15
2011
The Job Behind The Job?
An article by 
There are times when you see a very distinct line drawn in the sand between Mets fans. Often times, both sides misunderstand something about the other side, and things get out of control.
People who agree with things Alderson are doing are not tired of the same old tricks that never seem to work in NY, and are not tired of bad contracts and overpaid players underperforming. They are Sandy apologists.
People who are not into sabermetrics, or think Brandon Nimmo or Zach Wheeler aren’t good young prospects aren’t old school baseball fans, they are uneducated on the new ways of the game.
It’s never going to end. After Alderson, it will be somebody else new. There will always be differing views on how and why certain things need to be done in New York.
For me, I don’t apologize for Alderson despite what some of my loyal readers say. I accept Alderson. I accept that for 25 years and almost my entire life, being a Mets fan has been a punch line. I accept that people who root for other teams either mock the Mets, or pretend to root for them as if they are the little engine that could.
I accept that in 2005, I was fully bought into the Omar Minaya regime. I defended him even at his worst with regard to the Adam Rubin situation. I accept that in 2006, when Endy Chavez made that catch, I felt like my whole sports world was about to change.
I accept that in 2007 I was angry and disgusted with people like Willie Randolph, and Tom Glavine. I accept that in 2008, the Mets made sure that if the broken heart was healed, they broke it again.
I accept that injuries happen, and bad luck plays a major role in the success or failure of a team.
But I also accept that in order to fix the problems of the past, you need to change the way you do things. Since the 1986 World Series victory, the Mets have been operated by candidates stemming from a Frank Cashen tree. From Harazin to McIlvaine to Phillips to Duquette to Minaya.
It’d be like voting for a 6th President who was in a tree of failing Presidents rather than listening to the guy with new ideas.
When you think about it, Alderson is the first outside candidate since Frank Cashen. The closest they got was hiring Minaya after he had left the Mets to GM the soon to be extinct Expos.
To me, something has to change. That is why I accept Alderson. He’s different from everybody else this franchise has seen in my lifetime, and considering there hasn’t been a championship since I was 4 years old, I’d say change has to be good.
As I began to detail in a post written by Joe D, it is my belief that the plan for Sandy Alderson is much deeper and manipulative than some of us have been thinking.
I believe that Bud Selig had two messes on his hands simultaneously and found it in his best interest to forcibly clean up one of them, and clean up the other behind closed doors.
Major League Baseball is better when the Dodgers and Mets are profitable and competitive. The problem for Selig is, both were untrue at the same time. Having two of the sport’s biggest franchises up for sale by force does not look good for the league and for how Selig will be viewed in years to come.
So I believe, lucky for the Wilpon’s, they had a better relationship with Selig than Frank McCourt (obviously), so Selig got his guy in Alderson to join the Mets, while he can focus on getting Frank McCourt out of office.
Some folks like to focus on the $25million loaned to the Mets by MLB, but I think that is a waste of time for Selig to focus on getting Alderson in office just so he can get the league his $25million back. Getting the loan paid off, and the team still in shambles does nobody any good.
I believe that Alderson is here because he, along with Ricciardi and DePodesta know what it is like to work under strict financial constraints. I think saying any front office can do that is foolish. There are people like Brian Cashman who I believe would never be a good GM for a small market team.
I feel that Alderson and his team are here because while Selig is focusing on getting the Dodgers sold, the Mets need to be primed for a new owner. They need to be prepared to take multiple bids, and rest assured the league will have a role in this sale.
By slashing payroll, and grooming as much young talent as possible to be brought up within 2-3 years, you’ve created a cost effective yet exciting potential for a new owner.
A cost efficiency that allows a new owner to come in with excitement about their core, and spend money to put those players in the best position possible to win. That is what is best for everybody in the situation except the Wilpon’s obviously.
Answer this question honestly.
If you were a prospective new owner, would you prefer to buy the Mets following the 2010 season or would you prefer to invest your money into a new generation of Mets players in 2013, 2014?
Why in the world wouldn’t you pick the young core over the high priced aging roster with a track record of losing? It doesn’t make sense. Would you rather inherit a $130 million payroll or an $80 million payroll with the ability to spend your own money wisely to fill in the roster?
Is it a conspiracy theory? Maybe. But you can’t tell me that this is an impossible scenario. You can’t tell me that priming the Mets franchise to be a more attractive sale item isn’t in MLB’s best interest right? If you agree to that, then you can’t tell me my theory is impossible. Is it what is going on? I have no idea, we’ll have to see how it plays out.
So this is why I accept what I see today. I don’t have a choice right now but to root for the 25 men in uniform on Opening Day. So what I do, is I look to the future for my hope. I don’t blame Sandy Alderson for the current state of affairs here. It’s not his fault. I blame ownership, and I blame Frank McCourt for not getting divorced sooner or later!
