Baseball’s revolving door is in full swing. In comes Alex Rodriguez, out goes Manny Ramirez.

Rodriguez didn’t miss the Yankees’ first 28 games because he had been suspended for using steroids, but earlier this year he admitted testing positive for steroids in 2003 when Major League Baseball tested players for survey purposes, that is, to determine if there was a reason for them to be tested every year for disciplinary purposes.

His failed test and the public disclosure of it earned him entry into the mushrooming membership of the Hall of Ignominy. Ramirez became the latest member last Thursday when he was suspended for 50 games for using a women’s fertility drug that is banned by Major League Baseball.

The Hall of Shame will be an invisible wing of the Hall of Fame. Despite their career achievements in the major leagues, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro are not expected to make it into the structure at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, N.Y.

It’s possible that voters’ minds will change in the next 20 years or so, but with McGwire as the trial horse and receiving less than a third of the necessary number of votes in each of his three times on the writers ballot, it’s highly unlikely that the star-crossed seven will gain entry. 

In other words, as a victim of the fallout from the evils of the steroids era, the Hall of Fame will lose some of its luster.

“You can’t help but think about it,” Jeff Idelson, the Hall’s president, said in a telephone interview. “I think it’s good that you have a 5-year waiting period before players become eligible and a 15-year window to remain eligible, which gives voters a good amount of time to decide what they want to do.”

But in his next sentence, Idelson articulated the reality the Hall faces. “In the same breath,” he said, “you can argue convincingly that the writers haven’t elected anyone over 73 years that they shouldn’t have. We rely on the writers to make sound value judgments.”

Asked his opinion of the predicament the writers will face in coming elections, Idelson said, “I have an opinion but it’s irrelevant. I don’t have a vote. It’s up to the writers to make value judgment.”

If I was reading between Idelson’s lines correctly, I would say he does not favor election of any player who used steroids or was strongly suspected of using them. Idelson, however, noted that there is a difference between the Hall of Fame and the museum.

“In terms of the museum versus the Hall of Fame,” he said, “those who are history makers are documented so if guys wind up not earning election, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be in the museum.”

In fact, artifacts belonging to all seven of those steroids suspects are already in the museum. The Cooperstown crew doesn’t wait for a player’s career to end to get him to donate some piece of equipment that figured prominently in his career.

For example, said Idelson, who for years attended All-Star and post-season games to collect artifacts, the museum has two Manny mementoes – his bat from the 2004 World Series, in which he was named most valuable player, and the batting helmet he wore when he hit his 500^th home run last year.

But, Idelson said, the museum doesn’t duck the issue of steroids. “We have verbiage in the museum addressing performance-enhancing drugs,” he said, then tried to quote from memory what visitors read: “You’ll find artifacts in here of players who have tested positive or are under a cloud of suspicion, but we’re presenting history and we leave it you to form your own judgments.”

Idelson didn’t want to talk about the potential economic fallout from the effects of steroids, but it’s certain to have an effect. The players, in some cases benefiting from steroids, have earned their millions, but the Hall of Fame will not have them as attractions to draw visitors to induction ceremonies and to all the other days of the year.

Meanwhile, the most difficult task in the new era will fall to the approximately 500 writers who vote on candidates for the Hall. They will have to decide how to judge not only the players who have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs either through negative tests or widespread suspicion but also those who haven’t.

Just because a player hasn’t been nailed by a test or some other means, as Clemens has been, does it mean he was clean and should be treated accordingly? What happens if such a player is elected and a year or two later is found to have used steroids? Can anybody be assume to have been clean?

 

How are we to judge the players we know nothing about (I say we because I am a voter)? A fellow voter just the other day suggested that the Hall of Fame decide how the voters should proceed, perhaps make new rules, outlining new criteria.

 

I don’t agree with that idea. When Pete Rose became eligible for the Hall in 1992, the Hall’s board of directors changed the rules to make sure the career hits leader couldn’t be elected. The board said that a permanently ineligible player was not eligible for the Hall.

 

The directors could have left Rose to the writers, but they had no guarantee how the writers would vote. I objected to their position. It wasn’t that I wanted to see Rose elected; I didn’t. I felt the writers should make the decision. I feel the same way now about the effect of steroids on the elections.

