Newsday columnist Wallace Matthews often writes about the state and fate of the Mets. And he is rarely ever complimentary. Today is no different as he totally lashes into the Mets organization. As a Mets fan, I find his article exaggerated and offensive.
In summary, he says that the Mets are wasting their time trying to retool for 2010 and that by doing so management is “creating the illusion of being competitive without actually being competitive at all, something the Mets are quite adept at”.
He goes on to say,
“It’s about having the unmitigated gall to ask people who just crawled out of the wreckage of the Mets’ 2009 season to sign up for a repeat ride. It’s about treating your fans like mindless sheep instead of adult human beings”.
Matthews thinks that Jason Bay and Matt Holliday “would have to be nuts” to sign with the Mets. He predicts that cosmetic surgery will not work, and once again, fans will be paying the tab.
We fans acknowledge that the Wilpons have made lots of organizational errors in the past and sometimes appear to be out of touch with their fan base. If Matthews wants to trash them, it is his prerogative and his right to do so.
The question is – Was last year’s performance an anomaly that can be quickly resolved through trades and free agent signings? Matthews believes not. He doesn’t give any credence to last year’s injury plagued season as being at all responsible for the dismal 2009 performance. Although Omar Minaya is now on the hot seat, Matthews will not give him any credit for the good moves he did make in the past.
Wallace Matthews will be criticizing the Mets all winter long. He will find a reason to criticize the Mets even if they play well and become a contender next season.
Games aren’t won in the newspapers, and Mets fans truly know that games aren’t won during the winter. Despite the Mets past problems, our owners do indeed owe us a product that we can proudly root for.
Acquiring a stud pitcher and left fielder is not cosmetic surgery. Getting a better 2nd baseman and catcher will go a long way toward making this team a contender.
That said, signing one of last year’s injured pitchers and expecting him to stay healthy is a big roll of the dice. It’s the type of luck that the Mets haven’t had in awhile so I would hope that they will proceed with caution. Of course, a healthy Reyes, Beltran and Santana is a critical a part of our 2010 plan.
A lot of things must go right, but any championship caliber team needs luck on its side and most of the chips to fall right. Plenty of teams have righted the ship in just one year. So can the Mets.
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I am a die hard Mets fan tired of the Wilpons and their games. if this guy wants to rip them, let him. Nothing good comes out of this organization.
Screw Wallace Mathews! I cant stand that guy and all he ever does is rant against the Mets. He has no journalistic integrity, is clearly not objective, and shouldn’t be employed with such a high profile newspaper like Newsday. Shame on Newsday for keeping this clown on the payroll.
__________________________Minaya has not developed a minor league system at all. So it’s all free agency (and living off a couple of home grown players that previous GMs picked) and that’s a high risk game unless you spend another 100 million like the Yankees do. So I think it’s more likely than not that this will be cosmetic surgery, even if it happens and I’m not sure it will.
So Wallace, while annoying, is probably right. Though it’s hard not to be wrong here.
I normally find Matthews annoying but he is usually right about the mets. I think this is all about 2010 ticket sales and not, make that never, about the long-term stability of the organization on the field.
I AM VERY HAPPY TO SAY, “BY LIVING IN NC & ROOTING FROM AFAR WITHOUT THE VICTRIOLE OF THE WALLACE MATTEWS OR JOE BENINGOS I AM ONE OF THE MORE FORTUNATE MET FANS.” DOES NO ONE CREDIT THE FACT THAT THIS SO CALLED “FLAWED” ROSTER OCCUPIED FIRST PLACE WHEN BOTH REYES & DELGADO WENT DOWN? DESPITE HAVING A PREMIER COMPETITOR/RIVAL HOUSED IN A HOMER FRIENDLY CIGAR BOX SIZED HOME FIELD EMPLOYING & ENJOYING THE GOLIATH SIZED PRODUCTION FROM THEIR DISCOUNTED ADDITION IN LF(IBANEZ) AS WELL AS CONSIDERABLE HR PRODUCERS IN UTLEY,HOWARD,WERTH. WITH THEIR 128M PAYROLL. POSITION BY POSITION COMPARATIVLY THE METS HAVE BEEN YOUNGER & HAVE CERTAINLY SPENT MORE WITH A GREATER WILLINGNESS TO UPGRADE WHEN POSSIBLE/PLAUSABLE.
