8
2011
Who Do We Want To Own The Mets?
An article by Former Writers
A little more than two weeks ago it was announced by Fred and Jeff Wilpon that they were exploring the option of adding a partner(s) to own the New York Mets.
Naturally the news hit the blogs and Twitter in no time and there was talk among Mets fans on who they would want to own the team. There were two names that came up many times as possible new owners for the Mets:
James Dolan: Not surprising at all, he already owns two of the major sports teams in New York, the Knicks and the Rangers who both make Madison Square Garden their home. Dolan in the past has even expressed his interest in owning the Mets. He certainly has the money to run another team and would certainly compete with the Yankees in spending.
Mark Cuban: Mark Cuban as we all know is a self made billionaire. He currently owns the Dallas Mavericks. Cuban has also been very vocal about wanting to own a Major League Baseball team. He has tried unsuccessfully to purchase both the Chicago Cubs and recently The Texas Rangers but was blocked by MLB for not being a good ole boy.
Both Dolan and Cuban have the money to run a major league team in a big market that’s for sure. Dolan has showed in the past he is willing to spend money. Cuban always wants to win. If I had to pick 1 to be the owner it would have to be Mark Cuban. Dolan has done a horrible job with both the Knicks and Rangers over the years. Dolan stays loyal to the people he hires to run his teams to a fault. Glen Sather has been the President and GM for The Rangers for too long. Many including myself believe that if Isiah Thomas did not a bring a lawsuit on MSG he would still be running the Knicks.
Then you look at how Mark Cuban has turned the Dallas Mavericks around since purchasing the team. Before purchasing the team the Mavericks had a winning percentage of 20%. Cuban has owned the team for 10 years now and their winning percentage now stands at 69%. The Mavericks have also made the playoffs every year under Cuban’s ownership including a trip to the NBA Finals in 2006.
The chances that both Cuban and Dolan would buy a 25% stake in the team are pretty low. I can’t imagine either owner wanting to fork over 250-300 million dollars to have no say in operations or the direction of the team. I also doubt MLB is going to allow Cuban to own a team, considering they have already turned him down twice.
Cuban has already gone on record as saying that he would be very interested in buying part or all of the Mets, but was also adamant that the Wilpons would have to make the first move and call him. I don’t blame him.
Who do you want to own the team? It doesn’t have to be realistic, it’s just to have a discussion.
About the Author: Former Writers
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I couldn’t see Dolan owning the Mets. It would make for a weird playout in SNY vs. MSG channels.
Ya, the partnership with a rival would make it really awkward.
MetsMan u may have bruilliantly stumbled upon why Dolan has no chance since Wilpons have adamantly desired to leave SNY, a moneymaker, off the vlock, selling to Dolan would gut SNY’s viability esp should Dolan do the most logical thing & move the team’s games off SNY & onto MSG. Wilpons could sell on DaY 1 & CLAIM BANKRUPTCY on Day 2. Uncle Bud woyuldn’t care for that.
Personally, I’m rooting for underdog Cuban, as his current version is much more aligned with his paid NBA experts than his gut for personal agrandizement, it’s been sometime since Stern had Cuban nightmares. As Met fans it would be like getting the newpost-banishment BOSS instead of the early battling Billy Martin headlining baffoon.
In NYC deep-pockets, team swagger, ‘underdog makes good’ are ALL superior ingredients to making turnstyles hum.
Last I checked, Cuban was still having issues with the SEC. That is a built in excuse for the Country Club to keep him out, especially in light of the Wilpons’ troubles.
Dolan also is related to the Cleveland Indians ownership. MLB probably doesn’t want 2 teams run by 1 family.
How about Warren Buffet? He’s got the cash and just his name attached to it will help the Mets as a brand. His brother Jimmy (yes, that Jimmy Buffet)owns a minor league team with none other than Bill Murray. Perhaps the three of them can start up an ownership group. How great would that be?
That’s unreal. Warren and Jimmy Buffet are brothers? Wow. You just blew my mind Donal. Wonder what Bill Murray, a noted Cubs fan would think of being a part owner of the Mets. They do still hate us in Chicago. Anyway thanks for a fresh thought as opposed to the same old Cuban/Dolan crap.
Damn, I was wrong about them being brothers. They are good friends, but that is about it. I read an interview where Warren said he was jealous of his “more famous brother’s” success. Apparently, he was just kidding.
I kind of like a baseball fan who isn’t a Mets fan having a say in the team. They would be most interested in putting out a good team and not clinging to favorite players or outdated thinking(in theory). That and Bill Murray is just friggin cool.
Ha Ha… you little metsie donal say Cuban has problems but you dare defend the crooked Wilp[ons… You metsies aren’t funny anymore…you are just sad!!! enjoy your disaster…you deserve it…
DERP DERP DERP
Dolan would be interesting.. he would probably want to buy SNY as well. Imagine the possibility of having additional revenue induced into the team were it would be just as high as the stankees. Hmmmm…..
These opportunities don’t come along very often. I’m quite sure someone will pay a premium in order to get their foot in the door. The trick will be to get someone who is not an impatient, self absorbed jackass like Cuban or completely clueless on how to actually build a team like Dolan.
Baseball is a far different game than basketball. One superstar guarantees you the same amount of wins as no superstar in baseball. You need to have a whole TEAM in order to compete. What looks good on paper in January always unravels in July. The only antidote to that is to have a non stop professionally groomed flow of prospects coming up to your team every year. One position player and one pitcher bare minimum. Would Cuban go for the easy quick fix right out of the box? I bet he would and we have plenty of experience with that approach. Would Dolan? No question. He would probably be seduced by some sweet talking former player who would run the team into the ground starting on day 1. Dolan would use the team to drive viewership by adding huge free agents who will typically under perform, get hurt or both leaving us once again in the same position we are now.
With the popularity of fantasy baseball lots of people think they can build a team in a year or two but the two things have very little to do with each other. Anyone brought on board would have to be a baseball person, not a fantasy baseball afficianado
or an attention starved, all about him type petulant spoiled brat.
T, once more, for the record I totally disagree with tyour tasrring & featherinf Cuban based uipon actions from his past not replicated in recent years or present. I certainly must sufggest u never prasy the Lord’s Prayer asking for forgiveness equal to wht u show others. “forgive us…, as we forgive…”
Think NOW not THEN & reconsider reality who else wants into baseball desperately enough to risk soooo much?
’62, It doesn’t have to do with forgiveness. I don’t really mind if he ran amok in the NBA and if he’s changed his ways that’s great. Good for him. I just don’t want to see some new import putting his imprint on the Mets by going out a buying all big name players and neglecting the farm for another 20 years and then being a big mouth about the whole thing.
If he did come here I would support him, what choice do I have but he wouldn’t be my preference.
Baseball is not like other sports. The mindset has to be different. You cannot will yourself like you can in other sports. It’s much more of a marathon than a sprint and I can just see someone high profile like Cuban coming here and trying to play fantasy baseball with all the accompanying distractions sucking all the joy out of the whole thing.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe he’d be great but somehow I can just feel that the urge to make a splash would be too great to resist.
I’ll take your advise though ’62 and pray over it.
Any owner NOT named Wilpon is acceptable to me! LOL
Donald Trump!
I was thining he might get involved or at least try.
Nathan do u reralize it’s a long established fact that owning a sports franchise, esp baseball, is NOT a quick short-term investment? Do u really believe a Cassino Owner will be allowed to be a Basebnall owner? This is the same sport, that temporarily banned both Willie Mays & Mickey Mantle for contrscting to become greeters(spokesmen) for AC casinos. Is Bud Selig yuour concept of a maverick on this issue?
Nathan, have u passed your 16th birthday yet? Sorry, I’m not tryiong to be insulting, just trying to acertain whether your naivety is justified or an infliction.
Jerry Seinfeld YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Jerry Seinfeld AND Keith Hernandez!
:)
ITS OBVIOUS….. WE WANT THE WILPONS!!!!!…. WE LIKE THEM AND THE WAY THEY KEEP THE METSIES SO ENTERTAINING. WHO NEEDS SNL WE HAVE THE WILPONS!!!!!
