18
2011
My Offseason Wish List: Give The Front Office A Chance
An article by 
The World Series has not ended yet, and already we’re coming out with off-season wish lists.
We want Reyes, we don’t want Reyes, pay CJ Wilson whatever he wants, let Wilson go to the Yankees. Get a closer, trade Wright, keep your draft picks, hire Omar, fire Sandy, hire Riggleman, move the walls in. As they say in Seinfeld, yada, yada, yada.
Now I’m not saying I don’t find these conversations valuable. I do, I like intelligent discussion about the possibilities of the future of this franchise.
What I am incredibly tired of as a Mets fan is this constant, and I mean constant debate and argument about the front office and how they evaluate talent.
If you as a fan want to discredit Sandy Alderson and his methods, that’s fine. Why is it that whenever anybody speaks about the man, they seem to have nothing but the utmost respect for the way he operates? Why is it that you never heard a bad word about the man? If everything he does is worth complaining about, how come nobody who has ever worked with him has come out and said “he’s not the right guy.”
Here was Kevin Towers on Alderson, “I trusted Sandy Alderson, and in this game, that’s huge… You always knew where you stood with Sandy, [and he] was always one of those guys who wasn’t afraid to think outside the box… He was all about making sure you think through everything before making the decision. Sandy is a smart guy. He’ll have a network of people he’ll bring in who will make that organization better if he gets the job.”
When the managerial hiring process went on the critics seemed to be all over him when it came to hiring Terry Collins. Everybody looked to Collins’ past as though they had a shred of knowledge about what went on in Los Angeles or Houston, and they judged Alderson. Now, I doubt anybody would question that hiring Collins was the right move at the right time. In reality the easiest move Alderson could have done was hire Backman. Yet he didn’t rush it, and he didn’t make a decision just to appease the fans for the short term.
I can’t remember a time with any sports team that I follow (or my friends follow), where a fan base expected 100% success of all acquisitions, and a complete turnaround in W-L within 1 year. Did Alderson fail with some of his moves? Absolutely. But here’s a little secret for you.
Every GM does.
Whether you agree with how stats are used or not used, you have to take a step back and look at the longterm goal for this franchise is to re-tool it so that they don’t just have a 3 year window to win a championship. It doesn’t happen overnight.
-Hired Terry Collins when the pressure from the fan base dictated he hire Backman.
-Declined contracts for John Maine and Chris Carter.
-Replaced amateur scouting director Rudy Terrasas with Chad Macdonald, and hired Dick Scott as Minor League Field Coordinator.
-Signed Ronny Paulino to a 1 year deal.
-Hired Dave Hudgens at hitting coach and retained Dan Warthen as pitching coach.
-Signed Chris Capuano.
-Promoted Teufel and Bones to the AAA club. Promoted Backman to AA Binghamton.
-Extended R.A. Dickey with a 2 year deal.
-Signed Jason Isringhausen.
-Grabbed Pedro Beato from Rule 5 draft. A rare big league find in the draft.
-Released Luis Castillo. Released Olvier Perez.
-Dumped the K-Rod contract when they had no guarantees of avoiding paying a closer $17mil.
-Traded an eventual free agent for what is now rated by many their #1 prospect.
That’s a lot of good moves for 1 GM to make, all of which in some way shape or form had an impact on the future of the Mets organization and in all likelihood for the better.
So my off-season wish list has a bunch of items on it, but #1 is for Mets fans to stop this civil war. Realize that for 25 years the franchise we love hasn’t won a championship. Alderson isn’t coming into a franchise that has been showered with success. The phrase “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!” doesn’t apply here, because it is broke (no pun intended).
Whether you like it or not, Sandy Alderson is the General Manager of the Mets. He’s not going anywhere, and complaining about what he eats for breakfast or how he spreads the butter on his toast isn’t going to change 25 years of no championships.
If the Mets don’t have money to spend, it’s not because Alderson would rather spend $40million when he has $100 to spend. It’s because there is something seriously wrong with the ownership of this club. His job is to make the best decisions for the Mets within the budget he is given.
People speak highly of him because he’s a leader, and runs each franchise he’s employed by with dignity and class. He isn’t a guy who rushes decisions and he’s not here to sign a bunch of free agents, try to win next year and get praise for a year. That type of plan has a shelf life, just ask Minaya.
He’s here to get the Mets to a point where they are competitive year, after year, after year. Not because he builds a team based FIP, OBP, LOL, or JFK or whatever stats you like.
He’s the General Manager of the Mets because the Mets have been a mess for years, it’s just taking some of us a long time to realize it.
So my wish list starts with jumping on board, and not expecting miracles from Alderson, and giving him a chance and to stop bickering about every single bad thing that happens in your life and find a way to blame Alderson.
It seems every single time there is a negative discussion about Alderson is centers around sabermetrics, and a book written about a team he wasn’t even employed by.
Yet Alderson has never been quoted listing specific sabermetric stats as his foundation for evaluation with the Mets, and he’s never said he wants to replicate the Oakland A’s.
Some people turned on Alderson when he dealt K-Rod, when just last August everybody wanted the Mets to find a way out from K-Rod’s deal because of his actions that lead to an arrest.
Then he traded a 34 year old free agent who some people loved, but we all know he wasn’t coming back. What did he get? A highly rated pitcher, who whether he pans out or not, to get a highly touted prospect pitcher for a rent-a-player is a feat not many GMs pull off lately.
Some people knew they didn’t like Alderson the second they hired Terry Collins, and I’d say that move turned out to be the right one. Yet those same people never changed their view of Alderson.
I’m not a fan of Alderson’s, or Ricciardi’s or DePodesta’s. I’m a fan of the NY Mets and that hasn’t been something to brag about in almost my entire life. So I embrace somebody coming in here and actually leading the way towards a better franchise and not selling me a bill of goods that may make me feel warm and fuzzy for 6 months.
I’m tired of the civil war, and the constant back and forth. This man is here to fix the franchise from the ground up, not to put a bandaid on the wound because it makes us feel better for a few hours.
The sooner people understand that, the happier we’ll all be.
About the Author: Michael J. Branda
My time with MMO began in July of 2009 when I wrote a Fan Post defending Omar Minaya (before it was cool to do that.) I grew up a Mets fan with the mid 1980's teams. My favorite Met of all-time is (and was) Wally Backman. When it comes to sabermetrics versus old school thinking, I like to think I meet in the middle. I believe thinking of new ways to get answers is helpful, especially when the same way has not produced results. However, I think over-thinking certain situations can get you into trouble. I'm excited for the new regime, because I believe they have pieces in place to focus on several aspects of the Mets organization. I've waited this long for a World Series, waiting a few more years for another chance isn't going to kill me.
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It’s simple: Fans of Omar don’t want Sandy to have a lot of success.
I won’t speak for the rest of the Omar fans, but THIS OMAR FAN is going to payback the Omar haters by CRITICALLY hammering anything I see wrong with Alderson and Depodesta.
If Alderson even stutters one time, he’s getting it from me. If anyone defends Alderson/Depodesta, and I see fit a place to wallop him, I will. Alderson better be perfect, because I will expect nothing LESS from him. That’s the precedence Omar haters set, so I’m going to continue on that track.
I think Omar haters have other reasons for not liking the job he did, whether via baseball ignorance or simply preference. I’m not going to point fingers, but I am going to CLOBBER Sandy at every reasonable opportunity I see fit. What’s fair is fair in my book. An eye for an eye as they say.
Omar haters were after Omar since 2005 for the way he organized this team. I’m going to be after Alderson in the same passionate way they were after Omar. The difference is I’m being upfront about it. Cowards like to hide behind stuff like Sabremetrics or Moneyball when their true reason for disliking Omar was something on an entirely different level.
I don’t care how you get from point A to Z, as long as you get there. Omar made the Mets one of the best teams in baseball from 2005-2008. I want to see Sandy/Depodesta deliver similarly by “restructuring” the team. If he doesn’t, he’s a FAILURE. Alderson doesn’t get a chance until he DELIVERS! That’s the standard Omar was forced to live up to. Mr Sabremetrics should since his theories have worked so splendidly in the past……..
YEAR 1= FAILURE.
YEAR 2= We will see.
Offseason in year 1: HORRIBLE
Offseason in year 2: ?????? odds he’d finally destroy the franchise for draft picks
“I won’t speak for the rest of the Omar fans, but THIS OMAR FAN is going to payback the Omar haters by CRITICALLY hammering anything I see wrong with Alderson and Depodesta.”
So, you’re going to keep doing the same thing, only now you are finally being honest about being nothing but a disruptive troll?
And really, so what? You’re nobody. All you did was confirm that you should be ignored.
It does speak to your lack of devotion to your favorite team when you’re busy rooting against a front office simply because you liked the previous regime. When you watch a Mets game do you keep 2 scorecards? One with Alderson’s Mets and one with Minaya’s?
Well, Jess. That wouldn’t be a problem. Most of the impact Mets on this roster are Omar Minaya’s guys. The starting 9 were guys Omar brought in for the exception of the backup catcher and Capuano.
That’s why we had 3 straight losing seasons following 2 choke jobs.There are no impact Mets except for Reyes which was Phillips guy.
And you didn’t even get CLOSE enough to choke this year under new management did you?
Your problem is your argument doesn’t work because Omar had less to work with and made the playoffs in year two!
You expect any playoffs next year?
Expect to be CLOSE ENOUGH to choke anytime soon?
Do you?
Minaya never went back, that is the problem. And we’re not in position to return as is.
So many people want instant success and then get upset when we aren’t winning every year.
Gene Michael and Dan Duquette built teams that ended up winning 90+ games for over a decade after they left, but first, their respective fan bases had to endure a few years of losing while the organizations were straightened out.
Frank Cashen was allowed 4 years before the Mets became legit contenders.
And by the way, none of those guys were running small market teams.
Or, are you really going to tell me Minaya was better than all of them.
Donal don’t expect Metsie to grasp that concept.He wants Yankee payroll figures in flushing.
Minaya was never given the time!
3 of 6 years competitive,
2 of 6 years Injuries thwart the effort (Not Talent)
In what would be year 7 his acquired players won at a .519, .593, .519 clip in May June and July!
With Harvey Familia Mejia Havens Flores ready to join Davis, Murphy, Tejada, Turner and Duda as the Young CORE of the Franchise!
We are SO ready to return! We were only 7.5 games out of the playoffs on July and you claimed we were done, Cardinals were 8.5 games out on Sept 1st and WON IT! They are now in the WS if you hadn’t noticed!
Everything you say is nothing but ASSumption!
