6
2011
Mets Fans Are Fools
An article by Tie Dyed
This must be what Sandy Alderson and the Wilpon’s think of us as they sit around their luxurious million dollar estates eating their caviar and sipping their imported wine.
Safe to say the departure of Jose Reyes, while not a surprise, was like a stab through our collective hearts. We hoped against all hope that somehow, someway, Jose would return in 2012. Our hearts told us one thing but our heads told us something else.
Right now we are still dealing with hurt, anger, disgust and depression as one of the most beloved players in Mets history will have a fish across his jersey. Time will tell if Alderson’s decision was the right one or not.
If Reyes struggles through a season with leg problems, a trip here and there to the DL and does not warrant the money the Marlins handed over, then we will swallow our pride and apologize to Alderson for our negativity. On the flip side, if Jose stays healthy, steals 60-70 bases, hits 310 and leads the charge to dethrone the Phillies, the hottest selling item next Christmas will be a Sandy Alderson dart board. (And just imagine how many runs a healthy Reyes would score if the Fish also happen to land Pujols?)
My problem with Alderson is not so much the decision to keep or let Jose go. But how he handled it. New York sports fans are the most knowledgeable in the country, but yet our GM is treating us like we are in Oakland.
“I’m not conceding anything with respect to 2012,” he stated less than 36 hours ago. Really, Sandy? Are you kidding me? Do you really expect us to believe this line? If you, Mr. Alderson, really truly feel this in your heart then you are not the ‘baseball man’ we were led to believe. And if you expect us to buy into this hogwash, then you are greatly underestimating our intelligence. It’s really a slap in the face to all of us.
You let go of Carlos Beltran for a pitcher who, while has potential, is unproven and has compiled a 3.68 ERA while not rising beyond AA. You trade a solid closer who was having a respectable year. Now, you let go of the best lead-off hitter in team history for a Round 3 draft pick. And suddenly David Wright is not completely off the table either. But you’re not conceding a thing??? Your actions, sir, do not match your words.
Does Sandy Alderson really think that Pelfrey, Gee and Dickey match up against Lee, Halladay and Hamels?
“He (Jose Reyes) was the most important thing on our agenda which is why we went about it the way we did.” How? By making a pseudo-offer? You make an offer that you know will be surpassed. It’s low enough that someone else will top, but at least you can claim, ‘We tried.’
And let’s be honest? What does it say about our team when the Mets not only lose a player with the talent, ability and who the fans love but the fact that we get outbid by the Marlins. The Marlins??? We’re not talking the Yankees or Giants or Red Sox. A team from Florida went deeper into their pockets than a team from New York.
I feel that all 30 clubs can be classified into one of 4 categories. Some teams are built to WIN NOW, like Texas, the Phillies and as always, the Yankees. Some teams are 1 OR 2 players away, such as the Giants, Angels or Tigers. Other clubs are REBUILDING for the future, such as the Royals (who have one of the most promising farm systems in baseball) or the Pirates or even the Cubs who hired Theo Epstein. Other teams, like Houston or Seattle just GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS of a 162 game season. Our beloved GM would have us believe we are in one of the first two categories, but really, at this point, since we have yet to state the obvious, we are in the same category as the Mariners or the Astros, two other small market clubs.
Alderson says one thing, but his actions show something different.
I just wish he’d be honest. I wish he’d stop sounding like a politician running for office and speak TO us, not DOWN TO us. I’d gain respect if he was truthful and forthright. Come clean, Sandy. Confirm what we all know. Admit the Mets have no money, no desire or ability to compete for the next 3-5 years. Tell us that we have to rebuild the entire team from bottom to top. Tell us you are going to replenish the farm system, ask us to be patient. Admit that it will be a while until we can be a competitive club again. Substantially lower the ticket prices. Just be honest.
You’ll find that we may not like it but we Mets fans are a patient bunch. We’ve waited twenty five years for a championship. What’s a few more? Give us the benefit of the doubt.
In 1980, Frank Cashen took over as GM. The Mets were a struggling franchise, perennial cellar dwellers. In the 3 years prior, we averaged 64 wins and 98 losses. Cashen came in and told us it would take five years for us to be competitive. We complained and didn’t like that news. But he was right. He rebuilt the team and five years later the Mets won 90 games, the most since the 73 pennant. At the time we were ready to strangle Cashen with one of his own bow ties. But he was honest. And he was right. He gave us a championship. And we gave him our respect.
I’m just asking our GM for some truth, some honesty. And not to treat us like a bunch of fools who blindly hand over our hard earned money to support a sub-standard product.
On November 1, 2010, shortly after he became our GM, Sandy Alderson stated, “It’s important that an organization be moving in one direction.” Truer words were never spoken. Sadly, we all know what direction we are heading.
