12
2011
Fan Post: Mets Futility In Last 20 Years Compared To Rest Of The NL
An article by Hojo's Mojo
The following research and data was submitted by one of our readers, T Agee for posting on MMO.
It represents the last 20 Years of Mets payroll and results in four categories as compared to the rest of the league.
In addition to total payroll, the other four categories are:
1. Sub .500 record in last 20 years.
2. Sub .500 record with 90 or more losses in last 20 years.
3. Above .500 record with 90 or more wins in last 20 years.
4. Post Season appearances in last 20 years.
Here are those results and you can click the chart to see a larger version…
*** (only been in existence for 18 years)
** (only been in existence for 13 years)
* (1994 was strike shortened season that ended 8/11/1994)
Note: (1991-1993 Brewers were in AL East before realignment)
Here also is the accompanying graph, which you can click to enlarge…
Some Conclusions
1. The Mets have had spent the most money in payroll in the NL in the last 20 years, over $1.5 billion dollars.
2. Only the Nats/Expos and the Pirates have had more 90 loss seasons than the Mets who had six during this span.
3. The Mets have had 11 sub .500 seasons in the last 20 years.
Obviously, there is plenty of room for improvement as you can tell from this data. Outspending the rest of the league has led to more losing seasons than winning seasons for the Mets.
Thoughts?
This was a Fan Post by T Agee.
About the Author: Rob Johnson
123 Comments + Add Comment
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A number of things can come into play: Spending smarter is one of them (as we say now – AFTER the fact). Also this list doesn’t take into account the opportunities ON THE FIELD the Mets did have to win. Nobody here has to be reminded of some of our most heartbreaking defeats on the field. Bad luck and injuries also comes into play too.
And the list does not reflect any one single mind set as the Mets AND other teams have gone through several GMs during this period. You can interpret a lot of things with this. It could also be interpreted differently if you went back to the 70s when the Mets had those great pitching staffs. One can make the argument that they should have one more games back then too – when spending wasn’t in vogue as much.
I agree with you in saying “You can interpret a lot of things with this” that is why I find it interesting. I am curious to hear how different people may possibly view this. It is why I am glad HoJo posted it. Everyone can share and make their opinions be heard.
For instance when I see this It reinforces that it’s not about spending money but again how you spend it.
The idea that simply if Alderson had spent more money on more expensive players that would have garnered better results this season is simply not an idea i fully endorse. Alderson having said from day 1 that the Mets would be small players in free agency this off season due to not having “financial flexibilty” I think did the best he could do in that situation to address the team’s needs.
Now will his moves pay off? That is for the season to decide. Something some are not willing to wait to see but yet the facts are that until we see what they do on the field we simply do not know if signing a Young was a good move or not.
Every team can claim injuries and bad luck. As sports fans we always lament the Soccia and Pendleton HR’s while forgetting that our team was the beneficiary of some extrodinary great luck.
We won a pennant in 1973 with 82 wins in a two division format. During that “pennant” race Cleon Jones threw a Pirate out after the ball landed right on TOP of the fence.
Gedman barely moved his glove allowing the tying run to score in game 6 and then Stapleton watched from the dugout as Buckner looked to see if Stanley was going to beat Wilson to the bag and that’s how we won the game.
Bad luck should hardly be something for Met Fans to complain about and with our resources and payroll luck is the last thing that it should be left to.
The SF Giants have a far better claim of bad luck than we do. They won 90+ games eight times and only qualified for the playoffs five times. Their bad luck was being in the same division as Atlanta where even 100 win seasons go unrewarded.
Atlanta has qualified for the playoffs 15 times in the last 20 years. We have qualified for the playoffs 7 times in 49 years. Spin it any way you want to but that is sheer incompetence on the part of multiple owners and multiple GM’s. No kind way to put it.
Cinncinatti could claim “bad luck.” We made the playoffs in 1999 and needed a favorable result in a game we weren’t even playing in on the last Saturday night in September and then won a one game playoff against the Reds or they would have 3 postseason appearances in the last 20 years and we would have had only two. The REDS! Who even thought of the Reds as playoff contenders until last year? And yet they have had half as many 90+ loss seasons as we have in the last 20 years.
Milwaukee has had less 90+ loss seasons than we have. Think about that. Milwaukee has had one less 90+ win season than we have and while we qualified for the playoffs all 3 times we won 90 or more Milwaukee only qualified one of the two times they won 90 or more. Now THAT’S BAD LUCK.
How do you explain the Central Division? Houston made the playoffs 6 times in 20 years (one less than us in 49 years) and only had 4 90+ win seasons. St. Louis made the playoffs 8 times with only 5 90+ win seasons. Luck? Perhaps, but is it just luck that those two teams COMBINED have had only two seasons in the last 20 years with 90+ losses while the team with the highest payroll(by far) has had SIX, all by themselves?
I don’t think random luck has anything to do with that.
When you look at the results of your organization vs. your competitors over a fairly long period of time certain truths emerge that cannot be explained away by claiming an over abundance of bad luck. To do so shows an almost incomprehensible lack of understanding about how you go about building a team capable of competing for a World Series year in and year out.
It is not random bad luck that with the highest payroll over 20 years we have better results in all 4 of these categories than only Montreal/Washington and Pittsburgh.
T, WOW, I’m totally impressed; let me share whast I gleamed from this. I see it primarily for what I believe is the YANKEE effect.
Consistantly American League Payrolls exceed those in the NL as, I estimate, a residual effect of paying 1 additional big bopper(DH) & needing to compete regularly head2head with NYY throughout the season, primarily as it’s an AL team that typically ends up bidding for the same players as the Yanks.
As the Mets are the one & only NL team so geographically close to NYY it’s easy to determine they are the only one that is as mired in NYY competition as IF an AL team, then most in the NL, as futher proof, even the Phillies, now that they must factor in a potential WS appearance more often than pre ’08(end 25Y drought) have had to factor in a potential extra NYY series(WS) in their roaster calibrations to illustrate my point the Phillies 2007 payroll was set @ $ 89,428,213 the 13TH highest in MLB that season, however, having lost to the NYY in ’09 (4G-2G) after decimating the Rays in ‘;08 4G-1G) Amaro realized he needed to significantly upgrade his roster should he presume to defeat the NYY if/when they met again in the WS that led to increased payroll allocations to $ 141,928,379 for 2010 representing a 60% increase over their prepostseasonal appearance, 2007 level. this new hight for 2010 jumped them from #13 in ’07 to #4 just ahead of #5 NYM for 2010 & 2011 forcasts even higher still.
T, I agree with you regarding injuryies/misfortunes being non valuede excuses for poor performances over time. Howeve I DO CONTEND that aberational seasons as 2009 certainly deserve an * DESIGNATUION FOR ABNORMALCY.
I would also submit as way of explainmation that the Mets are caught between a need to pace with NYY for localized reasons and a rewuiirement to mollify for National League rationales. The result of which tends to cause inflationary spending levels on a select # iof high visibility talents alongside bargain bin options to comprise the supporting/basckup cast of characters on the roster. thus we have potentially established the cause for the humonhous delta betrween NYY payroll & NY< payroll being the quality of depth. If we consider a baseball teams roster, for purposes of visualization, a bagel, the layers, themselves are the cream cheese, while the Yankees lavishly spread an inch thick smear of cream cheese, National League clubs gouing for the more tempered schmear thivk enough side around of a thivkness enough to cover without seein ther bagel through. I see the Wilpons opting to plop a considerable follup over the hole in the center while attempting to spread it outward, sometimes too thinly so as to reveal the brown toasted bagel side through the spread's thinness while naturally losing a sizable amount leakin to the underside through the covered up center hole.
T, WHEW! I believe this explains rthe considerable lack of ROI when compring columns 2,3 & 6.
Thanks ’62, I think it comes down to deciding to continue to use the same primary method of player procurement that has produced those results or moving toward the way successful teams do it.
The argument always goes like this. “You cannot rebuild in New York.” but the reality is that you don’t have to do one or the other. You can compete and build your farm, then fill in around your prospects with guys OTHER THAN type A free agents. Guys that you do not have to pay 15M for and live with no matter what for 5-7 years or that leave you in a hole when they get hurt.
The reality is that the one thing you cannot do in New York is to continue to lose, lose, lose. Rebuilding is a no brainer. There is a very good reason why you never hear anyone under the age of 25 say “I was raised a Met Fan.”
Their all NYY fans because of the 17 out of the last 20 years we haven’t thrown a bash in October and the NYY do every single year.
With our payroll, revenue from SNY, and all the other advantages we have there is no reason we can’t get the best talent from the draft and IFA and then fill in behind it with reasonable talent that doesn’t bog us down in money or years.
Get the superstars from YOUR farm and fill in around them with plan B free agents, the occasional non tender or rule 5, smart trades from your farms surplus and when you’ve taken care of the starting 8 the bench and filled the pen with some good young arms trade for an ace, get one (or two) through free agency and have them join the one or two young “aces to be” coming up from your system.
Don’t tell me it can’t be done. Atlanta’s been operating that way for over 20 years now. Philadelphia’s recent success is based on this model. Boston is building their team exactly this way. Texas, Tampa Bay, KC, Pittsburgh, NYY, Boston are all going over slot to get the best players in the draft while we continue to spend draft choices on pitchers who bust one right after the other or expensive older players on the last 3, 4 or 5 years of their career’s.
If we had switched to a prospect first strategy and refrained from giving away any draft choices and employed strategies like Boston and Toronto in order to pick up extra draft choices and went hard in the international free agent market we would be having the success enjoyed by Boston, NYY Atlanta and Philly. If we don’t change now the next 20 years are going to be worse than the last. You can count on it.
OK, T, the gloves are now off, be honest u’re complaing mainly about how the Mets have been going about player acquisition only since 2005′s hiring of Minaya, who’s fired a non contuinuing entity, yet u choose to somehow prove your point by using 20-25 yrs of data? those bigh ticket free agents u are constantly vomiting on did not populate the rosters prior to 2000 let alone back in the 90s. so let’s reduce the data only to what every team has done since ’00 the 21st Century! Fair?
Look I don’t know about u; but I’ll admit to being damned supeised & proud when Omar landed Pedro then still went hunting for Beltran & Delgado, unprecedented in NYM history & you know what? whether fans,neg nellies or not liked it or hated it Not one word was typed lamenting the lost picks.
If your right ’62, about the Wilpon needing to (or feeling that he needs to) keep pace with the NYY I would say he is only succeeding at putting more distance between the two.
The NYY are best compared to some of the huge European soccer teams like Barca, Man United and have no business being involved in the NY Met decision making process.
The NYY went through the same exact proven to fail 19 out of 20 times strategy that we have been employing since 1991. They went through it from 1979 – 1995 and the man responsible for the turn around was only able to do it after the owner was suspended from MLB.
Considering just how many mistakes the NYY have made in the free agent market with guys like Wright, Irabu, Pavano, Burnett, The other Japanese guy, just think how many MORE mistakes they may have made if it weren’t for all their homegrown players and how many MORE prospects they wouldn’t have had if they had to fork over so many MORE draft choices.
The Mets OWNED this town from 1969 – 1975 and again from 1984 – 1991. We also had a good run from 1997-2001 and one bright spot in 2006 so we know we can compete with the NYY. What we have to do is determine a successful plan and stick with it and we can compete with anyone.
Qualifying for the playoffs 3 times in 20 years is competing with Pittsburgh and Washington.
T, IF I’m right? are u kidding me? have u listened to SNY lately? read a NY paper? like it or not, we’re located besides the single most successful sports franchise in history. That was true before we ever existed & it’s as true today despite CBS’ attempts to marginalize them to the history books.
HEEL, our first GM(George Weiss) & mngr(Stengal) was compliments of the Bronx inhanitants. Wher’d u think those stripes on the home unis came from?
As long as there are backpages in NY newspapers and separate turnstyles, u have to admit, like it or not there will always be comparisons. Was the sinmultaneous christening of new homes coincidental? For decades the Yanks have deliberately endeavored to bury us whether we attempt to fight back or not. who are you? The Neville Chamberlain of Baseball?lol Don’t u ever wonder what became of the Mayor’s trophy game & NYY/NYM ST games? the answer to their demise certainly is NOT Interleague play!it was more Met manipulations by Yanks, nothing more, nothing less. Back in the late 70s the rare appearance of NYM officials with shopping baskets in the F/A market targeted Dave Winfield to be their very first big acquisition & we were said to be the favored destination of the perennial NL AllStar, until the Boss read the papers & despite their being frequent shoppers they chose to derail our one moment in the sunshine/spotlight. Both NY clubs offerred reportedly the same remuneration & term; however that history of success broke the tie & as we all know Dave Winfield went on to possibly maske the single worst decision of his career in choosing what he saw as the easier path to jewelry.A few years later, NYM endeavored a similar excursion to break their “big” F/A cherry with George Foster & despite no big apparent need, their sprung up again competitive NYY interet to scale up the cost.
No, T, we don’t have to look to compete with those damned Yankees now do we?
Personally my position is that I bsicly ignore them except for 6G/yr which is easy for me here in NC.
’62, Nothing gets better back page press than winning. If the goal was just winning we wouldn’t have thrown away so many draft choices on players who turned out to be useless, injured or both. We also wouldn’t have been more preoccupied with cost instead of talent when we did keep the picks.
If we hadn’t done either of those two things the Yankees would be the laughing stock next to their younger more successful and infinitely more popular younger brother.
T, I’m getting tired of everyone lamenting the “lost” Wagner picks, BTW In consideration of reality & not fantasy “what ifs”, I fully understand & support the Wagner deal. What value do those picks have if slot considerations deny u the best available talents with them,(see your dissertation on the ’07 draft results) BTW T, due to slot considerations u can tear up each and every one of those charts whereby u reflect upon what amateurs we may have selected. Considering the result would’ve most likely led to another Eddie Kunz or some such, the few million saved added to the MiLBers we got far outweigh the pick likelies. As, u yiourself have aptly & accurately surmised the emphasis on the amateur draft& development process by the NYM suffered considerably under the Phillips’ regime; however despite his departure DO NOT underestimate the fact that Phillips was most likely Jeff’s baseball mentor. The simple proof of that was Jeff’s orders to Duquette not to add cash to any departing vet contract despite the liklihood of increasing the talent level of the prospects received. RULE #542 of the Phillips Code of wheeling & dealing(lol)
“What value do those picks have if slot considerations deny u the best available talents with them,”
You assume that every one of the picks made by teams that were successful mlb players were only due to overslot then. If you really believe this i suggest do the legwork and prove it to be so.
Until then you are clearly speculating.
North, right on point A, wrong on point B, our picks are mostly worthless because they either must skip over a choice they believe is demanding too much or risk losing it altogether ala JD Drew yrs back w/PHL,Boras
I’m not assunming they’re all poached, merely pointing out some are/were as a dispute against your claims that “Boston did well with lower picks; perhaps it implied lower talent which it wasn’t in fact. BTW the BOSOX were the first to exploit this loophole(to their credit) NYY subsequently followed & primarily the two of them are the motivation for the GUIDELINES IN THE FIRST PLACE.
It certainly, if u think about it explains how these 2 juggernauts of the F/A marketplace could continually unveil ubertalented rookies at the same time they’re finishing either 1,2 with regularity, where else do u believe ALL of these young studs are coming from? With ALL the methods in place to thwart the richer clubs from becoming fat on F/A simultaneously with having the select choices in amateur backfills something obviously ewasn’t functioning as designed!
I credit Theo with having the vision to be so creative a plan that I believe rivals Moneyball in creativity & effectiveness. What Moneyball is to the frugal, Overslotting is to the extravagent aggressor
He still has to pick which players he thinks will be good mlb players.
None of his picks were can’t miss stars when they were drafted. they may have been highly ranked but so are many players in the draft that never see the light of day on a mlb playing field let alone excelling to the point they help the team contend for a title.
That he picked the players he did that did make it is what needs to be recognized.
Paying overslot (which i still cant say for any certainty that he did with the players that did make the mlb team) for said players only shows he feels they are a worthy investment not an assurance that they will be a mlb player.
MNJ when you look at the guys that we have actually DRAFTED and then NOT SIGNED since 1981 it is staggering the talent that we have actually successfully projected, and yet we then failed to follow up by getting them into our system.
Cleamons, Rafeal Palmeiro, Matt Williams, John Wettland, John Olerud, Scott Erickson, Mark Grudzeilanek, Darren Erstadt, Aaaron Rowand, Garrett Atkins, Jeremy Guthrie, David DeJesus.
Think any of these players could have made a difference?
They were identified by our Scouting Department, we drafted them, Why not sign them? Sure some want to go to college but that’s why you go over slot. YOU PAY THEIR COLLEGE BECAUSE THEIR GIVING UP FULL BOAT SCHOLORSHIPS.
They also believe that in 3 years they’ll be drafted in a lower round and will command a bigger bonus, SO YOU SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE.
Getting the best talent here, all together, in it’s prime and putting the saved millions of dollars into the Lee’s, Halliday’s, Sabathia’s and rounding out the rotation with Pinero’s, Pelfrey’s or Nieses’ is infinitely better than blindly adhearing to Bud’s slotting system that no one else with a brain in their head does.
