Professional athletes have gained the upper hand by having agents represent them whereas until the latter part of the 1970′s, ownership held the cards. Agents use the players to manipulate the market value so as to extract the best deal from the teams looking to buy.

Perfect example is Prince Fielder’s agent realizing that Albert Pujols was the bigger “fish” out there and that once his value was set that Prince could then demand a bit less than Albert got still look like a bargain.

Looking back at our own team’s history…..By 1977 our “Franchise” had become the best pitcher in the game, bar none.based on a 10 year performance. Seaver saw that some decent pitchers with one good season like an Andy Messersmith had hit the jackpot and Seaver saw no sign of M.D. Grant looking to offer a contract extension at a reasonable raise to elevate Tom’s salary to what he deserved and thus we ended up with the Midnight Massacre. Fans angry about losing Jose Reyes? New York City was furious and for the first time the Mets broke my heart. I still curse that bastard Grant and his newspaper cronies like Dick Young who were on his payroll and ran Seaver out of town. When Sterling /Doubleday brought him back in 1983, I was overjoyed despite knowing that he wasn’t a 20 game winner or a 250 strikeout pitcher any more. I went out to Shea on opening day of 1983 and watched him walk in from the bullpen to a standing ovation from the crowd that had tears in their eyes and was proud to be one of them.

That I managed to stay loyal to this team is amazing……but I do despite having moved to Arizona years ago. I figure that the team will rebound within a few years and maybe have another run of excellence like we had in the mid 1980′s…..

I much prefer Omar’s answers to why we endured back-to-back collapses in ’07 and ’08:

“um, well, er, ahhh,”

God forbid this guy is honest and says what most fans feel–that they want runs scored and want to see more HRs. Frankly, it isn’t my kind of preferred BB; I agree with MetsfanLou, but…

But you had some warped concept that making a bid is bidding against yourself despite the fact that “AGAINST” requires two competing bids to be OPPOSED to each other!

Yes, Bayonne, you’re right. He’s a loon and the fans and him are not on the same page regarding the objectives of the team. He is also as bad a communicator as Omar. His apologists may not see it, but he is continuously putting his foot in his mouth with asinine, cynical and downright nasty statements. He has a hard-headed Marine mentality and has no people skills at managing players. Some of us seem to see that, others not at all because they wear SA issued rose colored glasses. You can be sure players around the league see that and, although quiet because of common sense, will be sure to stay clear of NY until this phase ends as the tragedy plays itself out.

It was one of the best interviews I’ve seen of him in a long time. Very emotional and poignant.

“I don’t think we ever had a shot at signing Jose if we made the first offer,”
So does that mean since maybe in his opinion the team had no shot last year he’ll just give us a minimal effort in signing needed players to help?

I think we’re getting more of insight into this guy’s brain and to me it’s getting worse. People are happy this guy is running the team? Wow

“I think more scoring makes more sense because it’s more entertaining,” he said. “A little more offense will not only be a plus for the players but also the fans.”

Imagine Omar Minaya saying that?
Imagine Steve Phlllips saying that back the late 90s?
Imagine Frank Cashen saying that?!!!
Imagine Joe Mac saying that?

This GM may be a worse loon than I thought. It’s just unbelievable.

That’s a stunning statement and very insulting to the fan base. What the hell does he take us for? We just want to see high scoring games for the sake of it? Is this also why he wants to put Daniel Murphy at 2B? We’re getting more insight into the brain of this man and i don’t like it one bit. It’s confirming a lot of things i suspected about this guy.

He’s not into winning and i’m getting convinced more and more that this guy could have had a better offseason last year than he did. He had the offseason he did last year because he chose to.

How about this, more scoring makes sense because it increases the likelihood of winning games? My words, not his. Too bad he didn’t say that. Once again, makes we wonder if winning is even on the pecking list of objectives for our grandiose GM?

MORE scoring, MORE sense, MORE entertaining, but not MORE winning! What are we here for? If you don’t know why we play the game, how could you possibly staff the team to be competitive?

I’m not even sure why you reacted so poorly to Metsblog quoting Alderson. It’s a quote… who reports it isn’t the story. You’re just focusing on the metsblog portion because you don’t want to admit it makes sense

Plus at the time my blog had more passion than he can muster up in 5 years worth of his lukewarm wishy washy opinions that change with the wind.

Despite losing out on Reyes, Alderson said he was very pleased with being able to bolster the bullpen with Jon Rauch, Ramon Ramirez and Frank Francisco. He also still likes some of the bullpen pieces the team currently has, and it should all make for a good combination.

“We weren’t looking to bring in three,” said Alderson. “We were looking to bring in two. We’re happy we got the three, so what was a weakness is a modest strength for us right now.”

Sorry, but Jon Rauch, Ramon Ramirez and Frank Francisco does not amount to a modest strength.

The amount of slack Sandy gets for the job he’s doing so far is unbelievable. It’s not about what’s best for the team anymore it’s about defending their boy Sandy.