DERP. DERP.
DERP.
Why does anyone even care who owns them? Whoever does is going to be as hated as the wilpons if they don’t win some games….
This whole subject is really just rediculous!
The same reason we speculate on roster moves and such: It gives us some illusion of control. It’s a fun exercise as fans.
LOL Donal,
I guess I don’t have that kind of time to waste in my life! Too Busy to waste it on hypothetical conversations that really produce nothing!
Just seem like a pointless activity and a waste to talk about trades that have no basis in reality and aren’t even being considered.
I would rather save the time and wait until a REAL deal can be discussed and weigh in on if it is a good or bad deal.
Not some trade some fantasy guy is trying to make with one of his league members and looking for arguments to make to try and convince them to let him steal a player! LOL
But that’s not to say you don’t have the right to spend your time on it! lol
Doesn’t matter who the owner is as far as I’m concerned. Will they win games is really all that matters to me!
“Too Busy to waste it on hypothetical conversations that really produce nothing!”
Like arguing about what is appropriate to argue about in February on a baseball blog?
Well put it this way…if you spent more time on things that you actually have the power to change you might even earn enough to buy the team and make a change of ownership.
Crowing and complaining sure isn’t going to force the Wilpons to sell!
I don’t understand why so many think a new owner will be better than the ones we have. Will a new owner be less concerned with profit margin than the Wilpons? I would think that during the first 10 years a new owner is going to do his best to trim costs and increase profits if only to recoup what will end up being a sizable investment. The other part of it is, what if they’re worse? The one thing we know about the Wilpons is that they never had a problems having the highest payroll in the NL. Will a new owner feel the same way?
Circle gets the square!
This has less to do with the Wilpons and more to do with people are mad the team didn’t win and got 20 pounds of Minaya and Manuel flesh and it felt good so they want to get another 20 Pounds to keep the high going.
hatred is kind of like cocaine in that regard! Feels great for a few minutes but then you need more to feel good again!
Bottom line is no one will want to buy the team for the price the Wilpons need to get out from under whatever debt they have. Second unless the sale includes both the stadium and Network (which will double or even triple the cost of a buyout) a guy like Cuban would more than likely MOVE the team if they could.
AND EVEN if someone bought the whole shebang and kept the team here…
After spending all that money are they really going to want another 200 Mil a year at it?
DOUBTFUL!
This is mostly about people didn’t get to play fantasy GM with the met moves this year. They want to see us go buy the highest paid FA every year because they think thats what the yankees do. They don’t mind you never have done that! Not even for A-Rod!
And they see financial stories they do not understand either due to ignorance or immaturity and decide the problem must be the Wilpons since the new GM didn’t do what they wanted done. Which was to continue Omars Buy every year plan that didn’t work.
I can’t wait for this case to be over because in the end the WIlpons will still be owners and the season will have started and by that time they will have a whole new 80 pounds of flesh to chose from to direct their hatred at and get their fix!
Fantasy baseball has nothing whatsoever to do with the real thing. I think your right Metsie, I think people just want to analyze and disect some trades and free agent acquisitions for the sake of playing GM.
I’m quite sure many of them were solidly behind the Alou, Schowenweiss, Perez, Castillo, Wagner, Putz, El-Duque, Valentin, Murphy in LF, Cora at back up MIer, GMJ for half a season in CF, Jacobs at back up 1B, Mejia in the pen, Shefield, Reed instead of Endy, Bell for Johnson, Bannister for Burgos, Owens and Lindstrom for Vargas, ect ect ect off season “moves”/resignings.
The conversation always goes like this. “if this guy can do what he did 3 years ago and that guy can play this new position and if everything goes right we could be right in it.” Maybe once every 20 years everything goes right. Then when it doesn’t the conversation goes like this. “Well who else were we going to get to play 2B, LF, RF, C, CF or put in the starting rotation or bull pen?” As if it’s perfectly understandable that we left our selves no other options other than whoever happens to be a free agent in a particular season or whoever wants so badly to dump an injured relief pitcher making 6 M with a 1.5 M buyout or will actually pay someone to play for someone else because THEIR GM provided them with options that our GM didn’t.
This “strategy” of just looking around every winter instead of building a team is what has led us to ELEVEN sub .500 years in the last 20.
Giving up a draft choice that could have been Brian McCann or Jon Lester for David Weathers 170 innings over two years is the type of move applauded by these “amateur fantasy GM’s” and has more to do with those ELEVEN YEARS of under .500
baseball we have “enjoyed” over the last 20 years than any other single reason.
It’s really just a male version of gossiping during the off season and is the very anthysis of building a team capable of winning a World Series.
Here is the problem with those who think in Fantasy terms.
They are used to every year getting together with 4 or 5 friends and dividing the all star talent of 30 teams between them.
To decide they go by NUMBERS ALONE!
They make trades with people who will not stand to lose a couple mil in Ticket sales, Concessions, marketing, Ad revenue, nor Deal with the Press, Have to answer to bloggers, or LOSE MONEY IN ANY WAY and have to layoff 100′s even 1000′s of workers because no one goes to a game. If money is a part of the league it is MONOPOLY money at best!
And your not [B]tied to next year’s budget![/B] Once the season is over? New Draft, New league, New Players , [B]NO LONG TERM BUDGET AND PLANNING![/B]
If there is some year to year planning, they do what Omar did and each year add another set of numbers who will give them good fantasy numbers!
Castillo sucks? Cut him! I can do it in my fantasy league why can’t you? Well thats fine since fantasy Castillo really doesn’t have to recieve a penny!
this world is full of people who think they can GM. Just like there are millions of people who think they can sing professionally too. Just watch American Idol sometime to see them!
reality does not equal Fantasy.
So any experience they have with Fantasy Baseball will not translate to REALITY!
Making a redicoulous steal of a trade is easy when it’s your dumb beer buddy your trading with. trading with someone like Brian Cashman or Jon Daniels.
The money is real and so are the player’s their psyche and health!
In Fantasy if Beltran gets hurt you sign some other allstar OF from the 30 or so teams that have on because only 5 or 15 came off the board to other players!
Omar was not the best horsetrader nor was he a big strategic thinker.
But the moves he made might have worked better if the guys spent more time on the field than in the hospital!
It wasn’t just Omar. It’s been every GM since the Wilpon’s took over. Every off season has been about who can we get for this spot, that spot and the other spot. They’ve all played fantasy GM and once they get the Bonilla, Coleman, Castillo, Alou, Bernitz, Saberhagen, Murray, Alomar, Schowenweiss, Perez or Bay they think the job is finished.
They never think of actually drafting and developing a Heyward, Lincecum, Pedroia, McCann or Stanton, they just figure they’ll overpay for those guys after they’re past their prime too.
That’s how you turn a World Championship baseball team into a team that has finished under .500 ELEVEN TIMES IN TWENTY YEARS.
That’s how you wind up losing 90 games twice as often as you win 90 games.
To do all this with a top 5 payroll is nothing short of staggering incompetence.
To advocate continuing to do the same thing over and over again shows a stunning lack of comprehension of how to assemble a winning baseball team. Sophisticated fans my ass.
The only teams to have more than 11 seasons under .500 in the last 20 years are: Balt, Det, FLA, KC, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, SD and Montreal/Washington (12)
The only thing Bonilla, Vaughn, Coleman, Alomar, Schowenweiss, Bernytz, and all the rest have gotten us is 1 less under .500 finish than the Expos/Nationals. and it only cost us an extra 2 billion dollars to do it.
T, now that u’ve vented your spleen on the same topical complaint u’ve focused on for some time reagrdless of thread, I’m confused by your parameters.
u begin with this complaint;
“It wasn’t just Omar. It’s been every GM since the Wilpon’s took over. Every off season has been about who can we get for this spot, that spot and the other spot.”