’62, What do Roger clemons, Rafeal Palmeiro, Matt Williams, John Wettland, John Olerud, Scott Erickson, Mark Grudzielanek, Todd Jones, Darren Dreifort and Dan Wilson have in common?
They were ALL drafted by Cashen and NOT signed by the Mets.
What do Rick Helling, Darren Erstadt, Aaron Rowand, Garrett Atkins, Jeremy Guthrie and David Dejesus all have in common?
They were all drafted by Hunnsiker, Harazin or Mcillvaine and NOT signed by the Mets.
Phillips didn’t have one guy in 6 years of drafts that we did not sign, nor did he have 1 single guy that his scouting dept identified AND drafted that did one single thing in the Major Leagues except for Pagan, Wright, Kazmir, Bannister and if you want to include Heilman.
This is the reason why we always have so many holes to fill year after year.
The Wilpon’s won’t sign guys even when we actually identify AND draft them. So the plan has shifted away from the draft and left us reaching for who ever happens to be available each and every year.
Those guys I mentioned above drafted by Cashen, Hunsiker, Harazin and Mcillvaine were found in rounds 8, 12, 27, the 40′s.
If we had signed the guys Cashen drafted the late 80′s teams would have been refreshed and competed into the late 90′s.
Argueably if we had signed Darren Erstadt in ’92 we would have had a line up of Timo, Fonz, Olerud, Piazza, Ventura, Erstadt, Benny, Ordonez in 2000. If we had just signed that one guy.
The money, time, effort, planning and preperation must begin on the farm and the fans have to hold ownership accountable because their too damn cheap unless there’s a press conferance attatched to the check.
Thanks to whomever made this chart because it shows how incompetently this team has been run. These results are a disgrace and the Wilpons need to moce on because this team needs owners who care about winning and have a clue about getting results. You know whats sad is that the new so-called savior Alderson will only add another under .500 season to that chart this season and maybe next season as well when Beltran, Pelfrey and Reyes all walk and we sign $1.5 million dollar players to replace them.
the owners really only authorize the money. The GM spends it. So to some extent, the same owners finally hiring a GM with a big picture, LT plan, clue is a huge step in the right direction.
Probably though they have always been limited by a “win now” philosophy, leading to a lot of moves for the ST. Much more likely to have boom/bust cycles operating that way.
That exactly it ANY. The focus is always on trying to fix last years mistakes with whoever happens to either be made available through a trade or whoever happens to be a free agent.
Didn’t hit many HR’s last year? Vacancy in LF? Get Floyd, give up draft choice, (could have been Scott Baker, Andre Ethier or Shawn Marcum) Get Alou, give up draft choice (could have been the Marlins Mike Stanton in RF for years to come) Rookie infielder experiment is over sign Bay, give up draft choice (who knows who it could have been) Approximately 125M to three LFers over 11 seasons.
This is the top reason in my opinion for the incredible number of not just losing seasons but 90+ losing season we have experienced over the last 20 years and the reason we always have so many “holes to fill.”
If any other business was run with such a short term vision they’d be out of business. Come to think of it…..
We see it’s certainly not the amount of money spent. Forget the luck. You’d have to look at the management all the way down the line. Did they spend wisely? Not for Bobby Bonilla or Ollie Perez, among others. Did they make bad choices–like Mo Vaughn and Robbie Alomar at the end of their career? There were way too many of those (all the way back to Jim Fregosi). Scouting? I’ve long said the Mets have had a lame farm and scouting system. For all the “great” pitchers like Tim Leary and 5 tool players like Lastings Milledge…..well, my favorite illustration is still: the Yankees signed HIDEKI Matsui; the Mets signed KAZ Matsui.
When you look at what Theo Epstein has done in Boston since he took over in 2002 compared to the Mets the last 20 years it’s. just depressing.
2003
4th rd: Jonathan Papelbon
2004
2nd rd: Dustin Pedroia
2005
1st rd: Jacoby Ellsbury (Compensation Pick from Angels for Free Agent Orlando Cabrera)
1st rd: Craig Hansen (Compensation Pick from Dodgers for Free Agent Derek Lowe)
1st rd Supplemental: Clay Buchholz (Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Pedro Martinez)
2006
1st rd: Daniel Bard (Compensation Pick from Yankees for Free Agent Johnny Damon)
Boston has made a science out of obtaining guys by letting free agents go BEFORE their shelf life expires.
Cabrera, Renteria, Damon, Lowe, Martinez, Floyd, V. Martinez, Beltre, Bay, Wagner. All these guys left behind TWO prospects.
The free agents we sign never make it to type A or rarely even type B status. They usually just fade away and we are oftentimes glad to see them leave.
On those extremely rare instances that we do have a type A free agent leaving we either give him (and the two picks) away for a DH or draft a couple of pitchers who, as usual, almost always bust despite having a 40 year vacancy in LF and a 25 year vacancy in RF.
Is it really any wonder how we wound up with GMJ, Jacobs, Cattalanotto, Sullivan, Reed, Hessman, Feliciano, Sheffield, Francouer, Arias, Cora or Santos (not to mention 2 20 year old’s) on our team?
We ran out of players. Plain and simple.
Those are very good points on our Type A or B players and the vacancy we’ve had at multiple positions for years and decades.
After all that’s coming out now about the Wilpons and Madoff, I wonder how much influence they had in the decision to save a million, by trading Wagner for scraps.
My opinion is that Wagner was sold because either Jeff told Omar too or Omar knew that Jeff would want him too. No GM in their right mind would have made that trade. TWO first round draft choices or a DH? Hmmmm, tough decision.
I also believe that Omar ditched our #1 pick in 2007 either with the Wilpon’s consent or at their insistence.
We had two type a free agents that we let go the prior year. Roberto Hernandez and Chad Bradford. Normally a type A free agent gives back to the team he’s leaving a draft choice anywhere from 17-30 OR 40-57 PLUS an extra pick around 31-40 or so.
With those two pitchers expected to get us 4 picks between 17 – 60 Omar GAVE AWAY our #1 pick (29th overall) BEFORE the Giants had to decide to offer arbitration to Alou in my opinion simply to save having to pay the highest signing bonus.
There just wouldn’t be any other reason for Omar to sign Alou before the arbitration offer deadline.
Turning a #1 draft choice into a 40 year old left fielder will get you old in a hurry and is exactly the type of move that is responsible for the type of results we have had over the last 20 years.
The Guys we did draft with the picks we kept. Eddie Kunz – College relief pitcher BUST, Nate Vineyard LHP CasheD the check and quit after 30 innings. BUST Scott Moviel RHP BUST and Brant Rustich RHP BUST, Eric Niesen LHP Loogy potential at best.
Left on the table were plenty of good players who will be helping their teams for years to come (the first 3 of which they’ll be making 415K for) but we gave away the best on pick on purpose and used the one’s we kept to select pitchers who busted as usual because we want to remain bud’s with our Bud, Bud Selig and select the players who will come the cheapest. Talent, upside, projectability that stuff doesn’t matter, what matters is will they sign as cheaply as possible or better yet can we give away our draft pick.
T, sorry; but u can count the number of NY baseball executives who worry about amateur picks with your nose()Cashman) & that’s only lately(mostly lipservice by NYY as Soriano signing proves)
You have better odds @ Roulette than Draft. Yawn! I’m growing bored with your philosophical bent. Sorry; but betting on the come relying on unprovens is NOT a more certain solution thaN WE’VE BEEN TRYING.We know 3 things at this point;1) farm development ONLY fails, 2) u can’t buy a successful NY franchise with guarantee WS title 3) there will be new owners in Flushing before this year’s picks are ready fo the Majors.
THE nEW yORK mETS UNTIL oMAr took the GM job have typically been the least inviolved in big F/A player teams amoung the major markets. how’d that workout? better? Prior to Pedro the ONLY big F/A we successfully pursued & inked was George Foster how’d that turn out? better or worse than homegrown George Theodore? BTW u never talk about the Theodores,the Agbayanis, why is that? Stantons Heywards No Straussberg? If U R truly being honest they(the flotsam) outnumber the stars u namedrop 100 to 1, historically speaking.
Just proves how awful of an organization the Mets have been from top to bottom. It’s time for the Wilpon’s to sell and allow this franchise to start over.
Guess what agee, instead of wasting your obviously “valuable” time you should have just written “METS SUCK”. The whole world already knew it. And just think all the little metsies thanking you are obviously just as dumb as you are. Yes, little metsies you are, have been and apparently will always be the laughingstock of the baseball world. SAVE YOUR WILPONS. KEEP THE JOKE ALIVE.
Opening Day at the Shea Apple don’t forget. You can finally use those Pom-Poms you ordered for your coming out party.
I know can’t wait.
Don’t hold your breath, this troll is a real tough guy behind a keyboard. What a lowlife.
The thing that stands out to me from that data is the performance of the Atlants Braves. For about 10% less spending than the Mets, they have achieved outstanding results with only 3 instances of subperformance in the first two categories combined and 29 occurrences of excellence in the last two categories combined. As a Mets fan, I’m sad to say congratulations to that organization, but it’s true and they deserve it. They have outscored the Mets by a combined total of 37 in those four categories. The franchise of Scheuerholz, Bobby Cox, and Chipper appears to claim the prize. The flags have been flying high in Atlanta and have set the standard for excellence in the NL. Apparently, that is where the Mets need to look for example.
Having Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, and Co for all those years helps too
Absolutely. They had some powerful horses to carry them to their history of success. In comparison, for Mets fans ’86 is now a long time ago. Unfortunately, the road ahead is very long and filled with many curves and pitfalls along the way. It’s not easy being a Mets fan; it requires courage and a heavy dose of fortitude and loyalty.
If you think that Maddox, Glavine and Smoltz had a lot to do with the Braves success over the last 20 years then you must be of the belief that they could have done the same for us, and you would be right.
We could have drafted any of them, a couple of times, and one of them 21 times.
Maddox and Glavine both were drafted in the 2nd round in 1984. (along with Al Leiter) We drafted Shawn Abner #1 pick of the first round and Lorenzo Sisney with the first pick of the 2nd round, but we could have drafted them. Both of them, and in the same round in which we gave away our pick for Pedro and Bay. The same round in which Dustin Pedroia, Brian McCann, Mike Stanton and Jon Lester were drafted in. The main difference between those guys and the free agents we signed, other than cost of course, is that the teams got the best years of the players they drafted. We got the worst professional years of Pedro Martinez and undoubtably will get the same from Jason Bay.
When you keep your draft picks you never know who you might wind up with.
John Smoltz was drafted in the 22nd round of the 1985 draft. We selected someone else 21 times. John Smoltz was also traded after two years in the minors for pitching help (Doyle Alexander) down the stretch.
We could have traded for him although it probably wouldn’t have made any sense in 1985 as we didn’t have any older pitchers on that staff and we were in a dogfight with the Cardinals that year, but we still could have.
The point was, and is that there are any number of things that we COULD HAVE done or SHOULD HAVE done but because we didn’t, the last 20 years, even with the highest payroll in the NL returned somewhere between the 12th and 13th best results in a 16 team field.
That is due to nothing other than poor organizational decisions time and time again.
i read half about what u said then i had to sit down and help u through this. your foist point about glavine,maddox and smoltz helping the braves win was very good. what u forget to say is maddox was a fee agent signed by the braves. (u know free agency your mortal enemy).smoltz was drafted by i think the tigers and traded for by the braves. u forget to mention this because that series of facts would have destroyed your points against free agency.by the way how did the maddox,a rod,reggie jackson,piazza,catfish,cc et all do for those teams that(CLOSE YOUR EYES) signed them. the mets u might remember passed on a rod i am sure u were probally the only met fan at that time happy about that,pardner!!!!!!!just to make u feel a little better the mets passed on drafting reggie jackson too.see the thing u fail to realize is to draft properly today u need good scouts and the guts to pay big money to highly touted prospects.u earlier mentioned izzy…wasn’t he drafted as an outfielder…not only didn’t the mets know he was a relief pitcher…they d idn’t know he was a hurler period.
Did not know that about Izzy. You sure baby al? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I think I did mention Smoltz was traded after being in the Tigers minor league system for 2 years.
How many rings do those expensive free agent’s you mentioned have between them? Four? Wow!
Lastly I am in favor of free agency for starting pitchers. I love the way the Braves acquired their big three. One from the draft, one from trading an old pitcher for a prospect and one by going free agency.
I like the idea of free agency for pitchers after you have a good starting 8, some depth, a bench and some arms in the pen for a number of reasons. First of all you avoid the high bust rate (especially our staggering bust rate) Second, you get them when they already KNOW how to pitch. Third, they operate more independently than position players and fourth, the position doesn’t call for skills that decline as quick as playing defense or running the bases and pitchers don’t play everyday either.
Overall I am a big believer in drafting position players in the first few rounds then dealing the surplus off as well as adding a couple of front line aces through free agency when you are ready to win.
baby al your right about maddux and smoltz but I am gonna take a leap here and guess that T Agee is not saying trades or free agency should never be used cause they are evil.
What you omitted was while yes Maddux was a free agent signing and Smoltz was a trade that at the time Smoltz was in AAA still so the Braves saw something in him and they though right cause as we Mets fans know all too well he killed us many times.
Yet the Braves success due to how well the draft is far greater than that. Here is a lil refresher.
Tom Glavine: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 2nd round of the 1984 amateur draft.
Steve Avery: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 1st round (3rd pick) of the 1988 amateur draft.
Mike Stanton: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 13th round of the 1987 amateur draft.
Kent Mercker: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 1st round (5th pick) of the 1986 amateur draft.
Mark Wohlers: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 8th round of the 1988 amateur draft.
David Justice: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 4th round of the 1985 amateur draft.
Javy Lopez: Signed by the Atlanta Braves as an amateur free agent in 1987
Chipper Jones: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 1st round (1st pick) of the 1990 amateur draft.
Ryan Klesko: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 5th round of the 1989 amateur draft.
Andruw Jones: Signed by the Atlanta Braves as an amateur free agent in 1993
Kevin Millwood: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 11th round of the 1993 amateur draft
John Rocker: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 18th round of the 1993 amateur draft.
Adam LaRoche: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 29th round of the 2000 amateur draft.
John Smoltz: Traded by the Detroit Tigers to the Atlanta Braves for Doyle Alexander.
Face it the Mets pale in comparison to this. If we drafted half as good we may have won a W.S. by now
Met related, go back to the strong rotation in 1986.
2 guys the mets drafted and developed.
2 more guys that were stolen from the teams that had drafted them (with no ML time, or very little on a sept. call up).
1 more guy that was a ML vet on a trade, but one that was just hitting the prime age range, and had never fully put it together.
so in every case, the Mets were the team that recognized the talent, and got the (cheap) production years out of it.
I consider trading for ML guys effectively the same as drafting them yourself. Even better when you can draft your own, then essentially “steal” other teams draft picks (after signing bonuses paid!) by giving them aging spare parts back!
Agreed alwaysnextyear
ANY, You either need a farm system to get other teams prospects OR you need to subtract from the 25 man roster. One or the other or preferably both if the opportunity presents itself.
Mazzili “Me for two minor leaguers?” got us Darling and Terrill who then got us Hojo.
Ojeda cost us Gardner and Schiraldi.
We traded Bob Bailor from the 25 man roster for Sid Fernandez who was in the minors and drafted Rick Aguilera in the 3rd round.
Since the Wilpon arrived as a full 50% partner we have only sought to trade prospects for ML ready talent, never the other way around. No one can deny that we have been successful in many of these trades but had we not been we wouldn’t even have 3 post season appearances in the last 20 years.
We have repeatedly borrowed from the future (either in prospects, draft choices or deferring payroll away from future years) in order to address THIS YEAR and never looked beyond THIS YEAR. And even at that we still have had more under .500 seasons than winning ones over the last 20 years.
That approach obviously hasn’t worked for us in the present and has certainly cost us in the future as well.
It is time for a change in organizational philosophy. If not now, when?
T, u criticize for;”Since the Wilpon arrived as a full 50% partner we have only sought to trade prospects for ML ready talent, never the other way around”
T, here’s the primary reason why… either we don’t have the excess MLB talent someone might want or we are in obvious dumping mode as Duquette was in unloading Phillips’ gems as ordered by Jeff. The best time for these types of transactions are the offseason not inseason periods. Duquette left Minaya with no depth either on the MiLB system or the MLB roster. thogh Minaya did creatively deal Yoshii
’62, Minaya had some room to operate and did some things well. Yoshi and Seo were good examples of Omar’s prperly evaluating talent going forward.
Omar was also not in a position where he had to “live with” anyone and was able to spend 200 M in his first year. Beltran 118, Pedro 54 M and attempted to get Delgado 60 M.
Omar didn’t have much of a farm but he did have Reyes and Wright and the cash to do what he wanted.
The real reason we can never subtract from the 25 is we just have too many spots to fill from too many wasted draft choices and rarely have anyone coming up the pipeline.
No One coming up the pipeline?