You ASSume Omar left us a bad MiL system
You ASSume We were out of competition on July 28th
Isn’t it odd that a guy who says how important it is to have High OBP gets a team built by Omar who actually has it and he STILL trashes them as complete and total CRAP!
Jeez keep your story straight even for a minute!
You say Cashen was given 4 years. Omar made the playoffs in TWO! Cashen was given even more time than Omar to repeat and didn’t!
Omar didn’t have the 1970′s worth of losing to build with via the draft!
And what stopped Cashen from getting that second title?
INJURIES!
Same thing you blame Omar for!
You are nothing but a wind bag full of double standards which is why there is still argument about Omar today!
It is clear to anyone who listens to the LOVE SANDY (or be an idiot) crowd that there is a concerted effort to make Omar look as bad as humanly possible so that Sandy (who has not done much of anything to really FIX this Supposed broken franchise) seems like a very different and not so bad GM!
Yet if we apply all the same standards you use on Omar it cuts much deeper because Sandy has not had ANY success yet, he had some this summer (.519, .593,.519) and then traded it away!
You use excuses like he didn’t have money to spend then two posts later saying spending money is BAD to begin with!
You do know that Schizophrenia CAN be treated right?
“Minaya was never given the time!”
6 years. The other 2 were winning consistently in 4. Omar got all enamored (or trapped) by 2006 and didn’t develop the franchise.
“In what would be year 7 his acquired players won at a .519, .593, .519 clip in May June and July!”
too bad MLB has 6 month regular seasons.
“We are SO ready to return! We were only 7.5 games out of the playoffs on July and you claimed we were done, Cardinals were 8.5 games out on Sept 1st and WON IT! They are now in the WS if you hadn’t noticed!”
Yes, I noticed. they were built for the long haul and lucked out. Counting on the rest of the competition to burn out is not a plan.
“You say Cashen was given 4 years. Omar made the playoffs in TWO! Cashen was given even more time than Omar to repeat and didn’t!”
Under the current playoff system, the Mets would have won the East every year from 1984-1990.
“Omar didn’t have the 1970′s worth of losing to build with via the draft!”
and how many of those players were significant parts of their run?
“And what stopped Cashen from getting that second title?”
The Dodgers, Cardinals and Pirates mostly. And the Cubs.
Yeah too bad you and Sandy didn’t know it was a 6 month season and threw in the towel In July because you thought being 7.5 games out was GAME OVER while the cards who did not give up when they were 8.5 games out in Spetember made the playoffs!
You really think this team was equipped to win in October?
the Cardinals went 23-9 after August 25th. You really going to tell me the Mets were going to hang with them?
Are you really trying to sell us that even with Rodriguez, the pitching was keeping up a pace to support that?
Seriously, grow up and face reality.
Hmmm, Maybe if we went and GOT pitching as opposed to Selling off our leading RBI guy we would have!
Your Problem is you can’t say if we did or didn’t, can’t prove the season was done!
All your banking on is that you can say we were not and we will never know because you and Sandy QUIT before we could find out!
Something about 7.5 games out which the cards didn’t seem to care about!
They were 10 games out at one point you know!
They didn’t throw in the towel!
Like who? Who were we to get and what would you give up for it?
It’s easy to speak in ambiguous terms with nebulous hypothetical solutions.
But when the facts are all lined up and looked at, people seem to shrink from those silly ideas.
What does it matter who we would have given up? You think they all suck anyway!
You want some names to get?
Ziegler, Adams, Uehara, Marquis!
They would have been better than Parnell no?
Would have helped a Bullpen that HAD a closer instead of getting rid of the only Pen Guy who actually had any success!
But you QUIT!
I didn’t choke.I’m not playing nor a part of the front office. Omar had much much much much more money to work with and took over a better offensive team than Alderson did.Sandy would’ve had a better staff had Johan been there but he wasn’t.The 2004 Mets had a better offense than the 2010 Mets and the 2010 Mets had better pitching than the 2004 Mets but Sandy didn’t get to have the same staff did he? Mr Santana didn’t pitch.Omar took over a team with 2 budding stars and only 74 million committed to the 2005 payroll. Alderson had one emerging star and 135 million committed to payroll.Different situations but you can’t comprehend that.
Comparing the 2 situations is utterly moronic but I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference.04 had Piazza,Floyd and Cameron.10 had Wright,Reyes and an uncertainty surrounding Beltran.But overall look up the teams offensive stats.2004 was better than 2010.
Great comment. Omar had so much payroll flexibility in 2005 when he started, not to mention the fact that Sterling’s finances weren’t in the sh*tter back then. Omar had an open pocketbook for most of his tenure. He made some solid moves (Beltran, Delgado, Wagner, I’ll even give you Pedro for his 2005 season) and some bad moves (Ollie, Castillo, Bay, etc). At the end of the day, his teams were short on the fringes of the roster. The stars/scrubs method rarely works…just look at the 2011 Dodgers, who have two of the best players in the National League right now in Kemp and Kershaw and they only won 82 games because Coletti surrounded them with trash.
Thanks Who and I agree.Pedro gave the Mets instant credibility and it helped having him in the fold to recruit Beltran.
Funny how you say Omar had Payroll flexability to succeed yet in earlier and probably future posts you will claim spending money on FAs is foolish or that Omar was no success whatsoever!
You guys should stop posting until you actually make up your mind one way or the other!
Spending money is not foolish.Spending money on players past their prime to long term deals is foolish. Spending on a player like Matt Kemp or Beltran in his prime is money well spent barring catostrophic injury.Spending on players that in their early to mid 30′s and in Alous case 40 off 2 injury plagued seasons is foolish.
It all depends on what you spend it on.
Is reyes still in his Prime?
Want him Back?
Your saber friends don’t!
Do you still agree with them?
I’d like to have him back but I’d understand if he gets blown away by another team and they didn’t wanna match the offer.He has been injury prone the last 3 years.Frankly I wanted them to blow up the roster after they choked a 2nd straight year in 08 when they all had a boatload of trade value.Now Reyes is free and Wright’s value has plummeted.
I can’t speak for the saber portion of the fanbase.
and why does OmarFan’s comment have 9 thumbs down?
Because he said the stating 9 are Omar’s guys? Most of the team is Omar’s guys and that’s just simply a fact and is true.
Shows the dishonesty of the saber culture.
How do you know if it was saberheads or traditionalists?
Maybe it’s because of the way he comes off that even if he’s talking in realistic terms he gets a thumbs down.
OmarFan, you’re embarrassing me and all those who liked much of what Omar did — but who think change at the GM level was needed. Put some tape across your lips, or stay away from the keyboard. You’re not a doofus, so don’t act like one.
P.S.: For my friend, Alex68, my advice would be different. Since I treat this site as ‘family friendly’, I’ll not mention what my words would be. lol.
Suck it up Alex, and put down your bazookas. You’ll self-destruct.
Des, do me a HUGE favor. Cease and desist from telling me what to do and what not to do, will ya please? When you pay some of my bills, you may dictate what I can or cannot say.
As for the shoddy treatment Omar went through, and the fact Alderson wasn’t hired to build a winner within the next 3 years, I am well within my right to express any and all dislikes I have with Sandy Alderson and his GOPHER Paul Depodesta.
Until those two do something GREATER than Omar did, I am well within my First Amendment Rights aka Freedom of Speech when I BASH Alderson. Furthermore, Alderson should hit the .500 mark before he is considered a success, don’t you think?
I think Alderson is a fraud. His Met GM duty is to lower payroll and trick Met fans into believing we’re going to compete using a lower payroll and cheaper players within the next 3 years. If YOU, or any GULLIBLE Met fan believes that, that’s YOUR business. I choose not to be 3 Card Monty’ed by the Wilpons.
33% of that 3 year plan is complete.
Season 1 = FAILURE!
I GUARANTEE you season #2 will be a TOTAL FAILURE if they don’t give Jose Reyes exactly what he’s asking for. Then we will be @ 66% and heading to 2014 as losers once again. Far fry from the best team in baseball in Omar Minaya’s 2nd year running the franchise from the GM seat, huh?
Spin it however you want. Facts are facts, however. Year 1= FAIL
A fraud with 4 Division titles
3 AL Titles
1 WS Title and a partridge in a peartree.
How far did you have to go back for that WS win Joe?
3 years after our last WS win?
I’d follow his advice…you’re completely embarrassing yourself.
I’m not sure what this is in response to? Again, I was a fan of Omar’s up until the bitter end. Before you came onto this site, I was defending him against all sorts of claims and posts including ones about his nationality or “preference” of player. So please don’t come here pointing fingers. Just because its YOUR mission to try and defend Minaya blindly, doesn’t mean *I* qualify for the reasons of your displeasure with such fans.
you know, not only you are a front runner jesseP, but as fake fan and second guesser as they come… is disgusting what’s going on in this METS BLOG
your last comment, finally something I think everyone can agree on! just probably not for the reason you meant…
Des,
I was a fan of Omar and I think he did some good (Beltran, Delgado, Santana) and not so good (Castillo, Perez, Alou, Manuel). He is gone and can’t do anything about it. Hope the next guy does a good job.
Add some of the minor league draft picks and signings (Duda, Tejada, Neise, Ike) to the good and Bay to the bad.
I’m mostly in full agreement with you, Metstheory22. Eighty percent or more of my comments were supportive of Omar’s decision.
All this warring is due to the fact that one side has an AGENDA they wish to push that requires this to look DRASTICALLY DIM (Hence the Omar Trashing) in order to sell DRASTIC PHILOSOPHY (Sell all the good and deal with years of bad baseball and rebuilding)
It has nothing to do with what they actually believe Omar did because many of them were right there on the LETS GET bndwagon Omar was pulling!
This WAR is about I WANT MY EXTREEME PHILOSOPHY so I have to make things seem so bad that EXTREEME seems like it can’t hurt!
It’s about the marketing of thier agenda and the ones who think this team is not quite as bad as they want everyone to think knows that and is trying to put some REASON and FAIRNESS back into the discussion!
I don’t hate Sandy and I don’t LOVE Omar!
What I hate is REVISIONIST Historians trying to REWRITE the history and chicken little politics to get the philosophy they love but has never worked ANYWHERE it was tried!
Put the same CRITICAL EYE on Oakland and what do you get?
FAR FAR WORSE than anything Omar did!
Des thats not the full skinny either…
Some of us are not really upset or trashing Sandy (I have never trashed Sandy)
But I do see many of the folks who think Sandy is Sliced Bread more often bitching about Omar to sell us on Sandy and some of us tend to wonder why is Omar being held to a higher or different standard than Sandy is?
You know like trashing Omar for having guys get hurt on him, didn’t that just happen with Chris Young?