About the Author: Rob Silverman
It was 1973 when my dad introduced this 7 year old kid to Baseball and the Mets. It's been a love and passion that has lasted for 40 years, much longer than my first marriage. Since I was little, there've been 2 things I've always dreamed of: 1) Being a successful author and 2) playing right field for the Mets after Rusty Staub retired. Although 4 decades have passed and based on the current condition of the Mets, I have not given up on either dream
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 42 | 30 | .583 | - |
| Phillies | 35 | 37 | .486 | 7.0 |
| Nationals | 34 | 36 | .486 | 7.0 |
| Mets | 27 | 40 | .403 | 12.5 |
| Marlins | 22 | 48 | .314 | 19.0 |
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Outstanding post, terrible title. You’re batting .500 though so not bad. Alderson is looking more and more like a Wilpon lapdog as new details keep coming in. Lapdogs are never honest, they only do the bidding of their masters.
Thanks–The title IS an attention getter, though. The point I’m making is that it’s possible that Fred, Jeff and Sandy feel that way. Who knows…but you kind of wonder. They run this team into the ground, take away our heart and soul but yet we keep buying tickets, supoorting the team, etc..
Hey, I’m a FOOL, too
Rob, you’ve written a good, provocative post. My thanks to you.
But the article includes a humidinger that’s close to dreaming the impossible dream is, “… if Jose stays healthy, steals 60-70 bases ….” While I wish Jose the best of health, his track record shows that his best days are probably in the past.
Over the last three years, Jose has played in 291 games, missing the equivalent of a full season compared with his great years of 2005-2008, And his performance on the basepaths has dropped a lot. Over the last three years, Jose has averaged less than 27 stolen bases a season. Giving Jose more than a four year contract shows that the Marlins bought very high, not a sign of shrewd ownership. Six years is ludicrous.
Alderson communicates as if he’s in litigation 24/7 measuring every word least he be sued for everything he’s worth. The man needs to lighten up and stop being so roundabout and evasive, splitting hairs in everything he utters wasting everyone’s time.
Great article, so very true regarding the direction the Mets are now unfortunately heading in. Sure Jose Reyes was on the DL too often, but the psychological impact of losing him is incalcuable to Met fans everywhere.
havent been able to read the post yet, but after reading a lot of the comments recently I would agree with the title.
Don’t you see that it doesn’t matter? Despite what you may see as a rebuilding period, the truth is, the Mets aren’t doing that, they are just trying to line their pockets, hopefully recover as much personal assets as they can before they then decide what to do with this team. There hasn’t been any indication, none, that they are trying to build a winning team. All they do is cast off big money contracts and replace them with bargain basement type players, no matter the talent level. Yeah, they have some home grown talent but, when they produce and are seeking security, then we will see how they are treated. My confidence in this managements desire to win is seriously crumbling.
Excellent post tie, i have been saying that since i notice this man’s intention last year, he should stop TRYING to feed us crap as if we’re stupid and keep it real, imo, he’s a liar, and someone who’s feeling the pressure of new york little by little, but i give him credit for the ace in the hole he had after reyes was signed, he blame the loses of the team in not resigning reyes, thing is, an offer wasn’t even made, which speaks how little they wanted reyes back.
the mets are becoming the new york royals right before our own eyes, and for those who like moneyball, here’s a nice piece i came across this morning:
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/jose-reyes-pressure-mets-gm-sandy-alderson-work-moneyball-magic-article-1.987334
“New York sports fans are the most knowledgeable in the country”
Why?
“You let go of Carlos Beltran for a pitcher who, while has potential, is unproven and has compiled a 3.68 ERA while not rising beyond AA”
— Would you rather watch Beltran walk for nothing? Are you implying that in July the Mets could have gotten a better offer than Zach Wheeler?
“You trade a solid closer who was having a respectable year”
— Can you tell me honestly cards on the table that KRod was worth $17.5 mil this year? All the BS aside of who KRod spoke to, is Francisco Rodriguez worth just as much money as Jose Reyes got for 2012?
“Now, you let go of the best lead-off hitter in team history for a Round 3 draft pick”
— I’m starting to have a big problem with the way people talk about this Reyes thing. I’m not happy he left but some folks here are acting like Jose Reyes should have gotten whatever he wants. There had to be a limit no? Don’t you want your GM to evaluate players worth and stick to it? I sure do. If he felt Reyes wasn’t worth more than 5 years, then there is nothing he could do when the Marlins offered 6 is there? Why is it so bad that he had parameters and limits to an offer? And please spare me the “no official offer” stuff. Agents and GM’s talk if an agent says “how far can you go” and Sandy says “no more than 5 years” there’s no “official offer” but Greenberg knows if he gets 6 years he takes it.