 

I have no magic solution, no surefire way to figure out how to view players in the next 20 to 30 years, and I don’t know that anyone will come up with a way. But I think the writers will do their job, and the Hall won’t have to tell us how to do it.

 

MANNY TAKES PLACE IN LINE OF DUMMIES

Baseball players are rich and dumb. We know how rich they are, but how dumb are they?

Exhibit A: Even knowing they would be tested in 2003 for performance-enhancing drugs, with the outcome to determine future disciplinary testing, enough of them used steroids and tested positive that they reached the stipulated 5 percent threshold that triggered the testing. Alex Rodriguez was one of the dumb ones.

Exhibit B: Manny Ramirez.

Whereas Ramirez performed solo, Rodriguez was joined by perhaps 103 others, but their identity has remained undisclosed because the union and the commissioner’s office had agreed that the 2003 test results would be confidential and anonymous.

However, Federal agents seized the data in raids on two laboratories, and the seizure, challenged by the union, is a matter before an appellate court. Presumably it was an agent or other government official who leaked Rodriguez’s name.

Rodriguez, who returned to the Yankees’ lineup last Friday night following recovery from hip surgery, faces the possibility of disciplinary action if Commissioner Bud Selig concludes that he was not truthful with his investigators when they met with him during spring training.

Selig is not expected to act on the basis of the unsubstantiated, anonymous accusations in the Selena Roberts book on Rodriguez, but MLB investigators can certainly check out parts of the book they feel could be worth pursuing.

Investigators have no need to check out Ramirez. He is the latest dumb guy. He was found to have used a women’s fertility drug that is on baseball’s banned list.

Contrary to many news reports, Ramirez’s use of HCG did not necessarily mean he had used steroids and had taken the drug to trigger production of natural testosterone when he came off a steroids cycle. That was the instant conclusion of the steroids zealots.

However, as he himself pointed out, Ramirez has never tested positive for steroids. And if he used steroids prior to his use of HCG, why didn’t he test positive for steroids? Was he shrewd in his use of steroids, was he lucky that he wasn’t caught or did he simply not use them? The feeling in baseball is he didn’t use steroids.

Doctors acknowledge that there are additional uses for HCG. They say a person can have a condition without steroid use that would make it appropriate to use HCG.

But none of that is relevant to Ramirez’s case. He used an illegal drug for some personal physical enhancement, and it’s not likely that he was trying to have a baby.

If he had a legitimate medical reason for using HCG, he could have applied for a therapeutic use exemption. He apparently did not. If he had a legitimate health reason for using the drug and had not requested an exemption, he would most likely have continued his appeal instead of conceding he was wrong for using it and accepting the suspension.

So he’s gone for 50 games and out about $7.8 million of his $25 million salary. Was it worth it, Manny?

That Ramirez should lose so much money is ironic because it was his desire for a huge contract – $25 million a year for four years – that delayed his signing as a free agent last winter. He played himself out of Boston last season so he could get rid of two option years in his Red Sox contract and be a free agent.

But no huge offer was forthcoming. The Dodgers were the only team to pursue him, and they limited their offer to one year plus an option year and now will wait until July 3 for Ramirez to return.

Because Ramirez became immensely popular last year by propelling them to the post-season, the Dodgers built their 2009 marketing campaign around him, including designating a section of the left field stands Mannywood. Now the Dodgers would like to take Manny to the woodshed.

The Dodgers’ first game without Ramirez was full of symbolism. Playing the lowly Washington Nationals, the Dodgers exploded for six runs in the first inning. Manny? Who needs Manny?

But the Dodgers lost the game, suffering their first loss at Dodger Stadium after a record 13 victories. Manny? Oh yes, the Dodgers need Manny.

Two other related issues:

The major league testing program calls for confidentiality except for the announcement of a suspension. Neither the commissioner’s office nor the union is permitted to discuss cases even when a player is suspended. Yet some news reports quoted MLB officials – anonymously, of course – as disclosing details about the Ramirez case.

USA Today, for example, quoted “an MLB official with direct knowledge of the testing process” as saying that Ramirez used HCG. The official, the newspaper said, provided additional details, and they, too, should have remained confidential.

Then there is the bizarre view of some critics of baseball’s testing program that the Ramirez case demonstrates the system’s failure to police the sport. That view makes no sense. Quite the contrary. What more can the critics expect than to have the program catch one of the game’s great superstars?