I mean Niese, Pelfrey, Davis, Thole, Kirk, Mejia, Flores equals no one?
Dude I mean I understand the truth of what you said in the 90′s but you can’t say in 6 years of Minaya Rule that we had NO ONE!
And if Beltran, Bay and our Pitchers didn’t get hurt that would have been enough hitting to get to to the playoffs last year!
Metsie I have said more than once that I believe Minaya’s legacy may come down to some of these Baby Mets he left the org b4 he was fired.
Niese, Pelfrey, Davis, Thole, Kirk, Mejia, Flores, Duda are players right now that outside of Pelfrey who has established himself imo have potential to become established everyday MLB Players.
Yet Tag is saying there is no one!
You have to give Minaya some credit for trying to do things the way Tag suggests!
But he got fired for doing so! Not because the owners didn’t like him but because the media pressure in NY is so great that owners of both teams plan more to take the backpage than to win long term.
With every year the story being who needs to go there is NO CONSISTENCY and long term commitment to anyone person or plan.
And if Sandy manages to win with all those guys Minaya collected then you can’t say it only took Sandy an offseason to build a winner!
Which is what Tag seems to suggest by ignoring all the years the Phillies and Braves sucked when we were the dominant team!
The results when Minaya here was terrible, The results of the years before cashen were terrible too. But not every player that helped build that team were picks of cashen!
The guy we traded for hernandez was a holdover from before Cashen took over!
Niel Allen came up the year before cashen got here.
Cashen also traded Mazzilli to get steals. Those players we had developed in the previous regieme were the players we used to GET THOSE homegrown guys we had.
Just as it was the ton of loosing in Phillie that allwed them to pile up enough players to make moves with the farm to get the Rollins and harens of thier squad.
In the proccess of losing they had quite a few top draft picks head their way which were then traded or developed into the homegrown talent.
Merely starting the evaluation of when they got here does not take into account the state of the farm at the time!
If we should win a WS this year (highly doubtful but lets say it happens) Will it be Sandy’s approach or the fact that Omar’s approach finally came to an up cycle?
And lets take it further…
Say we have success the next two years and then lose dominance like in the 80′s.
Will it be because Omar’s plan was wrong or because Sandy didn’t know how to implement a plan that was working and doesn’t work anymore because the guys who implemented it and made it go are no longer with the franchise?
Cashen retired and we were still pretty competitive, was it because Harrazin was good or because cashen was?
If Cashen had stayed and davey had too then that would have been our decade of dominance and the Braves decade might have never happened!
But the location we run the club in is a toxic one and always requestiing change. And that change is what kills the consistency.
Cox had a decade to do what he wanted and thats why they were pretty much the same team for a decade!
Th approach was the same and so were many of the players. Which meant consistency in the farm and all throughout the organization!
Thats why they lasted a decade and we didn’t!
Within 5 years of dominating the league there was no one from that year left in charge!
“And if Sandy manages to win with all those guys Minaya collected then you can’t say it only took Sandy an offseason to build a winner!”
I think most open minded and fair individuals will give Minaya his fair share of credit the same as Gene Michael was given credit when the Yankees won when Brian Cashmen was GM.
I know I will.
Minaya got fired for not following through with his plan when he 1st took over. If you read this post I did back in Sept 2010 you will see why I am saying that.
realdirtymets.com/2010/09/23/where-did-minaya-go-wrong/
He said he wanted to rebuild the farm….then went and bought players. Those two are not in conflict until you can say he failed to build the farm….
Davis, Niese, Mejia, Thole, Gee, Flores, Kirk, is not a good rebuilding in his tenure considering we did not wind up with a good pick position until two injury plagued seasons?
My problem (and not saying you nor am I referring to Tag either) is that people make the few BAD things and blow them out of proportion then downplay all the Good just because they want to be able to say FIRE HIM!
Perez and castillo note how they are always lumped together because 20 Mil sounds much better than 12 or 8. Is castillo a bungle? at 8 Mil?
He screwed up with Wagner. Lost a SUPPLEMENTARY 1st round pick. One player if we hit you add one guy to the list i posted above.
We signed some FAs and probably gave up a few picks. We traded away a quick farm for a quick competitiveness…AND IT WORKED!
We still got as many guys as we have and who knows how many more are down in Brooklyn who just had a great year!
To say Minaya did not do as he said he would is unfair!
The Injuries forced us to bring some guys up a little sooner than we would have liked but last year is rock solid evidence that Minaya thought he had rebuilt his farm and was ready to bring it up. Thats why he didn’t go and buy at the deadline. because they were worth MORE to him than any BUY he could get! Thats pretty solid dedication to your farm, you may not think much of them but Omar did!
And here they come!
It may lead to a decade of dominance if he was right!
But OUR impatience and the imnpatience in the press who demanded heads roll ruined any consistency he was about to have.
And no way to sustain it unless Sandy runs the same plan. and in 20 years I hope I don’t have to defend what the guy after Sandy did because we got rid of the guy who made Sandy successful in 5 years!
“To say Minaya did not do as he said he would is unfair!”
Metsie I will have to disagree. To me Minaya went away from his plan. In my post I quote Minaya to say,
“The plan is to build a championship team based on pitching and defense, with youth, speed and athleticism, while re-emphasizing our scouting and player-development efforts. As for timing, we have a dual focus: on an immediate impact in 2005, but also on a sustained period of success. The plan involves not only changes on the field but also a change in the organization’s overall mind-set and culture. ” It goes on to say “Our solid core of young players – Beltran (27 years old), José Reyes (21), David Wright (22) and Kazuo Matsui (29), among others – provides a base for long-term success. These players embody the elements of our strategy for success. Within the next five to six years, we plan to add similar impact players from our minor league system, while our core players are still within their prime years. ”
2010 was Minaya’s 6th season and he failed to build a championship team. He came close early in 2006 but only went backwards after that not forward.
Pelfrey was a high #1. One out of 20 pans out Whoppty doo. Other teams ROUTINELY add starting pitchers drafted in the first 10 picks of the first round. The Giants have three of them plus Cain #25 1st round.
Newenhaus is most likely Ryan Church, not Heyward. Thole didn’t hit enough to play 1B so was moved to catcher and will always need a platoon partner. Flores is going to have to hit enough when he comes up here AND learn a new position at the same time as many of our prospects are asked to do.
Davis was a #16 1st round pick. Some of them HAVE to work out simply due to the law of averages.
Mejia appears to be a very capable IFA find but has been mishandled as usual due to there not being ENOUGH capable prospects in the system.
Omar was a huge beneficiary of Phillips drafting/signing of Reyes and Wright.
Phillips was a huge beneficiary of Alfonzo, Ordonez and Olerud.
Sandy inherited some people that might work out down the road but he also inherited a disjointed team with a couple of highly compensated useless lard asses too.
How do the names from our 2007 draft grab you?
1st round: Eddie Kunz RHP BUST
Spplement: Nate Vineyard LHP, cashed the check and quit after 30 innings. (comp for Bradford)
2nd Round: Scott Moviel RHP BUST (comp for Hernandez)
2nd Round: Brant Rustich RHP BUST
3rd Round: Eric Niesen LHP upside LOOGY comp for Bradford
3rd Round: Steven Cline RHP BUST
This is only one draft and yet out of 6 guys we MIGHT get a LOOGY. Wow!
The one thing they all have in common is they were not over slot selections. We make sure not to overpay players who’s best years are ahead of them.
This was also the draft in which we VOLUNTARILY gave away our #1 draft choice for 100 games of Moises Alou which very easily could have been Starting pitcher Tommy Hunter or right fielder Mike Stanton. But who needs one of those, we’ve been doing just fine with Greene, Church, Francouer and Feliciano.
Maybe Werth will be available in seven years.
The 2007 Draft?
Do you realize your actually making my point citing that draft?
WHO was the best team in baseball in 2006 and consequently picked LAST in each round of the 2007 draft?
The last 1st round pick is hardly any better than the first pick in the 2nd round when push comes to shove!
the mets do pale in comparison…that is my core point. this ownership group couldn’t do anything right…thats why they have to go.(translated be destroyed by Picard).after 30 years of freddye wilponzie and his hires its time to end the madness.if this team didn’t sign free agents over the years we would have zero hope like this year.root hard for Picard and then pray for an owner who wants to win …not just make money to feed to bernie madoff…to make more money for himself(like wilponzie).as we start this season i am following another team…..Team Picard.
Baby Al, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every single GM the Wilpons have ever hired (aside from Mcillvaine) have employed the exact same guaranteed to fail, crash or burn strategy. I wonder if their attorney’s will be employing the same strategy if they go to trial. If they do seats could get mighty expensive in Brooklyn. You might want to put yours on stub hub for the final summations.
I am also sick and effin tired of having false hope. I lost that a few years ago. I want 90+ win seasons 10 out of 20 years bare minimum.
With the kind of money that a 90+ win team brings in at the gate parking lot, concessions and add revenue off SNY it shouldn’t be too difficult but you simply cannot fix last years ills by throwing money at another new guy every year.
You have got to get a reasonable flow of talented players coming up here BEFORE they establish themselves, not after their on their last legs.
AGEE I BELIEVE THE WILPONZIES DO THROW MONEY AT A PLAYER A YEAR TO STIR UP INTEREST AND SELL TICKETS( AND TO PLAY MEANINGFULL GAMES IN SEPTEMBER).WHEN U HAVE ZERO TALENT DRAFTING PLAYERS OVER 30 YEARS THAT IS SOMETHING NECESSARY TO PEAK THE FANS INTEREST FOR THE UPCOMING SEASON.THE WILPONZIE MOB HAS BEEN A FAILURE IN EVERYTHING BASEBALL EXCEPT MAKING MONEY BY BSING A FAN GROUP THAT CAN’T SEE THE FOREST FROM THE TREES.FOR THE PAST 30 YEARS THE WILPONZIE FORMULA HAS BEEN SIMPLE:HAVE MEANINGFULL GAMES IN SEPTEMBER WHICH WILL BRING MEANINGFULL MONIES TO INVEST WITH BERNIE MADOFF.OH YEAH,LAUGH ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK(I MEAN PONZIE SCAM).
I agree Baby Al, It’s really just a baseball version of a Ponzi scheme. After awhile you have too much invested in it to let it go so despite ever more diminishing returns you just keep throwing more and more money at the thing.
That might explain why the farm system was never really considered as the primary source of player procurement. It was nice and all but it took too long to begin paying dividends and didn’t attract additional investors at ticket selling time.
I’m still at a loss to understand why almost every single high draft choice pitching bust was able to cart off some of the loot via their signing bonus.
I wonder why Picard’s not going after them, after all they could have, or should have, known too.
They throw money because people boycott games and guys like Harry post once a day about how EVIL the wilpons are for not going and spending another 60 Mil a year!
because the press keeps acting as agents for FAs and write inccessantly about how we REALLY need to spend 130 Million over 7 years on a 32 year old pitcher!
There really is too much temperature taking by the FO for a long time now. They seem more into getting the guy that will grab headlines and sell tickets in April and May rathe than field a team that will sell tickets in the second half, into October and over the next 3 or 4 years.
You’d think people that made billions off the real estate market would understand the value of patience.
“Baby Al, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every single GM the Wilpons have ever hired (aside from Mcillvaine) have employed the exact same guaranteed to fail, crash or burn strategy.”
Did Cashen do that? He was their guy!
He was the last one to build a team from the ground up and it took him 5 years to create and about a year and a half to take down.
It’s not the owners it is the LOCATION that causes the turmoil and lack of patience to build a winner!
Willie got us to within one game of a WS how long did he last?
Valentine got us INTO a WS, How long did those players and Valentine last?
Manuel got us to the point we could make the playoffs if we won one lousy game, How long did he last?
The problem isn’t the ownership’s hiring it is the insistence on firing anyone when they fall a game or two short of expectations!
People here EVERYDAY want Wright and Beltran and Reyes sent packing because they have not lived up to their expectations despite making the All star team in just about every year we have had them under contract and they were healthy.
Yet people want them to be sent packing!
THATS why we don’t have home grown talent because this city wants a rotisserie roster just like the Yankees, Thats why we spend because the people and the press want to see a 200 Mil payroll and a constantly rotating roster…
Not the ownership’s lack of a plan or bad hiring of GMs.
Because the bottom line is the WIlpons at every turn have done what we want!
If they really want to fix it they need to stop listening to everyone who has access to spread an opinion and just let the GM do his job and implement his plan regardless of what the press and bloggers think about it!
THEN we will have a home grown team with some All Stars surrounding them and we will dominate for a decade maybe two!
Cashen did it through the farm Metsie and he was hired when the Wilpon only had 1% of the team. I think Nelson probably made that call and then stood aside while Cashen went about his thing.
You make a good point about continuity on the part of the managers. I thought Willie did a good job and it wasn’t until Bernazard stated whispering in Delgado’s ear in the club house that things started going wrong.
The press always wants a story. If they don’r have something to write about they’ll write about that, invent something, start some s**t. Whatever. Gotta have 3 columns a week. No one has proven to be more reactive to the media and fan sentiment than the Wilpon but how stupid can you be? To wreck your business trying to do things the same way the Yankees did for 15 unsuccessful years. What morons.
Four years of spending 99% of the attention, time and effort on the farm would begin a prospect flow up here that would prevent us from having so many GMJ’s, Catalanotto’s, Jacobs, Cora, Sullivan, feliciano, Hessman, Reed, Sheffield, Castillo, Perez, Francouer, Alou, El Duque, Pedro, Wagner and all the other guys that either didn’t play well, weren’t able to stay on the field or both.
F**k the press. Not every fan is an impatient monkey. Everyone knows HOW we did it in the early 80′s and what that translated into. Not doing it in a sane way is causing this team to lose not only a lot of games but an entire generation of Met fans. You never hear anyone in NY say I was raised a Met Fan. 25 and under all root for the Yankees because their in the playoffs every year. Now that a story worth covering.
Wilpon ran the team back then, Doubleday was a majority partner and would chime in on FA purchases but Wilpon ran the team.
As for Cashen Building from the farm I think you should review the 86 Roster. Yes he had some farm that took almost 23 years of losing to complile all the picks that netted him the guys we had.
Was Carter homegrown?
How about Hernandez?
Ray Knight?
George Foster?
Darling was traded for in a minor league deal
Ojeda was not homegrown
neither was Aguilera
Sid Fernandez was a product of the Dodgers.
Teufel was also an import.
Yes the homegrowns included
Gooden
Mc Dowell
a light hitting SS named Santana
Wally Backman
Mookie
Kevin Mitchell
It was balanced but it also wasn’t an entirely home grown team. It didn’t last long and dominate for a decade the way the Braves did and Phillies are trying to…
What is your explanation of that? The Wilpons? Really?
Or is it that they didn’t repeat and everyone expected them to and started crowing about how they need to go get big time FA’s and ruin that chemistry?
If you want proof just look at what happened soon after?
Bonilla, Coleman et al.
This is the problem I have with your sampling. You didn’t include the last time the mets did it the right way and you included the one time the Mets totally took the WRONG approach while at the same time you included the Braves who took advantage of that mistake to dominate a division for a decade so their numbers inflated. Phillies were pretty much a last place team at the time since 83 when they last went to a WS and it is that futility that got them the draft choices that allowed them to produce 7 home grown players to field on a single team, Just as the Braves being constant also rans in the central because the Cardinals were the team to beat there had plenty of draft picks to build what eventually dominated in the 90′s.
The Yankees sucked through all of that until they too got some home growns and mostly what they had was pitching!
Glavine Smoltz Avery and Stanton
Only Justice, Gant, and Blauser were regular position homegrowns in 91.
Phillies have done it more the way you are trying to demonstrate is the right way to do it. yet they only recently made the WS after a 17 year hiatus and only won once against Tampa, lost to the wild spending Yankees!
If you really want to say that the spending is the problem then your going to have to show how these homegrown guys consistently beat the teams that spend and not just US and do it for a decade because thats about how long the Yankees have been dominant. Yes they needed home growns too but they still spent while they grew and and did it without 10-20 years in last place collecting high draft picks to finally get the homegrowns they needed.
I agree in principle with what your trying to say that it is stupid to just go and try and buy a team that will dominate cause it rarely ever dominates.
But spending is a big part of the puzzle once you have developed those homegrowns and the ability to dominate has a lot to do with the ability to continue to grow prospects even while your winning a WS.
And you can’t hang that on the Wilpons.
If you want to look at the last 20 years then look to see how many GMs and managers we have had that got fired for not having a good plan and how many were sent packing because of other reasons not related to baseball.
Was Phillips fired because of the team and plan?
Did Valentine get the boot because he was not geting the players to perform?
Did WIllie get fired for baseball or politics?
THAT is why we don’t have the consistency and a decade of dominance under our belt because even when the guy is doing a pretty good job other factors blow up the plan!
If Bobby Cox was a manager here he would have been fired within 4 or 5 years as opposed to the 10-15 he stayed and kept stability in the Atlanta organization.
Here he would get fired for saying something the media frenzied fans didn’t like!
You think it would only take 4 years to get the homegrowns to flow. But thats not how it works dude.