“Does Sandy Alderson really think that Pelfrey, Gee and Dickey match up against Lee, Halladay and Hamels?”
— Did Omar? Nobody claimed he was giving up the year did they?
“What does it say about our team when the Mets not only lose a player with the talent, ability and who the fans love but the fact that we get outbid by the Marlins.”
— It says you don’t understand that Jeffrey Loria is richer than you think and had a plan. Keep in mind this team also took a Manager away from the Chicago White Sox. They are opening a new ballpark and last time I checked, Miami isn’t a small market. This isn’t 1997.
“He gave us a championship. And we gave him our respect.”
— Little greedy no?
“I’m just asking our GM for some truth, some honesty. And not to treat us like a bunch of fools who blindly hand over our hard earned money to support a sub-standard product.”
— Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this. I don’t disagree that I’d like to hear it from Alderson’s lips what the “real plan” is but I think no matter what he says there will be complainers and doubters and so there’s no point…
i thought you were gonna demand answers from sandy? yet you’re hell and bend to defend him on a historical BAD MOVE by the GM of the mets, you see why you’re such a hypocrite?? you LOVE sandy alderson’s moves, and go way and beyond to defend him, i don’t get it.. is pathetic to tell you the truth, this was suppose to be your favorite player who was basically let go for nothing, not even an offer, and you shrug as if it was nothing, keep praising alderson for getting wheeler for beltran yet you don’t say anything about letting reyes walk. you’re the worst fan i have ever encounter you know, you were the only fan in here who didn’t celebrate when the BRAVES HAD A TOTAL COLLAPSE and were hiding for 3 days..
Jose who?
Considering one of this franchise’s 2 W.S. Championships was based on the 69 “Miracle” Mets and the other came after an incredible rally from 1 strike away from losing the W.S. to a groundball by Buckner and you really expect the GM to openly admit to conceding the 2012 season?
The truest thing said in this entire post was this “Time will tell if Alderson’s decision was the right one or not.”
MNJ, his desicion was the worst, how can you tell your fan base you’re not conceding 2012 when supposedly your #1 priority was reyes and you don’t even make an offer? then while everyone is getting better in the division the mets are doing nothing to get better?
you know what bother me about the whole situation, how reyes is injury prone and wasn’t worth it blah blah blah, but santana hasn’t pitched in 2 years and NOBODY is saying a damn thing… he and bay are basically holding the mets hostage salary wise.. yet noone is saying a damn word about that situation.. i like santana, but he’s done, we all see what’s happened to the other pitchers with his kind of injury..
Agree with everything Alex except for Santana and Bay holding the Mets hostage. Teams like the Phillies and Red Sox in much smaller markets and the Giants to a lesser extent have easily overcome bad contracts. They have a plan to stay competitivie with ownership that has the money to overcome mistakes. They know that a competitive product makes more than it costs. the Mets on the other hand have ownership who is holding the Mets hostage because their answer to a bad contract is to go cheap, their answer to producing a crappy product is to threaten fans with a worse product if they don’t overpay for the lemon on the field. Its bad management without money and without a modern strategy to scceed. And Alderson is now obviosuly no more than a puppet on a string, a man so desperate to be back in the game he’d do anything to et out of his birth records job.
We had a GM who was aggressive and spent on FA’s to try to get better and win, unfortunately, he worried about signing the big name and filling that one hole but failed to address the other holes opening up around him. He took to many risks with big money on guys who had injury problems. Omar was terrible with the media, but he was honest. But he new that you had to spend money to make money.
Now we have a GM who is not aggressive. From what he was saying, our best hope from the Winter Meetings is a couple of Rule5 draft picks? What competitive team says that? He doesn’t want to take any risks, but will spend millions on a couple of oft-injured pitchers because they’re cheep and he’s just filling holes on the roster. There is no improvement…I really believe that he’s here to get back the money the Mets owe to MLB and get the team in better position financially once the Madeoff stuff kills the Wilpons (and it will). Alderson is saying one thing, but his actions are the complete opposite…even listen closely to what he says, his statements don’t add up.
Most big and mid market teams make bad signings, it happens, it’s part of the game. But the Yanks, Sox, Phillies, Barves, Giants and even the Nats don’t give up because they have one or two bad contracts or a star player gets injured… they keep on going. Our GM isn’t doing that.
How can the Dodgers, who are in worse shape then the Mets give Kemp a big deal but the Mets can’t come up with a real offer to Jose?
Why can’t we ever find a GM that is willing to spend money, but is smart about filling the holes in the roster before they become an issue?
Like you said before most people figured the Mets were not going to be able to resign Reyes. I can only speak for myself but I would not feel any better if Reyes signed with Miami but at least we made an offer. I have seen past GM’s make an offer for free agents that wound up signing somewhere else and when the parameters of the offer were known people criticized it of being a lowball offer so I highly doubt that I would feel better knowing that they made an offer at least.
