Maybe the issue with Bay is the contract...

Look as far as I'm concerned the Mets need to move on from Jason Bay, it might be the best way to get negotiations moving but they also don't have infinite time to obtain the pieces they need during the off-season. If Bay hears they are moving on and decides to sign, great; but if he decides to hold out the Mets still need to fill out their roster with or without him.

Many question the Mets motives when they directed their focus onto Jason Bay at the winter meetings believing that they were simply choosing the cheaper player and not going after the best player regardless of the price.

It was clear that the Bay offer was for positive press, I've never seen just an offer met with so much hoopla. But was the contract simply window dressing just to give the appearance that they are attempting to sign the slugger with no true intention of actually signing him unless he falls in their lap.

I've heard that the deal was backloaded, but could it be so backloaded that they knew he would never accept the deal.

I was looking through the WEEI transcript to see where Petter Gammons was getting his information from about Bay's dislike for NY. Was it Gammons speculating because Bay hasn't signed, or has Gammons heard from his Boston sources that Bay isn't interested in NY ( Boston front office, former teammate or the agent).

I will say this, when something so strongly comes out about one of the major market teams regarding a free agent, usually the agent or the player are immediately disputing it even if it's just to keep the big markets involved in the bidding war, the Bay camp has not said a word about the Gammons comments.

I could not find a reference point for Gammon's remarks but I did find something very interesting. The article on the Gammons interviews references several questions that the host expands upon, one of the answers states that they have a Mets source who says the Mets offer, while adding up to more then the Boston deal, is extremely backloaded, it sounds like to the point that a one year deal might be an alternative and he could test the market next off-season.

The thing is, that unless somehow the Mets offer is revealed they have successfully won the public relations war. Fans are clamouring ( including myself) to walk away from Bay and move on, they can actually get away with not signing a big name free agent after last year without looking cheap. Bay will either look like a greedy player who wouldn't accept a reasonable offer despite no real competition or a guy who was never coming to NY. Even if he signs for less money or years, the Mets will be able to say he misread the market and scrambled in the end or that they tried everything for over two weeks and he was never coming here. In fact if he does sign this deal it might be due to the negative PR he's receiving, or that he had no other choice but the Mets.

One of their biggest off-season successes they might have is in relations to business, where they won a PR war with a window dressing offer...

I think he’d rather be playing in Beirut than Queens. The sad part of this is that sometimes there’s so much competition between agents that the players become pawns. I think in Jason’s case, it would have been really easy to take 4 x 15 [million dollars] in July, which I thought, actually, at the time was a little bit high as an offer. It was clear that the Red Sox just wanted to get him signed and get him out of the way. While the Mets offer is four [years] for 65 [million], it’s so backloaded that I’ve been told by Mets people that it’s far less than what the Red Sox were offering in present-day value. And he obviously doesn’t want to play there. And they’re scared of having him play left field there for four years. It’s really a shame it’s worked out this way. I don’t see any way they’re going to add anybody else here. They’re not going to go above the luxury tax. They’re going to hold some money back to acquire a contract in July for whatever they need. It’s too bad. I know he wanted to go the free-agent route. But at the same time, he really found a home here. It’s really too bad. source WEEI