You collect some top draft picks and develop them to trade for other guys that can become part of the core. It is a proccess that I am saying takes roughly 15 years to complete.
Took even longer for the Phillies and Braves to get there! Look at how bad they had been for how long before they managed to get it done.
That is why I questioned the sampling that you used. If you just went back to 85 you would see those numbers balance out when compared to the braves and Phillies. If we had not had the injuries the Phillies might not have made the two WS’ that they did!
You can’t hang the Wilpons for those injuries and you can’t say it was the spending that caused those injuries either.
It takes a combination of buying and development to dominate for a decade.
Omar bought early and this year the farm started to show up at the big league. If Beltran, Bay and Reyes had not been hurt, With Davis and Thole in the lineup all year long would the Phillies have made their historic close to knock off the Braves?
Omar got fired because he decided to DO WHAT YOU SAY IS CORRECT!
Instead of buying at the deadline he decided to bring the farm up!
It cost him his job because everyone wanted him to spend more money and forget the farm grown.
He stuck to the (good) plan and the WIlpons were on board with it yet he still lost his job!
If Mejia produces and everyone hits this year then Omar will have actually built up the team in the way you suggest.
But is he here to continue that plan?
NOPE!
Before we go complaining about Omar’s plan and the Wilpons record lets see how the plan ends this year.
Cause if they manage to compete and win then there was nothing WRONG with what Omar was doing his plan was sound, it just took time to mature into success. A lot less time than it took the Braves and Phillies to get there based on the last time they were a WS contender.
I say we should all reserve our judgement until we see how the future plays out.
People who hate the Wilpons are busy trying to write history but History can’t be written until it’s over.
Metsie, so much of what u say is soooo true; however this futility compared to NYY is nothing new; the press certainly is different, more aggressive, more bandwagonish consider this, while T’agee does his computations of what could’ve been & what other NLers are doing it’s probably best we use HISTORY of NY NL baseball as our measuring stick, certainly nobody should use the Yankees to measure thhenmselves against unless they get off on futility. Consider we are the socalled legacy of 2 storied NY NL franchises Dodgers & Giants. who combined for nearly 100 total seasons of NY NL baseball resulting in just 2 WS titles to how many for NYY? rediculous comparison.
While the press revels in tarring us as the Great Collapsers, few swan dives will ever match up to that of the Brooklyn Dodgers in ’51 when the swoon lingered for nearly half the season not just the final 17 weeks, just for the Giants to win by “the shot heard round the world” by Thomson off Branca only for the Giants to be privledged to proceed to lose the WS to those damned Yankees 4G-2G. despite all of the angst, frustration & falderall to the contrary our Mets in fewer seasons have managed to compile just as many of those WS trophies as their forbearers combined to achieve while playing in NY opposite thoose nemesis Yankees.
Certainly there has been much lost in regards to fan loyalty & knowledge of the game since Duke & Willie patroled NY CFs.
an especially gratuitous note to my friend Tagee, there are few GMs in basewball who’s reputastion for farm development can measure up to that of then Dodger GM, Branch Rickey, yet only 1 WS title(’55) despite all THAT development. If the Yankees are considered the most successful AL franchise based upon WS itles garnered then STL must have that distincytion in the NL; however those successful Cards & those valiantly frustrated/ing Bums share the identical legacy regarding the establishment of their renowned development farm systems.
Separately, note to all, Minnesota is considered one of the models for early talent recognition; however their chief talent evaluator has been Joe McIlvaine for some time now.(He certainly isn’t alone as a veteran Met emploee being utilised effetively by Twins)
http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/team/front_office.jsp?c_id=min
Despite ALL the Fantasy,Video game, conclusions to the contrary quite simply put, building a successful MLB franchise is a considerable undertaking that’s at least as complicated as a simple overhauling of our Medical System. THERE ARE NO SIMPLE, ONE SIZE FOR ALL ANSWERS/SOLUTIONS. Identify a problem with past GM regimes, fix it, look again 2 additional problems creap up.
Here’s my advice, relax, don’t fret, the naysayers were just as negative in ’99,’00 & ’06 with at least as many valid issues why we wouldn’t be postseason bound!
But ’62, I don’t know how relevant the 50′s are to right now. Every team built through the farm. That was the only way method available. Rickey just did a better job of it than the Giants, Cards, Reds, Phillies ect.
The true test of a team is the regular season, not 4-7 games in October. Sure they are the MOST important games but their still only a very small fraction of the games a team plays in a season.
There are things that cannot be accounted for when it comes down to the last 4-7 games. Mickey Owen or Rich Gedman letting the ball get past them cannot be accounted for in the thought process that goes into building a team.
In sports, stuff happens but when you look at the collective results of ALL the NL teams over the last 20 years some things become pretty transparent. The person trying to identify which things have worked out well and which things didn’t would have to make some conclusions.
Would drafting Hamels or Cain have been better than drafting Kazmir in 2002? Would giving up our 2nd round pick for David Weathers have been better than keeping it and drafting Jon Lester or Brian McCann?
These were 2 decisions made in 2002 that are still affecting this team to this day.
What was the thought process? Did we get the right result for the wrong reason or did we get the wrong result for the right reason? That can happen but it’s much more likely that we got the wrong result because we employed a bad thought process.
Did we need to sign David Weathers because we had no one in the Farm coming up? Probably. Did we draft well in 1997 and 1998 in other areas and just needed a 2 year fill in or did we waste those draft choices. Who knows but given what we do know based on the actual results that we have experienced over the last 20 years I would find it hard to believe that anyone would want to do it the same way over again.
For us fans and for the owners wallets winning really is the profit margin for a baseball team. Winning seasons are positive cash flow, losing seasons are negative cash flow. Seriously bad losing seasons begin to affect your ability to attract more interest in your product while winning consistently actually increases interest and attracts MORE interested consumers.
We have reached the point now where we are not attracting anyone to becoming Met Fans. The Mets are a laughing stock and not only for the sad sack results relative to our competitors over the last 20 years but also because of the buffoon act that this dysfunctional, willy nilly organization continues to foist on the general public.
With just 3 postseason appearances and eleven losing seasons in the last 20 years I think all Met Fans can agree that there were many things that should have been done differently, the few of us that remain.
With a current Ownership so weak willed and lacking in fortitude and vision it is up to the few of us that remain to insist that we not try to fix the mistakes of the last year with moves that take away from our future. The fact that work went undone (or was done incorrectly) 5-10 years ago cannot be made up for by throwing money around on whoever just happens to be available every year.
Well th truth is that the AL is largely a Spend to win league. And the plan to building a winner should apply to all leagues no?
The problem I had with the data is not so much that I disagree with what Tag is trying to say. It is the fact that he cherry picked the sampling where our division rivals were in an up cycle and we were in a down cycle.
For a true evaluation you have to include noth the down cycle and up cycle of all the comparators or your skewing the data to favor those who are up not showing their process.
If we were to limit the data to the last two years then the Phillies plan would be the best. But is it the plan that made them dominant or was it the fact that the other two teams they play mostly against (Div Rivals) and have to beat to get to the playoffs just not on an up cycle at the time of the sampling.
If we take Tag’s assertion that it took Cashen (under Wilpon management) 5 years to build a winner then how long did it take Atlanta? How long has Turner owned that team before they dominated? Did Atlanta do it better and quicker? They did it longer but is that because they were so good or because us and the Phillies were so bad?
Their dominance was directly related to their pitching which was mostly home grown. Should we only draft pitchers then? Tag has lamented how many pitching busts we drafted before. Is that the good PLAN?
Was it a plan at all?
Or was it just they managed to collect enough decent farm to get those guys and then develop them into a core after years of compiling a great farm system due to years and years of top draft picks because they were in last place?
Tag and I agree for the most part in that the plan put forth with the mets has not been the best. Especially for the beginning of the sample where we went and tried to buy a team of colemans and Bonilla’s. That set us back at least 5-6 years which may seem like a lot when you don’t consider how many years it took the Braves and Phillies to finally build what they eventually did.
I agree with him that building a solid farm is the key to longevity but it isn’t a guarantee for it as the 86 Mets showed.
It has a lot to do with who you are competing against and how well they do and those things tend to go via cycles.
We have more under .500 (90 loss) seasons because the Phillies and Braves had finally after forever built strong teams.
That doesn’t mean we have done something wrong it means they have done something good. The numbers have more to do with losing to the Phillies and the Braves who we have to beat to get to the playoffs than our poor decisions.
No success will last forever. We had success 4 years before the sampling was taken.
So we were at the bottom of the cycle at the time of the data sampling.
Since the sampling starts where the braves were up (and none of their time when they were down) and then followed by the Phillies who are now up but did nothing for a decade.
Who was the CONSTANT competitor to those two teams?
I think you will find while the braves and Phillies have gone to the playoffs the most the last 20 years the team that gave them the biggest competition and challenge was the mets when it wasn’t the Braves or the Phillies themselves!
It’s a three horse race in the NL East and we have always been one of the horses who compete. We even made a WS appearnace and almost made another if Beltran swings a bat!
We were the best team in the NL in 2000. 14 years after winning a WS.
How long did the Braves and Phillies take to get that distinction?
Metsie the point is not how long it takes, it’s how long it lasts. Once Atlanta built it, it stayed built. Why? because they replenished it from with in. Supplemented here and there but primarily from within.
Atlanta did not just wait and see who they could sign as a free agent every off season. They proactively went out, planned ahead and replaced guys as need be.
Jeff Blauser played SS for 6 years then left, Rafeal Furcal took over, played 6 years and then he left and Yuniel Escobar took over. Each time someone left the Braves replenished their farm system with TWO more prospects AND HAD A GUY READY TO STEP IN.
The Braves got the best years of Blauser and Furcal AND the best years of the guys they drafted with those picks (if they pan out)
Look at how they handled 2B. Treadwell, Lemke, Veras, Giles, Johnson, Prado. They didn’t have to go FA and spend 45 M and get 7 years of s**t play for their efforts. They didn’t have to “live with” someone they couldn’t even give away. They decided to go with Prado so they nontendered Johnson. We couldn’t do that with Kaz or Castillo and we didn’t come close to getting the type of performance the Braves did out of 2B since Fonzie left.
Catcher went from Javy Lopez (IFA) to Brian McCann (2nd round 2002)
It is a complete fallacy that you need high draft choices to build a team. They help unquestionably but you can do it without. How many 1-10 draft choices do the Braves have on their team right now? ONE. Chipper and he’ll be gone in a year or two and no doubt replaced by another in house option who will give the Braves the best years of his career.
Glavine and Maddox were drafted in the 2nd round. Smoltz in the 22nd round and then traded as a minor leaguer. True Chicago drafted Maddox and got his first 6 years, guess who got his best years? Take a wild guess.
Lastly I did not cherry pick anything. I presented the last 20 years of actual results. Period.
The the last 10 years would show 1 playoff appearance, the last 15 would show 3 playoff appearances. The last 49 would show 7 which just happens to be less than half of what the Braves have in the last 20 years.
The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that they are doing something right and we are doing something wrong.
How long it lasts is not dependent on who they bring in but who they keep.
The braves weren’t dominant because they had a constant flow of youth. They were successfull bcause they had the same manager 10 years in a row and that gave them consistency of leadership and approach!
Same for the Phillies! Thier homegrowns came almost at once but the consistency has been because manuel has been their manager all that time!
It’s a point you can’t ignore!
But your trying to.
name the list of guys the Braves brought up over that decade of dominance.
I think you will find once the pitchers got there that was about all she wrote for homegrown core.
Phillie had a core of regulars, Only once they went after high priced pitching did it result in any success or WS appearances.
What you say about the flow of youth simply is not true in the case of Atlanta and Philly. They had two spurts yes and that didn’t provide the consistency it was the manager who helped to PICK those players that fit in his system and he stayed long enough to fit them in.
In our case we had the system that was for Valentine and then changed Valentine so that all the players who were aquired were not valued or did not work for the philosophy employed.
GenK was a failed product of McIlvane and in fact a failed product of Cashen truth be told!
So how does that play in your Wilpon theory?
You want consistency you have to keep things the same for as long as possible!
Atl did that by hiring their GM as manager and then keeping him for another decade. All the players selected by him fit the manager’s system (since he also was the guy who picked them) He found a top pitching staff and stuck with it for close to 8 years with very little tinkering around it.
That is what drove their consistency not their farm they haven’t produced another pitcher since then, haven’t produced even one major force of a player since then.
They kept their good pitching and good manager and that is what led them to dominate.
metsie the wilponzie do what the wilponzie want. u are correct cashen built a great team. when it was time to pay them it was bye bye.they traded mookie for a crummy pitcher,they let the strawman walk,they traded dykstra for a second baseman who they put in center field,keith gone(they let him walk),knight was let go to. i could continue …but its much to painfull.do u really think cashen busted up this team on his own.freddye wilponzie has from day one had his gm’s take his bullets…he can’t do that with picard..thats all on freddye!at his age he is finally gonna have to take his medicine…like a man!
Baby, most of all of your litany of disappointments are FACTS; but facts “out of perspective or context are useless.
#1.Knight wasn’t let walk, he was offered a substantial salary increase; he was greedy & rejected it looking for more which NO TEAM offered forcing him to settle for a 1Y peanut level contract, in a subsequent SI interview he was asked about fan mail he since had received to which he replied, “I never realizeD you could say STUPID in so many diffewrent ways”
MEX & KID were well past their primes looking for prime money; paying them for their unlikely to be repeated past accomplishments was not somethinG Cashen advocated despite fan contradictions. Ultimately their subsequent accomplishments or lack thereof supports Cashen’s position, Without Mex & Kid, a substance abusing Straw certainly was not going to be what he had been and Straw clamored to be united with his hometown team (LAD) with his “best” friend, Eric Davis, a MANIPULATION which was later revealed both players had deliberately manufactured to satisfy themselves.
As for the subsequent “dumpng” of the supporting characters, I personally always believed it was Fred’s desire to wipeout the singular bad taste the scandalous headlines had left in his mouth; but sometimes once dominoes begin tumbling the progression speeds up beyond reasonability.
Sans the meat & potatoes(Mex,Kid,Straw,Knight) in the lineup what value does the gravy(Nails,Dirt,Mook) actually have?
Al, never forget facts are valuless without perspective!
Peronally, I’d always hoped for a true tell-all, ala Torre’s tome, to be penned by Davey and or Frank. It would be riveting as well as revealing!
HERE’S MY FORCAST, FOR THIS SPRING,2011; THE WILPONS WILL BE OUT OF BASEBALL TOTALLY REGARDLESS OF THE OVERALL OUTCOME OF THIS PICARD LITAGATION BEFORE THE 2011 AMATEURS EVER STRAP ON MLB JOCKS.
’62, Starting when Phillips was hired the Mets started
deemphasising the draft and farm system. prior to that we used to at least draft quite a few talented players and sign a couple of them.
1998 – 2004 was a complete dry spell. Most teams bring up a prospect or two every year. Out of those 7 drafts we got Angel Pagan ’99, David Wright ’01 and Kazmir ’02. That’s it. Include Heilman if you want but for a mid round #1 choice his career was about a tenth of Roger McDowells who was a 3rd rounder. I wouldn’t even include him. No one else we drafted did anything for us (or anyone else) We didn’t draft anyone else other than those 4 who did anything at all up here. Perhaps that’s why you don’t value the prospect, your use to maybe a player every other third year You fail to grasp what teams outside of NY are doing. Your not looking at the potential that is there. These are the players who would now be in their primes or the 31 or 32 year old long time key veterans.
The guys who could have been dealt for youth, let go for draft picks to refresh the farm. We never got those guys. We lost a whole baseball generation of players in the draft while the Braves draft since 1997 has included Adam Wainwright, Kelly Johnson, Adam LaRoche, Brian McCann, Yunel Escobar, Tommy Hanson, Jason Heyward and Freddie Freeman. That’s a lot to have to over come especially with successful IFA’s gleaned during the same period.
Without putting serious thought, effort, time and money into the scout, draft, IFA’s, the farm in general and properly developing the prospect we’ll always be left with just one option. The free agent market, and with 3 post season appearances in the last 20 years how can you say that worked out very well for us?
Most of Atlanta’s players were all drafted and came up through their farm system. Chipper (1st pick 1st round), David Justice (4th round), Marcus Giles (53rd round), Ryan Klesko (5th round), Ron Gant (4th round), Mark Lemke (27th round), Brian McCann (2nd round) Smart trades, McGriff, Pendleton, Shefield. International free agency, Rafeal Furcal, Javy Lopez, Andruw Jones, Martin Prado, Yuniel Escobar and very very few Major League free agents like Brian Jordon and Greg Maddox.
In fact you could say the Braves method of player procurement is almost the exact opposite of ours. Kind of like the on field results.
again the braves are the braves and the mets are the wilpons!!!!!case closed.
Last year Atlanta brought up Jason Heyward 1st round #16 who came in 2nd in the rookie of the year balloting. This year they are bringing up Freddie Freeman (2nd round) at 1B after getting Derrick Lee as a 1 year place holder.