T, exactly what is your parameter definition for “since Wilpons took over” that occurred as we all know in 2002. there have been 4 GMs since then Phillips,Duquette,Minaya & Alderson. Phillips’ tenure overlaps the Sterling(Wilpon) ownership by ONLY 1 YEAR(2003). Duquette was interim part of ’03 & ’04 before Minaya came in for ’05-’10. As Duquette acquired absolutely none of those players u cite as “the problems” both he & obviously Alderson are exempt from your issue leaving Phillips & Minaya. as u begin with “:it wasn’t just Minaya” I guess your faulting the short Phhillips/Sterling 1y tenure.
While I understand the logic of your case, I must ask u to respond with the last successful baseball team in NYC that was built as u propose. I believe the answer is THE BROOKLYN DODGERS by the way, say hello to Fred in your fantasy “wish they were the Dodgers World”
Said in an other way, since this is NOT the Owner dictates regime of NYY it’s best to look at who ALL the personnel decision/policy makers have been and what their modus operendi was. Let’s begin with ONLY modern Met baseball from 1980 sale to Doubleday(99%)/(wilpon)(1%)
’80-’91 CASHEN: old-fashioned GM, eschewed F/A never prep’d a proper successor though went out on his own decision to retire.
’92-’93 HARAZIN: ill-prepared Cashen successor presiding over only 2 drafts, did he have an established modus operaedi?
’94-’97 McILVAINE: “Trader Joe” need I say more, spent most of his tenure failing to create “the blockbuster deal” to establish his legacy
’97-’03(excl ’98)PHILLIPS: coined the NYM sentiment, “NYers won’t tolerate rebuilding” Succesfully acquired nearly every overpaid disappointment on your list of complaints. Despite his distaste for Development programs managed to luck into Reyes,Wright,Chavez,Pagan,Kazmir,Bell & others
It’s probably good to assign responsibility(blame) for those highly unproductive early 90S known for “the worst team ever bought” label
Likely to a lot of peiople’s suprise the 3 yr period ’09-’92 had the NYM payroll exceeding NYY as this illustrates:
YEAR METS YANKS
1990 #2(22.4M) #5(21.0M)
1991 #4(32.5M) #8(27.8M)
1992 #1(44.4M)**$6(36.0M)
**1992 NYM HAD THE LARGEST PAYROLL IN MLB @44,352,002 FINISHING IN 5th PLACE OUT OF 6 TEAMS @ 72-90. PHL WAS 6th THAT SEASON WITH #21 PAYROLL @ 23.8M. payroll figures used can be found:
http://content.usatoday.com/SPORTS/BASEBALL/SALARIES/TOTALPAYROLL.ASPX?YEAR=2010
1992 was a bad baseball season in NYC as NYY finished below .500 @ 76-86 for 4th place of 7 teams. Suprisingly the Yankees 1992 entire payroll would not satisfy half their current infield contractual obligations($78.5M),and barely A-Rod’s 31M due for ’11.
Though certainly off topic it illustrastes what has actually hapened regarding payrolls over the past 10 years. quintuipled from #1 in ’92 @ 44.4M to #1 in ’11 exceeding $200M
This is what I’m saying ’62.
Starting when the Wilpon became a 50% partner (Oct 1986) and allowing time for that already built team to disapate (taking us through 1990. Assigning neither credit nor blame for building or dismantling under the assumption that the work you do in the prior five years to a large extent determines the results you receive 5 years later. Since they could not have been responsible for the building of the mid 80′s team I’m not giving them credit for it. I’m also not assigning blame to them although a pretty big case can be made that they inherited a World Champion and then led it into ruin.
Basically letting the time frame selected allow for the Wilpon’s to put THEIR stamp on the team over a fairly sizeable period of time uncontaminated by things that occurred before they became a full 50% owner that they couldn’t have had very much (if any) control over nor the first five years of their full partner status due to their not being able to have been fully involved in the decision making that led to their first 5 years results.
This is the results the Wilpon has experienced starting 5 years after they took over as a full 50% partner of the NY Mets.
9 winning seasons, 11 losing seasons, (3) 90 win seasons and (6) 90 loss seasons.
These are the actual results plain and simple. They speak for themselves.
Considering that we have consistently had a top 5 payroll during this period (sometimes as low as 8, other times as high as 1st) one would certainly expect at the very least that more than half of the seasons the Wilpon was at least a full 50% partner (over years he had some say in the operation) would have been above .500. It is also reasonable to expect that there would be twice as many 90 win seasons as 90 loss seasons. This is not the case. The opposite is true. We have lost 90 games twice as often as we have won 90 games.
Compare these results with successful NL competitors like Atlanta and St.Louis over the same period.
Atlanta has 2 losing seasons in the last 20 years, 14 years of 90 wins or more including 6 years of 100 or more and only once have they lost 90 or more games (exactly 90 in 2008)
St. Louis has had 5 losing seasons in the last 20 years and never lost 90 games in a season during this time frame. They have also won 90 games or more 6 times including 100 or more twice.
These two organizations combined over 40 seasons have lost 90 games one time between them and that was exactly 90. Once, between them. We have done it 6 times and even managed to lose 100 games once.
The point I’m making is these other two organizations are consistently competative year in and year out even when their payroll is significantly lower than ours.
In those years that they have had higher payrolls than we have they have turned those years into 100 win seasons. When we have had the highest payrolls we have turned those seasons into losing one’s. Sometimes with 90 losses and even once with 100 losses.
Do you have an explanation for this kind of disparity in actual on field results?
’62, Do you have an explanation for the disparity in these results?
T, we’ve hashed & rehashed all the sins of ALL the NYM frontoffices,owners to absolutely no impact, certainly they’re at a loss being compared to a team who’s gameplan hasn’t altered much since Branch Rickey desighned it in the 30s
BTW, their fanbase doesn’t boo those wearing Cardinal Red.
T, BALDERDASH!!! What office supply company they used or office staffing choices were made is likely where Fred’s 50% did the most good, the Piazza acquisition issue truly dilineates the balance of power where 50% does not mean EQUAL when dealing with a MANAGING partner. most likely Fred had as much say over field related issues as Jeffery Loria had to do with NYY record during his minority partnership tenure
T, of course everything u say is right(no sarcasm); however at what time do u accept what has transpired before u as if u were Omar in ’05 & move on. Was he supposed to try & sell a team on competitive hiatus while he collects & selects draft picks? No, he had to try & create a winning MLB team out of whole cloth starting with a mediocre roster of aging once quality players, Piazza,Lieter,Franco,Glavine surrounded by a couple of extremely high talented inexperienced players, & hobbled LFer with a few castoffs, never-was types with a franchise history of mediocrity and one of the poorest farm systems, owners that were taught “u can’t rebuild successfully in NY” who had a fortune in debt tied up into a proposed NEW STADIUM willing to increase their payroll allocation substantially; but considerably short of the luxury line.You don’t have time alotted to u for waiting, your boss already promised “meaningful” late season competition.you eye 3 notable targets in the upcoming F/A mkt Pedro Martinez(34), Carlos Beltran(28) & Carlos Delgado(33) at a time when player’s careers were lasting longer productively. Inheriting a team in such desperate immediate condition as to have your to 2 predecessors dismissed within 2 yrs & mostly relying on your previous association with the primary owner, the luxury of worrying about 5 yrs down the line was a rediculous consideration under those circumstances. ONLY by already knowing the outcome today is the shortsighted folly apparent.
OK ’62. Your right. We cannot change the mistakes of the past. I’m not trying to do that. All I’m trying to do is IDENTIFY what our competitors are doing that has worked out well for them. Why have they avoided al the low lows that we have fallen into? What has helped them scale the heights at times that we haven’t.
I don’t care about why we went about things in a certain way, I just want to see us adapt, become better, smarter. LEARN from our mistakes as opposed to continuing to make the same old ones all over again.
Building a team through intelligent farm system development does not preclude a team from competing today, in fact many of the best teams also have the best farm systems.
Few people would say that a couple years of David Weathers would be better than six years (at least) of Jon Lester or Brian McCann.
Few people would believe that 2 years of Moises Alou would be better than six years (at least) of Mike Stanton.