Or trashing Omar for not having a good MiL system that came up and played over .500 baseball for three months replacing injuries with 4 or 5 more promising kids still down there waiting for promotion?
I personally don’t think Sandy will be awful but I have debated that some of what these Sandy guys think is going to or should happen will not lead to a good result. But I never took the tone that Sandy WAS going to do what they say nor do I believe their prediction of what he will do will actually occurr!
And if they insist on certain parameters to use to prove Omar was just AWFUL shouldn’t those same parameters be used to judge Sandy?
shouldn’t there be ONE STANDARD used to judge ALL GMs?
Why should we judge Omar based on Wins and Losses and dismiss Sandy’s Win loss record?
That is where most of the Sandy trashing comes from as a response to parameters used to trash Omar!
Truth is who know what Sandy will do and Who Knows what Omar would do if he was still here!
Who knows what Omar would have done this season if he was kept and had all the MiL guys Sandy used this year to great affect.
Maybe Minaya might have even signed Reyes to an extention last year before Crawford got his big Reyes influencing Payday!
He didn’t get that chance! Sandy did though!
Maybe he would have spent a little more money to get the pitching it seems a .519, .593, and .519 Team in May June and July needed to be in the wildcard race! Would that have been so tragic? Would we have lost 70 Million due to low attendance if we did?
Maybe he would have traded Beltran for that pitching or convinced K-Rod to dump the Option so there was no limitation on using him as a closer meaning we wouldn’t have to rely on Parnell or look for a closer this offseason…
Most of the bitching about Sandy has been a direct response to a bitch made about Omar and APPLIED to Sandy…
If it is unfair to apply that to sandy then isn’t it also unfair to apply it to Omar as well?
This is mostly where the bitching about Sandy comes from.
I think he is a competent GM, is he better than Omar? Time will tell!
But I for one will insist on using the SAME STANDARD for judging both!
And if the Sandy side insists on setting that standard based on how they judge Omar then I for one will be happy to apply them to Sandy…
Fair to use for one then fair to use for all!
He’ll have a network of people he’ll bring in who will make that organization better if he gets the job.”
he did, his sabermetrics goons.. .all 3 gm’s and did nothing to make the team better..
where a fan base expected 100% success of all acquisitions, and a complete turnaround in W-L within 1 year”
fan base no, but there was a complete turnaround and a playoffs app in arizona under first year GM towers.. once again, you’re wrong
Whether you agree with how stats are used or not used, you have to take a step back and look at the longterm goal for this franchise is to re-tool it so that they don’t just have a 3 year window to win a championship. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
theo epstein won a championship in his second year as a GM… once again, WRONG…
-Hired Terry Collins when the pressure from the fan base dictated he hire Backman.
what’s your point?? 77-81
-Declined contracts for John Maine and Chris Carter” NO BRAINERS
-Signed Ronny Paulino to a 1 year deal” AND?? he stunk, other than 1 good month..
Grabbed Pedro Beato from Rule 5 draft. A rare big league find in the draft.” had not being for him being rule 5, he would’ve been in the minors since july, another mistake… and i love beato.. but let’s keep it real
Released Luis Castillo. Released Olvier Perez.” WOW… great job…
funny, how you failed to mention his HUMONGOUS MISTAKES, hu, eamus, taylor Bucholtz, chris young, boyer, thayer, boof.. but of course, a few highlites and he’s a genious… pathetic the excuse for this man.. we saved on krod, good for him, is he going to invest the money on players to make us better?!?! with those 17.5 million he saved he can create a well establish bullpen, will he?? idk, but i dont get the impression he will, the wilpons already pocketed that $
“fan base no, but there was a complete turnaround and a playoffs app in arizona under first year GM towers.. once again, you’re wrong”
It helps playing in a crap division where the 1st place team has a huge collapse.
“theo epstein won a championship in his second year as a GM… once again, WRONG…”
The Red Sox haven’t been under .500 since 1997 and made the playoffs 3 of the 6 years before him. Epstein had a lot more to work with when he arrived. He didn’t have to completely turn it around. He gets credit for fixing internal problems and prolonging their success, though.
“-Hired Terry Collins when the pressure from the fan base dictated he hire Backman.
what’s your point?? 77-81″
That he didn’t jump through hoops to pander to fans and went with the guy he thought was best for the job. Turns out, Collins did a pretty good job.
“-Declined contracts for John Maine and Chris Carter” NO BRAINERS”
Then why did it take his arrival for it to happen? What was Chris Carter even doing on the team?
“-Signed Ronny Paulino to a 1 year deal” AND?? he stunk, other than 1 good month..”
2 good months and he did alright for a guy who was supposed to be a back up.
“Grabbed Pedro Beato from Rule 5 draft. A rare big league find in the draft.” had not being for him being rule 5, he would’ve been in the minors since july, another mistake… and i love beato.. but let’s keep it real”
How was that a mistake? Beato was pretty good. He hit some rough spots, but its not like he was the worst guy out there or he was keeping someone from getting a spot.
“Released Luis Castillo. Released Olvier Perez.” WOW… great job…”
Well, not great, but good.
“funny, how you failed to mention his HUMONGOUS MISTAKES, hu, eamus, taylor Bucholtz, chris young, boyer, thayer, boof..”
How do those classify as huge mistakes? Young and Bucholtz performed when they were healthy, and they didn’t make that much.
Everyone else isn’t even on the team. They didn’t produce so they were gone. They were acquired for little and were a bunch of role players anyway.
“we saved on krod, good for him, is he going to invest the money on players to make us better?!?! with those 17.5 million he saved he can create a well establish bullpen, will he?? idk, but i dont get the impression he will, the wilpons already pocketed that $”
Will spending that money help the team? Not just “can he spend that money?” but should he?
No one knows. It all depends on what is out there and what each free agent wants. And not just in dollars, but in time as well.
Alex apparently can’t see clearly through his biases. How sad.
Rule 5 picks are never about the 1st year they are on team. Whatever they give you is gravy. Beato is about his future years. Hopefully he learned a bit and even then he might not even make the team to start this coming year.
Beato did about as well as anybody could EVER ask a Rule 5 pick to do in his 1st year.
If he wasn’t a rule 5, he would have been sent down to the minors when he struggled to get a little rest and to get worked on more closely. That couldn’t happen though. This is why most Rule 5′s don’t pan out in year 1.
Agree
Alex, thanks for your reply
“he did, his sabermetrics goons.. .all 3 gm’s and did nothing to make the team better..”
I think I went over very clearly why he made the team better. You have to understand the future of this franchise will be better off past 2011 standings. For example, the hiring of a guy who has been acclaimed as a very good coach in Dick Scott being the minor league coordinator. Scott has worked with with Alderson’s network before. Thus, it helped the franchise.
“fan base no, but there was a complete turnaround and a playoffs app in arizona under first year GM towers.. once again, you’re wrong”
Did Kevin Towers bring in Stephen Drew, Justin Upton, Miguel Montero, Joe Saunders, Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson, Josh Collmenter?
Of Arizona’s main contributors, Towers brought in 3 bullpen guys. Hernandez, Owings, and Paterson. Everything else was there. It’s a young team, Towers didn’t turn Kennedy into a Cy Young hopeful. He did a nice job, but don’t act like he is the main reason the team went +29. Kirk Gibson had more to do with it than Towers.
“theo epstein won a championship in his second year as a GM… once again, WRONG…”
This is the easiest of all. Epstein was hired to run a team that just won 93 games. You understand why that’s different than Alderson in NY right?
“what’s your point?? 77-81″ 77-85, Mets played 162 games this year.
“funny, how you failed to mention his HUMONGOUS MISTAKES, hu, eamus, taylor Bucholtz, chris young, boyer, thayer, boof”
Because other than Young, nobody else really mattered. Why do you focus on a failed Rule 5 pick? Nobody else does. Only our fan base right now acts like a Rule 5 pick failing is a big deal. Who cares that Hu was awful? Am I missing Michael Antonini? Buchholz was fine until he had a bout of depression. Who cares about guys like Boyer, Thayer and Boof? What did they matter? When you have to go find bullpen arms because you have barely any, you have to just grab what you can and see what works.
Very well said. Thank you for writing this. Reading through it reminded me of the scene in ‘Hoosiers’ when Norman Dale (Gene Hackman’s character) tells the excessively vocal towns folk “THIS is your team.”
thanks Amod
Good article and I agree with Amod. We can’t do anything about who is NOT here and who is NOT leading this team. Good or bad this is our team, our owners,our GM, our manager. Hopefully they try and improve team. Lets Go Mets!!
It makes me laugh how some on this site bash Sandy, Depo and the rest of his staff, thinking they came to the Big Apple to implement some sort of “Moneyball” stategy. IMO, Sandy didn’t fully understand the depth of the Wilpon financial difficulties outside of the Madoff situation when he took the job with the Mets. IMO, Sandy, Depo and Ricciardi thought they were coming to a big market team with big market resources and that they would be able to spend 135-140MM on ML payroll and a good amount of $$$ in the draft and even pursue some $$$ players this offseason after getting out of the Beltran,K-Rod,Perez, Castillo,Igarashi and GMJ contracts, but that’s not going to be the case. Is it Sandy’s fault that the Mets home attendance and gate related revenues have declined significantly enough over the past 2 yrs? Is it Sandy’s fault that the economy is bad for most non professinal people? Is it Sandy’s fault that the Wilpons, aka Sterling Mets have an astronomical 74MM per year expense ( 44MM per yr. to pay off the Citifield bonds and another 30MM per yr. in bank interest expense on the 500MM borrowed from banks throughout the yrs. by the Wilpons) aside from the Mets actual payroll which is just sic and like having another mid-market team payroll in addition to the Mets payroll. Is it Sandy’s fault he inherited most of the Mets this season and the Mets farm system from Omar and his staff. Is it Sandy’s fault he had to fill at least 10 positions on the Mets this past season for app. 15MM. based on the payroll budget figure given him by Fred? No MLB GM likes shopping and buying off of the scrap heap. What do you think you’re going to find and get there? Is it Sandy’s fault the Mets didn’t have 2 out of the 3 best Mets SP in Santana and Young for essentially the whole season and lost Ike for much of the season. Is it Sandy’s fault that both David Wright and Mike Pelfrey have gone south? As Jessup says, Sandy and his staff are going to need some time to make the Mets better.
Agree with all of this. If you thought there was going to be some miracle cure, then you obviously weren’t paying any attention to how bad Omar screwed up this organization on the field and bad the Wilpon’s screwed up this organization off the field. The teams’s under a mountain of debt, they’ve 300 million to a billion dollars that they can’t spend because of the Madoff debacle and Omar made it worse by bogging the team down in gigantic contracts for wastes like Jason Bay, Castillo, Perez, Matthews, etc.