BIG BAT, BIG CONTRACT, BIG TROUBLE

Whatever the explanation might be for slow start with the Yankees – he was hitting .192 before the weekend – he is demonstrating the classic big-contract syndrome. It is a condition that has affected many top-flight players, sometimes for an entire season.

Usually, the high-priced player feels he has to justify his big contract, tries to do too much and winds up doing less. What he loses sight of is that all he has to do is hit or pitch like he did to earn the contract.

Sometimes a slow start can be attributed to a player’s penchant for starting seasons slowly. In Teixeira’s case, last season he was been a better second-half hitter than first-half. He did not have a .300 batting average in any of the first three months, and he had a better than .300 average in each of the final three months.

From a power standpoint, Teixeira, who has hit 5 home runs this season, came into the season with 81 home runs in the first three months and 122 in the last three.

JONES RETURNS TO THE LIVING

For a guy who seemed headed for early retirement, Andruw Jones is having a terrific season. Jones had a horrible season last year (.158 batting average, total of .505 slugging and on-base percentages), had an equally poor winter league season and was struggling in spring training when he reached the date by which the Texas Rangers had to put him on their roster or release him.

When that time came and the Rangers had no intention of giving the 32-year-old outfielder a roster spot, Jones opted to remain with the team. Working with Rudy Jaramillo, the team’s celebrated hitting coach, Jones has rediscovered his ability to hit the ball.

Entering the weekend, he was hitting .340 in 15 games (16-for-47) and had a .660 slugging percentage and a .500 on-base percentage.

COSTLY HOME RUN MACHINE

It’s not known how much of the $1.5 billion cost of the new Yankee Stadium the Yankees spent for the home run machine they installed, but it continues to work unabated. When the Yankees went on the road last Friday, they had played 13 games at their new park, and they and their opponents had hit 47 home runs.

According to Elias Sports Bureau research, in the first 13 games at the old stadium last year, the Yankees and their visitors hit 24 home runs and, going backward,  36, 30, 32 and 31.

“Unbelievable,” Commissioner Bud Selig said when asked for his reaction to the orgy of home runs. “Just stunning.”

Asked if he would have any suggestions for the Yankees to curtail the home run output, he said, “I want to watch it through a whole year. I don’t know if you can do anything about it.”

THE SANTANA SCOREBOARD

In six games that Johan Santana has started, the Mets have scored 12 runs and their opponents have scored 10. In the team’s other 23 games (through Saturday), the Mets have scored 131 runs and allowed 113. The averages of those run totals:

Santana starts: Mets 2.00     Opponents 1.67    (Mets record 4-2)

Other games:   Mets 5.70     Opponents 4.91    (Mets record 12-11)

 

 

Will Rogers, it is said, never met a man he didn’t like. Selena Roberts never met an anonymous source she didn’t quote.

Roberts has written a book about Alex Rodriguez, and it is a journalistic abomination. That phrase probably won’t appear in any advertisement for the book, but it should to alert prospective readers what they would be getting.

I use the word journalistic rather than literary for two reasons: 1, the book grew out of a Sports Illustrated project; 2, Roberts has been a newspaper and magazine reporter and columnist and as such has practiced the craft of journalism. Based on the book, however, she needs a lot more practice.

In general, Roberts makes far too many serious allegations about Rodriguez to hide them behind anonymous quotes. Rodriguez deserves more, but more importantly readers deserve more. There is far too much in this attack book for Roberts to expect readers to take it on faith that her anonymous sources are real and they can be trusted.

The use of anonymous sources has come under increasing criticism from readers of all types of publications. Having used them frequently in my decades as a reporter and columnist, I am aware of the problems they pose. Reporters have to establish their credibility with their use of unidentified sources for readers to accept them.

Roberts and I were once colleagues at The New York Times, and I can’t say she established that credibility. She also didn’t strike me as being a top-flight reporter. As a result, I don’t feel I can trust her book full of anonymous sources. Even if every single A-Rod transgression she reports is accurate, it’s too easy for her to write one former teammate said this and another player said that.

Had she written these same reports for the Times, very little would have made it into the paper. I’m not familiar with Sports Illustrated’s standards, but I hope they’re higher than the Roberts book offers. Actually, if you remove the quotes and other information that Roberts attributes to anonymous sources in the 246-page book, it might be left with 46 pages.

