The Future Is Not Now

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• METS62FAN January 1, 2011 at 11:04 am

  METSIE, your commentary laked a reply button. the first paragraph u wrote tha’s so deserving of a reply is this”
  _____________________________________________________________________________”Metsie says:
  December 29, 2010 at 10:30 am Yes 62 but that assumes the owners told Omar who to draft and who not to draft. I know people blame the slots but the truth is you don’t have to pay attention to them they are just guidelines. And I don’t care where they are slotted our scouts should be looking at everyone not just the guys we plan of getting. Those same scouts provide the details that tell you how to beat certain players such as pitching david Wright low and outside to strike him out.”
  _____________________________________________________________________________MY RETORT:
  It wasn’t necessaruy for ownership to become involved in draft selections since once Fred publicly proclaimed that he & his franchise would support & adhere to his friend’s, the Commissioner’s guidelines, it certainly PRECLUDES any GM from crossing the line be it guideline or INVIOLATE LAW.
  As doing so would invoke the severest of professional sentences;CAREER DEATH!
  • Metsie January 1, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    You mean Career Death like what just happened to Omar anyway?
    • METS62FAN January 2, 2011 at 9:24 am

      Metsie? how many times have u placed your family’s financial security @ risk over a principle?

      Omar Minaya has always been a working stiff & unlike Cashman & Eptean learned his baseball business in muddy, wet dugouts throughout third world ballfields scouting the unwashed gems of cane fields, not Ivy League c;lassrooms with an internship(Cash)
      Likely the closeset Omar ever came to a silver spoon was while setting places for thoswe he attended to(lol).
      • Metsie January 3, 2011 at 8:09 pm

        LOL 62 I have done it quite often actually! I’m in engineering and you don’t know how many times I have had run ins with Directors (who are technically my boss) ask me for things that would not technically work, and after I refused their request and did what I think was best, I had to answer to a Producer who eventually told the Director he should leave the engineering to the engineers because my way was 10 times better than his!

        I get what your saying though. In Omars case there was no higher authority to appeal to, EXCEPT maybe the fans!

        You see if you do what is right and succeed I don’t care how pissed the Owner is at you for not listening to him he is going to be hard pressed to fire the guy who did what was right and succeeded because of it!

        If he doesn’t listen (or does) and fails it doesn’t matter which does it? He will still be fired for the failure itself, not for not doing what the owner told him to do! The best way to keep your job is to do what you think is best and if the owner is wrong thats his problem! As the saying goes who is more foolish, the foolish or the fool that follows him?

        If the accusations are true regarding the Wilpons then Omar didn’t get fired for not listening he got fired for failing. They probably hired Omar so they could dictate, but why would they go that route?

        Because the past guys who had “Skill Sets” didn’t listen to them and failed as well? Well now they had a guy do it their way and they learned that didn’t work out either. They fired the puppet ANYWAY!

        I do not think the Wilpons are pulling Sandy’s strings I think the notion is nothing but conspiratorial clap trap right now.

        All I am trying to put forth here is that if Sandy is the right guy for the job he will do what he thinks best even in cases where the Wilpons think otherwise. And he will take some heat if it doesn’t work but no more than he would take if he did what they wanted and wound up with the same result!

        If Sandy is smart he will BE the GM of the team and give lip service but not priority service to the desires of ownership.

        Then whatever the result may be he at least he did it on his own terms and lost his job based on his own ability not ownership’s bad advice!

        If he succeeds then Ownership will not fire him for going against them. If he fails it doesn’t matter what he did listened or not, His salary is gone!

        For guys like you and me yes it is bad to go against the boss, but when you are in charge of an entire company it is really much less important and an entirely different reality than that!

        Your reputation gets you the next job. So if you want to keep working you need to pass or fail on your own and not take a hit to that reputation listening to someone else just because you like how they sign checks!

        As a CEO the second you give up control you have made yourself irrelevant. Might as well just get rid of that CEO and hire whoever he has been listening to!

        It’s pretty much the same for GMs of any company you can name.
        • t agee January 3, 2011 at 8:42 pm

          This is what I don’t understand about Omar. Both he and J.Wilpon BOTH talked about getting younger and more athletic at his press conference. Pedro was hired to breathe a little fresh air into the the old house, entertain until we made a run and pitch with some guts when it mattered. Beltran was hired to be a long term athletic solution. So far so good.

          Other smaller pieces were brought in. Delgado was brought north, other pieces were exchanged with the result of El Duque, Perez and Maine joining the rotation. Seo became Duanner, became Hernandez. Bradford, Oliver, Wagner, then Alou, Castillo, Shawn Green, Cora then we got UFC-Rod, Putz and ran the payroll up so much we could no longer adequately fill out the roster. Rookie infielders in LF, a whole string of guys DFA’d, some still being owed plenty of cash, other guys no one else wanted, a couple of guys that hadn’t even had a good season above A ball. Just a huge mess.

          What ever happened to younger and more athletic? Was it just a campaign promise? Was it bogged down by stagnation on the farm? Fern, Pena Jr. Marte, Havens, Kunz, Holt. That’s a lot of guys we really needed and were counting on and it’s hard to believe they all fell off a cliff but nobody would know better than Omar how iffy prospects can be. He flat out KNEW the condition of the Farm when he got here. He knew better and he still allowed the impatient, almost guaranteed to never work plan to thrive. The same one Duqquette had just dismantled 1 year before.

          Omar knew better, he should have insisted. After what we had just gone through fresh in their minds how could they not have deferred to the expert they had just hired?

          Now Omar was beyond cluelessly gullible when it comes to believing 35 year old’s can continue to produce like 25 year old’s and he is terrible at properly valuing contributions but if he had spent 10% of what he did on the 25 in the draft and IFA’s we would have 20 of the top 100 prospects in the minors right now and another 10 already here and he’d be here too.
          • METS62FAN January 4, 2011 at 9:09 am

            T, my best guess, since my name isn’t Katz or Wilpon is that there are multiple motivations occuring behind the scenes simultaneously ALL vying for dominance ie Winning season, getting Younger, getting More Athletio, SAVING MONEY,Satuisfying the Board, satisfying the Media, satisfying the fanbase.
            It’s my belief your confusion stems from thinking as a FAN with ONLY ONE GOAL: W I N N I N G! as a knowledgable NY fan, u have a preferred pathway to your goal just as I’m relatively certain Omar had on his very first day. Funny thing happens when REALITY enters the picture, something few fans ever really care to consider, ACCOMODATION & COMPROMISE!
            just as Omar was likely forced by circumstance to take Ollie with Hernadez while being arm twisted out of Nady due to time contraints giving him mere hours to replace one of the more effective setup pitchers of 2006 on 7/31/06. Certainly, once the questionable player(Perez) is on the roster it’s key, in NY esp, to appear as if the redheaded stepchild possesses your DNA & produce the air of “getting SOMETHING(PEREZ) for NOTHING” What’s another 10 minutes out of Peterson’s life?(lol)
            T, once tyhe big ticket items PEDTRO,BELTRAN,WAGNER were securely in place, is it so far fetched to believe the green visiors said something akin to “u need a lfer? u got $1M to do it.” T, it’s issues like this that, I believe, openned the doors for the Duques,Alous, Greens. BTW u’ve always had a bug up your ass over Cora & I could never underastand why would u prefer a Cairo for less? for what he ultimately gave us in ’09(reg play) Cora was, in my opinion worth what he got, in spades! T, benches & role players are supposed to be comprised of single dimensioned, ‘over the hill’ types, the cost of which typically is maerket value & NYC by definition is a highpriced marjket. Alou most likely would have retired to the DR comfortably rather than play in NYC for less than NY$$$. same with Cora. Be careful about your generalizations about players over 35 since NYY,PHL,ATL ALL had superior seasons to our parade of noviates while ALL 3 AFOREMENTIONED TEAMS WERE CHOCK FULL OF 35+ers, FOR EXAMPLY 60% OF aTLANTA’S ROTATION HUDSON,LOWE,KAWAKAMI were all qualifiers under your generalization as “not worth it” see JETER,A-ROD,RIVERA,POSADA from across town & consider u don’t get ANYWHERE NEAR THAT TALENT LEVEL for BENCH MONEY! Do u realize Phillies have the OLDEST aged roaster in MLB?
            ALL TOLD, OMAR WAS QUITE SUCCESSFUL IN REDUCING THE AGE AVERAGE OF THE REGULAR PLAYERS.
            T, I’m certainly No Farm animal(well versed in prospects); but to answer your question of what happened to “the plan” aka as u listed Fern,Pena,Marte,Havens, Kunz,Holt from my observations at the 50,000′ level REALITY HAPPENED!! I believe injuries befell many, Pena’s taken longer to develop than anticipated for a second generation ballplayer everyone admired. In addition, Slot adhereance dictating lesser talent acquired finally reared ity’s uglier head(mediocrity) typically what’s left of the graduating sports class carcass after 30 franchises pick it’s bones three times or more. Since, Slot adhereance precludes us from inking the absolute sure things, it would be a waste of our meager best resources to assign top scouts to unsignable uber talents like Straussberg or Harper so, I believe, our best Scouts werre assigned to patroling the hinterlands for undiscovered small school “treasures” many of which wre possibly ‘undiscovered’ for valid reasons.