The part all the Omar Fanboys seem to miss about Sandy is that his misses weren’t on long term deals that’ll kill the team for years. His misses were on cheap one year contracts that expire in a couple of weeks (and don’t give me DJ Carrasco as a contract that’s going to bog the team down forever…he’s making 1.2 million in 2012. It didn’t end up being a good one but it’s not going to kill the team, as much as I know many of you would like it to, since you’re obviously not Met fans).
I’m not anti-Omar. He wanted to try and win a title from 06-08. He built a team with a 3 year shelf life and realistically, if it worked he would still be here. I would have embraced it, and it would have been awesome.
The problem is… that didn’t happen.
When you build a team that HAS to win within a 3 year timeframe and you fail, the franchise will feel the pain of that miss for years to come.
Right and I totally agree with that. I loved Omar early on in his tenure. The moves he made before the 2006 season were just strokes of brilliance. Nady for Cameron, Seo for Sanchez, Benson for Julio and Maine and then Julio for El Duque. That offseason was incredible and then he never was able to pull off anything close to that ever again. It was like he got “his guys” and then just felt everything was fine and that they were continually a guy away every season when they obviously weren’t.
I agree that by the end of ’08 I was sick of his mismanagement and I still wonder how he held onto the job for a whole season after the whole Adam Rubin/Bernazard fiasco in 2009. Unfortunately, he held on just long enough to saddle Sandy and Co with the awful Jason Bay contract.
Early on, he did a great job turning the club around but he never focused on the future. He was always in the present and that’s coming around to bite us right now. Sandy’s tasked with tearing things down and in some places, it’s really tough (I really don’t want to see Reyes, Wright and Beltran go for starters) but it’s something that is important to the future of this organization.
Well, I think they knew there would be some break downs involved. No one, not even Picard or the Wilpons know how their story will end. Right now, it looks like the ‘pons are getting some relief.
I’m pretty sure even if the Wilpons didn’t have the Madoff problems, these changes had to be made. The organization has problems top to bottom. A team can’t operate like that. Any success at all is a fluke and not likely to be sustained.
Hard decisions have to be made. Any fool can go out there with an unlimited checkbook and sign a bunch of big names. And I’m sure those will sell lots of tickets in April for 1 or 2 seasons.
What real leaders do, what the grown ups in the room are paid to do, is tell us what we don’t want to hear but need to. They make the tough choices. They have the vision and stick to it and adapt to the situation.
Good comment. Totally agree.
what has alderson won as a GM the past 7 season?? excuse my referance, would you go to war with a captain or col that has lost all his battles and the men he carries are left behind to die??? would you?!?!
Nothing…because he wasn’t a GM for any of the last 7 seasons. What does that matter? He was quite good with the A’s.
Worked out for George Washington. He has quite a terrible W-L record as a military officer.
I really do love how his time in SD as CEO doesn’t matter. I just get such a kick out of that.
It’s like if I say 1+1+1=3, you erase one of my “1s” just so you can call me a name.
It’s also funny that you reference war as though it applies somehow to a front office executive. I’ve never heard a player talk about his GM as their colonel leading them in war.
Also funny that you use this reference when Alderson’s father was a veteran of 3 wars and himself a veteran
Yeah, Alderson came in from Alaska and has NO CLUE what was going on with the Mets and the Wilpons. Talk about waving pom poms for Alderson. T
So you have it on authority that the Wilpons gave him the ability to examine their books? To look at the receipts and their bank accounts?
Of course he KNEW that they were in trouble with Madoff. The point is how much did he know about it? Did they mislead him and tell him it was no big deal, when it really was?
And you it on good authority that he didn’t?
I mean he is the GENERAL MANAGER!
They have as much if not more access to the books than ANYONE!
I never said I had it on authority that they didn’t. Maybe, maybe not.
Let’s not jump to conclusions here that we don’t know anything about.
Lets not jump to conclusions? Isn’t that exactly what you did?
Thats pretty much what you do Metsie.Assume that I would love the Mets to be run like the moneyball A’s because I said they had a nice run with it.You couldn’tbe any more wrong about how I want the Mets to be run.I want them to be run like a team that goes on a long run of success like the Yanks,Braves,Redsox and now the Phils.I haven’t even read the damn book yet.
That’s okay though.Bayonne calls me a sabergoon and that’s not even remotely close either but whatever.
No Joe I don’t jump to those conclusion I take it from your own posts on the subject of Moneyball!
You say Oakland was a success!
Yet use not having money as an excuse for Sandy not fixing anything this year!
If I’m jumping to the wrong conclusion it is because you seem to change your conclusion and opinion as the post suits you!
So,I say that Oakland had a nice little run,whatever it was (avg)93 wins over 7 years and making the playoffs 5 times in that span.If I say that was a successfull run that leads you to believe I love moneyball?
If the subject of Moneyball wasn’ brought up on this site on a daily basis,I would never have discussed moneyball to begin with.I have never had a conversation about moneyball once outside of this message board.I never associated Alderson with moneyball,I always associated Beane with it.I have even asked numerous times what the hell is the obsession with moneyball on this site.
Should I have assumed Alderson was going to be able to work a little magic with the little budget he had to work with because Oakland had success with a low payroll?
Somehow you are the one connecting Alderson to moneyball and twisting what I say to come to your conclusions.For someone who says my posts are worth ignoring you sure do pay a lot of attention to what I say.
Me saying the A’s did well with limited resources and Alderson not being able to acquire talent because he didn’t have mone to wrk with are two entirely different subjects.It’s you that links Alderson to moneyball not me.
Obviously Metsie loves Moneyball…he’s just afraid to admit it. That’s why he talks about it so much.
Don’t be afraid, Metsie…let your true feelings out.
No you know what I love?
& year olds who sneak on their parents computer and talk out of their ASS!
I love to spank their ass on the message boards and ask them HOW OLD ARE YOU Too COWARDLY to SAY!
Comon Big man tell us all how old you are what are you afraid of?
Not MAN ENOUGH?
Don’t have the BALLS?
WIMP?
I think that is about covers everything you thought fit to post at me wasn’t it? Did I miss one childish remark?
Post the UNDERVALUED STAT while your at it since you Sabers guys are so sure Sabers can find it!
Show us all how smart you really are!
Or are you too afraid wittle boy?
It sure seems like it,he posted a 2 part article on moneyball.I still don’t know what it has to do with the Mets.Especially since the 2011 payroll was more than 2X what Oaklands was and 3X what Oaklands was during that moneyball era according to Cots Contracts.
Don’t worry Metsie! They’ll spend!
Yep Joe a Two Parter that challenged you to name the undervalued stat and you couldn’t meet despite all your sabermetric ramblings!
I don’t ramble about sabermetrics,you do.I don’t speak for or against them.Just another Metsie false assumption.I may not agree with what you say but that doesn’t mean I’m a saberhead.
You challenged me to find an undervalued stat? Really? I must’ve missed that question.I never claimed there was an undervalued stat and I never rambled about sabermetrics.
I don’t speak for or against sabermetrics,I really don’t know how you make those assumptions from any of my other posts.There’s either another Joe Diaz or you need to brush up on your reading comprehension.I look forward to Part III Moneyball is deader! Maybe you can challenge to find overvalued stats.
No you just speak up FOR the ones who speak about Sabers!
GUILT BY ASSOCIATION!
Since you AGREE with their posts you obviously AGREE with thier opinions on Sabers!
You say you don’t argue for or against sabers then agree with the folks who do and won’t agree with someone who showed they don’t do everything nthe saber folks say they do…
You know like find the UNDERVALUED stat!
And if you have noticed or bothered to read as opposed to jumping on the Saber Rattlers bandwagon you would see I have NEVER trashed Sabers just point out that SOME of them are biased towards OB and count things a batter didn’t accomplish as good while dismissing some good he did and calling it BAD!
My argument isn’t with the metrics there are no BAD metrics just bad uses for them by the unknowing public.
TOO MANY saberheads look at the columns and not the equations so they don’t even really know what the number tells them!
THOSE are the folks I am taking issue with!
Not the numbers they use but the USE!
The right tool for the right job!
OBP and SLG is a useless tool for RS because it does not correlate at all!
They can only relate it because it has to happen just as making a PA and going to the ballpark relates to RS!
They all HAVE TO HAPPEN for a run to score!
No REAL relation has ever been showed!
No RATIO of OBP+SLG has ever been posted to show how they relate!
That doesn’t mean there is a problem with OBP or SLG they are good for what they are good for!
It’s a problem with HOW and WHO is using them!
THATS who I am against not the math!
Maybe if you are telling the truth and are truly Saber neutral you will finally get that about the articles I have posted!
And maybe you won’t jump on their bandwagon the next time you see WHY I am getting on these people!
But more than likely you ARE a saberrattler just trying to hide the fact so it seems reasonable when you defend it’s bad use as an evaluator of something the metric has nothing to do with!
Again because I agreed with whomever you’re referring to or disagree with you doesn’t make me a saberhead.I have always valued OB% and Slug% long before I knew what sabermetrics were.
I’ll take a 330 hitter with a 390 OB% any day of the week over a 250 hitter with a 410 OB%.That’s where a sabermetric guy will come up with the “I’ll take the guy who makes less outs” over the guy who rakes but makes a few more outs.
Unless of course that 250 hitter hits 45-50 HR’s and the 330 hitter is a singles hitter.
There are some guys that think OB% is a useles stat which I’ll disagree with.If I agreed with one of the so called saberheads it’s because I thought they made a valid point.At times I have agreed with you.I don’t understand why the traditionalist hates sabermetrcs.They’re usefull as well.
Nope…I didn’t jump to any conclusions. I was asking a question. I didn’t make any definitive statements. It’s a shame your reading comprehension is so poor.
Somebody should design a mat where you turn around and jump to your next conclusion. Bet it makes millions…
I’ve got a great name for it…it’d be called “A Jump to Conclusions” mat!
I’m guessing you’re like me and you’ve seen Office Space a few too many times?
Alderson!
I mean… Genius!
I agree with all of this Sach except Sandy didn’t have 15 million to work with.he had much less.
Sach,
A couple of things. I happen to think that Alderson did not do as good a job as he could have done last off season if he really thought that he could have contended with what he inherited. There are some who don’t think the Mets could have contended with that nucleus and there are others who believe they could have with the right kind of off season. Count me in on the latter.
And we have no proof if him and the 2 other Gms employed by this team really did do their best to get the best talent they could have within their financial constraints. I mean look at how many guys were sent back down before the main roster came up north. Do you remember the debate here at that time as to the possibility that Sandy purposely did not come north with the best roster he could have?