In a recent column about Mike Piazza’s possible use of steroids, I quoted a passage from a book about Roger Clemens by Jeff Pearlman. What I quoted was a comment from Reggie Jefferson, a former major leaguer, that Piazza used steroids “and everybody knows it.” What I didn’t quote were comments from others who were not identified.

Using that rule of thumb, I could quote nothing about Rodriguez’s alleged use of steroids from the Roberts book. She alleges that Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs in high school and after he joined the Yankees in 2004, but she does not support her accusations with comments from people she identifies.

I initially had no intention of reading the book, but I already knew from news reports what Roberts was alleging, and I decided to see what her sourcing was. It was as bad as I expected it to be.

I should also disclose that after Roberts became a columnist for the Times I found her baseball columns to be shallow and superficial, and she demonstrates her lack of baseball knowledge in the book.

Writing about Rodriguez’s $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers, which he signed in December 2000, Roberts writes that the contract “compelled owners to adopt a luxury tax that would help small-market teams compete in the otherwise lopsided free-agent market.”

One problem with that statement. The owners already had their luxury tax and had had it for four years. They negotiated it with the union in the bargaining that followed the 1994-95 strike, and the agreement took effect Jan. 1, 1997.

Roberts belies her understanding of baseball with an observation she makes in trying to offer an example of A-Rod on steroids. Citing the game in August 2002 in which he hit three home runs, she writes that his “performance set off the steroid alarms,” explaining, “In the dog days of the season, when players are wilting, A-Rod had fresh legs and a fresher bat.”

And she quotes an unnamed “Ranger teammate” as saying, “It’s that stuff that makes you say no (bleeping) way.”

No way? Both Roberts and the teammate should consult The Elias Book of Baseball Records,” pages 359 through 362. The list of players who hit three or more home runs shows that 76 players other than Rodriguez hit three or more home runs in August.

Gil Hodges slugged four for the Brooklyn Dodgers Aug. 31, 1950. Hall of Famer Jim Rice hit three in a game twice, both games being played Aug. 29. Other Hall of Famers who hit three in an August game were Ralph Kiner, Larry Doby, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson and Eddie Murray (twice).

It has never been suggested that any of those players used steroids.

Roberts sees steroids wherever Rodriguez turns, and she doesn’t fail to find a player or other person she can quote without identifying him. In the infrequent instances in which she does name someone she quotes, the subject is not steroids. For example, she quotes Chad Curtis, a former teammate, on Rodriguez’s style of living. Or Bill Haselman, another former teammate, on what motivates Rodriguez.

The book is big on innuendo. In fact, her use of it should earn Roberts the title of Queen of Innuendo.

On page 103 she quotes Joseph Dion, a trainer who worked with Rodriguez, as saying “he never saw Alex buy steroids” in the Dominican Republic “but admits, ‘Alex and I, we led two different lives there.'”

Later she mentions another trainer and writes, “Dodd Romero says Alex never took steroids around him, but no one could vouch for what he did in the Dominican Republic during his visits there in the off-season.”

And to make it a troika of trainers, Roberts links Rodriguez to Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’ trainer, who went to prison rather than answer questions about Bonds and steroids. “All [three] of them were close,’ says one relative of Anderson’s.”

On page 174, she notes the number of Yankees who were named in the Mitchell report – Rodriguez was not – and writes, “Alex had always had trouble resisting peer pressure.”

Page 175: “In late 2004, one player says, Alex was seen with HGH in the company of” Kevin Brown. Roberts doesn’t say the player himself saw them, but she writes, “It was possible, the player says, that Alex was interested in using growth hormone as a way to help him perform at a high level during the upcoming playoffs.”

On page 202, she writes, “Alex never tested positive for steroids in 2007, but one baseball source says it’s possible Presinal administered a low-dose cycle of steroids with HGH to jump-start his regular season.” That would be Angel Presinal, a Dominican trainer, who is banned from Major League Baseball but has worked with many of the best Dominican players.

More unsubstantiated supposition: “Two players close to A-Rod say he has used HGH while with the Yankees based on side effects they’ve seen and that he likely procured it the same way many major leaguers do – through doctors who have ties to anti-aging clinics.”