But in all honesty, I look to this in hopes that all of this is happening for a reason, and that reason is to focus on the sale of the Mets franchise after the Dodgers sale is finalized.
So I ask you, (my loyal readers), if all of this, the 2011 season, the current winter, the loss of Reyes, the trade of K-Rod, the discussions of sabermetrics etc., occurred and the end result was a majority sale of the NY Mets… would everything that happened leading up to that day be worth it to you?
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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Worth noting last night I saw Derek Jeter’s interview with THE Barbara Walters, and he said his goal after baseball is to OWN a team and CALL the shots.
Doesn’t Jeter’s contract end in 2 years? You know he can’t buy the Yankees, wouldn’t it be insanely interesting if he were to buy the Mets one day?
I’m not saying it will happen, but imagine the possibility!
No. Please, God, don’t make Derek Jeter the savior of the Mets. Just don’t let it happen.
haha I doubt it, I just thought him saying that was funny considering the premise of my post that was written before I saw his interview. Carry on
Donal — It’s almost as bad as having some of our commenters claim they could do a better job than Sandy as a GM. Self delusion at its worst.
If you were a prospective new owner, would you prefer to buy the Mets following the 2010 season or would you prefer to invest your money into a new generation of Mets players in 2013, 2014?
The latter, the Mets of 2014 will cost a prosective buyer about a third of what the 2010 cost.
Right francis so lets just say you had enough $ to spend on the Mets in 2010 but a sale can’t happen in 2014.
Your price likely drops, allowing you to do more creative things with your $ to improve the team.
Very good post.
thanks NJ, it’s kinda getting lost in the shuffle today but I do appreciate that
I think if this point would sink in, the rest of the nonsense that people banter about would go away. We would not be flipping out about Darvish or other holes in the rotation or why we didn’t see the team go after Reyes, etc. etc.
Lot of good points here.
I realized Omar should go and started calling for it after the Bernazard/Rubin debacle. Along with the team going backwards, becoming the laughingstock of MLB was in no one’s best interest.
I’m firmly convinced Wilpons cut a deal with Selig, one that included Alderson. Otherwise, if it was just about slashing payroll, they could have kept Omar to do that.
I’m not convinced the Wilpons are trying to reduce debt for a future sale. Not quite sure Fred has given up yet. If it were Jeff on his own, I’d believe it.
srt: I mostly agree with you. It just seems too shortsighted to slash payroll for the sake of doing it. It does nobody any good, unless the end result was to prepare this franchise for a sale with multiple bidders
The whole problem with your piece is it assumes what we are seeing are NEW ideas…
They are hardly NEW they were invented in 1995!
It’s called MONEYBALL only it’s moneyball LIGHT!
It forgoes the DEEP STATISTICAL ANALYSIS that made Moneyball seem like a good idea and instead went into DEEP PAYROLL analysis instead!
This is not a new idea by any means, the Pirates and Oakland, Kansas City and Padres have all tried it and had very little success!
Oakland came the closest to succeeding but could not maintain it because they stuck with the NEW IDEA instead of realizing that a plan is only good for the situation it was meant to solve not good after that solution has been completed.
They did not recognize that KEEPING those cheap players they found would have kept winning games while they looked for even MORE good player to replace them and instead let them go BEFORE they had a replacement that could maintain the winning!
You think this is a new approach but it’s only new to NY where the market is supposed to make this NEW/REALLY OLD idea not needed.
You can sell these old worn out shoes as new but most people are not as gullible as you are!
I know you were not born to see HOW Cashen did it and I know you didn’t live through the 10 years of suck that got us all the top of round kids he eventually used for trades and to build the 86 Franchise!
And since in the article you admit losing paitence after only 3 years of COMPETITIVE baseball (2006-2008) I wonder how long you will stay on your current BANDWAGON without even ONE year of competitive baseball in the next 3 years?
Or better yet how you will JUSTIFY it as improvment and better than what was being done in those 3 competitive but heartbreaking years!
If you found it so easy to abandon a guy who had three years of meaningful Septembers I wonder how long it will take you to abandon the guy who has none after three years?
Metsie, thanks for reading
“The whole problem with your piece is it assumes what we are seeing are NEW ideas…”
Actually it doesn’t. Nowhere in my piece do I suggest anything that is being done today for the Mets is NEW to MLB. It’s new to the Mets.
“From Harazin to McIlvaine to Phillips to Duquette to Minaya” Since Cashen, every Mets GM has come from the same tree. The same inside the box thinking. It has nothing to do with moneyball (mets took HS player #1 not college, so there’s another moneyball aspect proven wrong)
“This is not a new idea by any means, the Pirates and Oakland, Kansas City and Padres have all tried it and had very little success!”