I also have a very hard time believing that he was not fully aware of the financial situation he was coming in to. That’s a hard sell.
Sure I’m willing to give the FO a chance this offseason. I have no choice do I? But let me tell you this, if the payroll is around 100 Million or so then they had BETTER make an attempt to contend with the team they have.
Wow that’s big of you to give the front office a chance this offseason being that you by your own admission hate Alderson.If you mean by throwing 100 million at CJ as making an attempt then I have a feeling you’re going to be disappointed.
Unless Johan makes 30 starts and pitches as well as he did in 2010 before the injury then they won’t have much of a shot at contending.I don’t see it until 2013 otherwise.
most of you praising the guy who wrote this article make me laugh.. how is it most ppl were ready to run minaya out of town but give this guy the benefit of the doubt?? why? because his friends say so?? as a GM, he hasn’t have a winning seaons in god know how long!!! also, omar in his second year made the mets into a WORLD SERIES CONTENDER, is sandy going to do that? and pls, don’t give me that crap about what happened after that, if it wasn’t for injuries the mets would’ve been in it for 4 straight years, but they happened, tough luck yeah, but i ask, god forbid wheeler and nimmo get hurt, sandy’s plan of the future goes awry what excuse will you make?? aren’t you gonna use the same “they got injured” excuse we use with minaya’s players?? is not second guessing is called reality, the man is not here to win and most of you are not seeing that, look at the questions here “what’s wrong with a rule 5 pick that didn’t pan out??” well, that is just it, DIDN’T PAN OUT, funny how jesse totally forgets about his mistake and try to make up by using the few things worked out, i know the mets finish 77-85, sorry for the typo you as*h***, by correcting the record you just made alderson winning pct as a GM even lower than what i had it, look at this comment:
When you build a team that HAS to win within a 3 year timeframe and you fail, the franchise will feel the pain of that miss for years to come”
so, at least omar build a team, what is alderson doing?? tell us what exactly is his plan?? seems to me in 2 years the man will be gone and we will all be left wondering what if… right?? if i am wrong i’ll be the first one to change my screen name to alex68 <3 alderson, or alex68xsaberhead… but until then, i will keep saying it what is obvious to us the not blind ones, sandy is here to control the money situation for the wilpons as a favor to selig then be gone, he's not here to build a winner, what other GM will have a reyes and think about f'ing draft picks he'll get about him once he leaves?!? how f'ing pathetic is that!?! keep drinking the saber kool aid ya losers… let's see during the offseason how many hu's eamus' and boyer will fill the roster just as last year..
I simply do not understand why a person like you who despised everything about Minaya’s tenure can sit here and act like you’re now his biggest fan?
I do not understand why somebody like you does not understand the difference between where this franchise was prior to 2005, and where it was prior to 2011. In 2005, the Mets were looking for somebody to take over the back pages. They wanted to make a splash and prepare to build a stadium. They wanted to re-energize a fan base, (some would say trick a fan base). They wanted to bring their young stars in Reyes & Wright up with a chance to win right away to make them legends in NY.
Omar was handed the keys to the franchise to turn them into a winner right now. To not worry about 2012. Worry about 2006-2008, and while we’re drinking champagne, we’ll figure out a way to handle 2010 etc.
Why don’t you get that? Sandy Alderson inherited a team with serious financial issues, an empty stadium, a losing mentality and bad contracts.
It’s not his mess he’s here to clean up. He’s cleaning up a plan that was a good try, but it failed.
The second you take a step back and look at the Mets when Omar joined, and look at the excitement around the potential of Wright/Reyes and the attempts to “take over NY” is the second you’ll realize they may have the same job title but their job duties are incredibly different.
DESPISED??? the move he started to make like the signing of castillo and perez were his dismised, imo, none should’ve happened and he should’ve been more creative than that.. up until that point he was doing a helluva job..
Why don’t you get that? Sandy Alderson inherited a team with serious financial issues, an empty stadium, a losing mentality and bad contracts.”
the team he inherited were far much better than the one omar inherited.. far much better, keep drinking the kool aid, some fans here are expecting sandy to do things the right way, how is the right way?? i’ll tell you what, he’s got money now, is time for him to step up, i will give him 3 more weeks, then we’ll know
“some fans here are expecting sandy to do things the right way,”
Yes, so please stop attacking us when we express that opinion.
Why don’t you post the rest loser?? is trading away your best player and best reliever doing things the right way?? while in a pennant race?? and not only that, but AFTER trading them, telling the team and fan base, i wave the white flag, so should you…
They weren’t in a pennant race…face the facts. There was no chance for them to beat out the Braves or the Cardinals or the Phillies. Sometimes you’ve got to look to the future. This was that year.
ohhh, now they weren’t catching the cardinals either!?!?!
july 29th the mets were 55-51 6.5 games out, cardinals were 56-50 5.5 games out… please WHO ever the hell you are, shut up
Have you seen the Cardinals’ bullpen and starting rotation? Have you seen the Mets’ bullpen and starting rotation?
Where’s the Mets’ Chris Carpenter? Where’s the Mets’ Salas, our Lynn, our Motte, our Boggs? Oh that’s right…our Carpenter is sitting on the DL, taking up a gigantic chunk of our payroll, while our bullpen is non-existent because Omar didn’t feel it necessary to build a crop of young starting pitchers in the minor leagues (in case you didn’t realize, Boggs and Lynn were starters in the minors…that’s typically how you develop good big league relievers, instead of by wasting draft picks on college relievers who don’t get enough innings in the minors or side sessions to improve).
And no, I won’t shut up. This is a message board…if you don’t like to deal in facts, then you can simply ignore what I say.
pennant race? chuckle chuckle
CARDINALS august 25th, 10.5 games behind the almighty braves… CHOKE JOB COMPLETE in september 30th!!!!
CARDINALS ARE IN THE WS!!!!
The Cardinals went 23-9 in that span. Partly because they had important guys getting healthy while most teams were wearing out. It also helped that the Giants went into free fall so the D-Backs went on to win the division.
Hilarious that some people thought we were in a pennant race.Sarting pitching was below average.The bullpen was probably the worst in the NL.The defense was terrible and the team lead the world in mental mistakes.
A losing mentality begets a losing mentality and it’s no coincidence that most of the owner of this losing mentality and the acceptance of it come from a particular belief.
Ike Davis getting hurt single handedly changed the direction of the Mets season. When he got hurt and I found out he was done for the year that’s when my stomach sank the deepest and I knew we had no chance.
If that didn’t cross your mind than you possess a defeatist attitude.
Losing Ike was akin the Cards losing Pujols for the rest of the season at that time.
Remember….relatively speaking.
Who won the wildcard again Joe?
How many games back were they on September 1st?
How many games back were we on July 28th?
What caused us to get out of it and stop winning at a .519-.593 clip?
You say we were not in the race!
We were in it FAR MORE than the cards were on Sept 1st!
But you GAVE UP and QUIT!
They did not!
The team that won the Wild card was hea and shoulders better than we were.They got healthy,made a few deals and got hot.The Mets are not in St Louis vicinity.
I can’t believe you can even attempt to compare the 2 teams.We don’t have the pitching to win 90+ games even with Ike and even if they kept Beltran and K-Rod,our pitching and defense was hideous.If not for the offense over acheiving we would’ve lost 90+ games.
Yeah the games behind situation says differently!
You can assume what you want because it suits you but ASSuming doesn’t make it fact!
If we had not traded away our Closer and our leading RBI guy (who still led the team despite being shipped off with two months to go! Thanks Sandy!) we could have maintained or improved our position and started off at the same place the Cards did (or ahead of them) on Sept 1st
We split the series with StLouis 3-3 which says we were pretty much equal to them! And even more telling is WITH BELTRAN and K-ROD we went 2-1!
After we traded them we went 1-2 vs StL!
So you have no evidence that StL was any better than us before Sandy traded away and ensured we did not compete!
The head to head record says otherwise!
Do you have any idea of a concept called Small Sample Size?
If you’re basing ANYTHING in a baseball season off of 3 or 6 games, you’re a lot dumber than I thought.
Head to head record said otherwise? LMFAO.Thanks for the laugh Metsie.Head to head suggests the 86 Phillies were better than the 86 Mets then.
K-Rod was our best reliever,no doubt but we still blew 17 games with a lead after innings and 13 when leading after 7 before K-Rod was traded which is why we were mediocre when both those guys were here.Baseball has April,August and September as well as the May,June and July months you keep harping on.
In my opinion,I could be wrong but in my opinion,had Ike,Wright and Chris Young not gotten hurt,had Beltran and K-Rod not been traded this team would’ve maybe won 84-85 games tops.The defense and mental mistakes were a constant from April thru September and the pitching without Santana just didn’t add up.
I’ll go even further and say if we were to resign Beltran and K-Rod as well as assuming Reyes is still in the fold,Santana being even somewhat effective,I still don’t think we’re good enough to contend.
Don’t forget that the Mets completely tore apart the Rangers and the Tigers on that one road trip. What’d they go…like 6-1 on that trip? Doesn’t mean they’re better than those two teams. Any baseball team can beat another baseball team on any given day and small sample sizes are just that…a small sample. It’s why the playoffs are such a crapshoot.
Mets were also .500 or better against Arizona, Atlanta, Detroit, and Texas. Head to Head is a cute measure. Last year the Mets were .500 against the Phillies! Clearly that means a lot right?
Sure does afterall the Playoffs are a short series as you keep reminding us!
ANything can happen isn’t that what you always say?
Isn’t that the excuse for Oaklands Failures?
LOL what? He’s got 3 more weeks? How is that fair? Omar got 6 seasons…why does Sandy only get 1 season and 3 weeks?
And tell me again how Sandy exactly has money? If he’s going to re-sign Reyes (which I still think he will), he’s got around 10 million to play with. That’s about as much as he had last year and he’s still got to build an entire bullpen, fill at least 1 or 2 starting pitcher roles and bring in some bench players.
i said 3 more weeks to start the offseason then we’ll see what he does right? also, so, we only got about 30 million or so to spent?? i thought us saving those 17.5 million on krod was gonna make us more flexible and will be able to spend it wisely right??? keep dreaming..
You want to dispute facts? Okay:
“i’ll tell you what, he’s got money now, is time for him to step up, i will give him 3 more weeks, then we’ll know”.
“I will give him 3 more weeks, then we’ll know.”
“I will give him 3 more weeks, then we’ll know.”
“I will give him 3 more weeks, then we’ll know.”
“I will give him 3 more weeks, then we’ll know.”
“I will give him 3 more weeks, then we’ll know.”
