent, Fernando Cuza, met with the Mets on Sunday. He laid out what the Red Sox had promised Martinez. He asked the Mets if they were willing to guarantee a fourth year.

Mets GM Omar Minaya mulled it over for a while. Then, on a Sunday night that changed everything, Minaya agreed to guarantee four years, about $50 million.

Incredibly, Pedro still didn't say yes.

Standard negotiating practice these days, according to two longtime baseball negotiators, is never to offer a deal-sealer like that fourth year without explicitly saying, "I'm only offering this if it means this deal is done."

But it appears Minaya didn't attach that stipulation -- because after that, according to sources who had spoken with the Red Sox, Cuza went back to the Boston delegation one more time.

He said Pedro was hurt and angry. Why would one team be willing to give him four years but the Red Sox wouldn't? Why wouldn't the Red Sox show him the respect he had earned after all these years?

The Red Sox delegation didn't need to listen long. They had heard enough. They had done enough. They had done all they were going to do. So if Pedro could get all that from the Mets, he should probably go get it before the Mets changed their mind.

And that was how it ended. Seven of the greatest seasons in Red Sox history.

More than 200 trips to the mound. An astounding 117 wins -- vs. only 37 losses. Nearly 1,700 strikeouts in 1,383 2/3 innings. And no number that can measure the charisma, the genius, the sheer artistry of one of the great pitchers of his time. Or any time.

The Red Sox won't be the same without him. There will be a little less buzz, a little less electric current surging through those Fenway nights, a little less reason to blow up an evening's plans to make sure you made it to the TV room for Pedro's starts.

But it's a funny thing. As much as the Red Sox will miss all that, they won't miss the countless days he showed up late, the obligations he dodged, the special treatment he demanded.

Pedro Martinez
Martinez will have a challenge awaiting for him with New York fans.

If he can get away with that in the city of New York -- where he has hardly been everyone's favorite baseball visitor, where they have reaped none of the joy he has spread over these last seven years -- more power to him.

But we are trying to imagine the back page of the Post or the News after he opted not to show up for Game 6 of an apocalyptic League Championship Series, as he did this past October. The headlines might not fit on the page.

In the end, he needed more rest and nonstop maintenance. He was still fun when he took the ball, or when he led those cheers from the dugout. But one baseball man who knows the Red Sox well predicted there would be no clubhouse uproar over this. Not a peep.

"You'll be amazed how little you'll hear those players complain," he said. "I bet you'll never hear a word -- no matter how many games he wins."

The Mets get a great pitcher -- on some nights, anyway -- and a great attraction for their new TV network. But don't ask for 120 pitches. Don't ask for nine innings. Don't ask for any emergency starts on short rest. And even regular rest may stop being quite enough.

What the Red Sox get, mostly, is a huge challenge. They were sure they had Pedro. Then they didn't. They were sure they had Carl Pavano. Then he U-turned toward the Bronx to make his mother and father -- longtime Yankees fans -- happy.

So now, instead of those two, they have David Wells, who turns 42 next May, and a giant hole in the rotation that Pedro was supposed to fill.

They can use some of Pedro's money on Edgar Renteria, a tremendous player and more cost-effective purchase. But it appears they will take their time trying to find that last starter. Maybe Odalis Perez. Maybe Tim Hudson. Maybe some other creative Theo Epstein acquisition.

They will still be good. They will still be must-see New England TV. They will still get to raise that World Series banner on Opening Day.

But everything that comes after this will be filed under Life Without Pedro. He made their world more interesting every moment he was around. But he might very well have made their life a lot more peaceful just by deciding he had hung around long enough.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.


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"He had asked them for perks and planes and privileges that Bronson Arroyo will never even envision, let alone ask for. But grudgingly, the Red Sox gave him virtually all that, too.

That was supposed to be that. Instead, Pedro did nothing more but use that astounding offer to squeeze more out of the Mets."

:D This is the part that can irk the fans if it's true:smash:

like I said before,
Thanks for the memories.

I guess the Sox will mail you your ring:laughs:

$56 million (the figure I'm reading in this morning's papers) could have bought a lot more of what the Mets really need :doh: Like, a first baseman, an outfield and a bullpen. Glavine's older than dirt and I'll bet right now he pitches more innings this year than Pedro :rolleyes:

What freaking good does it do for them to have Pedro leave the game after 100 pitches, or for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the 5th, ahead 2-1 and lose 7-2? :af:

I heard a rumor on the radio today that Pedro and his agent only want strength tests and x-rays for the physical, NO MRI. And the Mets are actually considering it :laughs:

I hope the rumors of Manny for Piazza are only rumors :eek:

WE NEED VERITEK!!!! That should be there priority right now.

Remember one of the biggest hold ups in signing him right now is the No Trade clause he wants. Because if he gets it then Manny gets it...get rid of Manny and you don't have that problem anymore....I'd rather they get some pitching though...we have plenty of 1st baseman

TDF, there's at least 3 other guys that would have the no trade clause added into their contract. That's why the Sox are dead set against it.

ahhhh I did not know that...Who are the other players?

Not positive but I think two are Ortiz and Nixon and you know how Trot is always trade bait. A no trade clause for him would be brutal. I wouldn't be surprised if he's part af a trade for Hudson.