From earlier in his career, when he played for his first team, the Seattle Mariners, Roberts writes, “Alex’s Mariners teammates had their doubts about Alex’s power, but, as one player says, ‘No one that I know of actually saw him shoot up, but he did take greenies.'”

Greenies, or amphetamines, had been around baseball since long before Rodriguez was born. They were popular with players generally, were a daily staple for many and became illegal in baseball only in the last few years. To single out Rodriguez for using amphetamines is ludicrous.

Roberts does some of her best anonymous work in her efforts to show that Rodriguez used steroids when he was in high school. Maybe he did, but you can’t believe it from listening to Roberts’ anonymous sources. Not surprisingly, none of them witnessed his use.

Roberts quotes a trainer, Fernando Montes as commenting on Rodriguez’s ability to bench press 300 pounds in high school: “It’s so out of the ordinary. It’s not physically possible without some type of steroid enhancement.”

She makes a lot out of a man named Steve Caruso, who coached baseball, owned a kennel and raced greyhounds. She quotes a former business associate of Caruso, Steve Ludt, as saying Caruso had steroids, used them for his dogs and supplied teammates on his softball team.

“Everyone was using it back then,” she quotes a former teammate as saying. “I was.”

Of what relevance is Caruso to Roberts? “Baseball sources in Miami,” she writes, “believe Caruso also gave steroids to up-and-coming ballplayers – including Alex Rodriguez.”

“They knew each other, for sure,” Ludt told Roberts. “I was at Caruso’s house one night when Alex called. He offered to fly Caruso up to Seattle for his first pro game. Alex was going to pay for the plane ticket and everything.”

Except Rodriguez’s played his first professional game for Appleton, Wis.

Getting closer to Rodriguez’s high school team, Roberts writes, “A former Westminster player says Alex used steroids in high school and that Coach Hofman knew about it. Another Westminster graduate says Hofman’s son, David, who played on the football team with Alex, told him that he witnessed Alex’s use of steroids.”

So let’s see if we have this sourcing right. The baseball coach’s son, who played football with Alex, told another graduate of their high school that Rodriguez used steroids. However, the one person Roberts quotes by name in this part of her tale, Rich Hofman, A-Rod’s high school baseball coach, “denies any knowledge of Alex’s use of steroids in high school.”

Another accusation Roberts makes is sourced equally questionably. From his shortstop position, she writes, Rodriguez tipped pitches to players on other teams in lopsided games in return for equal treatment when he was at bat. She attributes the information to former Rangers teammates and quotes five, identifying none of them, of course.

Rodriguez, it should be remembered, admitted using steroids from 2001 to 2003. Maybe he used them before and/or after, but Roberts doesn’t offer a compelling case to prove her allegations.

As bad as the book is, by working on it Roberts scored a coup by getting the exclusive on Rodriguez’s positive test for steroids in 2003. Oddly, she doesn’t write about how that happened.

Had she told how she secured the information – I suspect it came from a Federal agent of some sort – that part of the story would have been the most significant part of her book with an identified source. Who would that be? Roberts, of course.

 

 

Omar Minaya and I were both wrong. Except the Mets pay Minaya a lot of money to be right. When I’m wrong, I don’t even hear about it from my wife because she doesn’t pay attention to what I write. Never has. Oliver Perez? She has no clue.

But I know, and Minaya knows. The Mets’ general manager opted to retain Perez as a free agent last winter, and I endorsed his decision. Bad decision. Minaya’s alternate choice for that spot in the Mets’ rotation was Derek Lowe. Based on the pitchers’ first-month performances, Minaya opted for the wrong choice.

Perez could still turn his season around and prove Minaya right, but the erratic left-hander would have to force his way back into the rotation, and how is he going to do that? Hypnotize Jerry Manuel and say, “You will put me back in the rotation?” Give all of the other starters swine flu?

Ollie, boobie, it just ain’t happening. Manuel would have to suffer a sudden case of dementia to put you back in the rotation. The Mets want to win a playoff spot, and they won’t do that starting Oliver Perez every fifth game. Not the Oliver Perez we have seen this season.

When Minaya acquired Perez from Pittsburgh in July 2006, it appeared to be a good gamble. Perez was a throw-in with Roberto Hernandez in an emergency trade the Mets were forced to make for Xavier Nady because they needed a relief pitcher (Hernandez). Duaner Sanchez had suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the back seat of a taxi when the cab collided with another vehicle.