That, sir, is an ultimatum, saying he only has 3 more weeks to prove himself to you. Perhaps you made a mistake with the English language?
And yes, saving K-Rod’s money DOES make things more flexible. They have 30 million now and can possibly use some of that to re-sign Jose Reyes. If they didn’t drop K-Rod like a hot potato, they would’ve only had around 13 million and Reyes would be long in the rearview mirror because they wouldn’t be able to afford him.
What would be spending wisely? Paying for a 30+ year old 1B for 8 years when we already have a good 1B for several years?
Paying a 30+ year old pitcher who has 2 years as a starter for 7 years at ace money when he isn’t an ace?
Whenever I catch people demanding that we spend just to spend, I get the comeback “we want to spend wisely”. when I ask what is wisely, I get over spending on a guy no one is really in love with simply because he’s the best available, or spending on a guy who plays the one position we’re really set at for years to come. And has some real health concerns.
Like I’ve said before, our rotation would have had:
D. Lowe, Zito, Marquis, J. Lackey and some other broken down pitchers.
Thank goodness the fans aren’t in charge…that would be a disaster.
“the team he inherited were far much better than the one omar inherited”
I’ll excuse the “far much better” phrase and just point out a view things.
When you inherit a franchise, you don’t inherit their W-L total. It’s like Towers. You claim he did a great job because Arizona won 60 something games last year. Yet almost the entire big league personnel is the same. So what happened? He got a job with great opportunity and a young “core” of talent that blossomed at the same time.
When Minaya was hired, he inherited a team that still have a NY sports icon in Piazza which sold tickets no matter how the team did.
He inherited a team with a 96mil payroll with 10mil coming off from Leiter, and another 10 mil from Weathers, Gutierrez, Stanton. So he had at least $20mil coming OFF the books and was able to INCREASE payroll another $5mil.
He inherited 21 year olds David Wright & Jose Reyes and was able to mix them in with established veteran leaders like Cliff Floyd and Mike Piazza.
He was able to entice the best pitcher in this era to come play for NY, and why? Because nobody else wanted him because he was declining.
He was able to buy Carlos Beltran simply because Boston & the Yanks mainly didn’t budge. Don’t act like Beltran wanted to be a Met. He clearly wound up here because of the $.
Omar inherited opportunity, excitement, and the keys to drive a championship to NY.
Alderson inherited bad contracts, pending big free agents, lack of superstar prospects and a fan base that is ready to jump off the Shea Bridge.
How in the world you could POSSIBLY say Alderson inherited a better team is beyond me.
He inherited a team with a 96mil payroll with 10mil coming off from Leiter, and another 10 mil from Weathers, Gutierrez, Stanton. So he had at least $20mil coming OFF the books and was able to INCREASE payroll another $5mil.”
sandy has at least 60 million coming off the books this year.. let’ see then right??
Except you forgot about a guy named Irving Picard who’s trying to claw back close to a billion dollars worth of the Wilpons’ money. How do you expect them to spend all of that 60 million when they could easily get tagged for a loss of 300 million?
Not to mention that the team has been bleeding money for a few years due to debt and dropping attendance. They lost 50 million last year and 70 million this year.
And Omar increased payroll by more than 5 million.He added Pedro and Beltran over 30 million right there.
DAVIS
MURPHY
DUDA
NIESE
GEE
TEJADA
TURNER
HARVEY
FAMILIA
MEJIA
HAVENS
FLORES
Please list the equivilent players Omar had instead of just ignoring this post and calling us crazy!
Throw K-ROD and BELTRAN in there as well I forgot they were there for Sandy until he dumped them!
I think I’ve gotten about 6 or 7 emails since Saturday about this constant daily grind on MMO, and I can’t believe how some of you haven’t run out of points to pound by now. If you’re all truly “tired of the civil war” why keep waving your sabres? (pun intended)
most of the sane/reasonable people that can contribute to intelligent discussion have either left, mostly left, or are packing their bags to head out the door.
Not according to my statistics, we have over 11K unique readers daily. Our hits can range anywhere from a quarter million to over half a million on some days. Here’s something interesting you might like – I communicated with Cerrone about this two weeks ago. Did you know that that our number one referrer is Amazin Avenue? That means that the last URL visited before landing on MMO was Amazin Avenue. For years it was always MestBlog, but in August that streak ended.
Yep because they are all frothing at the mouth to see Moneyball be retried! LOL
Joe — I’ve noticed we have a few fans who frequently act like to hammer opposing posts. They see most every situation as a nail!! lol
This just goes to prove how ANTI-OMAR these sabres are, Joe. Their LAUGHABLE, BLIND devotion to some outdated, overrated and USELESS philosophy used by Alderson is testament to how they HATED Omar Minaya.
I may not have been here from 2005-2010, but I have seen and heard the same rhetoric from ANTI-OMAR types all over the internet and on sports talk shows. Agee is the only guy I have seen that brings a different, albeit warped, view of Omar’s “problem” via way of obsessing over draft picks. Other than him, all the rest of these people REGURGITATE the same tired, superfluous drivel.
Their OBSESSIVE defense of Alderson and his methods is a joke in and of itself.
You seemed to miss the comments where a couple of us stated that we actually liked Omar in the beginning but got tired of his mismanagement later on.
Oh well…continue to keep your head in the sand if you’d like.
LMAO…You “liked” the guy because he’s no longer here. I’m sure the shades of HYPOCRISY sit well above your nose.
What? I’m saying in 2005, 2006, even 2007 I liked the job he was doing. It wasn’t until 2008 that I got tired of his band-aid routine.
If you want to twist my words into something I didn’t say, then go ahead. I think the smart people around here can interpret what I really mean (and by smart people, I don’t mean you).
I don’t see how anybody can consider the first two rounds of the MLB draft to be superflous. You get more of baseball’s best players from those rounds than you do from Int’l free agency AND they get up here quicker.
Getting up here in 4-5 years means that at the very most a player you draft will spend no more than one year on the 40 man roster in which he isn’t in the Majors or providing depth for the majors in AA or AAA. That means more roster spots are available to protect the kids who are promising but no where close which is more often than not an IFA.
This year alone we have a lot of guys in A+ that will either be exposed to rule 5 or have to be placed on the 40. Flores, Puello and Armando Rodriguez are no where close to providing AAA depth and yet one could be snagged as Jesus Flores was in 2007 from A+. Familia, Lagares Valdespin Cruz, and Reyes the same in AA and while they could fill in if need be, really can’t be expected to be ready to contribute up here.
Having guys that fly up the ladder from the draft actually helps your IFA program as guys that stagnate from the draft are less worth protecting at age 22 than promising IFA kids at 19 or 20 a level or two behind so you have additional roster spots with which to protect them.
Utimately it’s the COMBINATION of building through the draft and IFA that provides the chance for the best team and having them all up here at the same time, not eliminating the largest source of good major leaguers.
IFA is just as much a crap shoot as the draft. For every Tejada and Familia there’s a Fern, Guerra and a Pena. No different than Davis/Harvey and Humber/Holt/Mulvey/ Vineyard.
The guys we could have drafted, remember Minaya’s strength was in young player evaluation, were used to have immediate success and really should be forming the first full wave of Minaya’s decade long run of dominance up here. Three #1 picks, two #2 picks and two #3 picks and four #1 picks not taken back when the opportunity was there and five college relief pitchers drafted in the first 3 rounds on top of it for their potential ability to get up here ASAP in a limited role instead of looking for our Kershaw’s, Lincecum’s, Bumgarner’s, Grandal’s, Stanton’s, Pedroias, Worley’s and Trout’s
What could Minaya have done with those 17 picks if he was looking to build a team for a solid decade or longer? I say a lot. Just like international free agency your success rate isn’t going to be great but could he have gotten 5-7 more top players? I have no doubt that he could have and they would be here when the IFA’s started to arrive and that would have made the difference. Having them all here together and filled in around and behind by the Murphy’s, Duda’s, Gee’s, Parnell’s and Thole’s.
Not immediate success if you can even define it that way followed by a crash and the talent bubble that we’re experiencing right now, but a slower more patient buildup that didn’t have such a short plateau. Two year longer wait, seven to ten year longer stretch of dominance, eight more years of sell outs and a much brighter future. And NO! Omar would not have been run out of town by the monkeyballers. Everyone universally agreed he was the right guy at the right moment to do what needed to be done around here for the longest time. That is flood the system with young talent culled from every corner of the globe, not just one.
We had just gone through a period where once again money kept being thrown at the roster and the results kept getting worse. Those guys got shipped out and we immediately got better, but irrationally gave up the crown jewel for a joker. If ever there was a time in NY for a slower, more realistic and patient build up it was in 2005. Omar would have only needed to point to the farm and tell everyone “hey, you can’t undue 7 years of drafting like **** and trading the farm for RIGHT NOW every single year and put it back together ASAP. It’s gonna take a little time. Relax, we’ll get there.” and you know what? He would have.
The free agents that we signed with the exception of Beltran didn’t really last very long and many of them gave us no better play than we could have gotten from a younger player that Minaya’s eye for talent could have obtained without passing over the Majors largest source of top players.
Has there ever been another team where fans actually root for the GM, and not the team? Wanting Sandy to fail (meaning the team fails) because you are upset Omar got bounced is mind boggling.
It’s truly sad that we root for the same team as these people. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Omar’s process, at times. He seemed to be too focused on the big splash at times while the fringes of the roster went to waste. But did I ever root against him? **** no, because I’m a Mets fan. I may have been ready for change after 2008 but I can’t say I ever rooted against him. I always want what is best for the team. I disliked the Jason Bay signing at the time, but I never rooted against it or rooted for it to fail. What’s the point? You’re not a fan if you’re rooting against your team…that’s called a detractor.
I’m embarrassed to be a fan of the same team that a lot of you claim to be fans of.
I think the media is mostly to blame for this.
When Omar Minaya first became GM and after he signed Pedro Martinez and then Carlos Beltran a very loud minority in the media began a crusade that Minaya was only going after Latino players. It created a perception that rubbed many people the wrong way and it stuck for Minaya’s entire tenure.
Once he was gone and replaced by Alderson, the resentment that still existed for the way some perceived Minaya was mistreated his first year, still resonated with those fans who were and still remained offended.
Alderson already had the deck stacked against him coming in riding a philosophy that has been hotly debated for nearly ten years now, so that didn’t help either.
Mix it all up and you have yourself a Molotov cocktail.
I blame the media.
The reason you see this so prevalent on this site is because we are not a niche blog like Amazin Avenue, NYFS, Ted Quarters where everyone pretty much shares a similar philosophy.
We are not a Mets Blog where every post resonates the opinions of the blog owner.
