Well Mets fans, you don’t even have to wait for Christmas to unwrap this gift; Jason Bay is no longer a New York Met. According to the teams official press release:
Jason Bay and the New York Mets today announced a negotiated early expiration of his contract. The agreement provides Bay his unconditional free agency while the Mets gain roster flexibility. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.”
Some of those terms, however, have leaked out and it really doesn’t seem as though the Mets did anything to save on the money owed to Bay:
The fact that some of this money is deferred is why this is being characterized as a ‘negotiated early termination’ rather than a straight up release of Bay. It’s all semantics and the real truth is that this will go down as one of the worst free agent contracts in the history of baseball, if not professional sports.
Photo by Michael G. Baron
Bay was a total bust during his three seasons with the Mets, with a .234/.318/.369 slash line and just 26 homers to go along with 124 RBI’s over 986 at bats. In truth, the homers and RBI total was probably what the Mets were hoping to get in one season from Bay after signing him to a four-year, $66 million contract on December 29 of 2009. They didn’t get anything close to that as three time All-Star and former Silver Slugger award winner hit just .165 this past season with New York.
Bay gave his all for the Mets, nobody can argue that, but the results just never came and nobody could figure out the reason.
As bad as things got, Bay routinely owned up to his failures and seemingly always dealt with the media as best he could.
Maybe he just doesn’t have the tools or maybe he just couldn’t handle playing in New York, but it’s not going to be a talking point for the Mets or their fan base and I’m happy to see the team move on. As Vinny said on Twitter:
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