Fewer still would believe it wise to continue drafting pitching bust after pitching bust when we have to import expensive and brittle players at LF, RF, 2B year after year after year.
The fact is if you can identify the reasons for your competitors success and your own failures you can do something about it.
Omar knew the deal when he took over. That’s why he talked about getting younger and more athletic in his introductory press conference. To some extent he did try with IFA’s and the draft but you simply cannot rush the process nor can you expect just one guy at every position to come through for you. C, 1B and 2B he had 1 guy for each. One looks good, one’s OK and one so far has been a bust and the clock is ticking.
For a team that attempts to address so many positions with players who have such a short shelf life in them by giving away draft choices and cash like crazy they cannot miss on the few draft choices they keep, nor can they fail to take back one’s that are handed to them on a silver platter, nor can they fail to properly develop the few prospects they have in the system.
This work has got to start to be done sometime. If Omar was sitting on a top 5 farm system he would still be here. Toned down perhaps but he would still be running the show. The fact is we still have a 25th ranked farm in comparison to other teams, even though it’s a hell of a lot better than what it was. If he had built, built, built the farm in anticipation of 2009 and Citi Field he would have been tremendously successful here. Instead he TOOK AWAY from the farm during his years here even though he knew what dire straits it was in. Even when he was handed golden opportunities to provide us with good young prospects.
If he had done the same thing with Wagner that he did with Glavine we could have had two positions (or more) filled with an Ike Davis and how would things be looking for us right now if he had traded Glavine for one year of a DH instead of offering arb and drafting Davis?
I don’t give a s**t who’s fault it was the fact is the strategy we have been employing has led to 11 seasons under .500 in the last 20 years and there is convincing evidence that it will NEVER work. Forget assigning blame lets just get on the right track.
Our competitors strategy works well in Atlanta and St. Louis and would work perfectly well in Medellin, Mombassa, Mongolia, Moscow and yes even in NY.
T, I believe I’m on solid ground by saying the GM certainly has a significant say in a team’s planning for the future, br it tactical(immediaste or strategic(futuristic). Let’s agree on that as a basic for sake of my example to follow,
If your purpose it truly an attempt to discover other team’s secrets for success, I’d begin with FRONT OFFICE STABUILITY leading to consistant direction, steady progress for my comparison of teams who seemed to have discovered “THE IT” of baseball, I selected STL,ATL,BOS,NYY & MN consider ing from 1962 through present the NYM have relied upon the leadership od 12 GMs(not counting 2 term servers Cashen & Phillips as more than 1) comparatively those relatively constant contenders I selected, who have ALL existed considerably longer have this GM regime steasdfastness:
STL, 1919-PRESENT, 14 GMs
BRAVES(ATL,BOS,MILW) 1945 -PRESENT, 8 GMs
BOSOX,1901-PRESENT, 13 GMs
NYY,1920-PRESENT 2- GMs(13 FOR BOSS)
TWINS/SENATORS, 1901-PRESENT 5 GMs
Consider, this, I personally always considered the NYM front office top job as relatively stable, imagine my suporise as I’m certain most everyone reading this is, so perhaps when thing stasrt to go awry, we should be a lot more reluctant to scream “off with his head”?
T, I certainly contend that this zig-zag directional course certainly bears a considerable portion of the blame for ALL the frustration.
I agree completely ’62. I wish our favorite team was run more like the Patriots or Steelers. Serious continuity there, no need to make short sighted decisions because the big picture is the one every body’s focusing on.
I too thought the GM job was a relatively stable one too. I never gave a lot of thought to it until Cashen and I do believe we had the right guy Joe Mcillvaine but there is no way to know for sure.
A clear organizational vision with a pragmatic long term view is long over due here.
I think you hit the nail on the head but I also feel the Wilpon’s preffered strategy is the January press conf and photo op to jump start ticket sales.
That has to end.
T, let’s leave the NFL out of this; however, Trader Joe as I recall from the inuendos of the day fell victim to Pjillips’ basckroom politics(a specialty) no matter your personal politics; I believe I’ll get few arguements by stating Steve Phillips was the Mets’ Jimmy Carter sans the cooler brother.
Again I agree ’62, with the backroom deal but looking at how other sports organizations do things and comparing the results would go a long way toward ingraining a patient resolve in this organization rather than the constant willy nilly, through s**t against the wall approach and see what happens.
Well Tag I can tell you there will NEVER be the stability or long term planning like there is in Pitt or NE because their fan base does not ask for heads to roll the second those teams have a bad spell the way we do here in NY!
You can blame Omar for a lot of things but everyone loved him when this team was in the playoff hunt until september.
It wasn’t until we had two years of injuries that people wanted him the manager and even ownership gone!
You can’t win EVERY year. All you can hope for is that you build a team that can be in it provided circumstances (like injuries) don’t ruin it.
And the fans seem to think changing managers at whims is the way to go.
It’s not!
Willie had us in contention and he got sent packing. Since then we have been injured and not even in the race.
If you want consistency you have to give the guy a chance to get there.
If Belichick and the Pats were here in NY he would have been run out of town his first two years where he was dead last in the standings.
And then again after the Spygate scandal!
If you want a consistent system to have to be prepared to sit through the bad times to get to the good times!
That simply doesn’t happen in NY!
I mean look at Torre! How many WS did he win for the Yanks yet one bad season and he had to go!
It is a tough job in NY especially when you raise expectations only to see them crash year after year.
I never understood why so many people wanted Willie fired. I thought he did a pretty good job and if he was given the full backing of ownership would have provided that no excuses, get it done professionalism that works pretty well in the organization he came from.
It certainly wasn’t his fault that that Oliver, Hernandez and Bradford were ditched for Mota and Schowenweiss or that El Duque and Pedro were counted on for the rotation (along with a 40 year old Glavine) or that Alou was brought in at 40 years of age in LF and went down or that Wagner was unavailable when his team needed him the most.
Willie (and Peterson) did a great job regrouping when they lost Pedro before the playoffs and El-Duque and Trachsel IN the playoffs but to expect them to be able to do it again mid season is a little too much to ask especially with the s**t bullpen Omar put together.
Organizational continuity really is vital otherwise your just looking at things move by move and never the big picture. It would be like a business never checking to see just how many customers their getting from the yellow pages vs. bill boards vs. referrals vs. prospecting vs. existing customers.
You have to laugh when NY fans are considered to be sophisticated and educated fans and then want someone’s head cut off just to satisfy some frustration or say that spending just a little more money would fix this thing as if that wasn’t the only approach we have taken here at the expense of all others.
Well Tag, NYers are the product of their enviornment.
Complaining seems to be a part of our Bill of Rights!
NY moves and grooves faster than any other City on the planet save Tokyo! And with everything that goes on around us we have very short attention spans! Either thrill us now or get out of my face!
Many work in a business enviornment (not a lot of manufacturing going on round these parts anymore) where lack of performance means you get sacked! Rarely is the reason for the lack of performance looked at or analyzed!
There are millions of people who MIGHT do a better job in NY! We live in a perform or get fired enviornment.
But It actually takes 2-3 years for a Manager or coach of any sports team to install his program for success. Maybe even longer in the Minors because they are not being coached by the Big League guys meaning you have to teach your coaches your approach as well!
First year gets you about halfway though the program. The next year the entire plan should be in place. The 3rd year is basically spent deciding who is working in the system and who isn’t, and then the GM has to go out and find talent to fit that program to fill the holes needed in order to win.
Willie got 2.5 years and basically had them in it till the very end where they folded. Shows how CLOSE he was to winning but also FAR AWAY because he didn’t have the players (and this is where the mental part becomes important) to take them the rest of the way.
Some here say that Oakland did a good job with moneyball because they were competing. Well wasn’t Willie competing as well?
How many times did the Braves NEARLY make the playoffs or did and fell short? If he was in NY not Atlanta Cox would never have won a WS he would have been fired long ago!
And I personally am going to reserve judgement on Omar and what he did until I see what they do this year!