We are as diversified as they come and it creates dynamic not seen anywhere else.
We are a fan site and as such all opinions are debated and all fans regardless of philosophy intermingle. It’s a unique situation you won’t see on any other Mets site and it also motivates the polar ends of the spectrum to communicate their points strongly. It’s an us vs. them climate.
But getting back to Minaya/Alderson and rooting for the team, everyone roots for the team but disagree on the process or methods. That’s what many of you on the polar ends of the debate fail to see because you are so grounded in your own belief that your opinions are the only possible solutions.
A lot of that came from Delgado claiming that Omar tried recruiting him using the Latino card.In Omar’s 6 years he signed more non-hispanics than hispanics so I think the Delgado story was what got the whole latin player thing started.
And Anna Benson throwing in her 2 cents from a g-string.
Blantant LIE, “Joe Diaz”…Carlos Delgado NEVER went on record stating that. Adam Rubin said Delgado said it. It’s a COMPLETE fabrication unintelligent, media tricked people like you WANT to believe.
Neither you or I was in the room during negotiations so neither you or I know if it’s a lie.I’m sure your also anti Rubin since Rubin made a fool out of Omar.Check that Omar made a fool out of Omar by saying Rubin wanted Bernazard’s job.What is Blantant anyway?
Hey OmarFan…you should read this article from 2005 by Bob Klapisch: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=klapisch_bob&id=2235021
Here’s an interesting little quote from that piece that came straight out of Delgado’s mouth:
“Things got so bad that at last year’s winter meetings, Delgado derisively called Bernazard, “the highest paid translator on the planet.”
But okay…Delgado didn’t say anything and had no feud with that moron Bernazard. It was all fabricated, right? Yeah, sure. Whatever you want to believe in your warped mind, buddy.
first of all. It’s a Cashman piece you posted, genius.
The reason Delgado signed with the Marlins is they were coming off an 83 win season in ’04 and a ring in ’03. They looked better on paper than the Mets and Delgado wasn’t convinced the Mets were going to compete. The Mets were a laughingstock and Delgado felt the team wasn’t good enough. Those were HIS own words. Delgado never once said it was a sales pitch of a Latino based team Omar was trying to build.
Whether Delgado liked Bernazard or not isn’t the reason he didn’t sign here, GENIUS (you’re lucky I’m moderated because there are better words to call you than genius LMAO). He didn’t sign here because we SUCKED in 2004. You would rather believe what’s CONVENIENT for you and your AGENDA.
Produce the proper article with Delgado’s quotes next time, “genius”
Excuse me, Genius? Did you even LOOK at the link I posted? Did you even read the URL where it says “columnist=klapisch_bob”? I mean, are you always this thick-headed or just here?
Let me post the link again for you, in case you happened to click on the wrong one: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=klapisch_bob&id=2235021
And finally, let me just copy and paste what it says at the bottom of the link, Copernicus:
“Bob Klapisch is a sports columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.”
You lose. How about you learn to read…or is that a little out of your grasp?
Who, for what it’s worth, I remember the incidents that were published in a couple of press outlets. Then and now, I offered my support and kudos to Carlos Delgado for not getting sucked into Tony Bernazard’s blatant tribalism. I didn’t always agree with Carlos but in this case, he was right on. Thanks to Carlos, the integrity of the business contracts and the game prevailed. To some degree, Carlos saw himself as a man of the world, not a person with petty views whose loyalty could be purchased by virtue of birth location.
I remember the commentary as well and I would not say it was a blatant lie fabricated by Rubin.
It was Delgado’s agent himself David Sloane who distributed a column to the media in March, 2005 that appeared in the Toronto Star by Richard Griffin. After Delgado had signed with the Marlins a few months earlier.
In it Delgado was quoted to say “At the beginning, that was their approach. It doesn’t matter if you’re Latin, American or Italian, if we’re going to talk business, talk business. I’m not doing you any favors, you’re not doing me any favors because we’re speaking in Spanish. I’m a man first.”
articles.nydailynews.com/2005-03-05/sports/18302627_1_david-sloane-carlos-delgado-column
You can purchase the full article here
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/results.html?st=advanced&QryTxt=&type=current&sortby=RELEVANCE&datetype=6&frommonth=03&fromday=04&fromyear=2005&tomonth=03&today=04&toyear=2005&By=Richard+Griffin&Title=&publications=pmid%2882%29
There you go Omar fan! Thanks MNJ and Who.
I guess it’s not a blantant lie.
Hey “Joe Diaz”…..Very slowly here, since you’re reading comprehension skills absorb this VERY important piece.
CARLOS DELGADO IS NOT QUOTED IN THIS ARTICLE.
SLOANE IS ALLEGEDLY QUOTING DELGADO IN THIS ARTICLE.
THE STORY WAS RE-PRINTED BY ADAM RUBIN, THE BIGGEST SLEAZE IN THE MEDIA AND OMAR’S BIGGEST HATER WHO NEVER SPOKE TO SLOANE NOR DELGADO.
Delgado simply used the Mets to get a greater deal from the Marlins, who he thought was the better team during the offseason prior to the 2005 season.
Even someone as limited as YOU, WHO and the REST of the Omar Haters, who are desperate to prove Omar was about RACE/HERITAGE first over creating a better team.
My question is why the DESPERATION to prove Omar had some secret plot to turn the Mets into a Latin Dream Team? Carrying some hostility from 2005, huh?
Speaking of comprehension.If you bothered to comprehend my original post and stop wackin off to your Minaya poster I simply gave JoeD the reason why a lot of Met fans and the media UNFAIRLY ACCUSED MINAYA of turning the Mets into an all Latino team.
You continue to prove why everybody thinks of you as an uneducated jackass.Did you bother to read and comprehend when I wrote that Omar signed more non-hispanic players than hispanic players?It’s a fact.He signed more non-hispanics than hispanics.That is not the comment of someone desperate to prove Omar had a secret plot to turn the Mets into a Latin dream team. That’s the comment of someone defending him for being portrayed as such.
I’ll say it again since you’re too dumb to understand it the 1st 5 times I said it.I am not an Omar hater.I’m just happy as a pig in you know what that he’s not the GM of the team I grew up rooting for.
Hostility since 2005? No! No hostility.He cant destroy my team anymore.I wish him well in his future endeavors.
I can only speak for myself but I would have been as happy as can be if Minaya had signed and developed the NEXT Pedro Martinez, Juan Marachel, Dennis Martinez, Felix Hernandez, Bartolo Colon, Mariano Rivera, Ivan Rodriguez, Yadier Molina, Miguel Cabrerra, Edgardo Alfonzo, Omar Vizquel, Rafeal Furcal, Melvin Mora, Vladimir Guererro, Bernie Williams and Manny Ramirez.
Hell I’d be happy with just a couple of those guys and it’s not impossible that Mejia, Familia, Urbina or Flores could someday be mentioned in the same breath but it’s just as possible that Steve Phillips may wind up producing more top talents (even if one or two were just shooting stars) than Minaya did, and that is the last thing I would have ever thought possible.
The book on Minaya will be open for another decade so we’ll see but at least now the GM’s vision won’t to be limited to just this year and the hell with every other year.
The question is why would Sloane, Delgado’s agent quote his client to say something to be published in a Toronto Star column that is untrue?
Sloane remained his agent throughout his tenure with the Mets so it is not like they parted soon after. There is nothing to suggest that Sloane was not accurate in his quote. Delgado from what I can recall never denied those statements.
No you can say it’s alleged if you wish but there is nothing yet that I have seen to suggest any of the quote is untrue.
MNJ- Common sense. Delgado wasn’t interested in the Mets after leaving a failing club like the Jays. The Marlins just came off winning a ring the year prior and were thought to be infinitely better than the Mets after 2004. Sloane came up with some CRAP after Delgado signed with the Marlins and that’s that. Until you HEAR Delgado admit to this hunk of garbage, it’s all media RUBBISH.
It’s to be ignored. ESPECIALLY if it’s junk coming from Adam Rubin.
And lets not paint Carlos Delgado as some character-less coward. This man is a HERO in Puerto Rico. He TURNED HIS BACK on the American flag as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays in protest to the Navy bombings in Vieques and the Iran war.
Educate yourself on Carlos Delgado:
http://www.agenceglobal.com/article.asp?id=220
Carlos Delgado is THE man. He was a respected man in the Met clubhouse regardless of what the media TRIED to portray him as. A man like this, who has led anti-war demonstrations in his home country isn’t going to be a COWARD and duck something like you’re accusing him of doing in a CIRCUITOUS way, MNJ. He had the courage to turn his back on the American flag as a protest. You think he’s afraid of some little SCRUB like Adam Rubin or Bob Klapisch????
Get your out from the clouds, MNJ.
The agent sent it out after Delgado had signed. There was nothing to be gained by the agent lying about quoting his client to say what he did.
Rubin has nothing to do with this. It was not his story. It was the Toronto Star’s Richard Griffin’s story.
If I come across something to suggest that the agent lied about what Delgado said I will reconsider my thoughts on this.
This story does not paint Delgado negative in the least in my opinion. On the contrary to me it shows a man that was a smart business man.
Anyways to wrap up. Rubin did not write the column he reported the existence of it and the agent had nothing to gain by lying about what his client said. You don’t agree? OK, we will agree to disagree on this and move on.
It was first reported in the Toronto Star and may have been planted by Delgado’s agent, David Sloane. Rubin may have “re reported it” but it clearly came out of Toronto.
During the initial attempt to sign Delgado, Sloane waited and waited and waited for Beltran to sign, thereby freeing up larger commitments from teams Delgado really was interested in and to see if the NYY would be able to get out of their contract with Giambi after his “admission” of steroids. Marlins were in and so were the Mets, right up until someone (probably Jeff or Fred) placed a deadline on the deal.
Met ownership wanted a decision before the “winter fan caravan” that ushers in the ticket selling season. Sloane wanted to wait to get the most money possible and Delgado wanted to stay in the AL. Next thing you know ESPN reports the Mets had dropped out.
The Mets hadn’t dropped out, they were just pushing for an answer based on their timetable. The agent was doing the best thing for his client but was completely unprofessional in his dealings with the Mets. All he had to say was Mr. Delgado has waited a long time to become a free agent and will take as much time as he needs to make the best decision for his family. That’s not what he did.
The whole thing was a cover story leaked to the Toronto Sun, most likely by Delgado’s agent who was handling his first, and only big free agent deal and did so very unprofessionally.
Amazing how THIS COMMENT by Joe D has little to no activity on it. Perhaps because the people MOST enraged by my comments are the ones JOE is directly referring to- the people influenced (or supported?) by the LOUD small minority (led by Adam Rubin) in the media. And they don’t have the GAZUNGAS to dislike Joe D’s comment. Cowards to the end.