They didn’t sign him and as the majority had been saying for a longtime it was because they would not match it in years or guaranteed money. Reyes got 6 years/$106M guaranteed with an option for a 7th at $22M if the reports are true. What’s done is done he is a Marlin but as a Mets fan I don’t just concede a season I may be a realist and recognize the chances are not great but the GM is not paid to be pessimistic his job is to never concede a season publicly.
Better to be honest than to be such a bad liar that you just increase the wrath of 99% of your fan base. Do you run a business north jersey? If so do you feel it is in your best interest to lie to your customers? If not a business man you have been a customer. Do yu buy from a business that lies to you? Is that what you want in a business customer relationship when you buy a car or a house or a dishwasher? I doubt it.. So why tell me is it fine for Sandy alderson to spew out lies for a year now?
If a fan said it then it would be not considered a lie cause most fans i want to believe are optimists but because a GM says it it is viewed as a lie? Read what he said,
“We’re not conceding anything about 2012. The Diamondbacks didn’t concede anything about 2011. The Cardinals didn’t concede anything about the month of September. Stuff happens in baseball.”
He is saying that like this franchise’s history has shown you don’t win or lose on paper but on the field and as every team that has ever come back to win when no one expected them to you don’t concede a season before it has even started.
I understand you point and it’s well taken. I for one wouldn’t do business with someone who lied to me, but where the Mets are concerned, I’m a longtime NY National League baseball fan going back to the Giants who I only watched for one year before they moved to SF. A few years later I got to see the new New York Mets in the same Polo Grounds and I’ve loved them ever since. We have had some bad Gm’s in all that time, some that lied like M.Donald Grant and Steve Phillips and some that were honest and upfront like Johnny Murphy, Frank Cashen and Omar Minaya. I loved how Murphy, Cashen and Minaya were each very similar in how they presented the future when they first took over. All of them said we were going to have some lean years but promised a better tomorrow in five years. Except for Murphy who had the toughest job, Cashen and Minaya both delivered on their promises early, but either injury or old age kept the good years from lasting long. The point is that they were honest throughout their tenures and I appreciated that. I don’t know where to place Alderson yet, but I’m waiting to see if he delivers on his promises for 2012.
The Wilpons are showing that they have lost money and can’t afford this team at this time. I cannot see them affording this team at all. Maybe they can get revenue sharing to help them afford players.
These days Sandy Alderson is not eating caviar and sipping expensive imported wine. A can of Norwegian sardines and cheap Australian wine at $5 bucks a bottle is more like it. The long shadow of Uncle Bernie is still darkening the sunshine of Sandy’s bosses, Fred and Saul. And Irving Picard, the would be fleecer, is still in the wings trying to rip them off. I’ve not bought into Mets fans cheer leading for Picard. As much as anyone else, he’s a roadblock to the rebuilding that needs to come.
Steal 60-70 bases Are you kidding. How many times did Reyes get on in 7th inn or later with no outs down a run and wait till it was 2-2 on batter with 2 outs to attempt steal. You might want to look that one up.. Who cares how many bases you steal it’s when you steal them
Nice post Tiedye, and I pretty much agree with you execept for one thing, that I think most fans miss: The Wilpons, and Sandy Alderson owe us fans NOTHING. Let’s be clear here, we choose to follow this team year after after. We choose to throw our hard earned money at this team. No one i holding us captive, it;s oru choice. The Wilpons & Sandy are not our employees, they owe us njo explanation whatsoever. Our only recourse as fans is to looks elsewhere to spend our time and entertainment dollars. Go back to the late 1970′s. Ownership was tryingt o run this Mets into the ground. Fans stayed away and ownership sold. That’s what needs to happen now! If the fans are fed up, the best thing they could do is stay home. It’s all about the money.
The biggest problem I have with Alderson is his satisfaction with the starting rotation. Gee and Pelfrey are not very good. And for the team to be competitive (i.e., not “punting” in 2012), they needed to spend some money on a Buerhle or Jackson, not just the back end of the bullpen. Unfortunately, with the Wilponzis as owners, that’s not going to happen, since there is about $10 million or so to spend on free agents. Of course, non-tendering Pelfrey might increase that amount by 50%!
I wouldn’t say he was satisfied with with the starting rotation, it is more a case of “this is what we have for now so let’s work with it”
I believe he characterized it as “decent” with the need for “growth” among its pitchers.
I would have sent Pelfrey packing years ago, before the rest of the league found out how messed up he is. Let’s face it, Pelf, maybe Johan, Gee, Niese, and R.A. Dickey, aren’t the answer starting five wise. Not even close to the answer. I’d keep Johan, Niese and Gee.