In what seemed to be inevitable, Mets shortstop Jose Reyes signed a six-year, $102 million contract with the Miami Marlins. Mets’ GM Sandy Alderson came clean late Sunday night, admitting he completely forgot free agent signing season had begun.
“Man, that whole free agent thing burns me every year,” Alderson said after the Reyes signing. “In my defense, I saw the terrible job Omar [Minaya] was doing before I got here so I thought being GM was just a title thing and I didn’t have to worry about signing good players or anything.”
This isn’t the first time an MLB GM has forgotten about the rules of free agency. When the Mets signed outfielder Jason Bay to a four-year, $60 million contract two years ago, Yankees GM Brian Cashman said he forgot he could sign the former Red Sox player.
“It completely slipped my mind that Bay was up for free agency, but I’ll just use the money I saved from that and use it to overpay someone else,” said Cashman at the time. “There must be someone else out there we can pay $15 million a year to hit .230.”
By Josh Burton, Follow me on Twitter