Because if we DO manage to compete for something guess who will deserve the lionshare of the credit for it? It sure won’t be Sandy! You will however give a good dose to Collins! Not the majority of it though. It will go to (and deservedly so) to Omar!
If we have any success it will be wbecause of the guys he brought here to play! Unless Emaus wins the MVP or Capuano and Young tie for the Cy Young award the guys who will have won it for us are the same names we blame Omar for bringing here!
If they win a WS it would be a big “I TOLD YOU SO” moment for Omar!
He would be the hottest GM candidate in MLB!
What he did was not entirely wrong. What his probalem was he gambled and those gambles lost.
He knew Pedro was in shakey health when he signed him. He knew Delgado had issues as well. He had hoped they would carry him until he could build up some farm to replace them when the time came, and it came too quick.
But Davis is here now. Beltran is getting to the place where Pedro and Delgado were at when we were the ones who signed them. Kirk is almost ready, Pagan is here to fill, reyes’ heir is also in the system and we hopefully found someone to play catcher, no he’s not Piazza but he could be a Grote one day! Grote didn’t find his power till later in his career! Dyer NEVER had power!
Mejia could be the next Doc if he works at it, And Gee could easily be the next Darling or Ojeda.
So Minaya tried to stick to his original plan and play the kids instead of buy his way out and got crucified for it.
If Omar was really about buying as much as you think he was then he would have bought at the deadline, he didn’t he stuck to his plan and it cost him his job!
History hasn’t been written yet on Omar. they won’t (or at least I wouldn’t) write that chapter until we see what they do and who is here TO do it this year and next.
Joe, for someone who I’ve come to respect for his logical,analytical though process, yoe’ve certainly come to SHOCK & SUPRISE me with this post. Me thinks you’ve been standing too close to Nathan(naivety) especially by making this observation;
“The one thing we know about the Wilpons is that they never had a problems having the highest payroll in the NL”
Factually u are certainly correct; however, I don’t comprehend how u went about evaluating their comfort level. While their high % of overall annual spending invested in payroll was certainly extrordinary compared to our league peers, the cost in(tradeoffs) decreased development investments, medical practicioners(going HMO style, by contracting out to HSS rather than seeking out best available practicioners in the relative fields) most certainly, to me belies their comfort level with their annual payroll allocations. using this website from USA Today as my reference
http://content.usatoday.com/SPORTS/BASEBALL/SALARIES/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2010
I’ve compiled this simple graph as a method to display the rollercoaster positioning within the top baseball markets(MLB) as well as the relatively subset conservatibves in the NL away from the inflationary Yankees, As we are the ONLY NL CLUB so completely effected by NYY methodology it is only necessary that we spend @ a hybrid(AL/NL) payroll level:
I’m only counting placements since Sterling fukll ownership established in 2002:
YR AMT MLB RNK N/L RNK
02 94.6 #6 #3
03 118.2 #2 #1
04 96.6 #4 #1
05 101.3 #3 #1
06 101.1 #5 #1
07 101.1 #5 #1
08 137.8 #2 #1
09 149.3 #2 #1
10 134.4 #5 #3
While it’s virtually a certainty, this current situation is not evaporating to the point of allowing Sterling to resume it’s necessary position to restablish the march to NY relativity. These conditions certainly mandate a change in leadership to a more determined quest for “dominance” over “meaningful”; “contention” over “competitive”.
Joe, from it’s inception, this team we love has been like the bastard redheaded stepchild wheerin it was born out of betrayal(we don’t like considering)
Bill Shea had little apparent interest in this team regardless of the contrived honor of playing in his namesake stadium.
WILLIAM SHEA HAD A VISION TO OVERTHROW THE POWERS THAT BE IN THE PROFESSIONAL SPORT OF BASEBALL by establishing his “vision” of a totally separate independent yet talent equal League, THE CONTINENTAL LEAGUE. He had lined up a number of MLBless cities willing to commit to making his dream his reality in his lifetime. All he was missing to really become relevant & to get the attention he required was one singular MAJOR MARKET CITY. his obvious choice was the now NL abandoned market of NYC. He met with several deeppocketed investors, Joan Payson, M.Donald Grant among them willing to stand beside him making his play for Continental relevance. Clandestined meetings were held, compromises made & expansion planned with his NY allies seduced by MLB to abandon Bill Shea’s dream in return for a return to NL with an ecxpansion license(their 30 silver pieces) to create the NEW YORK METROPOLITAN BASEBALL CLUB, quietly, losing his centerpiece major market spelled doom for Shea’s Continental dream, No, contrary to
populist palp Bill Shea’s interest in NYC BASEBALL was solely in the context of being his guarantee of success for his CONTIONENTAL LEAGUE. The Mets, must have remained a very painful constant reminder of the selfish duplicity, the old NY MONEY destroyed him with!
A skeptic may certainly choose to reply; “KARMA IS A BITCH”.
Unfortunately this team has suffereed from a series of owners more bemused than determined, I for one, while I support the non-Met involved Wilpons for their many off field, out of the spotlight charitable endeavors, have reached my breaking point of having ‘nice’ owners, “safe” owners and am ready for a brigand to come to our wearisome rescue.(I initiially had a typo here with rexcue, in correcting it I saw tyhe cosmic finger of fate giving my request it’s most appropriate moniker. From now forwards I propose we begin reffering to a potential new owner as our REXcue.
Hoe’bout THAT?
’62,
Despite having a top 5 payroll since 2002 when the Wilpon became full owners of the Mets we have a combined under .500 record of 718-738. We also have had 5 season under .500 and 3 above .500. We have won 90 games once and lost 90 games 3 times.
In the last 20 years we have won 90 games THREE times and lost 90 games SIX times.
In other words it is twice as likely that we will lose 90 games than we will win 90 games WITH a top 5 payroll.
For us to understand how these results are possible with a payroll that almost always is the highest in the NL and top 5 overall it is important to see where that money went and where else it could have gone that would have produced better results.
For instance we payed David Weathers 5.5 M over 2 years but gave up our 2nd round draft choice that could have landed us either Brian McCann or Jon Lester. Those players would have been here for at least 3 times as long and during those 6 years would have cost about 10 M and gave us MUCH better play.
McCann would have been a much better successor to Piazza than La Duca, Schneider, Blanco or Barajas. Lester could have prevented us from signing Perez and certainly would have performed MUCH better too.
I don’t think anyone could argue that either of those two players would not have helped us win 2 or 3 games more than we did in 2007 or 2008 and when you think about it…….
Billy Wagner pitched pretty well when he was available (except in the NLCS or the NYY game when he was unprepared to come into a game that wasn’t a save situation) but for the year and a half that he did throw pretty well at a cost of 44 M and a number 1 pick that the Phillies turned into Kyle Drabek and than cashed him in for the biggest part of Halliday AND the suuplementary pick for Wagner helped them obtain Blanton, who do you think got the better part of that deal?
If we had Drabek ready as a 5th starter with 6 years of him in the starting rotation I’d feel a lot better about our chances than Capuano or Young and to think it actually cost us 44 M AND helped our division rival get two of their 5 starting pitchers on top of it.
Moises Alou was signed before SF even had to decide to offer arb or not. With a 5.8 M 2006 salary at 40 years of age there is almost no chance they would have risked an 8M salary on a 40 year old. We signed him before they had to decide thereby ensuring SF would get the pick.
In addition to paying him 15M for 100 games over 2 seasons we gave up the chance to draft Tommy Hunter or Mike Stanton (the RFer we haven’t had for 25 years) Neither of these guys will make 15 M over their next SIX seasons yet they will be in their prime and producing far more than Alou did in his 100 games over 2 seasons.
When it comes to scouting, drafting and developing that is a serious issue with this organization. The sheer number of top round pitching busts is beyond staggering. It is almost incomprehensible that one team could have SO MANY HIGH ROUND PITCHING BUSTS YEAR AFTER YEAR. For every Pelfrey (1st round) there are 10 1st round busts. For every Niese (5th round) there are 10 2nd – 5th round busts and Gee in the 21st round can only be described as a good but lucky pick considering how many flat out flops we have taken in the 1st 2nd and supplementary rounds.