Facing the same frustration that would immerse the Mets, the Pirates had sent Perez to the minors. He had a 2-10 record and a 6.63 earned run average when he was demoted. Sound familiar?

But Perez was left-handed (left-handers develop later), he wasn’t even 25 and two years earlier he had led the National League with 10.97 strikeouts per nine innings and had a 2.98 e.r.a. His potential seemed limitless.

At different times after Perez joined the Mets, Rick Peterson, the pitching coach, thought he had him figured out. Last season, Peterson’s successor, Dan Warthen, thought he had Perez figured out. It seemed to be a matter of helping Perez develop consistency, both with his pitching delivery and from start to start.

A 15-win season in 2007 and a 3.56 e.r.a. that was the league’s ninth lowest signaled that Perez was ready to establish himself as a big winner, but he regressed last season, finishing with a 10-7 record and 4.22 e.r.a. Now this season’s five-start disaster.

Actually, Perez has had one decent start this season, but that’s not good enough for a month’s worth of work. He has a 1-2 record and a 9.97 earned run average. He has allowed 28 hits and walked 21 in 21 2/3 innings. His strikeout to walk ratio is not what pitchers strive for: 20 strikeouts, 21 walks. He has allowed a ratio of 20.4 baserunners per nine innings.

Lowe, meanwhile, has a 3-1 record and a 3.03 e.r.a. for the Atlanta Braves. His strikeout to walk ratio is 28 strikeouts and 14 walks. He has permitted 11.6 baserunners per nine innings.

Lowe, however, cost the Braves a lot more than Perez cost the Mets, $60 million for four years. The Braves willingly paid the price because they had had a bad winter, missing out on A.J. Burnett and Rafael Furcal, and they weren’t about to let Lowe get away.

Minaya looked into the possibility of signing Lowe, but Lowe would be 36 years old two months into this season and he wanted a four-year contract for $15 million a year.

“I couldn’t give him $15 million a year for four years at 36 years old,” Minaya said the other day.

Minaya signed Perez to a three-year deal for $36 million. At $12 million a year, Perez earns $2 million a month based on the six-month season, which means that he has squandered $2 million of the Mets’ money and promises to waste a lot more before this season is over.

“It’s disappointing to all of us,” Minaya said but added, “I do believe he’ going to be fine. I think right now he’s feeling the pressure of his contract. I think we will get him back.”

Players, even the best, often feel pressure from a new, big contract. The history of free agency is filled with examples. Instead of pitching and hitting the way they did to earn the big contract, players feel they have to do even more to justify the big contract.

But has that been Perez’s problem? Has the pressure of the big contract caused him to lose sight of the strike zone? In his last start, last Saturday in Philadelphia, Perez walked 6 of the 18 batters he faced and gave up 5 hits in 2 1/3 innings. He threw 36 strikes and 41 balls. Many of his pitchers weren’t close to the strike zone.

“He has to build his confidence up,” Minaya said. “He’s in good shape physically. He just has to get his confidence back. We know he’s one of those guys who’s going to be up and down.”

Right now Perez is down, way down. He’s also down in the bullpen. That is the Mets’ way of trying to fix him. For him to relieve in a game, the Mets will have to be way behind. You won’t see Perez coming into a one-run game.

Despite their struggling start, the Mets aren’t far off the division lead, but they would be in better position if Lowe were pitching for them and pitching as effectively as he has for the Braves.

When the Mets signed Pedro Martinez in December 2004, he was 33 and they gave him a four-year contract for $53 million. They were the only team willing to give him a fourth year, and critics predicted that he would not be able to complete the contract. He did complete it, but he missed starts in the final three years because of injuries and totaled 79 starts in four years instead of a normal complement of about 124.

In that instance, though, the Mets were willing to gamble on a fourth year because Minaya wanted to change the environment in which the Mets had wallowed. If Martinez joined the Mets, Minaya felt, other top players would follow. He was right, and the fourth year for Martinez paid off.

The reluctance to add a fourth year for Lowe could turn out to be the difference between a division title and no division title. Would a chance to win the World Series be worth $24 million? The Mets may have to ask themselves that question and answer it in the next few months.