Atlanta also has 6 pitchers in their farm system between high A and AA (last year) that ranked among the top 20 prospects (at any position) in their respective leagues. We have zero. Perhaps we could include Mejia and call it 6 for them 1 for us. Pretty much the way the last 20 years have gone.
The focus on .500 ball is ok but may also be a bit misleading since only the playoff contenders ever play above .500 just about everyone else is under .500. More teams are under .500 than above which means the numbers will always skew towards below .500 especially when you know your out of it and play all rookies the last 20-30 games of the season. The Middle ground is somewhere in the .400 area (lets say .450) which truly denotes a bad season.
You included post season but you should have included WS appearances as well. It would have been better to list Playoff, Championships and then WS. Because personally I think postseason is a bad barometer of success. Just look at how many teams MAKE the playoffs each year.
8 Playoff teams out of 30 make the playoffs! 26% (more than a quarter!) of all teams that play make the playoffs.
Now look at the numbers you posted.
And look at the division and who they are competing with.
It might appear that we didn’t play well but look at who we were competing against in our division! Atlanta (who seems to have dominated) and the Phillies. They and Us managed to win when the braves didn’t!
While someone like StL hasn’t had the same type of consistent competition in their division. Win the Division and you are in the Playoffs regardless of your record!
The 20 Year time frame seems like a long time but you did sort of start your numbers at a time where the 86 Mets were in decline and the Braves came up to dominate for most of that.
I wonder how the numbers would have looked if you included that 86 team which would say something about the amount of time it takes for a team to cycle from one WS to the Other.
As you can see the dominance seems to come in 10 year cycles so 20 year look only shows two cycles! the first 10 years of the observation were dominated by the Braves and the second two were dominated by the Phillies. In between we managed to make a WS, we just did not sustain it and take the dominance.
I applaud the work I just don’t know that the numbers really say much. Yes it says we spent a lot but 300 Mil over 20 years comes to only 15 Mil more than the others per season. Thats about a decent starting pitcher’s salary! Yet neither Atlanta or the Phillies have ever been big free agency players instead choosing to build most of their team from within and Atlanta via Trades.
So three different approaches with roughly the same salary on a per year basis, one of which just got into the buy to win mode (Phillies) that we have been in and in all of that time:
Phillies have made the WS Three times (Winning once)
Atlanta has made it in 5 Times (Winning once)
And we have made it Once Winning none.
But go back more years and all of a sudden we have won AS MANY WS as either Atlanta and the Phillies did in a 30 year cycle. How many years has it been since Chicago won a WS? how many years was it between Boston winning one?
It may seem like we have been horrible over the last 20 years because the sampling started in the dead middle of a falling apart franchise and compared it to the best years of Atlanta and Phillies who we have to compete against to even get into the playoffs.
The Braves win because the sampling starts just as the Braves had ZERO competition in the division (We sucked so did the Phillies then) And it encompases the transition from Atlanta being dominant to the emergence of the Phillies who just started spending money phase of their plan so THEY could dominate.
In between we managed to sneak in a WS appearance cause the Braves let up and the Phillies weren’t there yet. And my prediction is that when the Phillies lose that dominance we will cycle into the team that takes over. 30 year cycle would seem to be the key to the NL East. 30 Years would include the 86 Mets would it not?
I understand what you were trying to say but I am not sure you actually said it with that sampling.
I don’t know that our team has been run any worse than Atlanta and the Phillies, over the last 20 years maybe you can say that but in 30 years we have almost been as successful albeit unsustained…
And we already talked about the problem of short attention spans and off with your head attitude of NYC. Davey didn’t last long despite what he did in 86, Valentine didn’t last long after getting us there! Neither did Willie for getting us to the playoffs!
It’s not the over spending it is the lack of consistency!
Atlanta was able to maintain because they didn’t change the plan or the management every 4 or 5 years the way we have!
Neither have the Phillies!
And that added to the stiff competition we face to get into the playoffs is really why your numbers come out the way they do! We spend 15 Mil more per season because the other teams didn’t really spend.
And neither of them have ever won more than ONE WS during that time.
If not for the injuries the last two years we might have actually come out ahead of bopth of them and even won a WS.
But the loss of Pedro, Delgado, Santana, Beltran, Reyes and all the other walking wounded screwed up what was actually working up until that point.
I thought I said it but I see I forgot.
What your numbers show is counter to what you had been trying to say before.
It appears that the teams who spent more money are the ones with all the winning during the last 20 years.
Just look at the leaders in Playoff appearances and look at their expenditure…
Basically says you needed to spend a Billion or more over the last 20 years to get to the playoffs.
Metsie in my opinion you are missing the point. It’s not the amount of money you spend but again it’s how you spend it.
Look at the leaders like you said in playoff appearances, the Braves right?
Notice that from 1991-2005 (1994 is excluded due to strike shortened season) at where the Braves top 10 salaries went on a yearly basis.
You will see that every year where they were in the top 10 salaries in baseball except for 2004 at least half of their top 10 player salaries went to players that made their major league debut as a Brave after at least 1 season in their farm system. The Braves money was spent in keeping the players they developed that came from up after at least 1 yr in their minor league system.
Look at the Mets top 10 player salaries in seasons that the Mets were in the top 10 in payroll among MLB and tell me how many of the top 10 player salaries are going toward players that made their mlb debut as a Met.
***** – ( Players that made their MLB debut as a Brave )
1991 – Ranked 20th out of 26
Atlanta Braves $ 20,423,500
Lost WS (4-3)
Top Salaries:
$ 2,100,000 Nick Esasky 1B
$ 2,041,667 Lonnie Smith OF
$ 1,833,333 Charlie Leibrandt P
$ 1,750,000 Terry Pendleton 3B
$ 1,600,000 Sid Bream 1B
$ 1,195,000 Ron Gant OF *****
$ 1,150,000 Jim Clancy P
$ 950,000 Mike Heath C
$ 900,000 Juan Berenguer P
$ 855,000 Jeff Parrett P
1992 – Ranked 11th out of 26
Atlanta Braves $ 32,975,333
Lost WS (4-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 3,000,000 Terry Pendleton 3B
$ 2,925,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 2,833,333 Charlie Leibrandt P
$ 2,650,000 Ron Gant OF *****
$ 2,650,000 Alejandro Pena P
$ 2,400,000 Sid Bream 1B
$ 2,150,000 Nick Esasky 1B
$ 1,750,000 Lonnie Smith OF
$ 1,525,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 1,325,000 Mike Bielecki P
1993 – Ranked 7th out of 28
Atlanta Braves $ 38,131,000
Lost NLCS (4-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 5,500,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 4,750,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 3,700,000 Ron Gant OF *****
$ 2,815,000 Otis Nixon OF
$ 2,500,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 2,250,000 Terry Pendleton 3B
$ 2,000,000 Jeff Blauser SS *****
$ 1,775,000 David Justice OF *****
$ 1,600,000 Sid Bream 1B
$ 1,025,000 Pete Smith P *****
1995 – Ranked 3rd out of 28
Atlanta Braves $ 45,199,000
Won WS (4-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 5,500,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 5,200,000 David Justice OF *****
$ 4,900,000 Marquis Grissom OF
$ 4,750,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 4,750,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 4,250,000 Fred McGriff 1B
$ 4,000,000 Steve Avery P *****
$ 3,000,000 Jeff Blauser SS *****
$ 2,230,000 Kent Mercker P *****
$ 1,500,000 Mike Stanton P *****
1996 – Ranked 3rd out of 28
Atlanta Braves $ 47,930,000
Lost WS (4-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 6,500,000Greg Maddux P
$ 6,200,000 David Justice OF *****
$ 5,500,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 5,250,000 Tom Glavine Pr *****
$ 4,800,000 Marquis Grissom OF
$ 4,750,000 Fred McGriff 1B
$ 4,200,000 Steve Avery P *****
$ 3,500,000 Jeff Blauser SS *****
$ 1,500,000 Mark Lemke 2B *****
$ 1,400,000 Mark Wohlers P *****
1997 – Ranked 5th out of 28
Atlanta Braves $ 50,488,500
Lost NLCS (4-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 7,000,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 6,500,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 5,250,000 Fred McGriff 1B
$ 5,000,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 4,750,000 Kenny Lofton OF
$ 3,500,000 Jeff Blauser SS *****
$ 3,500,000 Denny Neagle P
$ 3,000,000 Mark Wohlers P *****
$ 2,450,000 Ryan Klesko OF *****
$ 2,025,000 Javy Lopez C *****
1998 – Ranked 3rd out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 59,536,000
Lost NLCS (4-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 9,600,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 8,000,000 Andres Galarraga 1B
$ 7,750,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 7,000,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 4,500,000 Denny Neagle P
$ 4,125,000 Mark Wohlers P *****
$ 3,750,000 Javy Lopez C *****
$ 3,500,000 Ryan Klesko OF *****
$ 3,000,000 Walt Weiss SS
$ 2,500,000 Chipper Jones 3B *****
1999 – Ranked 3rd out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 75,065,000
Lost WS (4-0)
Top Salaries:
$ 10,600,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 8,250,000 Andres Galarraga 1B
$ 7,750,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 7,000,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 5,250,000 Javy Lopez C *****
$ 4,750,000 Ryan Klesko 1B *****
$ 4,600,000 Brian Jordan OF
$ 4,175,000 Chipper Jones 3B *****
$ 3,000,000 Walt Weiss SS
$ 2,925,000 Terry Mulholland P
2000 – Ranked 4th out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 82,732,500
Lost LDS (3-0)
Top Salaries:
$ 10,500,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 8,500,000 Andres Galarraga 1B
$ 8,500,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 8,500,000 John SmoltZ P *****
$ 7,600,000 Brian Jordan OF
$ 6,250,000 Javy Lopez C *****
$ 4,750,000 Chipper Jones 3B *****
$ 3,700,000 Andruw Jones OF *****
$ 3,700,000 Reggie Sanders OF
$ 3,375,000 Wally Joyner 1B
2001 – Ranked 6th out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 91,936,166
Lost NLCS (4-1)
Top Salaries:
$ 12,500,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 10,333,333 Chipper Jones 3B *****
$ 9,500,000 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 9,100,000 Brian Jordan OF
$ 8,200,000 Andruw Jones OF *****
$ 8,000,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 7,750,000 Javy Lopez C *****
$ 4,833,333 B.J. Surhoff OF
$ 3,900,000 Quilvio Veras 2B
$ 3,100,000 Kevin Millwood P *****
2002 – Ranked 7th out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 93,470,367
Lost LDS (3-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 13,100,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 11,333,333 Chipper Jones OF *****
$ 10,000,000 Andruw Jones OF *****
$ 9,916,667 Gary Sheffield OF
$ 8,623,700 Tom Glavine P *****
$ 7,666,667 John Smoltz P *****
$ 6,000,000 Javy Lopez C *****
$ 4,500,000 B.J. Surhoff 1B
$ 4,000,000 Albie Lopez P
$ 3,900,000 Kevin Millwood P *****
2003 – Ranked 3rd out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 106,243,667
Lost LDS (3-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 14,750,000 Greg Maddux P
$ 13,625,000 Mike Hampton P
$ 13,333,333 Chipper Jones OF *****
$ 12,000,000 Andruw Jones OF *****
$ 11,416,667 Gary Sheffield OF
$ 10,666,667 John Smoltz P *****
$ 7,000,000 Javy Lopez C *****
$ 5,000,000 Vinny Castilla 3B *****
$ 4,662,500 Russ Ortiz P
$ 3,000,000 Paul Byrd P
2004 – Ranked 8th out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 90,182,500
Lost LDS (3-2)
Top Salaries:
$ 15,333,333 Chipper Jones OF *****
$ 14,625,000 Mike Hampton P
$ 12,500,000 Andruw Jones OF *****
$ 11,666,667 John Smoltz P *****
$ 7,000,000 Paul Byrd P
$ 6,200,000 Russ Ortiz P
$ 4,200,000 J.D. Drew OF
$ 3,700,000 Rafael Furcal SS *****
$ 3,000,000 Eli Marrero OF
$ 2,250,000 John Thomson P
2005 – Ranked 8th out of 30
Atlanta Braves $ 86,457,302
Lost LDS (3-1)
Top Salaries:
$ 16,061,802 Chipper Jones OF *****
$ 15,125,000 Mike Hampton P
$ 13,000,000 Andruw Jones OF *****
$ 9,000,000 John Smoltz P *****
$ 6,500,000 Tim Hudson P
$ 5,600,000 Rafael Furcal SS *****
$ 4,250,000 John Thomson P
$ 3,400,000 Dan Kolb P
$ 2,350,000 Marcus Giles 2B *****
$ 1,900,000 Tom Martin P
content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/baseball/mlb/salaries/team
baseball-reference.com/teams/ATL/attend.shtml
Very interesting research MNJ. One conclusion that would be impossible to miss would be that if your spending so much of your payroll on your OWN home grown players then they simply have to be both younger and already successful within the framework of your team.
Much different than importing another highly compensated and OLDER player who’s success has come within the framework of someone else’s team.
Much different scenario. Much different results.
Good information MNJ. And by the way thanks for the chart and salary data at the top of the article.
Your welcome T Agee.
Also thanks HoJo for taking the time for making a post about this.
Another thing Metsie is that we spent considerably MORE than 15 M “than the others.” per year. The only teams that have really come close to what we have spent are the Dodgers, Cubs, Braves, Cardinals, Giants and Astros. All of those teams other than the Cubs have had better results than we have in EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY I MEASURED. The Cubs were better than us in two of them, the same in another and we were better in one.
That’s it. Out of teams that spent over a billion dollars in payroll over the last 20 years we were better than one of them in one category and tied with one of them in another.
So our “record” among the “heavyweights” would be 1-22-1. And your defending this?
Among the teams that we spent 40 – 60% more than, only Pittsburgh and Washington have across the board worse results than we do.
The average number of playoff appearances for the 3 EXPANSION teams is 3. Same as us only they did it in 13-18 years, we accomplished that in 20 years.
The three expansion teams have combined for THREE World Championships in those 13-18 years. We have a total of ZERO despite the fact that we have out spent them by quite a bit more than just 15M a year.
Defend or discredit the actual on field results over the last 20 years all you want Metsie, it’s not going to change anything.
Arizona has only played 13 seasons and has accumulated more 90+ win seasons than we have.
Florida has one less 90+ win season than we do (chart shows only one but it’s really two) in 18 years and in those 18 years they have won the same number of World Championships as we have in 49 years. They have qualified for the playoffs 1 less time in 18 years than we have in twenty despite being out spent more than 2-1.
We have never failed to make the postseason while winning 90 or more games. Cincinnatti and Milwaukee have and the Giants have THREE times. (once with 103 wins)
All you can do is win the games on your schedule. Do teams in the Central have an advantage playing Pittsburgh 18 times a year? No more than teams in the East do playing Washington and the Marlins 36 times a year. Or us for that matter.
Does having a consistently good team like Atlanta and then a newcomer who has positioned themselves to be very good for 3 – 5 more years at least make it more difficult? Sure it does just ask Tampa Bay or Toronto and while your at it, ask them how they plan to compete with Boston and NYY. One expensive, past their prime free agent after another? I don’t think so.
Lastly, all teams in losing years bring younger players up in September. Not as much as they used to because of options and service year considerations but they ALL do that. Not just us. That’s why you look at a broad number of years to smooth out the statistical anomalies.
Again, I have never complained about us spending too much money. I am only complaining about who we spent that money on. We would have been much better served spending it on scouting, developing, IFA’s and signing bonuses for top shelf talent in the draft, not whoever will take less so we don’t offend our Bud.
Not sure where to begin Metsie. You say I should have included Worls Series appearances and Championships and then you say they are a bad barameter. OK.
I examined the last 20 years because I wanted to eliminate the first five years of the Wilpon tenure due to the idea that they couldn’t have had much impact in the decision making process while they owned just 1% of the team, therefore I do not hold them responsible for the dismantling of the late 80′s teams (although they could have) nor do I assign credit for any of the prospects drafted before they became a full 50% owner of the team.
I examined the last 20 simply to show the on field results during the period of time that the Wilpon’s have had to “put their stamp” on the decisions that created the results.
Feel free to examine the last 21 years, 25 years or the full 49 years if you would like. I’ll be more than happy to discuss all of them with you. If we were to examine the full 49 years of the Franchise I hardly think that the De Roulet years would be relevant to anything that has transpired recently but the actual on field results over a 49 year period will show that we have qualified for the post season 7 times. The Braves have qualified more than twice that amount in only 20 years. Spin that.
I have never stated that I don’t want us to have the highest payroll. I’m glad we had ownership that will spend. I just wish that we had spent the money on players best years, not their worst years. Out of ALL the expensive players we have traded for or signed as free agents please tell me which one(s) had their best years in a Met uniform.
Even the guys who played great here didn’t have their best years with us and there were numerous players who had horrendous ends to their career’s in our uniform.
The only guy who MAY HAVE had his best years in a Met uniform that I can think of off hand is Al Leiter and while I thought he was a great trade and a great player and I would do that trade over and over again if I could he still did cost AJ Burnett, so there was a cost to the future associated with even the one and only guy I can think of (off hand) who came here already established and had a big contract AND had his best years with us.