After the Kaz Matsui flop and the misguided Reyes move at 2B you would think we would have attempted to address 2B with a few top prospects including Dustin Pedroia who was selected #65 in the late 2nd round. Instead we chose two pitchers who busted as usual (one of whom was included in the Santana deal)
This team, right now could so easily have an everyday line up of McCann/Thole at C Davis 1B, Pedroia 2B, Reyes SS, Beltran LF, Pagan CF, Mike Stanton RF and a starting rotation of Pelfrey, Dickey, Niese, Drabek, Hunter and have spent 200 M less. Approximately what the Wilpon’s are now looking for by selling part of the team.
You can go through the list, one high priced trade or free agent acquisition after another that has cost this team games with them because of poor play or not being able to get on the field and better players later who would have cost 20% of what these expensive, brittle and frequently under performing free agents did.
Looking around every fall and “spending money” every December or January for whoever will take our cash has resulted in ELEVEN LOSING SEASONS OVER THE LAST TWENTY YEARS and will continue to hurt our chances in future years because we STILL HAVE NO RIGHT FIELDER, SECOND BASEMEN AND A 4TH AND 5TH STARTING PITCHER WE AREN’T STILL IN THE HOPE MODE WITH.
Maybe some of you guys like grabbing a Mo Vaughn, Bobby Bonilla, Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo, Roberto Alomar, Vince Coleman, Brett Saberhagen, Moises Alou, Scott Showenweiss, Kaz Matsui, Roger Cedeno, or Jeremy Burnitz every year and having a better than 50% chance of being below .500 and only a 15% chance of winning even a modest 90 games but I’m sick of it.
Here is the only problem I have with what you said and it was really only a passing statement you made…
You CAN NOT presume that because we could have drafted a player in a specific draft (if we had a pick) that the player who eventually emerged from that draft would be the same player that came out of someone else’s system.
There are a myriad of things that contribute to a player emerging as a successful player other than where they were drafted.
Most important is the fact that different teams have different coaching and teaching regimen. the ability of your farm system to reach and teach a player the things that he needs to know to be a Major League player varies from system to system.
Perhaps if we drafted him he does get that training and doesn’t materialize as a PROSPECT with us. I blame most of the problems of our farm not with trades that raped it or lost draft picks but a failure of the system to teach these guys the fundamentals and how to overcome their shortcomings enough to emerge a better baseball player.
Now that isn’t to say it is ok to waste draft picks you could have had or to undervalue those picks because of the uncertainty.
But it is very difficult to say well if we had a pick that guy would be available and look how good he became because he wasn’t that when he started he was groomed and developed PROPOERLY and might not have developed the same way on some other team.
A good farm system does not need top draft picks to produce good players. it needs top Coaches who know how to mold and get through to the young men who go through the system. A good farm coaching staff can turn mediocre players into decent, decent into good and good into GREAT ballplayers!
No matter where they were drafted!
And this has been the leading cause of our lack of prospects, it sure wasn’t dumb trades and the lack of top picks should only mean it takes a little longer to groom who you pick whenever it is you do make a pick.
The teams who are successful usually pick at the end of the first round and yet they still manage to have prospects rolling through the roster.
there is an old saying…it’s the cook that makes the pie! Not the apples!
Even if you got the best apples that money could buy there is no guarantee. A better chef will make a better pie even with substandard apples! cause he knows how to make sub standard apples taste good!
Metsie, THANK YOU!
It is for that very reason that I’ve questioned the value of Oberkfell & Teuffel’s leadership. tha drought of MiLB accolades/titles has been alarming & I suspect the quality of coaching may have been effectively tradedoff as payroll increased as a % of overall spending(liabilities) along with the precipise dropoff in drt bonus investment $.
The better your scouting & development coaching the more likely successful your prospect production regardless of round an amateur is selected in. Earlier rounds do tend to yield a higher % of successful MLBers. or is it they’re just the more notables being followed as everyone knew Straw was a top election, where was Dykstra,Basckman,HoJo,Knight in their day? it takes a melting pot of round selections to ultimately create successful teams; but proper early coaching certainly is necessary to weld them together with stromg seams.
Is it any wonder why the one consistant criticism of our homegrown callups has been a ‘lack’ of fundies aka “poor instincts” that screams poor coaching not poor talent! Just imagine how badly we could have screwed up ALL those promising futures! Good thing they didn’t listen to T all this time or the sport would be on life support.
Is it me or for a # of years now the most consistant adjective applied to NYM prospects is ‘injury prone’? right before ‘disappointing’ & ‘not ready’! Another key indicator would be how badly those sipposedly key prospects shipped to Twins & Mariners have not progressed, outside of Gomez have any surfaced anywhere meaningful? Those are the types of revelations that get your GM avoided during conventions/meetings.
I don’t know how much weight to put on farm system championships.
That said, I agree that the few top prospects we’ve had have not developed properly. But is that because the coaches themselves are underpeforming, because the talent itself is lacking, or because the big club is making all of the emergency call ups of guys who simply haven’t had the time to work on their skills?
Well look no further than FMart and Kirk to see the common denominator of problems with this team.
Physical conditioning and preparedness is abysmal!
It has not only affected the Major League roster but has trickled down to the Minors as well!
A greater emphasis on strength and conditioning would do a lot to solve that problem. And even when he is healthy FMart has not been a player to ever exhibit all those tools he is supposed to have. In fact he seems to be mirroring the same troubles Reyes had breaking through to the ML roster.
he too had a ton of problems with his legs when he first came up and they had to hire a guy specifically to stay on Reyes to develop the strength so he didn’t pull a ahmmy every 10-15 minutes!
That is PART of the problem.
Thier approach at the plate is also very lacking. We need to teach those players how to fight through an At Bat especially with two strikes on them.
62 – What Tag is saying is not wrong about building from within. But it is predicated on the assumption that you SHOULD be able to do it. If thats true then he is correct those lost draft picks would be very valuable because the promise they hold has a good chance to materialize.
If you can’t make that pick pay off it really doesn’t matter when or who you draft. And I think the Minor league coaching is the key to failed development not so much the fact we have been drafting poorly.
I am sure there are plenty of HOF players who were drafted late in the draft.
They got the training and coaching they needed!
“A greater emphasis on strength and conditioning would do a lot to solve that problem. And even when he is healthy FMart has not been a player to ever exhibit all those tools he is supposed to have. In fact he seems to be mirroring the same troubles Reyes had breaking through to the ML roster.
he too had a ton of problems with his legs when he first came up and they had to hire a guy specifically to stay on Reyes to develop the strength so he didn’t pull a ahmmy every 10-15 minutes!
That is PART of the problem.
Thier approach at the plate is also very lacking. We need to teach those players how to fight through an At Bat especially with two strikes on them.”
Why should our farm system have to teach that stuff? Shouldn’t they be more focused on taking these raw talents with the basic skills and moving them to the next level?
I’ve heard from people who are knowledgable about the topic that you can’t teach a 20 year old plate discipline. Thats something that has to be in by high school age.
That goes back to scouting. Omar was so in love with the Dominican developemental leagues, even during his first tenure with the Mets, that he never actually questioned whether they were really that good. There are some insanely talented players come out of there that are missing some basic skills like plate discipline.
Well Donal all I can say is you need to coach them in what they lack whatever that aspect may be.
You can;t rely on them to get it in college because Number1 they are not as focused on baseball as they are grades in school and two if a HS or College coach was any good at teaching those things he would probably be working for a team not a school!
You have to be able to handle ANY deficiency that may show up in your minor league system. And if you don’t the once you can’t handle are the things that will make your prospects bust whenever you try and bring them up!
When you draft you draft based on the physical talent and mental makeup of the player.
A player with poor physical tools but good mental skills can be taught to be a good player. You can’t however teach a kid to throw a 95 MPH fastball! You can however teach him how to use that skill to get guys out. You can also teach him how to throw other pitches to complement that fastball. But an idiot who throws 95 MPH is never going to learn how to get ML hitters out!
You need both.