Have the Rays had success? I’ll get back to the Oakland thing at the bottom
“They did not recognize that KEEPING those cheap players they found would have kept winning games while they looked for even MORE good player to replace them and instead let them go BEFORE they had a replacement that could maintain the winning!”
How do you know the Mets don’t want to do this after Alderson gets his own guys? And again I’m not even sure why this is being discussed since I clearly stated in my theory that I think the plabn is to build around the younger players to make the team more attractive to a potential buyer… not trade them away
“You can sell these old worn out shoes as new but most people are not as gullible as you are!
I know you were not born to see HOW Cashen did it and I know you didn’t live through the 10 years of suck that got us all the top of round kids he eventually used for trades and to build the 86 Franchise!”
Just an FYI since you were alive in the 70′s you should know the Mets from 77-83 sucked. That’s 7 years. Not 10.
Here are 2 quotes that totally negate one another and leave me questioning if you even know what you really think:
“Oakland came the closest to succeeding but could not maintain it because they stuck with the NEW IDEA instead of realizing that a plan is only good for the situation it was meant to solve not good after that solution has been completed.”
“And since in the article you admit losing paitence after only 3 years of COMPETITIVE baseball (2006-2008) I wonder how long you will stay on your current BANDWAGON without even ONE year of competitive baseball in the next 3 years? If you found it so easy to abandon a guy who had three years of meaningful Septembers I wonder how long it will take you to abandon the guy who has none after three years?”
So for Oakland stuck to a failing plan according to you, but the Mets 06-08 plan was what? Not a failure? Did the Mets change their direction in 2009 or did they go about business as usual with the plan?
And can you explain to me how you can claim Oakland has “very little success!” but in the same post you boast about a “guy who had three years of meaningful Septembers”
In the last 13 years, Oakland and their “very little success” has had 8 “meaningful Septembers,” in the last 13 years how many have the Mets had? 5? So how can you claim Oakland’s ways are so bad if their way has been more successful than 2 long-term GM’s reign here in NY?
oh man I can’t wait to hear this..
I’m not buying into the conspiracy theories. Can’t it just be that the Mets put their faith in Omar who spent millions un-wisely ( and tied up millions in many long-term contracts), and now we are forced to re-build. Throw in that the rebuilding comes at a time when the Wilpons are tight for cash (their main business is real-estate, hows that going?) and are on the verge of possibly loosing many millions in the clawback. It is the perfect storm of bad luck.
A lot of good points here is right. First of all I have to say that I didn’t find the Rubin thing to be a big deal to me at all and as far as I’m concerned the only one who acted inappropriately is Adam Rubin. Very unprofessional to say the least and that was recognized by the Daily News when they suspended him.
Things happen in sports that don’t happen in more common professions and things can get heated, stuff gets said and sometimes something gets done about it. None of that should matter to the fan. The guy that just wants a talented and competent team put out on the field who gives a realistic chance of winning every single year, year after year doesn’t care about the dog and pony show, we just care about the product.
I don’t even find what Bernazard did to be all that crazy anyway. He was in a lockerroom with professional athletes, not a State dinner.
Bernazard deserved to be fired on merit but that would never have happened. Bernanard would never ever have been fired because he did a poor job. He was only fired because of the Wilpon’s ridiculous thin skin about what people think of them and that’s really the funniest part of the whole affair.
One thing about the Wilpon’s is they never hid from a camera when they were trotting out all these past their prime business decision free agent signings to cover up their cheapness and the work not done 5-10 years beforehand. Now their no where to be found, hiding behind Alderson while he takes the heat. The Wilpon’s have repeatedly stated that autonomy means the GM can come to them and discuss anything he’d like and then Fred, Saul and Jeff take it under advisement and make a decision. That’s the way it was under Minaya and Harazin and the way it will always be under their ownership but the problem is that the Wilpon always has competing interests and those other interests have always put off the work that pays off the most, costs the least until the only option left is to start looking around to see “who we can get” for 8-12 spots on the 40 every year. That’s why 18 times in the last 25 years we haven’t even been in a playoff race.
Even last year when we finally spent a buck in the draft we were still 21st in spending (out of 30) and even during Minaya’s run here the purse strings were tight in the very area that Minaya had made his FO bones in. International free agency. 1.4M for Fern, 1M for Urbina and 750 K for Pena. That is metro card money for a MLB franchise based in NYC.
Purposely selling, giving away or failing to take back 1st and 2nd round draft picks to avoid having to pay the signing bonus is flat out sabotage of your own organization and to top it all off having to draft based on signability instead of true talent is damned close to treason.