I’VE NEVER HEARD OR SEEN ANY FRANCHISE THAT DELIBERATLY COURTS NEGATIVISM. EVEN ON THEIR OWN NETWORK IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND SUPPORT OR POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT. IF THIS FRANCHISE EVER TRULY BECAME DYNASTIC, THERE WOULD BE ALMOST AS MANY SO-CALLED FANS ON THE LEDGE AS THERE SEEMS TO BE WHEN DISAPPOINTING.
THE METS, FOR ALL THEIR FAILURES & FOIBLES SHOULD AT LEAST GET CREDITED FOR A WILL TO KEEP TRYING BY RELOADING & ADDRESSING. IF SPORTS EXPERTS ARE TRULY CORRECT IN CITING DEDICATED SPORTS NETWORKS & NEW BALLPARKS AS THE MODERN DAY VARIABLES MOST ENRICHING OF BASEBALL POCKETS. THAN THE ATLANTA FRANCHISE HAS CERTAINLY
‘PUT ONE OVER” ON EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE BRAVES FANBASE! TBS, THE TURNER BRAODCAST DYNASTY ALONG WITH TNT & TS(TURNER SOUTH)AS WELL AS PEACHTREE TV, NOW THAT TBS HAD TO RELINQUISH THEIR MONOPOLY ON BRAVES BROADCASTS. ALL ARE/WERE DEDICATED TO BRAVES PROMOTION LONG BEFORE THE ADVENT OF YES NETWORK & SNY JUST AS THE PUBLICLY FUNDED NEW VENUE EMBLAZONED AS “TURNER FIELD” AS AN OLYMPIC VENUE OPENED IT’S DOORS LONG BEFORE YANKEE STADIUM 2 & CITIFIELD. YET THE BRAVES HAVE MORE OFTEN CHOSEN TO LET ICONS DEPART WITHOUT PROMINENT F/A REPLACEMENTS WHILE DECLARING POVERTY & INABILITY TO COMPETE FINANCIALLY WITH THE “BIG BOYS” IN NY & BOSTON.”GIVE ME A BREAK!”
BTW, ANYONE NOTICE IBANEZ WAS THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT F/A SIGNING IN PHL SINCE THOME ACQUISITION PRIOR TO CIGAR BOX PARK OPENNING?
20 YRS AGO THE NL POWERHOUSES WERE THE REDS, BRAVES, AND PIRATES ALONG WITH THE DODGERS. WHERE ARE MOST OF THEM NOW? CIRCLING THE BOWL OF IRRELEVANCY.
WHAT WOULD NY FANS SAY ABOUT A GM WHO OPENNLY DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF “BUILDING A WILDCARD TEAM AS OPPOSED TO A DIV WINNER” AS SCHURHOLTZ DECLARED IN INTERVIEW WITH THEN ESPN ANALYST, STEVE PHILLIPS?
IT WOULD BE A TRUE BREATH OF FRESH AIR TO HAVE NYPRESS SUPPORT, ANYTIME FROM ANYONE. I TRULY CAN’T STAND THE NEGATIVE FANATICISM DISPLAYED BY THE BENINGOS OF THE WORLD. WHY DO THEY EVEN BOTHER? I BELIEVE THEY EARN WHAT THEY GET! I, FOR ONE, WOULD PREFER THE WILPONS TO THE PIRATES,BRAVES,REDS,ROYALS OWNERSHIP! THEY ARE FAR FROM IDEAL AS THEY ARE FAR FROM LEPERS ALSO.
