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.

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.

“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?

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?

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.

The latter, the Mets of 2014 will cost a prosective buyer about a third of what the 2010 cost.

Your price likely drops, allowing you to do more creative things with your $ to improve the team.

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!