On the other hand I can think of dozens of guys we traded for or signed as free agents who had absolutely miserable years as a Met.
Pick any time frame you want Metsie. Invalidate the last 20 years of factual on field results all you want but the undeniable fact is that all of those past their prime, frequently injured and oftentimes unproductive, high priced acquisitions are by far and away the most responsible for the results we have experienced over the last 20 years.
That and the completely rudderless leadership and failure to ever look beyond THIS YEAR of the Wilpon.
Carlos Beltran had his best year (by far) with the mets, and a couple more that were at the top. So while he may not earn his full contract (what he does this year will swing it) we did get his best years.
of course, he was also signed at age 27, so going into his prime, not age 32 and exiting it!
Bobby Ojeda also had, by far, his biggest year the year that the Mets traded for him. and guess what, he was 28!
there seems to be a trend here. If you are going to make a major commitment to a guy (4/years), do it when they are in their mid 20s.
Like Agee preaches, buy the best years, don’t pay for what a guy did for his last team.
Oh, and identifying and obtaining the guys that are primed to have the breakout seasons coming up is the mark of a really good GM.
Good catch ANY. Beltran has had his two best career years with us. 2006 and 2008. On the other hand his first year (strained quad, collision with Cameron) produced a very mediocre year which in my opinion is very common for the first year of a free agent due to the difference in the off season compared to the prior off season and gets progressively worse the later a FA signs.
His 2007 was a little light compared to his best years with KC and 2009 and 2010 obviously were marred by injury so in essence he’s had two bad years, one down year, one average year, one question mark year and two great years and this was from one of the best centerfielders of all time signed at 28 years of age.
If he had a tough time living up to his contract what are the chances of a less talented 31 year old being able to?
But you are right on your point. Beltran’s two best years have been in a NY Met uniform.
If only we could say the same thing about some of the others.
There’s so much wrong here I don’t know where to begin:
“there seems to be a trend here. If you are going to make a major commitment to a guy (4/years), do it when they are in their mid 20s.”
Seems easy in theory but If only it were that easy in real life. What if you need somebody at CF? And none of the FAs that year are in their mid 20s but you need a good player to help put you over the top? Then the market is gonna dictate what your specific need is for your team that year. He may be 30 and to get where you need to be you may have to overpay a bit.
“Like Agee preaches, buy the best years, don’t pay for what a guy did for his last team”
Again, easy in theory but much different in real life. It depends on what you need that particular season, the guy that you need his best years may be behind him but he may be better than any other option available that season and he may be right for your team.
This is the going trend these days. Everybody is coming up with one set formula for what it takes to win and it’s just not true.
We have people posting team’s yearly salaries for 10 years, trying to find some kind of conclusion in this when at the same time they forget to mention that team also may have had the best pitching rotation in the majors for that 10 years and they changed the way they operate accordingly.
Basically this is all about second guessing the scouting.
It’s like sitting there with the scout, you both see 2 players, one is Reggie Jackson, the other is some other guy. One scout says pick the other guy, the other says pick the skinny kid named Jackson. Maybe the other guy did look a lot better?
Yes probably we should look to hire better scouts but at the same time you can’t go back and rewrite history and look at all the team’s spending over 20 years and say it could be different just because you’re second guessing the scouting. I mean you could but, C’mon!
There’s a lot of lists here but not much substance and certainly no revelations.
I disagree.
The fact is that the NY Mets have spent over the last 20 years the most money in the NL and got very little in return for it. That is a fact no matter how you slice it.
The question then needs to be asked is why is that so?
Which brings us to where we are now trying to share with each other why that may be so.
When you look at the Braves success from 1991-2005 you see that while yes they too have spent a considerable amount of money on par with the Mets minus $100M or so yet they have had greater success a further look reveals how their at many times at least half if not more of their top 10 player salaries for most of their run went to keeping players that came from their system and not outside the org.
I challenge you or anyone to do the leg work and see how often the Mets payroll when it was in the top 10 in MLB was due to keeping players from the Mets system?
The fact is that had the Mets done a better job at producing players from their own system like they did before they won the W.S. in 1986 we may have won a W.S. by now.
I also would like if you could to explain how you feel this post is 2nd guessing yet I have watched you discuss at times how Beane using his moneyball philosophy as you say has accomplished nothing since he hasn’t won a W.S. so how do you looking back at what Beane has done in Oakland is any different and not then also 2nd guessing on your part than this post looking back at what the Mets have accomplished for all their spending over the last 20 years?
I think the point is that you have to have some sort of a plan that prevents you from having to sign a free agent who’s best years are behind them. The only way to do that is to plan ahead so you are not at the mercy of the Luis Casillo’s of the world. Clearly the most successful organizations are never caught unprepared and there is no good reason for us to be either.
In 2004 we signed Kaz Matsui to a 3 year deal. I’m not going into his performance or position shifting of Reyes here I’m just talking about the failure to plan ahead for 2007 when Matsui’s contract was up.
We knew come 2007 our choices were going to be resign him or have someone else ready to take over. Resigning him would be HIS decision too and would also be based on HOW MUCH. Clearly we should have been working toward 2B BEGINNING in 2004. We did draft Koeppinger, rushed him, quickly labeled him a bust and shipped him out. We also drafted Pellot who washed out, tried Gotay and Easley, A. Hernandez and A. Reyes but the reality is Omar backed Matsui with Valentin who took his job. Great pick up by Omar and Valentin played great in 2006 but what was the reason for trading Matsui? A roster spot? We still needed a backup middle infielder and Matsui could at least play defense at both SS and 2B and run and even hit a little and it’s not like Valentin was going to start getting younger, He was 37 years old and we had NOBODY to back him up with.
So what did we do? We traded him in a salary dump. We didn’t want Eli Marrero. We wanted to save 3.5 M. And this in a year in which we were running away with the division and enjoying record attendance. Sure 7M is alot for a backup MIer but we had NOBODY and our second basemen was 37 years old.
Come 2007 Valentine gets hurt, Reyes, Easley and Hernandez can’t win the job, Gotay got cut, we trade for Castillo who we then sign for 4 years 24 M even though he’s 32 years old and needs knee surgery on BOTH knees. You know the rest of the story.
Things might have been different if we had drafted Dustin Pedroia in the 2nd round 2004 instead of drafting yet another in a long long succession of pitchers who never make it out of low A Ball but we didn’t. As the saying goes to defend a foreseeably bad free agent signing “well who else were we going to get to play 2B?” This is my point. When your plan is to wait and see who happens to be available for every need, every year, instead of planning ahead of time this is what you wind up with.
Last year when Glaus got hurt the Braves traded for Derrick Lee to play 1B. They were in the hunt and had a serious need and traded 3 minor leaguers but they didn’t then resign Lee. They already had a guy for 1B, he just wasn’t ready yet. They didn’t rush him either, he’s coming up this year. A 2nd round pick Freddie Freeman.
The same exact scenario. The team that’s been to the playoffs 15 times in 20 years planned ahead and the team that has been to the playoffs 3 times in 20 years didn’t.
This is a text book example of the Braves getting a players best years while we get their worst years. Because we never have anybody in the pipeline.
Ike Davis is the exception to the rule and if it weren’t for him who do you think would have been playing 1B for us last year? Frank Catalonotto?
And one more point about 2B is that in the last 20 years we have only gotten really good play out of one guy for more than 3/4 of one season. Edgardo Alfonzo. A home grown international free agent and a fair arguement could be made for Desi Relaford too who we shipped out for Kaz Matsui.
We have tried the trade for high ticket past their prime second basemen like Alomar, Baerga and Castillo only to once again have someone else wind up with their best years.
We traded Cone for Kent and someone else got his best years.
It has always worked out that way for us except for the one home grown IFA and a couple of guys we drafted (Ron Hunt, Wally Backman) and one good trade (Milan) but 2B pales in comparison to our retarded attempts in LF.
We have not drafted, signed or developed an All Star who had his best years in a Met uniform since Cleon Jones over 40 years ago.
Just look at what our recent “plan” for LF has been.
2001 and 2002 were some weird combination of Timo, Cedeno, Shinjo and Raul Gonzalez so come 2003 we go big free agent with Cliff Floyd and give up our 2nd round draft choice. Any number of good players COULD have been drafted with that pick including Sweeny, Marcum, Either or Papplebon but nontheless we sign Cliff 4 years, no complaints but you would really think that after having to commit 26M and a high round prospect you would have planned to have a guy ready to take over from Cliff in four years. Not us. We VOLUNTARILY handed over our #1 draft choice for Moises Alou 40 years of age 7.5 M, we also declined to offer arb to Floyd thereby losing another draft choice.
We traded future All Star Heath Bell for Padre prospect Ben Johnson a LFer who blessed us with 9 games and a .185 batting average.
Alou did play great for half of the season but unsurprisingly got hurt and considering we missed the post season by just one game that was a big factor. So what did we do? We resigned him again for the next season at another 7.5M (the same amount we had to spend on everything this year)
Moises, unsurprisingly got hurt again, this time after only 15 games. Considering we missed the post season by only 2 games, this again was no small factor.
2009 we decided to try a rookie infielder in LF and just to make it as difficult as possible we traded away the perfect defensive replacement for an injured relief pitcher making 6M and a 1.5 M buyout.
This was not a huge success.
2010 came and once again Omar dipped into the Wilpon treasury and extracted 80M for Jason Bay, once again forfeiting yet another 2nd round pick. This would also not turn out to be a rousing success at least in the first season anyway.
So, how did the “plan” fare? 125 M over 11 years, 2 second round draft choices forfeited, one 1st round draft choice forfeited, one supplemental round draft choice left on the table, 2 pennant races lost by a combined 3 games in which our 40 year old LFer was only able to play in 1/3rd of them over both seasons and the #1 pick we VOLUNTARILY handed over to SF could very easily have turned out to be the Marlins new power hitting RFer who will be there for the next 6 years instead of here.
But then again the “plan” for RF is the same as the “plan” for LF or 2B. We’ll just wait and see who’s available in free agency so we can hand over a few more draft choices and repeat the process. If it doesn’t work out we can always defend the plan with “but who else were we going to get to play 2B, LF, RF ect.?”
This lack of ever planning ahead and just winging it every year is why we have had more losing season over the last 20 years than winning ones despite having the highest payroll.
The teams that plan ahead get the results they desire. The teams that don’t get the results they deserve.
How long did it take Atlanta and the Phillies to home grow their team from the last time they made a WS?
Cause thats the question you need to ask if your going to say that spending money is slower to build than home growing.
Between post season is probably the best way to look at. The post season is such a crap shoot but getting their take a sustained performance over 162 games.
Atlanta goes almost every year. They did have a dip while in transition. 2006-2008 was a down cycle for them and the only 3 years out of 20 that they weren’t in at least a pennant race but they regrouped and were in the post season once again this year.
Philly is well known for being the losingiest American sports franchise and had only won 1 world series in their entire history before this recent run. Now they appear poised to go to the playoffs four more years in a row. If they do that will mean they will have been to the postseason one more time in 8 years than we have in 49. Who’s going to replace them as America’s losingest franchise then?
It’s not a question of how long does it take to it’s a question of how much more can the fan base take before we just throw up our hands and walk away.
It takes as long as it takes. There are no short cuts but it could have been being done all along. We didn’t have to spend so many draft choices on guys who didn’t do anything more than a fringe player could. We also didn’t have to draft only guys who washout. We could have gotten the better talent by simply doing what everyone else does, go over slot. F**k Bud Selig. We have been importing Mo Vaughs, Vince Coleman’s, Bobby Bonilla’s, Carlos Baerga’s and Luis Castillo’s in here like crazy for 20 effin years and where has it gotten us?
Omar did get some depth in the farm system which is step #1 in building it back up again. He also has a few high ceiling, very raw, but potentially very good prospects in the low minors (think 3-4 years away if ever) Your safe conservative 6 year starter who does a little better than league average during his prime should come from the draft rounds 2 and later. Not every single one of them but c’mon. No leftfielder in 40 years, rightfielder in 25 and really just one second basemen, one shortstop and one third basemen in 50 years. Who’s kidding who?
You can compete by adding guys that don’t cost you draft choices, giving the Duda’s and Eveans’ a shot when their ready. Those two guys played better when given a chance than half the freaks running around the last few years.
Sometimes you have to live with poor play at a position for a year but that’s what you have to do. You cannot fix the mistake of not preparing for that need beforehand by making a bad long term signing. That doesn’t make any sense.
There are any number of players available that would play better than the guys Omar brought in and don’t take away anything from the future at all. Get better now and get better later. What’s wrong with that?
Any, u do realize you’ve just formulated the perfect rationale for keeping Reyes & Wright as both are on the precepice of their biggest production years(28-32) u also ca cite Rollins,Utley,Howard as timing their Primes perfectly to Phl’s needs/results
The problem is you picked two decades dominated by TWO teams in our division to show something about how we ran the team.
It started at our last decline When compared to THOSE TWO TEAMS we only spent 15 mil per year.
Those two teams are our competition. If they win the division only THEN can we get in via competing with everyone else.
SO your sampling starts at the emergence of the Braves (without noting how long their futility was before that happend) then Ended with the Phillies who it took way more than 20 years to get where they are.
The sample is a result of happenstance not an actual cycle of how long it takes to BUILD the Braves and Phillies.
How many years before their emergence did it take them to build what they had?
SO yes they spent less and had a core BECAUSE they had spent 30 years trying to become competitive while in our case it only took is 14 years to get back into a World Series.
Chicago LA and the others you mentioned have largely been one horse divisions never having three teams who beat everyone in the NL!
So yes they spend less because they don’t have two other teams they have to beat EVERY YEAR! (or at least ever year for the last 20 which is what the sampling is showing.
I said show WS because only two teams make the WS each year and you have to admit those are usually the two best teams because by that time the lucky ones have been weeded out.
If you had included the AL then your assertion that spending makes you bad would be really blown out! The Yankees blow the theory out of the water.
I understand your point that we spent our way to oblivion but really that only applies to the LAST 20 years!
You started your sample at Vince Coleman and ended with Omar. Of course the numbers are going to skew that we spent more.
But in doing so shaved about 5 years off our re-appearance in the WS and almost made it AS MUCH as those teams like Atlanta and Phillies who home grew their teams.
Spending didn’t kill this team and you won’t know if Omar’s spending was REALLY bad until you see what happens this year now that they are supposedly healthy.
Name all the big salaries on this team and every one of them is an All Star!
Thats actually worth paying for!
We didn’t suck because we bought them we sucked because Atlanta had more than 20 years tgrow a core and the Phillies had even longer than that!
The last time we had a core of homegrowns was left out of your sampling skewing the story you wanted to tell intead of the story of HOW LONG does it take to build a competitive team that can dominate a division for a decade!
“How many years before their emergence did it take them to build what they had?” If your referring to Atl Simply look at when the core players were drafted, signed or traded for. If you dig you wiill find it is within a 3 yr window at worst for the most part.
But thats not taking into account how long it took you to FIND or get to the draft position to get those guys.
How many years in last place did it take before they had the top picks that were picked correctly to get those guys? How many drafts did it take them BEFORE they stumbled onto the guys that made them winners.
According to the sampling it took Atlanta only 2 years to build that team, Phillies more than 7. The Mets only took 10 to return to the world series according to the sampling.
If you are trying to show how EFFECTIVE or ineffective a plan is you need to start the clock when the plan is implemented not at the first sign of success of it.
Atlanta had tried to home grow for years before they took dominance. But since you are not counting all those years leading up to it you are basically making it look more effective that the reality.
The Sampling starts at the only time in recorded history where the Braves won or went to a WS. Went five times. Won once.
in the Sampling Phillies made one appeareance in the WS (93) and did not return until 2008 (15 Year plan)
The Mets made it to the WS once in those 20 years. Because the samopling starts right after and excludes the last time the Mets had a good team!
You want to judge how a ballclub is run then don’t just start the count where the success started you have to include all the years they stumbled and failed before they got some success.
Cause there is SOME truth in what Tag is trying to say. You do need to be good with your draft picks to build a decade of dominance. And losing a lot is what gets you lots of those top picks to build with.
Atlanta and the Phillies lost a ton before they had what it took to dominate a division.
Just as we had if the sampling had included 1986 which was the last time we cycled a homegrown team as well. ANOTHER team that had to do an awful lot of losing in the late 70′s and early 80′s before it had enough homegrowns to dominate the division!
Why did we spend instead of sit in last place and collect those picks that would get us a homegrown core?
Because in NY there are 100 HarryC’s all with media jobs saying how unacceptable it is to be in last place (even 4th) so instead of patiently building homegrowns the way Atlanata and the Phillies did we have been goaded into buying or trading the fantasy FA Agent flavor of the year!
The momentum in the Division has passed now from the braves to the Phillies.
But throughout the whole sampling the Mets have been right there and even beat the two of them twice to get in or near to a WS.