Some play stupid
Some play innocent
Others are TRANSPARENT in their methods.
There is a certain PAIN involved when pride in one’s heritage is directly or indirectly attacked. Omar Minaya represented such pain for those who love “their” guys on both sides. Baseball is not supposed to be about pain. It’s supposed to be about cheering for athletes one dreamed of becoming, since many weren’t gifted enough to play even small time ball.
Sadly, people get too wrapped up in sports. They let their twisted realities/insecurities manifest itself when talking about the game. The media knows this oh so well. They play on gossip, half truths and the common fan’s patriotic emotions.
Maybe I am biased
Maybe I am shooting straight from the hip
Maybe I am dishing dirt on Alderson as a taste of your own medicine.
Maybe I am placing a mirror in people’s faces so they can see how their comments look when someone is being attacked viciously for the WRONG reason.
Maybe it’s none of the above……
Pick the most truthful answer you’re most comfortable sleeping with at night. At the end of the day, it’s your mirror you’re looking into in the morning when you get up.
Thank you, Joe D. I know you see what I see. I appreciate your fairness by writing this last piece.
“When Omar Minaya first became GM and after he signed Pedro Martinez and then Carlos Beltran a very loud minority in the media began a crusade that Minaya was only going after Latino players. It created a perception that rubbed many people the wrong way and it stuck for Minaya’s entire tenure.”
Joe, Back in July 2008 my wife and I went to the Tigers minor league complex in Lakeland Florida. A rain delay and very threatening clouds (as seen often in summertime Florida) held up the start of a Florida State League game for about an hour. The game was eventually washed out. There were less than 25 fans were in the stands. Looking for someone to talk baseball with, I met a very senior scout for one of the best National League teams. We struck up a pretty long conversation. He asked about my background and I told him I was once upon a time a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, that I had once played a game in the vacated Ebbets Field, but was a Mets fan since they opened up for business in the early ’60′s. He had a lot of knowledge of NYC and and NYC baseball. He correctly assumed I hated the Yankees. So we hit it off pretty good.
At the time, Omar was riding high in the minds of the Wilpons and most Mets fans. To my surprise, the scout, whom I knew for all of about a half hour, told me that he thought Omar was a piece of you-know-what and that Omar’s goal was first and foremost to sign Latinos. He seemed really annoyed with Omar’s views of the game. I was taken aback by the scout’s uncensored view but was otherwise pleased with his knowledge of the game. (He named his two family members playing professional baseball at the time, one of whom was s marginal player in the major leagues.) The guy was genuine.
My point is that it was more than the media stirring up anti-Omar feelings. The guy I met was ‘inside baseball’, and he open, frank and adamant about his negative views of Omar.
what was the scouts name????
Because of the over-the-top views expressed on this and some other subjects, I’ve decided not to reveal his name. We have some crazies right here on this site whom I don’t trust. He is still a major league scout today.
fair enough… i spoke to a GM also that told me he thinks sandy alderson is WAY IN OVER HIS HEAD, after being out of baseball he has no idea what’s he doing, and he also believes alderson will bolt in 3 years because he’s here to control payroll for the wilpon and take off. he told me mets fans are in for a tough 4 years stretch of pure futility, i would reveal the GM’s name as well, but he still a GM today and i don’t trust guys like jesse-P and dona-l.
You know Major League General Managers? How did you get in contact with this GM?
Or are you lying through your teeth?
Nice to see integrity is still alive and well in this day and age of Twitter. Thanks for the info Des, and I enjoyed the backstory with it.
I was in Santo Domingo the day Minaya was hired and I’ve known people down for there for years. Have some friends from NY that live there, friends that I’ve met there, guys I can get into a game with when I go down, people I meet up with at DWL games that have the season package so I always know where in the stadium their going to be.
Everyone knows me as a Met Fan there and while people all have their favorite DWL team, mostly everyone roots for “their guys” in MLB but when Minaya got hired this baseball crazy country was over the moon.
One of the cool things about the DR is that no matter where you go EVERYONE likes baseball. Everyone talks baseball. Guys, girls, everyone, and in a very knowledgeable way. Not clouded like the typical MLB fan where everything my team does is great, everything your team does is stupid and not centered around just one team, division, geographical area or league. People in the DR really follow the entire Major Leagues.
Everyone was excited for Minaya and the Mets. A month later when we got Pedro forget about it. The thing that everyone kept saying, the thing that I kept saying was that now we’re going to start getting some players here. Not other teams players nearing the end of the productive part of their careers but young kids who are going to hit the minor leagues running and not stop until they’ve been to 5 All Star games, maybe even the HOF. Vladimir Guerrero types and Miguel Caberrera’s, Pedro Martinez’s and Ivan Rodriguez’s and while it would be too soon for any of Minaya’s IFA’s to be up here winning batting titles and gold gloves you’d think there would be a certain level of play in the minors that would scream dominant performance.
Fern as a 19 year old in AA put together a hell of a season. Familia in A+ was great this year and very promising in AA. Mejia’s 2009 in A+ at 19. Flores 2008 as a 16 year old in the Appalachain League. Tejada’s 2009 in AA. Valdespin’s 2009 in the Sally League and 2011 in AA and Lagares 2011 in A+ and AA but that’s about it and I wouldn’t really call all of those dominant seasons. More like promising one’s given the production relative to their age.
Still and all a very good job and much better than we’ve ever done internationally by far but lets not pretend that it was one of the best jobs done in this area in MLB from 2005-2010. Other teams during this period have signed guys who dominated at each rung of the minors.
SF has Francisco Peguero (2006) LA has Alfredo Silverio (2006) Colorado has Wilin Rosario (2006) SD has Rymer Liriano (2008) Cinn has Daniel Corcino (2008) Pittsburgh has Starling Marte (2007) Houston Jose Altuve (2007) St. L, Oscar Tavares (2009), Marlins Jose Ozuna (2008) Braves Julio Teheran (2007) and that’s just one guy from most of the teams in the NL who put up good seasons consistently and none of these teams gave up 3 #1 picks, two 2nd rounders and failed to take back 4 #1 picks when they had the chance.
The NYY have Montero (2006), Banuelos (2008) and Sanchez (2009) and others in rookie ball. One common thread among all these players is that they got a year or two in the Dominican or Venezuelan Summer league before coming stateside. Maybe it’s a developmental issue. Maybe the kids were kids were rushed up here. One thing that you hear in the DR is that Minaya tried to do too much too soon and that’s coming from the people in the DR.
It would be much nicer if one side of the argument didn’t use the “THATS NOT TRUE!” without any info to back that statement up as the main thrust of their Argument Joe!
Unfortunatly when someone says something they can’t seem to explain or disprove they quickly move to DISCREDIT the poster and avoid the topics they seemed to suggest!
You are so definitly right that the MEDIA is to blame both for our perceptions AND many of the bad contracts people cite as Omar’s Folly!
The MEDIA was the biggest proponent of signing Bay! Omar vascillated and held strong to lesser money and time when the Press was crowing about how BADLY The Mets needed his big bat and that Omar should just give him the extra year and be done with it because it was JUST THAT IMPORTANT!
The media also was the one who harped on the 2B position on a daily basis and pushed the issue until Castillo was brought here!
NOT A SINGLE media guy suggested Perez was a horrible signing at the time, at best they said we may have given too much money! The fact that paying him at all would have been considered a failure really doesn’t seem to matter to anyone who liked the signing when it happened!
As for the Latin players being more prevalent on the NY Mets I’m not sure anyone has really taken a good look at what the Ethic Composition of the MLB is these days but it would seem that Omar wasn’t the only one Hiring Latino players wholesale!
You hire who decides to dedicate their life to baseball and as a result succeeds and makes it through the system!
The same thing was once said for African Americans in Football. Now it happens to be Samoans on the Offensive and Defensive line!
It really is not about what the Front offices of those leagues want or prefer it is about what the makeup of the available talent is!
And some people just didn’t get that back when Omar was starting out!
The Media are nothing more than a bunch of English majors who quickly realized that unless your creative enough to write Fiction there isn’t a lot of money to be made from writing unless you become a teacher! 90% of Sports writers have NO JOURNALISM DEGREE whatsoever!
Some are failed Jocks, Some are failed beat reporters who were not very good at fleshing out a story but could write well enough to fill in the space between the boxscore highlights!
And what is worse is when these guys write columns saying GM should do this go get that, No one ever takes thier JOB AWAY when they suggest a mistake!
They simply HIDE what they said with a new column trashing the GM for doing what they wrote he should do for 4 months straight in the offseason!
And whats worse is the FanBase mistakes these guys as experienced and knowledgable when the truth is they are writing in the sports section because they are NOT! And Baseball reporting requires nothing more than a list of game highlights and a final score to get the story right!
If anyone disagrees just watch ESPN on Sundays.
Look at what they show and tell you!
Look at the Highlight they show where some guy they have a clever nickname they like to say made a play in a game his team resoundingly lost!
They will play that highlight to death but give casual mention to the fact that was about the only good play his team made!
The MEDIA is NOT SMART! Not Knowing, and comprised mostly of people who made bad decisions on what skills would make them a success and then failed to succeed in the areas where that skill REQUIRES IT!
I know! I work with those folks everyday!
And if it wasn’t for the teleprompter that puts the words in thier mouths, or the editor who adds the stats to the piece most wouldn’t have much to add at all!
Read any sports story about a game and remove the stats and highlights.
What did the Author really tell you that you couldn’t figure out if you just had the boxscore or scorecard?
OK. So now we’re blaming the media for yet another bad free agent signing and praising the guy who signed him for holding strong to only giving up 66 M + a vesting option and spending another 2nd round draft choice.
This after just spending a first round draft choice to address the same position three years earlier.
You would really think that by year 6 a GM who had three of the starting eight positions covered before his first game for years to come would have been able to cover at least a couple of the others by this time especially a position he had just spent a #1 pick on three years earlier.
Even if we were to believe that cockamanie story about journalists without journalism degrees making baseball decisions for the front office what does that say?
Floyd had two years to go when Minaya got here. He did trade Ring and Bell for Ben Johnson, bring in Michael Tucker (who was released by the Nationals) and Cory Sullivan (released by the Rockies) try Murphy in LF but none of those moves worked out and now we’re stuck with Bay for another couple of years.
Maybe we need to start making decisions based on their likelihood of success rather than on what “journalists” think.
There are two “media and Journalist” that I would not want touching my team. One is M. Francesca (enough said) and the other is NY Post reporter Joel Sherman who is horrible with his “wants” for both NY teams.