            Regarding the bench/role players, I have determined that Omar certainly has been too slow to identify those ‘suspects’ who have likely peaked if put in those roles such as Evans, Murphy & Carter, arguably Duda.
            Perhaps that’s a key factor in brininging in a GM with fresh eyes & no particular emotional investment into these ‘kids’.

            T, as I said considering I’m neither Katz nor Wilpon, I hope my guestamates above satisfy your queries.
            • t agee January 4, 2011 at 10:39 am

              The Plan certainly changed shortly after liftoff. No way Omar paid Alou 1M. He got 7.5 in 2007 and 7.5 again in 2008. Played only parts of 100 games in two years and cost us the 28th best rated amateur player in the country who might have played LF great for 20 million over 6 years and saved us 60 million on Bay.

              Just one of a number of foolish and foreseabally so shortsighted moves that have caused us to run out of players. The Red Sox had more injuries last year than we had in 2009, you know what happened? They won 89 games in the AL East finished about 5 games behind behind the wild card and 7 behind the pennant winner, know why?

              Since 2005 the Red Sox have had 17 picks in the first and supplemental round. those players drafted with those picks enabled them to avoid guys like GMJ, Sheffield, Sullivan, Francouer, Jesus Feliciano, Cora, Hessman, Jacobs, et al.

              Boston also used their deep farm to acquire by trade a very highly regarded Adrian Gonzalez for 3 of their top prospects the major piece being Casey Kelly (#24 ranked prospect by BA) taken in the 30th spot of the first round (Where Champions draft) and paid 3M to sign with them. The other two prospects were a CF Fuentes (late 1st round) and 1B Rizzo (6th round) We don’t have any of these types from our drafts hanging around the farm system ’62 and Boston has been drafting after us every year since 2001 with the exception of 2006.

              So while every team (or owner if you will) has their prefered method of building a team as fans we can all have an opinion on how successful and realistic their approach is and we can agree with their methodology or point out where they have repeateadly gone wrong over and over again because for some reason they seem unable to figure it out themselves.

              Making allowances for the Wilpon because he has not been able to figure out where and why he can spend 140 Million dollars year after year and wind up being nothing less than a laughing stock is not helpful. Pointing out in a public forum where and why the Wilpon shoots themselves in the foot time and time again is helpful because maybe some day someone will tell him.

              ’62, If you agree with the Wilpon methodology then no wonder you accept the results.

              I do not agree with their incredibly stupid, shortsighted, narrow minded idea’s on how to build a baseball team nor do I accept their putrid and rancid results. I also hate to see the “fruits” of our farm like Hessman, Feliciano, Sullivan, Jacobs or GMJ’s, Cattalanotto’s, Sheffields, Castillo, Perez and Reeds “acquired” in different fashions all summer long. I feel like I’m on the boardwalk in Coney Island trapped in a freak house and I can’t get out because the Wilpon’s locked all the freaks up and brought them all here.

              I would like to see a coherent vision of building through the farm and international free agency, rule 5′s career minor leaguer, non tenders plan B FA and even occasionally Plan A free agency along with some smart trades we can have a team we’re all proud of. Not just some of us but all of us. Happy with the results as well.

              Explain away the Wilpon mindset and why it’s perfectly understandable the way Fred, Jeff and Saul go about their business all you want ’62 and I will point out where and why they have f****d us out of having a good team year after year by being stupid, impatient, naive and cheap unless there’s a back page photo op in it for them.

              They had 24 years to figure it out with my being critical and they wasted those years on some of the biggest jackasses of all time and I am still one of their best customers but I am pissed, F****N pissed and while I understand you are satisfied with the way things are you have to understand that I am not.
          • Metsie January 4, 2011 at 1:50 pm

            Oh there is no mystery here as to why Tag….

            They bought into their press!

            They won a few games by buying now and then got fooled by the press and fans into thinking they were close to winning it all! The papers all picked us to do it, the Fans were all hopeful and the truth is they weren’t all that far off! We were competitive, just not championship caliber!

            We had a competitive team but we didn’t have enough (pitching mostly) to win it all!

            And once the plan was abandoned short term it is easy to abandon it entirely!

            Thats what happened with Omar!
            Now the question is did Wilpon goad him into sticking with the buy now?

            According to Omar the answer is NO! but then again there are still people who believe in the Grassy Knoll too!
• METS62FAN January 1, 2011 at 11:38 am

  METSFAN, there wasn’t a reply button for this “oh so repliable regurgitation:
  _____________________________________________________________________________You WTOTE:”METSFAN says:
  December 29, 2010 at 10:03 am mets62: So let me understand you and Chris as well we are to sit back and have blind faith in someone, who has shown that he is incapable of absorbing information quickly so that he can make moves within a year to either improve the team on the field to make it a contender with its extremely high payroll and, according to many here, its wealth of talent, or destroy the team as is, because according to many nhere, it needs to be rebuilt. so we are to sit back pay for a defective product, and pay high prices for it, that the GM was incapable of doing anything about. WHY? If alderson is as good as you and a few others claim him to be, whyt does he have to sit on his royal throne for a year to observe. Rebuilding is noit hard to start. You have XXX with potential in the farm, you trade away the guys who won’t be part of it to fill whatever futures you can get that can help, you release the dead weight, as you pay them either way but at least they don’t poison the clubhouse for your next generation etc. You endorse blindly a guy who has lost his way. He won’t make a move. He’s a GM, he hired two other GMs he kept Ricco an assistant Gm, he has has Minaya a GM, and all the GMs in the world can’t put humpty dumpty back together again. Tell me 62. What has Alderson done to contend or to rebuild, other than hire and develop a very over bloated and over paid front office?
  Please don’t spew the two month line. This is the season to change your team. he wasn’t hired on April 10th”
  MY REPLY:_______________________________________________________________________
  I don’t know about u; but I think a big part of this teams’ issues since ’02 have stemmed from too much,”DON’T JUST SIT THERE, DO SOMETHING!,ANYTHING! approach which gave us Benson,Zambrano amongst others. along with “dumping” Alomar,Benitez,Burnitz,Ventura,Zeile and getting absolutely NO depth for the barren farm beyond Royce Ring.
  I for one, am someone who appreciates a change to SIT THERE, DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING APPROACH at least until there some time to analyze & choose the proper path to take.