It’s not how long it takes to put together a team predominatly culled from the farm. It’s how long you can keep it going. How long can you tinker with it by adding a piece here and there, bringing up another prospect and letting a guy go FA and drafting TWO more over slot selections that will give YOU the best years of their career.
It is a complete fallacy that you need to draft in the top 10 or better to put a great homegrown team together.
Keep your picks, acquire a couple of guys in preceeding years that go free agent and let them go. That’s two or three extra picks. Look at what Boston gave up for those two picks that Wagner left behind. Don’t tell me it cant be done.
Now you have 5 picks in the first 2 rounds. 75% of players drafted in the first or supplementary rounds make it the Majors. Maybe some only last a day, a week or a month but many have very good and very long career’s. 40% of players drafted in the 2nd round make the majors and you could field an All Star team from guys drafted only in the 2nd round.
The 3rd round has loads of guys too. So does rounds 4 – 50. Where do you think all these free agents started their career? Right here in the draft.
International free agency. Do you know that the Mets best international scout lived right next door to Robinson Cano? Right next door. Cano wanted 250,000 the Mets wouldn’t pay it. Kaz and Luis shared 45 M. 45 million dollars could have gotten you 180 top prospects in the DR at that rate. 180! instead we spent that 45M on two guys who did less than a career minor leaguer could have and we’re STILL counting on a rule 5 and a 3rd basemen/LFer/first basemen to share the position.
Arguably we could have had better results at the Major League level by not going for it every year and followed that with a decade of postseasons including a FEW world championships.
T, unfortunately u keep citiong those picks that make it, yet u ignore those like Gen K, Straussberg???? The forever could’ve beens Tim Leary is another, F-Mart, escobar to get off disappointing pitchers onto disappointing positiners we ALL easily see the $$$ wasted on Castillo,Perez, etc. yety how many extranmeous $ are wasted throughout baseball on a myriad of draft picks the never see the light of a MLB ballfield @ night? The successes u find despite their being oa vast minority yet how’bout those FAILURES!?!
Actually, you are helping his point. He’s trying to point out the importance of drafting well and maintaining a sound farm system, two things the Mets have had a lot of trouble with for a while now.
Name a GM who has had a decade to dominate on the Mets franchise, Then tell me for what baseball reason each got fired.
Then show me a manager who has had some success who got 10 years to install his philosophy the way Cox and Manuel got.
When was the last time (and how many) a Met Beat reporter wrote a full page article on who we should be drafting.
Then count up and show the last time one of them said to trade or get rid of a player so they could play FA flavor of the minute.
There is no consistency because people want things to CHANGE every year with the exception of a year when we win a WS.
Backman and Santana were both castigated in the press for their light hitting which is why Teufel was brought in.
Mookie was the hero of the Buckner sweepstakes yet Lenny Dykstra was brought in because Mookie wasn’t All Star!
Johnson didn’t even last to the 90′s
Valentine even less! Willie Two seasons!
If you want to see consistency then you need to keep the guys who did well for more than a 4 or 5 year cycle!
And most were fired for reasons other than on field performance.
Willie because of bernazard, Valentine for statements to the press and Davey because people hated him for replacing Backman and Mookie for no damn good reason!
ALL of it generated by the press writings!
Thats why you don’t have consistency in NY. They want change every year just like the Yankees, They don’t want to build from within they want to buy ar Tiffany’s each year, They don’t care if you almost won a WS two years ago if you failed to win one NOW!
THAT is the problem with this franchise and consistency, not the WIlpons. If the Wilpons are guilty of anything it is of listening to the fans and media and giving them what they all want!
Metsie, One of the things that should be examined is why this Organization is so much more concerned with public perception then they are with fielding a consistent winning baseball team.
The Wilpon’s have been the biggest detriment over the last 20 years. It’s their business, they run it. They set the course, they sign the checks. They know that when you refuse to go over slot on the draft their going to wind up with WORSE players in their prime physical years. They also know that when you give away your draft choices for players that are past their physical prime their not going to play as well as they did for someone else and when their gone the same holes will remain because they gave up their picks and drafted worse players when they kept them.
Even the owners failed to safe guard the future viability of the Franchise by trying to look like they were doing everything possible to build a winner and yet that was only on the surface. Below the surface they were skimping out because it takes years before the work you did (or didn’t do) shows up at the Major League level.
How can a team who’s high draft choices washout at an unfathomable rate (when they don’t throw them away on guys past their prime) not look around and seek to understand why and correct it.
I have spent thousands of dollars on business expenses through the years and I always measure what’s helping my bottom line and what’s killing it. Every business person in the world does that. I’m sure the Wilpon’s do it in their other businesses, why not here?
The one thing that wins baseball games more than anything else is good players in their prime. That means 22-30 for position players and 25-32 for pitchers. We reliogously avoid players at those ages.
We have been shooting ourselves in the foot ever since 1986 and the only constant since that time has been the Wilpon’s. How can we not look to their failed leadership, bad thought process’ and lack of adaptation to how successful organizations go about their business.
After all if the owners of a business are more concerned with public perception than they are with the end result and they fail to even safeguard the future of their own business in order to appear to put out a quality product while skimping on the things that truly do create a winning product who can you pin the blame to, Mr. Met?
Well I have already given you the answer to that. It is the Media and the Press…
Remember when the yankees were where we are now and Steinbrenner was firing and bringing in players and coaches on a conga line?
Why did they? Because Steinbrenner wanted to win or because Steinbrenner actually cared more about what was written on the back pages than what shape the baseball organization was in?
It is the way things work in NY!
Don’t work that way in Atl or Phil.
And that leads to longer tenure which instills long term stability that leads to decade long dominance!
I predict that the Yankees will be in this same boat in 3-5 years. Thier core is now old, Pettite just retired, Jeter almost didn’t return, Rivera is nearing the end and Posada has already been relegated to bench.
They have had two managers in the last 10 years and their run of UP Cycle is coming to a close.
They will soon be us and watch the job security and long lasting consistency die with it!
I don’t know about that. Cano looks like a perennial All Star, they have 3 good catchers, one of whom will probably get convereted to another position soon, and there are a few outfielders in their farm. If you hughes can stay consitent and healthy, they’ll have at least one good starter.
They won’t run away with the division anytime soon, but they should be competitive for a while.
Yanks have two guys in the top 50
One is a catcher projected to be a DH at best and the other is a AA Pitcher.
Grantd thats more than we have but where would Niese and Davis (a near ROY) be if they were not brought up and were still down there?
We have Mejia who isn’t in the top 50 but thats as much because he didn’t play in the Minors last year and didn’t get that year to learn how to be a starter. If they teach him another pitch or perfrct his secondaries he could be an ace with his arm. So They don’t seem to have anymore youth on the horizon than we have already brought up and have a chance to promote than we do which is being called ABYSMAL or not present.
When Rivera and Jeter finally are done I wonder how much youth they will have and how long Girardi lasts!
Its not just about the top 50. Its about how many prospects you have that will contribute on a major league level. Or how well you can sell them to other teams.
The Yankees already have a few good young players on the big league roster.
You make some good points Metsie. Regarding the Braves success while yes they started their run in 1991 some of the seeds to that run was planted years earlier.
As far back as 1983 which was the year Ron Gant and Mark Lemke were drafted and 1984 which was the year Jeff Blauser and Tom Glavine were drafted and 1985 which is the year David Justice was drafted in the final year of John Mullen as GM before Bobby Cox took over as GM.
I don’t remember Cox ever being the GM but apparently he was the GM from Oct 1985 till Oct 1990 when He became field manager and John Shuerholz took over as GM.
Cox was responsibe for trading for the minor leaguer John Smoltz in 1987 and drafting Kent Mercker, Steve Avery, Ryan Klesko, Chipper Jones, Mark Wohlers and signing free agent catcher Greg Olson in Nov 1989.
In retrospect Bobby Cox deserves a lot more recognition for those Braves teams than I 1st thought. Shuerholz’s biggest contribution one can argue was signing Greg Madduz and keeping the players drafted prior to him taking over signed and playing for the Braves as long as they did.
So yes the Braves run began in 1991 but the seeds were planted years earlier.
I still though can’t get past that their success had a lot to do with players drafted. You can look at other teams like Minnesota for example and attribute their success when they have won with how they drafted as well and even the SF Giants that won this past season you need but look at their core players to see why they won.
The Mets drafting and signing of players has been piss poor that is something I know you are well aware of.
“I still though can’t get past that their success had a lot to do with players drafted.”
Yes it did, How many top draft picks did it take them to find all those guys?
You can’t BUY a top draft pick you have to LOSE to get it!
If your a mediocre team you will get mediocre picks. If you win a lot you will get even worse pick position than that!
Only way to get top picks is to lose a lot of games for quite a few years….
And the more losing season you have ultimatly the better chance you have of finding gold!
And if you don’t believe that just look at how many losing seasons the Braves and Phillies and yes even the Yankees and us had before they developed a young core to build around! Took us from 1973-1986 about 13 years of losing!
And with picking at the top for 13 years even a guy who you think is a bust is worth more than a similar guy drafted in the bottom of the 1st round. The place he got picked does seem to hold a value when trading with other teams!
That means even your mistakes have enough value to trade than they would if they were a late round selection.
Amplify that over 13 season and I don’t know how many rounds of having a top 10 selection and that quickly adds up!
Now if you have the same people using the same plan over the course of that losing period you not only see what player does and doesn’t work in your plan. It’s easy to maintain a plan and be consistent it is impossible to be consistent and make a plan work if you keep changing who is making the plan and implementing it.
Phillies and the Braves have kept things consistent and it paid off. Cox is gone, Chipper probably soon to follow, Now lets see how long the alleged genius’ there with the right plan take to rebuild that dominance!
My guess it will be 30 years or 15 depending on how smart the Phillies and Us are at staying consistent.
The three of us beat each other over the head every year, When we win that battle then we have to compete against the rest of the league. And for the most part in the last 25 years when we manage to win our division we also seem to get to the WS. We missed ONE time by a game to the cardinals!
And that happens to be with the team that got the GM and second manager fired after firing the guy who got us there and that close!
Was Willie a great manager? NO! But neither really was Cox. Cox just got way more chances to get to the finish line (how many times before they actually won one?) than Willie did! Cox almost got canned for always choking at the end. If he got canned you could probably say goodbye to that consistency and the rest of the decade!
The guy who built our team has been fired so if it turns out that team can win when healthy then the reson we aren’t dominant for the next 10 years will be because we asked for them to stop doing the right thing.
If we just shut up and went to the ballgame the way the fans in Chicago and Atlanta and Philiadelphia do then we might have kept with a plan and made it work as opposed to listening to the fans and media and changing just so they could feel better and have something to write about.
We might have had our decade of dominance right now.
The Yankees of the 80′s were second class citizens when we were a dominant team. Braves and Phillies were on a down cycle and out main competition was Stl. But we didn’t keep the manager or the GM then and what should have been a decade of dominance turned into a decade of missed opportunities. Only to be followed by a Lets try the yankees method that wasted another half a decade we are STILL paying for!
That was the BIG mistake and that is what killed this franchise not Omar or the other GMs. We didn’t draft as well because we never hit the basement and got the top picks, We couldn’t, The Phillies were there!
The Braves had been there but because we screw the pooch and the Phillies are hiding the Braves had ZERO competition to get in their way and stop them. We put up the best fight in that time while Philly bided it’s time in the basement.
Thats where they drafted that core of players everyone commends them for!
There is a saying “Good is the Enemy of GREAT!”
By being good you don’t get that constant flow of youth you need to be great. being good is also not as good at motivating than being bad is. The old they are hungry phenomena!
We have been good but not good enough. The 90′s were a mistake because they spent enough to be mediocre and not get the picks while not being good enough to make it worth it.
This is why buying BEFORE you have the farm is at best a stopgap measure. And this is what Omar tried to do.
It wasn’t a bad plan it just got screwed in the implementation regarding signing guys who were on the verge of injury troubles. But if they had managed to stay on the field the last 5 years it could have been the first half in our decade of dominance.
Metsie look at what Epstein did when he drafted his players when he took over after the 2002 season. You don’t need high picks to draft well.
No but when one of your picks turns out to be a bust for you you get more for a guy you took at the top of the first round than you get for a guy you took at the bottom of it!
Where they got picked gives a value to a player who was top10 compared to a guy who was picked 30th!
And that means you get MORE from those picks even if you miss on the pick itself! You get a chance to make that pick turn into something else.
No you don’t Metsie. When you have a high first round pick who bust you get the exact same thing as a 50th round pick that busts. NOTHING. You just wasted a larger signing bonus that all.
Nobody’s giving anyone anything for their early round, middle round, late round or any round washouts.
What are you kidding us.
“only time in the last 20 years that we DIDN’T draft (unless we by choice gave away our pick) in front of Atlanta was 2007, 2008 and 2009. That’s it.”
And the only players that made them win all those years were pickd in the 80′s…Did we draft after them from 86 till they became the dominant force?
NO!
You say you don’t but FMart is still highly valued for where he was picked despite showing squat since then!
You may not choose to believe it matters but it does matter!
A guy who was a top pick is usually someone who was desired by MANY teams and they will value that player because they believe they can wright all the wrongs in the player we could not!
FMart will be traded to someone one day and that will proof that even busts get something in return.
North before u start fitting Theo fotr that halo, consider that a top, first round talent that slips down due to onerous $$$ demands & subsequently picked up by paying those demands despite lateness of pick is called POACHING a practice discouraged by tyhe Commissioner’s voluntary guidelines & which formed a primary portion of Omar’s plan to compensate for the lost picks in ’05 for Pedro,Beltran. a plan that was scuttled by Fred’s declaration of Met full compliance with Slotting practices for draft bonus offers prior to Omar’s hiring..
As too few realize that singular decision by Fred was the most destructive interference in Omar’s ability to complete the task he was charged with(building a perennial contender)
North there is a substantial difference in outlook between a former first round talent chosen in the third round and a true third round talent chosen in that same third round. Unfortunately due to singling out most signables over best availables our Farm development plans have failed miserably, as the Commisioner’s method of leveling the playing field between the deep & shalloe pocketed clubs was planned to accomplish. Hell, even the Nationals exceeded slot to acquire Straussberg; but Fred’s edict makes it verboten for NYM to this day.Alderson is appealing for a Fred recission of edict/commitment.
METS62FAN, I’m not trying to fit anyone with a halo but even if you go overslot you still have to recognize the success for going overslot on the right players.
In the end Epstein made good picks simple as that.
Metsie, the Braves success has NOT been due to having top 10 picks in the first round. It’s been due to having picks in the first and 2nd round and drafting well.
Chipper is the only guy they drafted as the #1 pick in the first round.
Once again, Glavine and Maddox could have been drafted by anyone. They both went in the 2nd round. One by Atlanta, one by Chicago. Smoltz was available to every team 21 times as he went in the 22nd round and was actually traded when he was a minor leaguer.
Last year Atlanta brought up Heyward 1st round #16. This year they’re bringing up Freeman 2nd round.
How is Atlanta getting all these McCann’s, Heywards, Furcal’s, Freeman’s Justice’s, Escobar’s, Prado’s Giles’ and everyone else. Their finishing AHEAD of us every year. THEY DRAFT AFTER US. (when we keep our pick)
Their selecting players that play well for them year after year. Their international free agents play great ours turn into Ferns.
You cannot ascribe it to sheer random luck.
The Giants drafted Lincecum, Sanchez and Bumgarner all #10 in the first round. Posey #5 1st round. You want to say those guys were out of our reach alright, I’ll buy it, but Atlanta is not drafting in front of us, we are drafting in front of them.
The only time in the last 20 years that we DIDN’T draft (unless we by choice gave away our pick) in front of Atlanta was 2007, 2008 and 2009. That’s it.
ALL the other years they drafted AFTER US.
t, truthfully, the Brasves have fully taken advantage of unique business environements to maximize their ability to adhere to a stricly structured conservative payroll hierarchy as they view no one player important enough to disrupt that structure while they liberally use arbitration offers to ensure the maximum return for departing stars like Smoltz, Naddox, Glavie, Anfruw, Fural, et al. Supplying them typically with multiple first round selections + sandwiches. The Braves are primarily viewed by ALL incl their fans as a small to moderate sized franchise allowing them the comfort of maintaing a payroll primarily in the $80-89M range despite what those competitors around them practice this is accepted by fans,MLB,players alike, despite the incongruity of possessing the additional cashflow positives provided typically by a dedicated SportsNetwork be it TBS,TurnerSports,SportsSouth,Peachtree Sports as well as their enjoying the added income a relatively new venue brings forth(Turner Field (circa ’97) was funded primarily with donations & public funding as one of the main Olympic Venues.
One of the singularly unique advantages the Braves utilize is their position as the sole MLB team servicing SC,NC,GA,TN,AL,KY(aka THE DEEP-SOUTH) as there are very,very few actually “born-to-it” Braves fans due to the transient nature of much of Atlanta’s working population compliments of AT&T,IBM,DELTA AIR,COCA-COLA,etc. making the Braves much less reliant on consistant turnstile repeasters as the vast majority of their fanbase is geographically handicapped from regular game attendance thus reducing the fear of fan backlash being visual & vocally apparent.(perhaps a contributory support for their frontoffice/mngt stability-consistancy)
In addition to all of this, the Braves have reduced scouiting travel rqeuirements significantly while they concentrate primarily in the temperate climate of their more immediate surroundings thus greatly reducing thhe risk of a pick’s eschewing an offer from their HOME TEAM, their”dream” of being a Brave(Francoeur,McCann,Heyward,etc.)