You can’t teach someone how to have a good approach at the plate before he gets to the minors because the pitching he will face is not as good. As the pitching gets better you need to learn how to deal with that. So your assessment that they should know this going in is a nice thought but not applicable to reality!
Donal, I’m not sure of their true value either only that the did portend well in easrly 80s,mid 60s
Dude you know the old joke?
Doctor it hurts when I do this, what should I do? and the doctor replies don’t do that!
It is DUMB to use a top draft pick on a pitching who AT BEST will contribute 1 game in 5 to your team!
That is the big problem! You need to maximize your picks so you get MORE out of them. If you can home grow an entire lineup of regulars you will then be able to do what the Yankees do and go buy and trade for pitching to keep you afloat! This is essentially what Phillies just did!
Built up a formidable lineup who can win with a little bit of pitching and then go all out to make sure you have good pitching 4 out of 5 games!
Pitching may be the most important part of the game of competing but each player is only 1/5th of the pitching puzzle! You can’t get one pitcher to carry you!
And it really makes very little sense to invest 4 or 5 years of coaching on a guy who even if he becomes an ace is likely only going to give you 4 or 5 ACE YEARS once he gets to the big leagues before injuries and age start to take their toll!
Pitchers are not LONG TERM prospects anymore. Back in the day guys like Seaver and Ryan were worth developing because they didn’t get coddled and as a result of building up strength rarely got hurt!
Not so true anymore! Guys throw 90′s for 4 or 5 years and then lose a few MPH making them less effective.
We should not be investing a lot of time on a MAYBE who even when your successful will not give you twice the service time you put in to get him there!
You should draft the players who might contribute in EVERY game and then hope to develop a few younger guys who can pitch out of the picks when there is no regular position player to go after.
Pitching should be a secondary concern when drafting. But a primary concern when dealing with Free Agnecy!
By going after pitchers we get less. 1/5th the contribution drafting an everyday player would give you!
“It is DUMB to use a top draft pick on a pitching who AT BEST will contribute 1 game in 5 to your team!”
Welllllllllll, keep in mind, that one player will have more influence over his 1 in 5 games than any other position has in all the other games combined.
“Back in the day guys like Seaver and Ryan were worth developing because they didn’t get coddled and as a result of building up strength rarely got hurt!”
Seaver and Ryan were the exception, not the rule. thats why they are in the HoF. I wonder what we would find if we actually looked back at how long pitchers maintained maximum effectiveness in the past.
Koufax made his name off of 5 great years in a 9 year career (9 full seasons, anyway) and had to retire at 30 because his arm was about to fall off. Do we really want that for our young guns?
Other than those two points, I agree with you.
They were hardly exceptions (Seaver and Ryan)
Koosman, Gibson, I could probably find at least 20 Pitchers who were the same and also IN the Hall…
Pitchers back then were expected to and did COMPLETE GAMES!
There was no LONG Relief, Middle Inning guy, Lefty Specialist and the Closer was not used until the Starter totally ran out of gas!
“Well the manager didn’t replace them so the answer would be YES!”
It may not be. We’ll have to look deeper.
“You don’t get a complete game if your giving up runs or not pitching effectively!”
You would if the manager didn’t believe in using the bullpen.
You’re also assuming that its a better way just because they did it in the “Good Old Days” when players were indentured servants.
Well your missing the point here…
Guys used to have a ton of complete games and they didn’t get hurt as a result!
Now they pitch less and get hurt MORE!
I hate repeating myself.
Did they get hurt less, or did they just not know they were hurt?
Also, how many of those pitchers were $100 million investments? Or were they just treated like a plough horse (ie worked until they dropped and then sold off to the glue factory)?
Are YOU hurt right now?
Are you SURE?
Stop being rediculous and you wouldn’t have to repeat yourself if you stopped asking rediculous questions that deserve to be ignored!
Hall of Fame pitchers are the exception. Thats why they are in the Hall of Fame. It’s not the Hall of Median.
Yes, there were more complete games, but how did that affect the ptichers? How long was the career of the average starter? How effective were they after pitching that 250th inning? Not mention, they lowered the mound after Gibson spent 1968 making the entire National League look like lost children.
I don’t agree with a lot of bullpen philosphies, but you can’t just assume every starter is Nolan Freakin Ryan.
And there are probably 200 more that didn’t make the hall and still completed most of their games. I don’t know how old you are but you sure do seem like a guy who wasn’t born when Pitchers actuallu pitched a whole game. This sepcialist and 7 inning crap didn’t start until LaRussa started managing!
Most pitchers who pitched in the time before the 80′s had a ton of complete games! And they didn’t get hurt once every other year the way they do now!
And since I’m lazy and don’t want to search YES each year there are 31 failures…AKA ALSO RANS!
If you run 25 miles in a 26 mile marathon you don’t get credit for finishing the marathon and coming in second in the Marathon is not the goal!
If you fail to reach the goal you FAILED!
You were an ALSO RAN!
Again, how many of these 15 complete game a year pitchers burned out at the end of the year? How many years were they effective? Its about more than just racking up innings. You can’t use Hall of Famers as the measuring stick.
If using your bullpen gives you the best chance to win, then you use it. Plain and simple. If it hurts your starter’s ego, big deal. Your brains outrank his balls.
Hardly any….
Here I used my super special powers of Google to find some courseware for you.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_complete_games_were_pitched_in_Major_League_baseball_in_1970
That in no way answered my question. I’m not concerned about how many innings they eat up.
I want to know how good they were at the end. Were they better than if the manager went to the pen?
Well the manager didn’t replace them so the answer would be YES!
You don’t get a complete game if your giving up runs or not pitching effectively!
Here is some more info for you…
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/picomg4.shtml
Again, not what I am asking.
Your asking the rediculous…if they were hurt the couldn’t pitch at all!
So the answer is NO they were not hurt and no they KNEW they weren’t hurt.
What they were was CONDITIONED because you were expected to pitch a full game and because you did it on a regular basis you built up your body to take the pounding and did not get hurt!
Try to lift 200 Lbs of weights the first few times you might get hurt but do it every year for 5 years and at some point your body will build up so you don’t!
Stop being rediculous!
The point is we BABY the pitchers now and as a result we not only don’t get complete games they get hurt way more often than when they DID complete games! Because their physical conditioning only conditions them to pitch 7 innings at best before they know they are going to get pulled!
Could not agree more Metsie.
Now just to clarify a bit for others, I’m not saying NEVER draft pitching, just saying that your most valuable picks in a draft have to give you a better return than 1 game in 5 contribution.
There are always exception there but I truly believe that you don’t entertain a high pick pitcher until you have pretty much filled your minors and majors with plenty of everyday talent.
THEN taking an everyday player might not contribute as much simply because there is no room to play him.
Bottomline is you NEED pitching to win, but you don’t need an entire rotation of homegrown pitchers to get it.
If you look at 86 Gooden was really the only true homegrown player. The rest of that staff was pretty much imports via trades and FA.
Yankees had Pettite and Phillies had Hamels.
Did they get hurt less, or did they just not know they were hurt?
Also, how many of those pitchers were $100 million investments? Or were they just treated like a plough horse (ie worked until they dropped and then sold off to the glue factory)?
Crap, this is hard to keep up with. Ignaore this, I’ll post it in the right section.
Metsie, We have consistently drafted pitchers who bust with our high draft choices. One right after the other. We have not produced a LFer of our own who made the All Star team since Cleon Jones or a RFer since Darryl Strawberry. 2B has produced 2 All Stars, Hunt and Alfonzo. SS Reyes, 3B Wright, C Stearns, CF Dykstra, 1B No one.
This is over a 45 year period of time and 50 rounds of the draft plus international free agency and yet we have signed and developed about 8 position players who went on to the All Star game. Something is rancid here.
A fairly large reason is we often give away our picks for aging dinosaurs or fail to grab picks when we can by not offering arb to Alfonzo, Wagner ect ect. The more picks you have the better your chances, easy to understand right?