  METSIE, everyone here & in Metsville should realize that despite ALL of us paying rapt attention to the foils,foibles,successes & failures over the past 5 years, a consensus for a singular proper direction to success, is a near impossible assignment. ALDERSON,RICCARDI,DiPOTO,COLLINS are the people charged with setting that exact direction of those 4 only Collins paid any more attention to this team than any other just last year.
  Considering Berwnazard deliberately assigned minor league prospects to levels beyond their present abilities, how do u propose sorting out those to keep & those to execute?
  Metsie, I find in life that professionals with successful past careers prefer to keep that momenmtum going and I find trusting them to do so competantly is more prudent more often than not.
  I believe it’s only fair to criticize people for doing or not doing factual things well within their controllable sphere of influence not suppositions or assumptions based upon unsubstantiated rumors!
  FORGIVE ME FOR CHOOSING TO AIM BEFORE I FIRE! READY FIRE, AIM may be your preference, it isn’t mine.
  The money u spend it truly your choice as you can view most every game for free from you couch, ewhile I need to pay for the pkg from DirecTV paying for every single game. whether I watch it or not! I believe, I may have more at stake here & I’m not anticipating contention just competition. .500 record more than likely, while I wish it could be better. I accept reality sucks at times & no one ever promised me fairness in life; but it certainly beats the crap out of the alternative!
  • alwaysnextyear January 1, 2011 at 11:48 am

    there seemed to be a ton of things needed to be done with the team/organization beyond reshuffling the deck chairs on the ML roster.

    and there are still 3 months before the seaosn starts to do more of that.
  • Metsie January 1, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    Blind Faith isn’t needed. Pragmatism might be useful though.

    And complaining about management who isn’t going to get fired for another two years is not going to help you or the team either!

    Face the facts 62, You got your pound of FO flesh this year already. It would not matter if the team played for cricket for the entire season there is nothing that could happen, short of a sexual harassment suit or death that will make any changes to the Front Office before 2012 is over!

    They are not going to be fired 3 months after being hired.
    They are not going to lose their job in a year unless for NON-BASEBALL and Unrelated behavior or accident.
    And they will at worst be under some media pressure by the end of the 2012 season. That will put them in the place Omar was this season.

    So face the facts they are going to run the club as they see fit regardless of what you or I think.
    Complaining about them is not going to accomplish anything because you already shot your load this year on Omar and Manuel!

    Complaining about Ownership is even more useless. Until your prepared to buy the team you have no shot in hell of changing them or their ways. And any attempt to not go in protest is only going to cement them in as owners as who would buy a team no one goes to see?

    I don’t have blind faith, I have doubts but I know that they are going to get their two or three years barring polaroid goat activities (note Rex is still here isn’t he?) and nothing you or I can say will change that!

    So the only pragmatic recourse is to hope they do a good job and at minimum leave the team and farm in a slightly better condition that Omar did!
    And if they do much better than that all this complaining was for nothing!

    They will NOT listen to you,
    They will not Listen to ME!
    And if what you say is true aboput ownership they would be just as smart not to listen to them either and do what they think is the best move for them.

    Cause any GM worth his pay is going to prefer to lose his job for doing the right thing than for being the scapegoat for what someone else told him to do!

    Bottomline is we can cry all we want about what they are/might do.
    It is just chatter and useless background noise because no one will be fired before 2012 is done!
    • METS62FAN January 2, 2011 at 9:16 am

      METSIE, me thinks you’ve mistaken me for someone diametrically opposite from me, in other words, you’re preaching to the choir. As many here can likely attest ie “TAGEE”,”THE ONLY MASK MAN”, “JOE D” I’m one who, while he was employed, supported Omar by asttempting to figure out his thought processies behind certain questionable moves rather than blindly proclaim him incompetant, stupid, dumb, racist or whatever the reactionary, knee-jerkers preferred that day as well as one of the more outspoken Wilpon critics who also painstakingly explained how current MLB procedures did not favor fans getting an improvment in ownerdship should a change/sale be choreographed.

      I’ve explained too often than even I can tolerate that since MLB current owners MUST FIRST APPROVE any & all new owners of ANY club, the liklihood of a more competitive, free spending Steinbrennerish or Henryish replacement for Sterling was nearly impossible as it would be against the sm-mid mkt owners’ best interests.
      When it comes to the new blood of Alderson/Ricchardi/DiPodesta/Collins I’m certainly a believer in Reagan’s dealings with others, “TRUST BUT VERIFY”.
      Even now with this dispatching of a LHP Antonnini for what appears to be an older version of Tejada(HU) I’ve done my homework to first establish Antonnini’s value was minimal @ best struggling even against LHHing & that perhaps DiPodesta’s familiarity with LAD system, reveals that Hu’s MiLB #s of.313/.339/.438 w/4HR,25RBI in 58G are much more indicative of anticipated contributions than his meager.130/.160/.174 w/0HR,1RBI in 14 MLB G.
      It is this optimistic TRUST that has me anticipating the ST debuts of EMAUS from Riccardi’s former circle of knowledge(TOR) as well as HU’s a DiPodesta(LAD) influenced acquisition.

      METSIE, u will need to look much,much further for more TRUST than that on these boards.
      • Metsie January 2, 2011 at 2:26 pm

        First off apologies if I mistook you for an Omar hater.

        I also was not calling for Omar’s head, nor Manuel’s!

        They are not the reason we had a bad season, Injuries are!

        Omar would have been a good Moneyball GM. He is very good at scouting and finding guys who will be major league stars. But he keeps them in the minors for far too long and sometimes trades them away where they go on to be major players!

        Short list of guys he traded include:
        Cliff Lee
        Chris Young
        Carl Pavano
        Jason Bay
        Brandon Phillips

        There is one thing that Minaya has never done well. Recognize good pitching especially when he had it! And he valued relievers more than Starters.
        He also has a habit of shipping out 4 players for one which is about the fastest way to deplete the farm system in existence.

        Was Omar to blame? NO!
        Was it time for him to go? Probably, he shot his load after 2006 and it didn’t work out because of the injuries.

        Now it appears you blame the owners. This despite Both Ownership and Omar saying otherwise. You can choose not to believe them but if the owners did influence the decision then Omar is just as much to blame for allowing them to influence his making bad moves! Either he knew they were mistakes and made them anyway or he didn’t know and was complicit!

        As for the trust but verify, I agree but you can’t inspect a nuclear site or verify the activities until after it has been built!

        I’m sure many people last year looked at the Dickey pickup and said WTF?!??!??!?!!?!!

        They would be wrong wouldn’t they?

        Now it is ok to question a move as it happens to try and dicern what they are thinking. As far as the HU trade goes here is what your looking for.

        Reyes has less than a 50/50 chance of being a Met next year!
        He is in the walk year of a contract, could be worth a farm system worth of players, and will command an A-Rod like contract next year. If the rest of the team is bad enough that Reyes won’t make us winner he will be traded and then who will play SS if that is the case?

        Most likely HU or Tejada whoever hits first!
        They will be it until one of our SS prospects is ready to be a part of the new core in a year or two.

        My take on the new guys is they have to show me what they can do, and I won’t question their ability until I see how the players they bring in play!
        Just as it was foolish to question the Dickey signing until he started winning games the way he did!

        You make the moves that are available to you. Omar couldn’t get Halladay so didn’t! People blame the owners or Omar for that but it’s easy to say go get HIM than it is to actually do it! Especially when you haven’t won anything for 4 years!

        I’m sure you have not seen HU play even one pitch worth so any determination you or I could make would be based on 3rd hand knowledge from what someone else saw and some numbers which never tell you what actually happened just the result.

        All I was saying is if you blame ownership then your pretty much $#!T out of luck unless you hit the lottery and buy the team.

