As I watch the Red Sox battle the Tigers for the opportunity to go to the World Series … a series turned on its ear on a grand slam by one David Ortiz, I was fascinated by this little tidbit:
Rather than give arbitration-eligible Ortiz — who had been hampered by injuries the previous two seasons — a significant raise from his $955,000 salary, Ryan opted to release him. It has been well-documented that the Red Sox took a flyer on Ortiz with a one-year, $1.25 million contract. Any team could have had Ortiz during the five weeks he was a free agent — or before then when Ryan couldn't give him away.
When Ryan went to the general managers meetings in November 2002, he sat down next to the New York Mets front office staff — the teams were seated alphabetically.
He told the Mets he wasn't planning to tender Ortiz a contract and, if the Mets had any interest, they could easily make a deal. The Mets looked at their 40-man roster and decided they didn't have room for a guy whose knees had been a problem playing on the Metrodome's artificial turf but had hit 15 of his 20 homers in the second half of the 2002 season.
It's fun to think of what might have been … until you actually think of it. First off, Steve Phillips is an idiot. We all knew that. This trade most likely didn't happen because of Mo Vaughn's existence. And for that, Steve Phillips is to blame.
But think about this: If Ortiz is a Met in 2004, the Yankees have another World Championship, while the Mets still miss the playoffs. Do you want to live in such a world?
Ortiz might have helped a little bit in '05, as the team was pretty good and missed a wild card spot by five games (the difference between Ortiz and Doug Mientkiewicz being 4.3 games if you subscribe to the crudest measurement of the "WAR" stat.) But with Ortiz having to play the field, maybe the difference isn't quite as great. And then '06 to '08 is a wash as you simply have Ortiz instead of Delgado, and maybe not even a wash if you factor that Ortiz couldn't play the field half as well as Delgado (and that's saying a lot). Ortiz might have been booed out of town. (Hey, we booed Carlos Beltran on Opening Day in '06, didn't we?) Besides, you know that Ortiz becoming a Met would have changed his course and caused him to become some sort of singles hitter who would have gotten caught red-handed shooting up steroids while his batting average was at .188 … or maybe he would have retired after Fred Wilpon complained about him in a New Yorker article.
But that's all rationalization. And an excuse to complain about Steve Phillips. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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