Now if your arguement is on the development end, fair enough but what has The Wilpon, Harrazin, Phillips, Duquette and Omar done about it?
2007 is a great example of drafting high round bust after bust. Just look at picks 1-7. College relief pitchers with 1 pitch to their name. Even a pitcher (Nate Vinyard) who cashed the check and quit.
Phillip Humber in 2004 is a great example too. Drafted #3 in the first round after having his arm abused in the vaunted Rice University rotation he busts as does another high pick from Rice and the other high pick from that rotation just had his first taste of success this year.
I cannot say that I’m an expert on college baseball but I do know that Humber got two decisions for Rice University in three days. What does that tell you?
Later in the 2nd round of the 2004 draft we took another pitcher (#3 44th overall) Matthew Durkin, as usual another complete bust no different than Kunz, Rustich, Moviel ect ect ect. Sitting there at #65 was Dustin Pedoria. Having just signed Kaz Matsui for 3 years don’t you think it would have been nice to follow him up with a guy who could play 2B for us when his deal was up?
If we ever had any extra picks we could have gotten great production at 2B, made the playoffs in 2007 and 2008 and saved 24M wasted on Castillo.
You can talk about developing prospects all you want, and maybe that’s true with pitchers but don’t tell me Pedroia wouldn’t have forced his way up here in 2007. Maybe in our line up he wouldn’t have been as good, maybe he would have been rushed (even played out of position another specialty of ours) but he would have done a hell of a lot more than Humber and Durkin.
These are the results when we keep our picks. Obviously when we throw them away our results are pretty much the same.
Pitchers bust 3-1 over position players and don’t on average start finding their groove until 25. Why aren’t we spending the money on pitching in the FA market instead of always getting so many older position players who don’t play D as well as they did before or run the basses as they once did?
We could avoid the high bust rate of pitchers, finally have a competent starting 8 and bench, trade some depth for an ace and spend the money on guys who have avoided busting and know how to pitch in the Majors.
T, how’s this for a solution, let’s go bacjk to Cashen’s dismantling of the 86ers let Reyes walk for picks, Wright, KROD,etc & not sign any compensatable F/A.
That’s the only way to satisfy u as I see it & BTW, let me know what city u travel to to see Met games ’cause it certainly won’t be Flushing,NY.
I don’t want to see Reyes go. I just want us to stop throwing our picks away for 3 or 4 bad years of a former All Star.
tag the post above your was supposed to be a response to what you said…the damn nesting bug bites again! LOL
There are alot of different options out there. I would suggest a corporation over a family purchase. This has it’s disadvantages but in the long run they seem to keep their hands out of the cookie jar and let things be run rather than mettle ie Jeff
NATHAN, BY ANY CHANCE ARE U THE SECOND GUY MOVING “THE ROCK” ROOF IN THE LATESE GEICO COMMERCIAL?LOL
CORPORATE OWNERSHIP?
U MEAN IN THE MODE OF THOSE HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL RUNS BY CBS, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, TIME WARNER?????????
GREAT TRACK RECORD, BETTER OFF JUST SHOOTING JEFF.
I don’t know who I want to buy the Mets – I just hope that whoever does has no children.
T, at least none with developmental or educational issues.(lol).
good one ’62.
T, another MIA “reply button comment…
___________________________________________________________________________________________t agee says:
February 12, 2011 at 11:05 am
Again I agree ’62, with the backroom deal but looking at how other sports organizations do things and comparing the results would go a long way toward ingraining a patient resolve in this organization rather than the constant willy nilly, through s**t against the wall approach and see what happens.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
T, yo my recollection, “we fans have met our enemy & it is us” because as I recall back in ’97 Phillips announced his plan to embark on a 5Y rebuilding program focused on youth,pitching,defense,speed(familiar?)
Wekll he stucj to it for 2Y & fans watching the “Phoenix” in the Bronx with babies Jeter, Posada, Pettitte, Rivera ALL wanted theirs now in Flushing & thus began Phillips refrain of “U can’t rebuild in NY:, it won’t be tolerated. and the parade of lightning in a bottle signings of Zeile,Ventura,Olerud,Burnitz & acquisitions of Benitez,Appier,Vaughn. rendering down the 5Y plan to uccessive 1Y prayers in addition to sliding across the 100M payroll barrier for the first time in ’03($ 117,176,429). . Obviously Phillips learned nothing from his boss of 2 yrs, Harazin, who’a ’92 team wa the highest payroll for a sub.500 effort & 4TH place.
T, another issue to consider is that save for just a few times the choices of GM replacements HAVE BEEN INBRED IN FLUSHING OUTSIDE OF#1 WEISS(NYY),#6 CASHEN(BALT) & #12 ALDERSON(OAK,SD)
The inbred factor is a big one ’62. If ever an organization needed an outside opinion it’s this one. Living in the shadow of Yankee Stadium has got to cause a loss of perspective and now with being surrounded by successful other teams like Boston and Philly we needed to get a fresh pair of eyes on this thing.
No amount of backroom boot licking (or booty licking) will make up for bringing in a fresh perspective.
T, u said…
___________________________________________________________________________________________t agee says:
February 12, 2011 at 11:34 am
It is a tough job in NY especially when you raise expectations only to see them crash year after year.
I never understood why so many people wanted Willie fired. I thought he did a pretty good job and if he was given the full backing of ownership would have provided that no excuses, get it done professionalism that works pretty well in the organization he came from.
It certainly wasn’t his fault that that Oliver, Hernandez and Bradford were ditched for Mota and Schowenweiss or that El Duque and Pedro were counted on for the rotation (along with a 40 year old Glavine) or that Alou was brought in at 40 years of age in LF and went down or that Wagner was unavailable when his team needed him the most.
Willie (and Peterson) did a great job regrouping when they lost Pedro before the playoffs and El-Duque and Trachsel IN the playoffs but to expect them to be able to do it again mid season is a little too much to ask especially with the s**t bullpen Omar put together.
Organizational continuity really is vital otherwise your just looking at things move by move and never the big picture. It would be like a business never checking to see just how many customers their getting from the yellow pages vs. bill boards vs. referrals vs. prospecting vs. existing customers.
You have to laugh when NY fans are considered to be sophisticated and educated fans and then want someone’s head cut off just to satisfy some frustration or say that spending just a little more money would fix this thing as if that wasn’t the only approach we have taken here at the expense of all others.
___________________________________________________________________________________________T, u hit the target with your first sentence, NY is the toughest & Willie wasn’t up to it, he sweated too much in the kitchen, his psychological yearning for stripes was too obvious, @ the time I often complained of feeling I was watching Humphrey Bogart’s rendition of Captain Queeg’s testimony(THE CAINE MUTINY) during his post loss pressers(esp durinf collapse). I was breathlessly awaiting his blaming Delgado for the missing Sugar or potted palm..(lol)
NB
PROBLEM:
’08 Delgado’s aging, slumping & fighting off admission of it
WILLIE SOLUTION, leave him alone, ignore him in the clubhouse & embarass him by dropping him in the order
JERRY SOLUTION:
set up early morning one-on-ones with Delgado, privately, to adjust his swing during extra BP sessions
While Willie’s solution was similar to NYY treatment afforded AROD with multi cleanup hitrter options, loss of just 1 is sustainable; but when u only have 1 u better invest what u have to to get him functioning as a #4 not a #6.
Willie, fulfilled every GM’s prognostication that bypassed him as a mngt candidate. Under the greatest pressure Willie succombed into a mental fetal position.
T, it wasn’t X & O related IMO
any of this ring any recollerction bells? I liked Willie, also. Just not as NYM mngr under those circumstances.
Unfortunately, Willie was doing on the job training with the Mets. He never managed before and it showed.
He might do better next time from what he learned.
He was a tad arrogant.
Who Do We Want To Own The Mets? | Mets Merized Online…
[...]The sheer number of top round pitching busts is beyond staggering. It is almost incomprehensible that one team could have SO MANY HIGH ROUND PITCHING BUSTS YEAR AFTER YEAR. For every Pelfrey (1st round) there are 10 1st round busts. ….. I don’t…