That’s what the fans should be pissed off about, not what happens at press conferences and yet still you have people here who claim they root for the Mets wondering why we couldn’t have put some of the draft money in 2011 into the Major league roster in order to perpetuate this cycle of dependence upon “whoever is available” every year.
As for Reyes, just like every other decision on free agent signings, it was the organization as a whole that made the decision and if you knew you weren’t likely to be able to offer the most money you certainly should have offered the most desire but that’s not what happened. Fred poisoned the well back in May or June with his “everything is wrong with Reyes” comments and even back in 2010 well after the extent of the Madoff damage was well known he signed off on Bay knowing full well if this one last double down didn’t come through he wouldn’t have the Money for Jose so if he’s not looking out for the health and longterm best interests of his own team who is? No one that’s who. No one until now and if that means treading water for 3 or 4 years then that’s what has to be done. That’s what the NYY did under Gene Michael and that’s what’s led to their 15 years of dominance. Not trotting out someone else’s underperforming past their prime former All Star to jizz up the idiot portion of the fan base every year at ticket selling time.
Face it the Wilpon’s aren’t qualified to be big league owners. They’ve been stiffing the fans every year by cheaping out the draft because business wise it served them the best to do so but winning wise has had us out of the hunt 18 times in 25 years.
3 of our best years have ended before October even started. We have one more post season appearance during their tenure as 50% or 100% owners as does Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh gift wrapped a playoff berth to us in 1999 by issuing a wild pitch walkoff in the 9th inning of the 162nd game while Cincy was losing 3 of their last 4 to set up the one game playoff.
Some people always fall back on the injury or bad luck excuse but that doesn’t hold any water when your not even in the hunt 72% of the time. Bad luck is when you win 96 games like Cincy did in 1999 and miss out, not when you win 88 or 89 with the leagues highest payroll. That not bad luck, that’s incompetence.
As Major League owners the Wilpon’s have a negative WAR.
no disagreement here is big enough to even type out. thanks for reading t agee
Mcilvaine as the Met scouting director (81-86) under Cashen drafted Clemens (JC) Dykstra (HS), Gooden (HS), Youmans (HS), McDowell (Col), Gerald Young (HS), Greg Olson (Col) Rafeal Palmeiro (HS), Dave Magadan (col), Rick Aguilera (col), Matt Williams (HS), John Wettland (HS), Greg Jeffries (HS), Scott Servais (HS), John Olerud (HS), Scott Erickson (HS), Todd Jones (HS).
Later with SD in 3 years he drafted Joey Hamilton (Col), Todd Helton (HS), Derrick Lee (HS), Matt Clement (HS), Gary Matthews (Col)
Back with the Mets from 1994 – 1997 he drafted Paul Wilson (Col), Jay Payton (Col), Terrence Long (HS), Scott Sauerback (Col) AJ Burnett (HS), Aaron Rowand (HS), Garrett Atkins (HS), Jeremy Guthrie (HS) and David Dejesus (HS)
One thing that stands out about him was his ability to evaluate HS talent but he constantly ran into the problem of actually signing that talent and I believe that was the reason the Wilpon let him go.
As Met GM from 1994 he inherited a team that lost 103 games (the worst team money could buy part 1) and despite being tasked with trading guys like Saberhagan and Coleman to save salary had us on a pace to win 88 when he was fired in late July 1997 and he did it with trades, not free agent acquisitions. He acquired guys like Lance Johnson, Bernard Gilkey, John Olerud, Carl Everett and kept important pieces intact in the farm like Ordonez, Alfonzo, Isringhausen, Pulsipher. He also signed Alex Escobar from Venezuela. True they didn’t all work out but there is no denying the fact that he at least gave us the chance to put truly talented players on the field in their prime as opposed to afterwards.
Mcilvaine run as Met GM came on the heels of Gene Michael’s successful rebuild of the NYY which took 4 years and averaged 72 wins per during that period.
I’ll always wonder if Joe Mac had been left alone and given the full comittment of ownership to rebuild the franchise how things would have worked out for us in the long run.
Sure 1999 and 2000 were great and 2005 and 2006 promising and then exciting but here we are entering our 2nd rebuild since Mcilvaine was canned without even having any true success since he left. Three post seasons and two rebuilds in 14 years and a never ending supply of “holes to fill” every off season hardly seems worth getting off Mcilvaine especially when he had us in wild card contention back in 1997 just a few years removed from 59-103 without robbing from the future to get there.
Mcilvaine was quoted as saying free agency is a short term solution to a long term problem. We are still 14 years later trying to dig ourselves out of that same long term problem.
You had me at “It’s never going to end.” you then lost me at “So I believe, lucky for the Wilpon’s, they had a better relationship with Selig than Frank McCourt” you recaptured me at: “So this is why I accept what I see today.” but what the hell do I know I believed “W” about the W.M.D.