        If you want to truct and verify with Sandy then look at what he did in the past. Apparantly he has trained and groomed quite a few semi-successful GM and development guys including DiPo, Riccardi and Billy Beane.

        Does that mean he is a slam dunk to win here? Hardly there are no slam dunks in baseball, thats basketball!
        Even the Phillies are no cinch to win the WS. You don’t have to trust me on that you can verify at the end of the year.

        here is what I know about this club and I don’t care WHO is to blame….

        1 – No one wants our Minor leaguers in trade they keep asking for ML ready players and starters on our team.
        2 – We have only one true Ace capable starter grooming in the Minors.
        3 – Two of our best players are about to be FA and if Wright and Bay hit the way they did last April and May both Reyes and Beltran will be traded because signing them will not make us winners. We will be rebuilding.
        4 – With all the money that will come off the books in 2012 there will not be enough FA’s worth signing to spend all that money, yet people will complain the payroll is less than it is now!
        5 – If people continue to boycott the games then ownership will not be able to spend that money even if there was players worth paying it because only an idiot would lose money every year just to appease people who don’t support them!
        6 – The Wilpons will not be going anywhere soon unless someone else offers to buy the team and even then it better be a really good offer. Who would make that offer to a team that loses money because it has a high payroll, doesn’t win games and no one shows up to see it?
        7 – Sandy if he is worth any of his reputation will not let the Wilpons goad him into making mistakes!
        8 – If Davis, Pagan, Thole, Wright, Bay and Reyes hit it will not take long to turn this team around.
        9 – If Santana can come back and get guys out we will only need one more ACE (Maybe Mejia, maybe a trade for) to be a contender.
        10 -If Sandy and Co don’t work out they will get fired as quickly as Omar did. Which means your stuck with them for 3 or 4 years so we all might as well get used to it and resign ourselves to the fact that if they suck your screwed anyway and nothing you can say or bitch about is going to unscrew you!
        • METS62FAN January 3, 2011 at 10:13 am

          METSIE, much of this, I agree with, your conclusions & assumptions, NOT so much. here’s where we diverge; #1. Reyes’ contract demands, #2. this statement;”The Wilpons will not be going anywhere soon unless someone else offers to buy the team and even then it better be a really good offer. Who would make that offer to a team that loses money because it has a high payroll, doesn’t win games and no one shows up to see it?”

          If I can explain, with All due respect, it’s so typical NY to believe EVERYONE is ONLY OUT FOR THEMSELVES & THE DOLLAR!
          Since every TOP ballplayer has the oppoertunity to select their agent, whom they select tends to reveal what their truest motivations are. It should be noted that neither Wright nor Reyes chose to sign with Boras & as exemplified by their relatively easy/inexpensive sacrifice of their arbitration eligible years previously, it’s more likely that Reyes’ is NOT an A-ROD, self interested, “money is my measure of true success” type of player, while I don’t believe he’s a Tony Gwymm type either, I do believe he’s more closaely positioned to a Bagwellian than a Jeter/A-Rod. Am I too optimistic? what do I base this on? Reyes has NEVER placed self over team regardless of the rediculously disrepectful treatment the team’s officials pummeled him with(changing posittons to accomodate a lesser talented SS, Matsui, redesigning his running mechanics due to injury occurance less than avg over his entire pro career,to that point, reassigning him in the batting order to #3 despite his struggles to reacquire his timing after long inactive period.
          If we can’t imagine a Jeter or an A-Rod tolerating that level of mistreatment why do we imagine his other behaviors being projected like them?
          Reyes has loyaly stayed with being represented by Peter Greenberg(also Santana’s agent) jist as Wright has stayed with the Levinson Bros @ ACES. Both of those representing factions are reputed to be among “the good guys” reasonable, for the most part agents that try their best to accomodate rational, reasonable market values rather than pioneer new levels of greedy, ownership money grabs ala Boras, Moorad(at his time) Unless there are Demands made by Reyes that clearly price him out of the new Mets’ payroll structure, I feel confident that Alderson would do his best to retain him on the roster for a reasonable period of time both sides can live with.

          Metsie, that’s my arguement against the first disagreement; but onto the sewcond where I find your statement of;
          “The Wilpons will not be going anywhere soon unless someone else offers to buy the team and even then it better be a really good offer. Who would make that offer to a team that loses money because it has a high payroll, doesn’t win games and no one shows up to see it?”

          pretty naive as in the real MLB world once the Wilpons
          (or any relinquihing owner) identifies the highest bidder to purchase their interest in their franchise, the relinquishing party’s involvement is over, any successful bidder, once identified as the seller’s selection, must first be approved by the Commissioner’s “OWNERSHIP COMMITTEE” until approved the sale can not be consumated regardless of offer value. Because of the CO-OP mentality the likelihood of a “Mark Cuban type” successfully securing a toehold in baseball via a team purchase is extremely negligable because anpother high spending, payroll limitation ignoring owner in a big market is the very last thing the small-mid market owners want or need as larger contracts to players raise the average values positions are valued at and that increases substantially the anticipated arbitration award values based upon those increased averages. There is NO possible rationale for the ownership in baseball to allow a freer spending more competitively minded owner to replace the mild mannered, conservative Wilpons despite what the N Y fanbase clamors for!

          METSIE, having said that, I’m certainly just as likely to credit the feeble NYM leadership displayed by it’s C-UH-OH, JEFF WILPON, pride of Palm Beech Community College, because I believe, it’s only by underastanding the reasons,limitations,weaknesses/strengths of Ownership that we can honestly choose whether to support “despite of” OR abandon, “because of”.
          My crediting/blaming Jeff is certainly NOT a new phenoneon by any means, it was true dating back before Omar & I believe it was jealosy & personal insecurity that created the combative,disfunctional atmosphere in the Flushing Ivory Tower.

          Lastly, while, I hate to sound clairvoyant, I count myself among the very,very few here that greeted the Dickey signing by Omar as bellweather level GREAT NEWS! Here was my logic, a Knuckleball is a uniquely difficult pitch to catch, let alone hit with any consistancy. There had not been a regular SP in the N L that featured predominant knuckleballs for 10 years(1999). of PUJOLS, UTLEY, HOWARD, RAMIREZ, UGGLA, DUNN, ZIMMERMAN and nearly every notable NL slugger in his PRIME, not one had any extensive AL experience whereby they would have faced a knuckleball as such, Dickey’s addition to the rotation had, to me, very Positive results as most likely for that matter, with Santana out, at first blush my preferred openning day SP is RA as, in my opinion, the most likely SP to stymie opposing lineups as any #1 in our division, Halladay, Johnson,Hudson,Marquis and as early in seasons the first few rotation revolutions tend to match openning day Aces more often than not; I’m more inclined to have Dickey’s “butterfly” frustrating hitters matched against Halladay or Hudson’s impressive “stuff”. By no means should this be interpreted as my stating Dickey is equal to any of those pitchers, it’s merely an acknowledgement that his offerrings are more likely to be as unhittable by opposing lineups as his opponents are by NYM lineup, to me at least more easily matched up than Pelfrey,Niese,Gee, or anyone else I’ver heard as a likely addition incl Carcia, FRANCIS or YOUNG. ST SHOULD ASCERTAIN THEIR RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS/HEALTH.