And what place were we in that draft when they got Lincecum?
Before or After…
I notice you keep mentioning pitchers yet a few days ago you were complaining about all the bust pitchers we have taken in the 1st round. And what was my response?
IT”S DUMB to take a pitcher in the first round. Atl knew that and waited didn’t they?
Giants lucked out in that deal…
As for who the Braves are bringing up this year are they bringing them up because they are good or because they didn’t win the WS and need improvement in some area and are hoping to get it from a rookie!
And you also seem to be overlooking that MAYBE the Braves Minor League coaching is far superior to ours and thats why those guy are on a fast track. Also I think it is ludicrous to based how good a draft pick is based on how quickly he came up to the big leagues. If that were the case the Pirates would be the best drafters in the game, Are they?
What your not thinking about when I mention all those losing years Atl had is that during that time they could make trades to improve more positions and solidify their farm thereby allowing them to be more selective in the draft by limiting the positions they had to look at, do more work on those players and take the best from that limited bunch.
If you go in knowing you need a pitcher but do not need a catcher and 1st baseman then you can take all the scouts you would have used to look at 1B and C and assign them to do a more complete scouting report of just the pitchers.
And if you do that you will likely find better pitchers to draft than your competition who also needs a 1B and a catcher and has to spread himself thin.
Losing a ton of games also stops you from leaving them in the system too long which may be the case with some guys we have had in the past. (Kazmir for example!) You don’t just leave them in AAA until they are ready and might as well send them up to learn how to hit ML Pitching. Or to get ML Batters out as the case may be.)
But if you are a team who has been favored or expected to compete for a title, you are much less likely to take a risk on a minor leaguer (such as the case last year with Dickey, Davis and Thole) and look for more ML vets to fill those spots. Thats why GMJ was here instead of Pagan in Center when we started! (Pagan last winter was still a bubble guy around here!)
That long drawn out decade of losing not only gave them freedom of roster but cleared their budget of crap, Allowed them to make lots of trades with all those top round picks they were making year after year that didn’t seem to work for them but when packaged with other players could bring in one more guy that you might be able to fit into your philosophy.
in 1988 they lost over 100 games.
In 1990 The Braves had the WORST record in baseball.
Thats three years of being at the top of the draft board. Funny they get guys like Jones, Justice, Gant, Smoltz Glavine and Avery during that time. You don’t see how much losing has an affect on your draft selections and availability of selection?
In the end how could they not dominate then? The NL east was really up for grabs. the NL west and central (really just Stl) produced all the WS entries at that time, We were busy smoking pot with the Coleman and Murray gang!
Phillies were a middle pack team at best.
they managed to get by the braves in 1993
And the 1994 Division re Alignment was a big help as well to them.
yes they had a good draft but ask yourself why haven’t they had another core come in and replace those guys in the last 10 years? Why if their plan is sound hasn’t it continuously had the same result of four or five HOF players since that time of losing.
If you can answer that with something other than I have laid out here I’m All ears! LOL
Lets get back to what we agree on here.
We both believe that drafting is important and we both believe you need a young core to build around.
Buying is a halfway measure but some buying IS needed at some point in the process.
As for if Minaya has had a very bad farm build I would say when 4 or 5 rookies are poised to be starters in the next year or two it is a bit unfair to say he came up shooting blanks. They may not be Smoltz and Glavine but then again neither are any of the guys that the Phillies homegrew either!
The Yankees only ever grew one pitcher and if this is really all about pitching you know I think it is better to buy pitching and trade it before it goes bad than it is to grow one and only get 4 or 5 years out of him before he is likely to get hurt and valueless in a trade.
Pitching has about a 4 or 5 year lifespan. Only the HOF pitchers you grow pay off. And if you look around none of those pitchers are now with the team that grew them.
Mostly because of how much they can get now!
Back in the 90′s a pitcher was lucky to get a 3 year contract. Guys like Lee are now getting 6!
Even if you grew one you would never be able to keep him as long as the braves kept Smoltz and Glavine!
They both had injury problems too didn’t they?
Fern was an IFA but I get your point. Teams will sometimes look to acquire a guy they had high on their board but missed out on but these are guys who are only available because they busted. There not bringing anything even remotely resembling a real prospect.
Their throw in cause they have no value or they’re an exchange of one bust for another.
Face it, if any of our busts could have returned anything of value we wouldn’t have gone ten years without a decent second basemen, 25 years without a decent right fielder or had to pay three different guys over 125 million dollars to play LF for us for a combined total of 11 years and forfeit two 2nd and one first round draft choices for having the pleasure.
But to get anything is another shot at a player who CAN develop and if not a prospect could be traded for a guy whi IS!
A pick or a minor leaguer doesn’t lose his value until you cut him or play him in the majors and he fails miserably.
Even then Two of those players can sometimes get you something decent. That leaves at least one less player you have to try and get in next year’s draft!
It’s a long long proccess to building a farm, far more time than Minaya had and far more time to judge on what prospects came out since he got here.
Braves had been drafting for 30 years or more, Phillies since 83 before they came up with their homegrowns.
You may choose to ignore the foundation that was left to these guys when they took over and reaped the benfits of it but that doesn’t make all those drafts irreelevant or not part of what made it happen.
And Free Agency is still only about 30-35 years old.
Since it’s inception there has only been two teams that have ACTUALLY built a young core and dominated their division.
Atlanta and the Yankees. Not even the Phillies have managed to dominate with both us and the braves to contend with each year. Thier prospects look good right now just as ours looked good right up until the time Beltran let that called strike go by him looking for a walk instead of a hit! (OBP you know!) and we wound up playing most of our stars in a hospital instead of a baseball field.
Could happen to them too and then what will having that homegrown core get them? Probably nothing in that case! They have a 5 year window now to win or they will be in the exact same place we are right now!
’62, I’m surprised to hear the Braves are restricting their scouts to smaller areas. The deep south is great for talent and being able to sign guys you draft has got to be so much easier for them than us trying to bring some of these kids to Queens but still you have to scout Nationally. California/Arizona has to be the epicenter of your efforts. Interesting and thanks for passing that on.
Continuity has got to be easier to sustain in Atlanta where even playoff games do not sell out.
They seem to me to be a very well run efficient, know what they want kind of an organization. They never give out more than a 3 year contract to a newcomer (exceptions Maddox and Lowe) rarely sign free agents at all except ones with no comp due for a year to 3 at most. Vinny Castillo, Andres Galaraga both got three year deals but performed too. Troy Glaus and Garrett Anderson got inexpensive 1 year deals to fill a role just for that year. Mostly they always have someone coming up the pipeline. They have 10 guys from the farm on every team.
Bullpen is waivers, non tenders, amateur free agents and 1 year non comp free agents.
Bench is always well conceived and weighted towards offense.
Rotation is always the first priority, though they did sputter a bit with the loss of the big 3 and Kwakami’s first two years ect.
They impress me as a bunch of guys who really like baseball, whether it’s in a horse field or a ML stadium. They watch a lot of baseball and evaluate realistically. They know they can get a guy for 2 years for a certain spot and that he’ll fit in well because of their scouting judgements and they probably get to know the players as well as you can. I have no doubt that Wagner and Cox were communicating during his rehab and the Brave deal was already a done one with Wagner attempting to save the Braves their pick.
Most of all they always have 10 players that came up through the farm and that means they all stand for something. Lot’s of guys have known and worked with each other 5, 10, 15 years. Lots of them have all been through the same towns and lot’s of them are from the same TYPE of town (Rural GA or the campo in the DR is more similar than you might believe) That commonness gives them something that we haven’t really had around here in a very long time.
Thanks for the insight ’62.
T, por nada; actually the geographic restrictions were initiated by TimeWarner after Turner bailed. The other significant advantage worth mentioning is that for the largest citry in the South Atlanta has ONLY one major newspaper the AJC Atlanta Journal Constitution & they tend to disregard Sports in genneral the NY Press is tougher on puppies & kittens than the AJC on the poor valiantly struggling Braves against those foolishly big spenders up North. The Us Vs. Them mentality is foisted on them by their Press never challenged at all,. merely as homerish as TBS ever was.
Metsie it is NOT, REPEAT NOT my assertion that spending makes you bad. I have never said that, never written that and never thought that. Spending on players who are near or in their decline is something I have spoken out against but simply having a large payroll should allow you to do a little more than just cover up high priced mistakes.
My measuring of the actual on field results is over the last 20 years. If you believe that the last five, ten or 25 would be more relevant I’ll be more than happy to discuss it with you. Hey we could just look at 1986 by it’s self, proclaim we had the best results and call it a day.
Tell me who ever thought of Philly as a contender until 2008? Cincinnatti until 2010? Know who’s got a really good farm system? Colorado, San Diego, Atlanta, Cincinnatti, Dodgers and Giants. That bodes well for those teams futures.
Your being ridiculous Metsie, it didn’t take Atlanta 20 years to build a core to get to the world series.
It took Frank Cashen four years before we it started to pay off up here. If we had made a serious effort with good scouting, going over slot, keeping our draft picks and even acquiring extra ones like Boston did we could easily have Dustin Pedroia at 2B, Mike Stanton in RF, Brian McCann at catcher and Kyle Drabek in the starting rotation right now and all it would have cost us is 1 1/2 years of Billy Wagner, 2 years of David Weathers and 100 games of Moises Alou and it would have saved us 65 M dollars plus 24 M we wouldn’t have spent on Luis Castillo.
Put that 90 M on Cliff Lee and we could have added him to the mix as well.
What would we be giving up? We’ve only made the playoffs once in the last ten years. We’ve had 5 losing seasons in the last ten years, 3 of them complete collapses trying it this way. How much worse could it be?
Philly is poised to go eight straight years, Atlanta has gone 15 out of 20. We’ve gone 3 times in twenty years by going for it every year and all we’ve gotten out of it are more holes at the same positions we had holes in before.
Our direct competitors have been successful with a particular strategy. We have been unsuccessful with a different strategy, so you tell me what we should do. The same thing we have been? Or should we change it up a bit?
I didn’t tell a story. I laid out the facts. The actual on field results over the last 20 years. Those numbers represent what the organization has done since the Wilpon has had time to put their “stamp on the franchise.”
Somethings I found surprising. SF with nine 90+ loss season and eight 90+ Win seasons. That I found surprising. The fact that those eight 90+ Win seasons only resulted in 5 playoff appearances I found surprising.
Houston with 6 playoffs and only five losing seasons, ST.Louis with zero losing seasons, the Dodgers only two and yet despite having the highest payroll we have ELEVEN. How could we have more than 5 times the number of losing season as the 2nd largest payroll team in the NL over the last 20 years?
No Metsie I wasn’t telling the story. The numbers speak for themselves.
But the facts conveniently left out the one good season the Mets had and included the only two good decades the Braves and Phillies have EVER had!
Of course the numbers are going to be skewed in that analysis!
They play each other so the numbers are going to skew towards the team who was dominant in that time period.
Was it because the Wilpons were so bad at managing or because the Braves finally got their crap together that produced those results?
Include the time frame of 85 on and you see the Mets had a near decade of dominance just like the Braves did.
You seem to only be counting the years those players who eventually became core were in the system…
Pray tell how did we get them? By Winning or being in last place?
For free or via trades of past picks to get the prospects we eventually developed.
Your not looking at the effort it took to GET that farm, your merely counting how long it took once we got them and not the capitol it took TO get them.
between trading ML players and other draft picks we managed to find a group of home growns who could compliment guys like Hernandez, Carter, Foster, Knight and Ojeda
You leaving out whole years of the proccess that builds a farm. You have to have something to get something. You had to lose a lot of games and be the worst team in baseball to get the top picks.
If you don’t lose a lot of games then you can’t get those top picks you have to develop lesser picks and trade them for the guys who are better!
In a football example why have the Miami Dolphins been futile in rebuilding a team after their perfrct season, Why has the winningest coach in football never able to rebuild that greatness…
Is it because they were so good at winning games they couldn’t get to the talent that is needed in the draft to grow another championship?
Hasn’t the same thing been true about the Jets? When was the last time they were in last place in their division? And how long after that did they manage to get close to winning something?
We have not had a horrible last place season with any regularity.
So we did’t have the high draft picks that the Phillies and braves had all those years they were a team of futility.
A player drafted 5 years before is what is usually used to get the guy who becomes part of the core. If he takes 5 years to become that core then it took 10 years to get that guy.
If you wind up in last place for a few years (as the Phillies were) it goes a little quicker!
Thats why the Phillies were able to shock you.
because you didn’t look at what they did the 10 years before while they were collecting players to be used to get what eventually becamse their core homegrowns.
Considering the longest deal anyone ever gets in baseball is a 7 year deal that makes competitiveness running on a 10 year cycle and with three teams in our division being good you chose only to count the two decades where we were not it.
That is my issue with the 20 year sampling.
I know you chose it based on Wilpon ownership but you cut out the first 10 years of their ownership that was actually successful.
If you cut out the samples where the owner got it right and compare it to the only two GOOD season of the competition of course the numbers are going to be skewed. They were picked in a manner that was skewed to make the Wilpons look the worst they possibly could.
How good are the Patriots going to look if you cut out the last decade where they have had their greatest success?
“Include the time frame of 85 on and you see the Mets had a near decade of dominance just like the Braves did.”
It still falls way short of what the Braves did Metsie.
2004 New York Mets 71 91
2003 New York Mets 66 95
2002 New York Mets 75 86
2001 New York Mets 82 80
2000 New York Mets 94 68 Lost WS (4-1)
1999 New York Mets 97 66 Lost NLCS (4-2)
1998 New York Mets 88 74
1997 New York Mets 88 74
1996 New York Mets 71 91
1995 New York Mets 69 75
1994 New York Mets 55 58
1993 New York Mets 59 103
1992 New York Mets 72 90
1991 New York Mets 77 84
1990 New York Mets 91 71
1989 New York Mets 87 75
1988 New York Mets 100 60 Lost NLCS (4-3)
1987 New York Mets 92 70
1986 New York Mets 108 54 Won WS (4-3)
1985 New York Mets 98 64
Sub .500 record over 20 year period: 9
Sub .500 record with 90 or more losses over 20 year period: 5
Above .500 record with 90 or more wins over 20 year period: 7
Post Season appearances over 20 year period: 4
Now show how many managers and how long each lasted compared to us and you will see the point I’m making in regards to what is the key to Longevity and Dominance.
Do the same the the Phillies who only became dominant once the Braves and us didn;’t have a good team.
How many managers have they had during THEIR up cycle?
I’ll let you do the legwork on that i think I’ve done a lot as it is.
The point I wanted to share was that the Mets did not have near a decade of dominance just like the Braves did. Which is what you previously was suggesting.
North, your response of;
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Mr North Jersey says:
February 15, 2011 at 10:48 am
METS62FAN, I’m not trying to fit anyone with a halo but even if you go overslot you still have to recognize the success for going overslot on the right players.
In the end Epstein made good picks simple as that.
___________________________________________________________________________________________assumes my intent was to denigrate Theo in any fashion; however, in my opinion, crediting him as a GM for maing those picks @ those bonuses is similar to praising Cashman’s talent assessment in choosing Sabathia or , in other words crediting the wine connesseur who just sticks to the TOP SHELF at his local wineshop. Rather, I trust the talent assessment skills of those who find that passed over talent in the fourth or fifth rounds who later becomes a mainstay on a ballclub. Not a Boras’ client wanting the GM’s “firstborn” to sign as an amateur, Hell anyone with “enough children” could just as easily pick that talent up whenever they were a mind to.
Primarily it is why I credit Minaya very little for Pelfrey as there likely weren’t too many GMs salivating over:
4 years/$5.25M (2006-09), plus 2010 club option
signed Major League contract 1/06
$3.55M signing bonus
value reaches $6.6M if Pelfrey makes 25-man roster in 2007-09
his $5M+ upfront+ guaranteed MLB roster slot shortening his “indentured servent” period. The purpose of prioritizing draft selections in reverse order of season’s finish & the reliquishing of a draft position in lieu of a 40 man resident is primarily to deflect the overwhelming advantage large markets provide over small markets to subvert that process via the poewer of your checkbook alone is against the best interests of the game. having ALL large market teams participate in this checkbook draft poaching process & not the Mets is certainly against the best interests of tyhe Mets.(that is the deliberate disadvantaged position Fred’s cowtowing to Bud has wrought upon us making our draft picks marginalized to the point of near uselessness. This, most likely is the rationale for Minaya’s duisregard for the top availble amateurs as well as the estimated value of early picks. There’s little point at looking at a menu when you can’t pay for the food.
If your opinion is that Epstein drafting a kid by going over slot is on par with Cashman’s talent assessment in choosing Sabathia.
I disagree