That is my only concern with getting Manny. His numbers speak for themselves. But so did Mo Vaughns! I can just see it happening again but at 10 times the cost to the organization and the fans.

Is he worth the risk? Just look at Brett Farve and the Jets. Maybe that is your answer.

Dominicans*

Obviously you have little to no scope of the Manny dynamic, and how his popularity transcends the bounds of baseball alone; especially here in Ny. Let’s look at some crude numbers since I’m not going to the census bureau, and doing the logistical legwork since I’m not getting paid for it. However, let’s just say there’s 800,000 Dominican’s in Ny. Let’s say 75% of them don’t give a whit about baseball, Manny, or the Mets. Lets say of that remaining 200,000 that 35,000 are already Mets fans. I’ll strike another 50,000 off for fans of other teams. That still leaves 115,000 people that could have a very strong connection to the Mets if they signed their pride Manny Ramirez.

Of that 115,000 let’s modestly say around 30% would actually spend money who otherwise wouldn’t on Manny merchandise/Mets. Let’s just say signing Manny I believe can easily attract 25 to 30 thousand new sources of revenue for the Mets all by himself. At let’s say 300$ per person on average over the course of a year = 9 million…now, my numbers are probably off since I’m just making them up from what I consider reasonable, but…that’s 9 million extra dollars, new dollars that would have NEVER came into the Mets possession otherwise.

I know what you’re going to say that if Manny is making 23+ million what does 9 million dollars do? Number one, Manny’s popularity isn’t confined to the Dominican community, and he’d certainly be a popular merchandise item regardless thereby increasing revenue streams abroad. His Mets jersey would sell nationally which is not only great myopically, but no doubt has provident implications. Those provident implications are not to be taken lightly at all as it may be the greatest benefit business wise of all.

It’s not a stretch to think Manny increases the Mets merchandising profit 15% all by himself. How much do you think the Mets pull in from merchandise alone annually? 100 million? around? easy probably….I could see Manny all by his lonesome being worth about 15 million in merchandise alone annually. Then factor in ballpark attraction, buzz, exposure, tv-ad revenue…the Manny effect in Ny for the Mets would totally be astronomical…especially after the last two years, baseball’s popularity boom is starting to go stale…the NY Times are not exactly a bunch of dummies….if the Mets got Manny Ramirez, and filled out their rotation, added a lefty and got a real utility man worth his weight – NOT CORA – then baseball in Ny would thrive like it was on steroids…if Baseball in Ny thrives, baseball everywhere does…if the Mets don’t get Manny, mark my words…baseball will be back to where it was in the late 80’s/early 90’s….except it’ll be on a downward spiral instead of an upward one…which isn’t entirely bad, but it could be a lot better. Maybe people feel I’m unintelligent or whatever, and love to think I’m wrong(although I never am), but you can mark my words – if the Mets don’t sign Manny it will have an irreversible devastating effect to the popularity of the game itself. Mostly due to the yankays spending…if there’s at least a semblance of parity it becomes fun again…

Reyes (switch)
Wrigth (rigth)
Beltran(switch)
Manny (rigth)
Delgado (left)
Etc……………………..

That would make the team FAR better, not to mention the kind of production all of the above can have just for hitting in front of Manny.

Plus, that’ll make dumping Castillo’s mistake less of a priority, though, it would be nice to dumping it and get Hudson, who’s on the record saying he’s willing to wait a bit for the Mets to get rid of Castillo, that’s a 1,000 runs line up gentleman.

Omar’s done a fine job this off season, and he’s in good shape to get Lowe and Ollie, by far the 2 better starting pitchers of the market, Sheets is an injury waiting to happen, plus, how could you not want Ollie after the way he pitched 2 seasons ago against Atlanta, or this past season against the Yankees or Philly.

This offense is not good enough to win a World Series, unless its gets crazy hot in october.

GET MANNY……………………………….

nydailynews.com/blogs/mets/docs/images/manny.jpg

Let me try to reprint it here:

I don’t know about your first paragraph – all reports are that Omar has always wanted Manny and has been unable to convince Wilpon. Perhaps Omar has soured on Manny too and Fred is just giving him cover? All speculation until we see any reports that say anything other than the standard “Omar wants Manny but has been denied by Wilpon” storyline.

As for Madoff – I know this wasn’t the typical grifter working cons on gullible trust fund widows – he was the head of NASDAQ, for crying out loud. Certainly, it is understandable that smart people got taken in. Was just being funny. That said, many people figured out Madoff was cheating – one guy took his gains and left the fund thinking “I knew Madoff was cheating – I just as-sumed it was insider trading, not a Ponzi scheme.” LOL

that said Manny will have a job next year and hopefully its LF for the NY Mets