          Metsie, I distinctly recall back in the beginning of Sterling Ownershipo, after Jeff was appointed COO or as I prefer C-UH-OH,for obvious reasons, that Jeff responded to a question by indicating he was an avid WFAN listener & would rely heavily on what he heard from callers to indicate what direction he should lead towards as well as I remember his carping on the “spoled” nature of modern athletes being too soft & too quick to fein/claim injury real ot imagined, too quick to sit out due to twinges,or other noncareer threatening situations(despite the time lapse, I’ve never forgotten this indictment nor have I failed to consider how those type beliefs are impacting our use of the D/L). I also clearly remember Bill Madden’s scathingly critical reporting upon Jeff’s chosen disorganized style whereby every member of the frontoffice was seemingly free to bewcome involved in nearly every aspect of every decision confronting the organization, a system Madden likened to a FRAT HOUSE environement of diffused authority & lacking any responsibility or ability to ascertain a ‘culprit’ responsible for disasterous decisions. BTW, thise exposes fronm Madden all predated the innaugration of SNY as well as the “DAILY NEWS LIVE” program complete with it customary ‘appearance fee’ payments which ostensibly has Bill Madden, John Harper,et al regularly cashing checks issued & signed by SNY CEO Jeff Wilpon. Holy conflict of interest, Metsie! funny, I haven’t read of the Frat House in a long,long time.
          It is my belief that after Duquette proved ineffective to standup to Jeff’s impatience & wanton desire to disregard baseball minds’ reason over WFAN mob screams for pitching which contributed totally to the Kazmir/Zambrano fiasco blessed & underwritten by Jeff’s personal services hired assistant, Rick Peterson caused Fred to reassign Duquette back to his Assistant GM perch as most just resolution over firing him outright for surrendering his sense of right/wrong to his Superior’s,Jeff’s, emotions. Because of this, I’ve always believed Omar was reacquired as a baseball man that Fred knew & counted on to restrain & control his son’s impulsivity & lack of knowledgable patiernce(I believe Omar’s #1 assigned duty from Fred was to protect him by ensuring Jeff did not embarass the Organization again ie Kazmir fiasco), this, on the surface, seemed to be effective through ’05 & ’06; but the ’07 “collapse” certainly undermined Fred’s support of Omar over Jeff, in business arraingements & Jeff was able to return to his insipid undermining of his more knowlewdgeable underling employee by corrupting Omar followers, as he had done using his “gatherings” of selected players ie Leiter,Franco,Glavine & others to surrepticously report to him goings on in the clubhouse(spying) just as he’d done with Phillips,Duquette using players to spy on both Phillips & Valentine. Jeff, accoring to insider reporters used frontoffice personnel with blind ambition & no particular Omar loyalty(Bernazard) to first undermine Omar’s choice, Randolph, than target Omar, himself. Jeff’s Ego has always taken preference above & beyond the accomplishments/success of his father’s side interest, NYM.
          METSIE, I’m certainly not foolish or bold enough to proclaim positively the the Wilpons have lied; but I do consider myself astute enough to underatand the vast differences in meanings of insinuationg statements whereby the same exact words spoken by different peiople can have different meanings to the speaker than they have to the listener. for example; Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton ALL stated Sadaam possessed WMDs yet when George W. Bush & Dick Cheney state the same fact the meaning to the individual speakers are apparently & quite obviously different. Therefore Fred & Jeff can state they haven’t meddled or influenced and can deny never being asked to eat Ollie’s or Luis’ contracts implying ALL: decisions werre sole purvue/responsibility of Omar, yet it’s just as logical that knowing the Wilpon disinterest in player contract devouring that Omar assumed their reponse without ever requiring it in as many words. just as a child, being rebuffed by their parents repeatedly over acquiring a pet, be it dog,cat,pig,goldfish. it’s certainly conceivable that the child may never inquire about that ellusive pony assuming the same negative response. Therefore said parents can easily pass a liedetector when proclaining their child never asked for a pony!
          Metsie, in life, I find it most useful to apply logic based upon what most people like them would do, not what the worst exampoles might do. some may call this ASSUMING or PRESUMING; but I think of it as CONCLUDING based on the most likely scenerios.
          In closaing, I don’t find it difficult to accept Wilpon ownership, acknowlegement of Wilpon restrictions and still loyaly root for MY MERTS, not necessarily Fred or Jeff’s Mets!
  • t agee January 1, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Agree ’62, We have a couple of high performance used cars that could bring something nice at auction but buyers want to see how they run after being tuned up or we won’t get anywhere near what we could get later.

    Don’t just do something so we have something to talk about. Do something that would make us better. For the long term.

    I got news for everyone. Jeff Francis and/or Chris Young aren’t leading us to the World Series. Acquiring one or both of those guys will do no more for us then Shawn Estes and Jeff D’Amico did.

    You cannot fix 25 years of mismanagement in 2 and a half months.
    • METS62FAN January 2, 2011 at 8:46 am

      t, this certain;ly ranks among your more astute comments; “You cannot fix 25 years of mismanagement in 2 and a half months”

      However, it begs for the question of; How long then?

      25 yrs? Doubleday majority/controling position 1980-2002 despite % reports to contrary see Doubleday overrule of Wilpon over Piazza acquisition 1980-1986 Wilpon @ 1% ownership, 1986-2002 reported 50/50 w/Dpoubleday; but indications are Nelson held mnging partner position.
      Omar had 5Y & was overwhelmed by injuries exposing shallow depth, In NYC when faced with such a disaterous complete overhaul it’s most likely best to prioritize yuor actions. For NYC, my priorities would be as follows, esp with a current $130M payroll to protect:
      #1) address the MLB roster holes via trades & F/A.
      #2) address the Developmental Pipeline(Farm) via mngt heirarcy changes, draft(protecting early picks & redifining player selection criterias(slot adherance or not?)(best positional or best pitching)
      2b) Establish “sphere of influence/control in the front office aimed @ #s 1 & 2 primarily
      #3)address the MLB guidance system(fld mngr/coaches)
      #4) target payroll positioning sought from ownership
      #5) re-evaluate ALL of the above & reestablish order as needed to best support earliest return to contention

      T, What say u?
      • t agee January 2, 2011 at 11:49 am

        ’62, Because Omar knew better and tried to work around the existing Wilpon structure even though he knew he was hamstrung by it.

        He was the expert, not Jeff. He knew the investment had to be made in the infastructure first and go on from there. It was up to him the change the Wilpon culture and instead of putting the time and effort into something that would pay off for the long term he spent all his time effort energy and money on acquiring so many rouges for the Major League roster.

        If only Omar had explained to the Wilpon the reason for the crash of ’93 and 2003 and combined with the ending of the steroid era, we could have patiently developed great young talent through out all levels of the minors and would be in a position to reap the rewards of all that work for the next decade.

        Omar was very good at evaluating talent but he was very gullible at thinking it would continue onward forever and he was completely clueless about properly valuing the talent and the contribution that talent provided.

        Basically, Omar spent most of his regime doing what he wasn’t good at instead of doing what he was good at.

        If Omar had spent the first few years spending money on acquiring IFA’s and picking up as many draft choices as possible and developing them to come up here prepared and polished he would still be here sitting on a goldmine.

        He could have fielded a competative team AND rebuilt for the future but he didn’t even change a lot of the player development people we had left over from the Phillips era and those he did were changes that made things worse. The only good draft during Omar’s tenure was his first and he replaced that guy with his own guy (Rudy Terrass) shortly after the first draft. We also lost our best international scout Edy Toledo to the Marlins during Omar’s tenure here and Tony Bernazard ’nuff said and the amount of rookies brought up that weren’t ready, put in unfamiliar roles and were basically able to do a couple of things but no where near complete players (if they ever will be) begs the question what was his plan? Just look around every year to see which freaks and mutants would be available to take up the 10 or so roster spots not filled with ill prepared prospects, expensive, aging and unproductive players and 3 or 4 good players two of whom he inherited?

        Just look at the guys he brought in here for year 6 of his regime. Do you really believe this was his plan back in 2005?
        • METS62FAN January 3, 2011 at 11:36 am

          T, WHAT IS YOUR BASIS FOR PRESUMING OMAR’S ASSIGNED GOAL WAS BUILDING A CONTINUOUSLY WINNING, SELFSUSTAINING FRANCHISE? AND NOT TOLD TO BUILD RESPECXTABLE FINISHES AS QUICKILY AS POSSIBLE IN PREP OF CIITI’S INNAUGURATION?

