Afternoon Baseball

Part 1 with an introduction

Billy Wagner is one of the great small pitchers of all time, as well as having been a top-tier closer for several years. There is no doubt about that. Nor are we here at the Blog of Detachment saying that Wagner isn't physically tough enough or big enough. No questioning of his heart or the way that he's brought the heat.

Even $10.75 million per year isn't a big issue.
It's the contract length, stupid.It's the contract length, stupid.

Four years is too much for any closer who will turn 35 during the first year of the deal. Except for perhaps Mariano Rivera. Even then, unless you're the Yankees, you don't make that deal unless you feel the heat. The Mets feel the heat from all sides -- fans, media, players, management, even from the disastrous state of all the other NL East clubs. Even more so now that they've got all those other big names and contracts (Glavine, Pedro, Delgado, Beltran, Floyd, the soon-to-cash-in David Wright, etc). They probably had to make this move. They really don't care at this point whether he lasts four years. They need Wagner to last two. Not three. Two. Can he do it?

Coming off of what may have been his best year ever, the answer is a solid probably. Wagner will not be a 50-save man, nor a consistent two-inning closer, but few are either, and almost nobody can be the combination of the two. Brandon Looper was a disaster to the point that he was damaging the team psyche throughout the game, not just in the ninth. So in any case, Wagner will be an improvement.

But just as Curt Schilling was a mortal lock to get hurt this year, Wagner is more than likely to get injured during the length of this contract. He's missed significant time in 2000 and 2004, and his arm is not the most sturdy. While he's thrived on opponents and critics underestimating him throughout his life, it's unlikely he can go through four campaigns unscathed. Two seasons? Again, a solid probably.
What could be more catastrophic for the Mets and Wagner, however, is the unlikely but possible occurence that Wagner loses his velocity. Then he'd be an undersized soft-tosser, surely not a recipe for success.

Final verdict? Mets fans will be upset with the Wagner deal in 2008 or 2009, but that anger will be mitigated in relation to the success he can bring them in 2006 or 2007. Baseball Musings astutely points out that the Mets currently win-share project for 93 wins in 2006. Wagner will be a huge part of that total, either by addition or omission. The Mets made the best choice out of a field of dangerous or simply bad choices (potentially including Alfonseca, Farnsworth, Gordon and Hoffman and even Looper).