The Mets haven’t won a WS since 1986. That’s what matters. Losing out on the playoffs on the last day of the season sucks…being close isn’t the same as actually winning it. I don’t get those who try and spin that as a positive. How wrong can Mathews be? The Mets have no real plan. It’s a 100 percent reactionary, marketing driven organization. Where is the real commitment to winning, drafting and paying over slot for good players to “fall” to them, development of those players and solid scouting? Building a gritty team? The way the Mets are run is total BS. I say rip away.
Look, most of us are super-disgruntled. We’ve paid hundreds of millions more than the Marlins for people who don’t work out, and we play worse BB than the Marlins. Everyone is feeling like something’s got to give.
We want the “splash”-type guys. Give us Lackey, gives us Holliday or Gonzalez. We want to lock up first place in November. As others have said, it doesn’t work that way.
So Wallace always rags on the Mets and their organization. Basically, he’s right, even if I hate writers who do that.
What I think is what’s more or less been expressed: for a successful season a lot of little things have to go right. Guys have to play really well consistently, and we can have the best guys getting injured for ever. I’m not sure we need to break the bank, but we need much greater productivity out of guys who should have given it this year.
Overall, I don’t think the Mets suck as currently constituted, but we need new blood and at least a couple of excellent, proven winners.
I recently saw an interview with Wallace Matthews and he’s actually a really nice guy. Unfortunately, he’s not very intelligent. Inasmuch as I agree with him that the Mets rebuilding plan should be better paced, his article is bereft of any details that would suggest how such a plan should be implemented.
Its ok to criticize a baseball team’s rebuilding method, but if a writer wants to maintain journalistic integrity, he should – at the very least – suggest an intelligent alternative and supply some details. He really does neither.
Wallace Matthews may be right in his criticism of the Mets..that many Met fans, i think, share. Tommy2cat hit it square on: suggest answers to the problem…whether its a Dump Omar move or detailed player suggestions.
And it’s not that simple. It’s not just Omar…it’s the Wilpons too, snake-bit as they are and financially-cautious as they are, not being bold and aggressive to make the right moves to launch us into the playoffs again.
Looking at the landscape out there, competition for all those top guys we salivate over will be odious. Combine that with the fact that Holliday and Bay are not ideal for what we need in LF and why aren’t the Angels hankering to sign John Lackey, leaves us with some knotty issues to discuss and analyze.
Do we eat Wells’ contract and get Doc Halladay? i honestly don’t know, but i don’t think we’re getting Lackey. So do a couple of pickups from the cluster of Marquis, Wolf, Piniero, Sheets, Harden put us in the middle of the hunt next year or not?
With Holliday and Bay gone, do we trade for Crawford or Granderson, or trade Castillo for Pierre? Is Pierre too old?
Would Pierre and Figgins mixed with Reyes be incredible and exciting, along with imports of Jacobs and Nady at 1B…combined with the core..to create a great and captivating brand of baseball?
What do you people think? i think it’s time for ‘Plan B’. Do we get Halladay and (gulp!) Wells..or do we go to Plan B? Because, i do not think we’ll get either Lackey or Holliday or Bay, so instead of sitting with empty hands when pitchers and catchers report…what do we tell our front office to do?
who the hell cares what people say about the mets? i dont. i live in a very small town in upstate ny and alot of people always tell me the mets suck. i dont care. the mets are my favorite team, and always will be, even if they go 0-162!
Who cares what Wally says. He’s probably right anyway. I don;t need Wally to get me pissed. 40 years of rooting for this frustrating team is enough on its own. Can anyone of you honestly say that you are confident that they have a sound baseball plan? The smartest move is probably the one that they can’t or won’t make – trade whatever it takes to get AGON. If a top flight pitcher (Halladay or Lackey)is not available at a reasonable price, don’t go half way and sign some mediocre pitcher to a bad contract. Going half way never works. If they are forced to settle on the pitching front, I say take a flier on Hardin for a 1 year incentive laden deal with a team option for a 2nd year(assuming he would accept)and hope that someone becomes available in July. However, we all know they will sign 1 or 2 middle of the rotation guys and overpay in the process.
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