          BTW, of ALL the statements u’ve ever made that I found cause for disagreement, this one; “It was up to him(Omar) the change the Wilpon culture” I find to be the MOST REDICULOUS! concept. Do u know of any Corporate philosophy tht was established as ‘X’; and subsequently altered to ‘Y’ by a non baard membered employee?
          FAMILY businesses are rarely alttered from outside the FAMILY. Have u ever considered the incestuousness of STERLING/NYM?
          STERLING OFFICERS & FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS
          FRED WILPON: CHAIRMAN CO-FOUNDER
          SAUL KATZ: PRESIDENT,CO-FOUNDER & FRED BROTHER-IN-LAW(married Fred’s sister)
          MICHAEL KATZ: EXEC SR. VP, SON OF SAUL, NEPHREW OF FRED
          RICHARD WILPON: SR. EXEC VP, BROTHER OF FRED, BROTHER-IN-LAW TO SAUL
          DAVID M. KATZ: EXEC VP, SON OF SAUL,NEPHEW OF FRED
          JEFFREY WILPON: SR. EXEC VP, SON OF FRED, NEPHEW OF SAUL cousin of all AFOREMENTIONED KATZ’
          GREGORY KATZ: VP SON OF SAUL,NEPHEW OF FRED
          MARVIN B. TEPPER: PARTNER, NON FAMILIAL
          THOMAS OSTERMAN: EXEC VP, NON FAMILIAL
          ARTHUR FRIEDMAN: SR.VP, NON FAMILIAL

          T, this dovetails nicely & ytpically with the NYM Board of Directors where there is no apparent seat for the GM or any other high ranking employee of note.
          NYM PARTNERS & DIRECTORS per MLB.com:
          FRED WILPON
          SAUL KATZ
          JEFF WILPON
          THOMAS OSTERMAN
          MICHAEL KATZ
          ARTHUR FRIEDMAN
          DAVID KATZ

          NYM DIRECTORS (ONLY)
          STEVE GREENBERG
          STUART SUCHERMAN
          MARVIN TEPPER
          T, under what premise do you propose that an employee in a position so disregarded as to not have a seat @ the BOARD can manifest any influence over the direction being determined by a Board whose every Birthday, Anniversary, Thanksgiving constitutes a Board meeting?

          BTW, John Schurholtz is reputed to be an excellent baseball executive; however his influence @ TimeWarner was certainly questionable & didn’t successfully stem the tide of continuously reduced payrolls throughout the late 90s(1996).

          Even the MOST “WIN AT ANY COST” owner, ‘The Boss’ needed to be suspended by MLB before vaunted baseballman, Gene ‘Stick’ Michaels could flex his influence properly to retain Jeter, Posada,Rivera,Pettitte. T, your assmptions are presumptive as well as unfounded that repetitous winning over time bears as high a value to the Wilpons as it does to the fanbase. Facts in evidence to date do not support the presumptions u make. Stopgap not longterm Preemptive acquisitions have been a Wilpon trademark from Day 1, spanning multiple GM reigns.

          Faced with facts opposing a belief the Wilpons(Fred,namely) don’t know any better re. development,farm systems, etc. while I personally question Jeff’s expertise, Fred, as an avid fan of Bklyn Dodgers(renowned player developers under Rickey) as well as bring a close friend with Sandy Koufax & being the exec credited with identifying & securing as new GM, Frank Cashen, back in 1980. it’s apparently obvious that Fred has choasen to try to win by use of early NYY tactics rather than the more certain methods of developing winning stretches by creating a talented pipeline of young homegrown replacements. It’s presumptive to assume any current GM, be it Omar,Alderson or whomever could ever be more influential than Kofax or Cashen, indicating to me that Fred has chosen to totally disregard that methodology for whatever personal reasonings I can’t possibly imagine nor do I choose to waste my time considering. I begrudgingly accept the decisions apparently made by Ownership(Fred) and do not waste my time or energy cursing the darkness or spitting into the wind!

          I suggest u do the same or move on!
          • t agee January 3, 2011 at 12:23 pm

            I think it’s very obvious that it is the preffered Wilpon strategy to build a team capable of competing on paper and then crashing in flames during the season.

            They have done this three times now during their reign of error and Omar was just the latest guy to help them execute their unsustainable business practice.

            I have a feeling though that this time they will plan to rebuild down below as well as try to make things happen at the Major League level.

            I think this time it has finally sunk in that older players, despite being highly compensated, are no more likely to lead you to the promised land than younger, less expensive, in their prime and hungrier players and that because of the disparity in income you could have your pick of quite a few of the younger sort instead of relying on just one of the older type.

            Despite seemingly to be able to get through to the Wilpon, Alderson runs the risk of any GM in their employ. He runs the risk of othe owners getting aints in the pants. He runs the risk of ownership thinking they are one more Mo Vaughn or Bobby Bonilla or Luis Castillo (4 years because there was no one else to sign. Good reason) away from laying claim to the NL East. He runs the risk of ownership caving in to the pressure the vocal minority brings to fill in potholes instead of digging up, re grading and processing and tamping and then paving the entire street and then and only then trying to ride over it.

            If you are comfortable accepting self defeating business practices from your favorite baseball teams ownership ’62, you may be a saner man then I am but I am not willing to silently accept this fraud of a 3 card monte game the Wilpon’s continue to foist on their customers.

            For 24 of the 25 years the Wilpon has been at the helm of this franchise I have never publically uttered a negative word. I have defended them from the ridiculous claim of being called the “coupons” I have discribbed them as committed owners (among other things) I have applauded their efforts at Citi Field and respect their devoting so much space for kids to have fun for free. I do think that they can do it correctly, the right way, that they are very easily swayed by public or the media’s opinion, that they are very thinskinned, preferring to be able to say at the end of the year that “we did everything we could think of” “We thought we had all the pieces in place” “It looked good in January” “People picked us to go to the series” “if it wasn’t for 5 or 6 different things it would have been different”

            THEY don’t want to be held accountable, they don’t want to be criticized, preferring to build a team that looked good and crashed then a real team of exciting young players who kick ‘effin ass.

            Was there a period on self introspection late this season? I’ll bet there was. Was it deep and meaningful or was it just a “well we gave Omar everything he asked us for.” I’ll bet it was the later. I’ll bet anything on it. J.Wilpon even said “You don’t think I signed Oliver Perez do you?” I think the Wilpon is STILL so cluelessly gullible that THEY think they can fix this thing by throwing away a few more draft picks on 40 year olds, closers who can’t even stay healthy and DH’s even though we play in the National League.

            You may be satisfied with that ’62, but I’m not. I never said a word for 24 years but now I am attacking their cowardly, self absolving way of building a team and calling them out on their lawn. Their too cowardly to come out and tell us they f****d it up. They won’t communicate with their fans. They won’t grow a pair and BUILD a TEAM so when I see them screw the fan yet again in an effort to squirm off the hook, I’m calling ‘em on it and if you or anyone else doesn’t like it Hard wire Mcguire.
            • t agee January 3, 2011 at 12:36 pm

              And another thing ’62, this thing cannot be fixed by just waiting around to see who is the latest player without a contract who, if he could play or pitch like he did 3-5 years ago might be a “good pickup.”
            • METS62FAN January 5, 2011 at 10:59 am

              T, obvious? to whom? I, for one, DO NOT believe for one instant that when it comes to aquisitions that any Wilpon is astute enough to offer any name of any current player not on THEIR roster. Rather, I do believe that they view it in dollars & cents when they stipilate they gave Omar whatever he askled for, pleae note they never say we gave Omar whichever player hee asked for as I’d believe a Steinbrenner might say. I believe only a fool would be;lieve the Wipons were ever in a financial position to let the MLB roster languish <.500 for 4-5 years necessary to restock the pipeline with Philadelphian/Bostonian like depth rather they needed to patch as best they could from without since none existed within. I also believe they dealt solely in $$$ per Omar';s requests I certainly have no difficulty in imagining this as the '04 preseason dialogue…
              FRED; "Omar, what will you need from me this year?
              Omar, about $100M should be enough
              GRED; I was thinking last yr's $96M or less since we came in 4th; but if you say $100M is needed to improve, then it's ok with me; but I want to see more important games being played, I'm tired of being so close to the bottom.
              Omar, Fred we'll do better than 4th, I'm thinking of going after Pedro Martinez to begin with.
              Fred; OK, if it's $100M then u'll get it…
              Omar, Thanks, Fred, u won't be sorry.
              Fred, I hope not, you're the baseball expert.
              Omar, Fred u may want to schedule your trip to STL early this year, you'll like what u;'ll see.

