Gonzalez heading back to the Rangers

Oh yeah, I think Gonzo just used the Mets. He never had any intention of playing in NY!

Joan Rocker, Carla Everett, and Juana Gonzo...Good Riddance!

I don't know Zeile..

Seems logical to me that, according to the article, he had this choice:

Mets - 2 yrs., $25 million (less $1.7million in state taxes and $898,000 in NYC taxes)

OR

Rangers - 2yrs., $24 Million (no state or city taxes, and cost of living is better).

I'd have done it, too!

New York also offered a $12 million signing bonus, which wouldn't be subject to state taxes. Phillips said he was told the present-day value of his offer was $24 million -- $3 million more than the Rangers' bid.

It's crystal Mets offered the better contract.

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: tzeile29 ]

Regardless, I hope the Mets can now land either Bubba Trammell or Burnitz, sign Pedro Astacio (healthy again, apparently) and jettison Jay Payton.

I think there's no question Juan Gone and his agent used the Mets. There was really very little market for Juan's services; for the second consecutive year most teams were leery of his bad back. The agent essentially put public pressure on the Mets by putting out the word that Juan wanted to play more for them than he had ever wanted anything before, which was obviously untrue. The Mets were not angels in this twisted dance, either. GM Steve Phillips insisted for weeks that they could not offer Gonzalez a deal because they were limited to a $ 95 million salary budget. Thus when the offer came it was no doubt for less dollars and fewer years than Juan and his agent had hoped for. Now the Mets owner has let slip that the GM was misleading everyone about his budget constraints, and that ownership had increased the budget weeks ago. All in all, this was a pretty distasteful episode; nobody involved behaved particularly admirably.

Ted,

Ted,
Juan doesn't have a bad back. As a Tiger fan, I can tell you he just didn't want to play for such a sad team. Last season he put up MVP type numbers and with Hot Rod and Pudge, that team is going to score a lot of runs. Unfortunately without pitching, they're still going to suck.

Z

Texas will be a very interesting team to watch.
My feeling?
1. They will score a lot of runs
2. They will give up even more runs
3. There is a real possibility that they will implode by season's end.

The AL West will be very interesting this year but I still think it will come down to the Mariners & the A's for the title.

I for one am glad Juan is returning to Texas
The Big D is home for Juan sans his home in PR.
I was sad when he left but thought that's how it goes in baseball.

Yet, the Rangers need Pitchers,,,,everybody.... can we say P I T C H E R S?

Welcome home Juan...

As for the Mets....mmmmmm you guys will be fine.

Texas definitely needs pitching. As the last six World Series have shown, you can win with moderately decent batting, but you need quality pitching to go all the way. But then, hasn't this been the case throughout the history of baseball? Oh well--maybe Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson'll come out of retirement and help the Rangers climb out of the basement. Not!

Even without Jason Giambi, Oakland and Seattle have the best teams in the AL West.

You can win with moderately decent pitching too--consider the 1993 Blue Jays, for example (granted they did have a very good bullpen). You just can't win with horrendous pitching. You're correct about Texas not being a serious contender, though. Texas though has to make up nearly 30 games to be as good as Oakland, so it's just not likely to happen, even with Giambi gone. Oakland still has the underrated Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada (better than Jeter last year IMHO), as well as solid pitching. And Seattle has a well balanced offensive team with great defense and depth in the pitching staff, a combination which is, unfortunately, more effective during the season than in the post-season.