So many things are vs. each other these days.  I'm pretty sure it all started with Alien vs. Predator. But not long after that you have Freddy vs. Jasons, then your Britney vs. Kfeds, your Cat vs. Dogs, and most recently Monsters vs. Aliens.

As you know, draysbay has a favorite vs.: Edwin vs. Sonny (and more recently its ugly little siblings: Edwin vs. Neimann; Edwin vs. Price; Edwin vs Jesus.)

Something I have been thinking about a lot lately: Instead of speculating on what we should have done last year; lets use some wild cogitation and, if your willing to add any, a few numbers, to decide what should we do in the next two years.

By my reckoning Matt Garza and BJ Upton are the two players most urgent and important to extend. My apologies to Howell, Bartlett, and Zobrist. (Deductive reasoning have me bidding a tearful farewell to Pena and CC by 2011.)
With both Garza and Upton coming up on arbitration years in 2010, can we work out an extension for both before they get to pricey? I hope so, but If not, who is more important to this team, and who do we make a priority?

WARP vs. Salary expectations:
Using years past and a bit of guesswork, Garza averages out being worth between 2.2 and 2.5 wins a season goinf forward.  Upton is closer to 3.8 - 4 wins above replacement (and almost 6 above Mets new savior,Jeff Francoeur). Can you imagine if he wasn't so freaking lazy?

When you remove salary considerations, the player you want to keep right now is Upton. But since we are not the Yanks, Sox, or Angels, and signing the best players despite salary is not an option, it would be helpful to know what there respective agents might be requesting on a per annum basis.  Very limited research on my part has come up fruitless, so if anyone has any numbers regarding negotiations throw them in here and lets start the discussion.

WARP vs. our actual replacements:
Upton Replacements: Jennings, F Perez, Ruggiano maybe Joyce with meh feilding. How many wins above replacement can one of these player give us in CF? I don't know enough about baseball to speculate, but my hopes are for Jennings to continue developing power and patience and be a possible 2 WAR guy (if not to replace Upton then to replace Crawford.)

Garza Replacements: Favorites Davis, Hellickson, Neimann, Sonnenstein (long shot McGee). If Davis takes Neimann's spot next year after hitting the bullpen in September call ups this year, then its up to Neimann and Sonny to take over here.

I feel a lot better with Garza every 5 days that one of these guys, but I start feeling better if we are slotting them at 4 or 5 iwhen Price starts bring a third pitch and moves up.

Trade/Supplemental Pick Value:
What will each be able to get in their last arb year via trade? How many sandwich picks are they worth if we are having a good year and we want to hold on to them through the playoff?

If your argumentative juices are flowing and you don't want to waist them on Jackson, i'ld love to discuss....