              T, I think most of the conversations were similar '04-'07; but in '08 instead of Fred it was Jeff…

              T, No, I'm certainmly not satisfied; however, I don't relegate the Wilpons to the wanton EVIL doers u insinuate, speculate on. I do however, believe Omar made commitments to them on $$$ he had trouble meeting which ultimately led to the solutions u find so impalatable.
              T, here's my dilemma, if I turn away, that's my ONLY sports inviolvement as I've often proclaimed I'm NOT a baseball fan, a football, bsketball or hockey fan.

              I AM A METS' FAN! They're owners I don't have to root for them or even see them too often I can't participate in Fantasy baseball because I can't imagine ever rooting for Pujols batting in Citi regardsless of his effect on my fantasy standings should he succeed or fail. I want him struck out every AB, it's my personal DNA strructure. I rooted for this team when a Ron Hunt HBP constituted a rally(lol), I'll certainly not let a couple of Brooklyn nevou riche land peddlers spoil my need for a PRO-SPORTS FIX!
• METS62FAN January 1, 2011 at 10:16 am

  T, when are u going to realize, that I don’t disagree with the saNty or soundness of your thoughts; however to argue with me over them IS insanity since it’s Jeff Wilpon, not me who obviously disregards the value u insist upon placing on draft picks. Try to remember that because I may point out that a fire was caused by arson DOES NOT imply I set the fire!
  How is it you know the Mets will not exceed slot yet u make a claim tHE picks by the Mets could’ve mirrored those by Boston, then u point out one of those chosen was achieved by exceeding slot!
  I’M ONLY INFORMING U OF WHAT I RECALL FROM WAGNER’S INITIAL SIGNING,(it was reported) HE SOMEHOW GOT SOMEONE(JEFF? OMAR?) TO AGREE “HANDSHAKE?” TO NOT OFFER ARBITRATION DEPITE IT’S NOT BEING IN WRITING, WAS IT BINDING? LEGALLY?(tough to prove) MORALLY? certainly!!!
  Certainly Carter proved to be exactly what u describe, a DH. until he plays, it’s still a gamble, obviously there was a feeling that outfield wasn’t terribly difficult to learn @ MLB level(Murphy,Evans,Tatis); either way regardless of what Carter did or did not provide offensively that’s still more than whomever was picked had we gotten those optons. NO?

  OK, how about ewe fire Omar,Bernazard,Willie, Peterson, Manuel & start over with new choices while getting the Wilpons to voluntasrily restrain their disruptive meddling?
  T, is that enough for u to put past sins behind & consider ONLY new ones may be made?
• t agee January 1, 2011 at 12:06 pm

  ’62, There are absolutely no FACTS behind that. Unsubstantiated rumour heard by one or 2 people is NOT a FACT. In this day and age of agents like Borass et al putting everything in writing to have a secret agreement that only the Wilpon is bound to. Why would they owe Wagner? If anything Wagner owed them. He pitched well enough in 2006 and 2007 regular season but blew the NLCS and a 4-0 lead against the Yanks because he “wasn’t prepared to pitch in a non save opportunity” He couldn’t help down the stretch in 2007 because he was hurt and then was out almost all of 2008 and 2009 and we OWE HIM something? Give me an Effin break.

  You can’t take a company asset (those two picks) and throw them away. You cannot even promise to give them away. A COO who would voluntarily give away a valuable company asset so a departing employee could get a bigger paycheck from his new company would be guilty of embezzelment, fraud, or at the very least a business ethics violation and a dereliction of his fiduciary responsability (to his Company) In short it is illegal immoral and inept to give away valuable company property in order for a departing employee to receive greater compensation elsewhere regardless of what your factless assertion about a secret handshake (and decoder ring.)

  The facts to me are very clear on this matter. Jeff increased the budget to go all in THIS YEAR. (2009) Overkill on last years weakness (UFC-ROD AND Putz) with Omar guaranteeing that this will take care of the bullpen problems we had last year. Well that’s not the way it went. Many games did not sell out, many tickets were not used. Many hot dog’s, pulled pork sandwiches went uneaten. Many Bud lights, Heinikens, Corona’s, Presidente’s and Guiness’ went undrunk and many parking spots unfilled.

  Either Omar felt bad and took it upon himself to save some money or Jeff told him to. One or the other is the only intelligent likely possibility. The unlikely possibility is that Omar felt that Carter would produce more than either or both of those draft picks would although if Chris Carter had ever been scouted, and I’m sure he was, NOBODY would have thought he could ever play outfield especially at Citi Field.

  I’ve never heard of any super secret handshake agreement that would lead to a company voluntarily tossing away valuable assets and like I pointed out, that would be at the very least an ethics violation.

  If we are ever going to turn this thing around we have to examine where we have gone wrong in the past so we do not continue to shoot our selves in the foot.

  Explaining away business practices that are wholy indefensible is not helpful. Regardless of who was to blame for tossing away those TWO high draft choices this is exactly the type of move that make bad teams worse and good teams better.

  The Red Sox had MORE injuries last year than we did in 2009 and still won 89 games in the AL East. Why? They had the farm to rely on to back them up. We didn’t. We had Sheffield, Reed and Sullivan. The Red Sox had the farm to get Adrian Gonzalez and thanks in part to us will have the farm to pick up Felix Hernandez or someone like him in a couple of years. We won’t and it’s imperative to understand why. Moves like this one ARE the reason why.
• francis January 1, 2011 at 12:11 pm

  this list was pulled out of the writer’s behind. he probably thinks rickie weeks is a guy who posts military secrets on the internet.

  all i hear is how KC has this monster set of prospects, and i know that SD is stacked with homegrown talent. and TB and MINN ?

  you list them as shockers, i list them as randomly generated letters.

  this list reads the same frontwards and backwards to me.

  lastly, if SD is really dead last, we are in big trouble considering who was running SD from 2005-2009.
• francis January 1, 2011 at 12:21 pm

  i agree with you.

  i’m going to write a sequel to moneyball. i’m going to call it Ben Sheets.
• t agee January 1, 2011 at 12:31 pm

  Pitching wins. 100 years of baseball history makes that clear. Our 2 World Championships confirm that fact.

  Even the one year we went to the Series and lost we had TWO dominant starting pitchers.

  The Oakland A’s success was based on their homegrown pitching which was both dominant AND inexpensive.

  The Yankees with all the players they have and a 200 million dollar plus payroll failed because their starting pitching failed. Plain and simple.
• t agee January 1, 2011 at 12:35 pm

  Phillips took over from Joe Mcillvaine.
• Metsie January 1, 2011 at 12:46 pm

  Correct and it was Cashen who took over for Phillips when the first sexual harrassment charge hit!

  Not the other way around.
• t agee January 1, 2011 at 1:13 pm

  Phillips was also a HUGE beneficiary of a prior GM’s signing of Ordonez and Alfonzo too. Rick Reed also was a very effective piece he inherited. It goes both ways. Bobby Valentine got the absolute most possible out of his teams as well.

  Phillips was also a huge beneficiary of the Marlins frequent fire sales. Imagine trading Al leiter, Dennis Cook and Mike Piazza to a team in your own division and then tell me the Marlins were attempting to compete.

  I give Phillips a pass on the Vaughn, Alomar, Bernitz fiasco for this reason. That is exactly the business model the Wilpon has employed here as the standard for the 25 years they have been mismanaging this team.

  I give Phillips HUGE credit for obtaining a STILL under rated John Olerud AND a terrific TWO way player at 3B in Robin Venttura. Those were two of the best moves we have ever made. Zeile was another good choice.

  The other HUGE acquisition by Phillips was Mike Hampton. Phillips continues to be the only GM in our history who has provided us with TWO dominant starting pitchers and who did not win a World Series.

  Where Phillips failed, and it’s really more a failing of the farm than anything else, was in the OF. Payton was OK, McCrae not so much, Agbayanni, Husky, Bell, Timo ect very underwhelming but once again it proves the point that you cannot import every player, you need to provide some inhouse solutions or you cannot sustain your success, and you cannot count on just whoever suddenly becomes available because there’s a reason why their available. Olerud was available because Delgado was up and coming. GREAT move, cannot be overstated enough. Bell? Alomar? Vaughn? Bernitz? different story all together.

  One thing that was both really unlucky and hurt us quite a bit for a long time was Ordonez having his hand broken by the Cards which I think was on purpose. Having to make that Borrdick trade killed us then and later but what could you do? Melvin Mora would have been a great guy to have at 3B or 2B for years to come but I cannot say I saw it coming.

  You also cannot discount who we were competing against all those years. 14 consecutive pennants is just an incredible feat and the result of a tremendous organization. Just think about it, in fourteen years the Braves went to the post season twice as often as we have in fifty years and they did it mainly by building from within. Even subtracting from the ML roster for impact prospects. Chipper, Jordan, Mcgriff, Furcal, Jones, Lopez PLUS Maddox, Glavine Smoltz. The competition doesn’t get much tougher than that.

  All in all Phillips did about the best we could have hoped given the constraints every Met GM has been under during the Wilpon error.
• METS62FAN January 2, 2011 at 8:23 am

  T, I consider u to be the staunchest & sometimes most blindly optimistic supporter of ALL things DEVELOPMENT & after reading this soliloquey/eulogy on Phillips’ reign I’ve only one exclaimation; “HOLY DOUBLE STANDARD, T!”

  For u to acclaim Phillips with barely a mention of his responsibility of being to our farm system what Godzilla is to Tokyo is tantamount to crediting Jimmy Carter with excellent Middle Eastern statesmanship, disregarding the ensuing long gaslines, Afganistan Soviet invasion & the Iranian Hostage crisis because he got Egypt & Israel to shake hands @ Camp David. SAY, WHAT!
• METS62FAN January 2, 2011 at 9:42 am

  T, all I can truthfully atterst to is that I read two different mentionings of such an agreement being in place. tyhe autors being either Harper or Madden in Daily News or Mike Vaccaro of Post.
  The logic behind it’s existance, if it did is inconsequential; but if it didn’t supposing the Mets would have selected & signed the same 2 prospects as Boaton is not unly unsubstantiated; but beyond reason since Boston had to exceed slot to ink one of them, an action beyond NYM est principles.

  Regardless, it’s unlikely that the two they did select would have been as highly youted as u assume since the NYM rules of draft engagement has always focused on the inexpensive side of signability being valed much more than the talent ranking of the particular selection.
  Argueably it’s less likely either of the 2 new additions would have ever contributed in Flushing let alone in 2010 as Carter did.
  Was it tyhe rigfht decision to value 3M in savings over two ? seleted with the [picks for potential, yet unlikely gamble in arbitration? I don’t know, neither do you as we’re not privy to the state of the NYM checkbook.
• METS62FAN January 5, 2011 at 9:16 am

  t, it amazes me how u fail to realize the team is being run like a real estate development co not a mlb franchse. What guarantees are there that money saved in ’10 would be made available as additional in ’11? NONE! It strikes me that the wilpons have in mind an “inventory” valued @ a specific $$$ figure like properties awaiting development. There’s litt;e regard as to needs @ positions BTW Jeff, not Omar committed 20M+ to a SP incapable of competing even 1 season uninjuredm how many improvments could that supply? Does this team really need a #1 incapable of pitching regular shutouts when needed eating a huge chunk of escalating Salary? Even the staunches Santana supporter would have to concede 20-25M/Y is too high for no more than 16Ws each.
  T, dtop ALL the BS over your list of benchers, what was their total cost? 10M? Who were your preferred benchers? Where was your get Cairo campaign when Cora was being wooed? Is Miggy who u want replacing Lyuis & Jose for nearly 3 Seasons? Sure, then u ewould have put aside your fion’ls & trotted out your sabres, can u please stop ALL the Kvetching it’s tiresome. We ALL know Omar chose to concentrate on the MLB roster to the continued failing of the farm crops. ZFyunny, IO don’t ever recall your sour notes at anytime during 2006.
  If Sandy’s charged with dealing off the present roster to reduce the tarriff as well as provide for future hole fillers, I’d certainly deal Santana long before Reyes on the prinviple that a non contending team does not require a top of the line ace espo @ 20,+ per Season, yet every tean looking to compete throughout the Season needs an electric leadoff that scores bushels of runs & contributes to at least 140G per Season & quite possibly 160 instead of struggling to reach 30GS
  No, it’s not popular thinking by me; but I mudst admit to being frustrated that so many slf professed “thinkers” on this site have swallowed the pitiful “lack of run support excuse” by the way, the “excusers” aren;’t just throwing the NYM under the bus Johan’s driving, consider this gem orig published by ESPN back in ’07(MINN)
  http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=2910803
• METS62FAN January 5, 2011 at 10:00 am

  Dovetailing on to Harry’s astute rebuttal I must ask u, T. ewhere was your campaign to reacquire Migel Caito instead of Cora when Alec was inked? Did I miss it? was $2M/y an obscene amount to pay someone who ended up forced from a ph/bench role to contribute 447abs over > 2 seasons? really? with everyone clamoring for leadership & gutting out playing hurt how could u justify discarding Cora after his ’09 campaign with 2 seriously injured thumbs & zero complaints about them. Thanks for your intense effort; but we’re gouing to cut your salary offer substabntially? Great example to the kids he touched that u want to inspire. T, sometimes u get too caught up in your underwear! Certainly u are correct that on that list u constantly raol asgainst of GMJ,Jacobs,etc Cora must truly stand out; but you ignore he’s the lone regyulasr contributor who actuaslly supplied more value than his paycheck put into his account!
• Metsie January 5, 2011 at 10:31 am

  Actually the Wilpons are running the team pretty much as you would run any normal business. Unfortunatly in most franchises it is not run as a business but as a playtoy and money hole to show status of the owner.

  In a normal business you ascertain what your potential money intake will be and set your budget accordingly.

  In 2006 that budget was based on how much they could make if they sold out every game and included the revenue that a playoff would generate and add to the coffers.

  Unfortunatly we committed money based on a maybe and the maybe turned out to be wrong.

  So now that the revenues and attendance are down they (as any normal business would) have decided to adjust the budget based on the new potential revenue intake.

  Which does not really support a 130 Mil payroll.

  And what they decide to spend in 2012 is going to be dependent more on how much there is to buy as how much they have to spend.

  Fine to have 60 Mil to spend but if there are not 60 Mil worth of players to get it would be unwise to waste the money on players that can’t help or do not need.