#1) Now that Reyes was no longer a possibility the cash for those moves under discussion was available and wouldn’t preclude other moves later (if there were any intended other moves) and

#2) To “get out in front” of the bad news with Jose by creating another track of discussion among the fan base. That alone was worth it (to them) to spend an extra M or two.

Lets face it, the Mets are in a very precarious position from a public standpoint. Even under the best of circumstances the ownership has been extremely thin skinned and fearful of public criticism. All too often decisions have been made with a CYA priority instead of what best benefits the long term health and viability of the Franchise and that is only more true in these times and especially at the time of losing what has been the most popular homegrown Met since the days of Seaver.

Like it or not a certain fair percentage of Alderson’s job is to steer the ship through dangerous choppy waters without wrecking it on the rocks until the Wilpon can either gracefully exit or somehow manage to patch the leaking hull.

PR is a big part of every large corporation and has certainly played a large role in how we wound up in those choppy waters to begin with.

Every thinking fan understands this, even the one’s that can’t accept it and are angry about the way things are playing out and they resent being “lied to” but it’s not really being lied to, it’s just trying to buy time for the Ship to right itself by employing a more well rounded and thoughtful approach to building a team while alienating as few fans as possible.

The fact is this work had to be done at some point for this team to ever escape the shortsighted approach of only looking to the future in the most limited ways and never at the expense of this year in any way shape or form.

Once upon a time the owner across the River found himself in trouble. He used that time to retool and rebuild the NYY into a team that went to the post season 14 times in 15 years and won it all 5 times.

Back then the popular opinion was that George wouldn’t spend any money because he wouldn’t be allowed to share in the glory of any winning that went on while he was suspended. Sure it must have sucked for the fans of his team but after a dizzing array of constant turmoil, shortsighted trades like Phellps for Buhner, Willie McGhee for Bob Sykes, FA signings like Eddie Lee Whitson or Davey Collins who didn’t even have a position when he signed. Billy Martin’s 5th go around, Bobby Meachum, Howie Spira and 8 or so years of not even being in a pennant race it was time for a change. There was work that had to be done and Gene Michael commenced to start getting it done.

Impatience was replaced with patience, the shortsighted limited vision approach was replaced with a longer, broader view. The emphasis became one of building a team with just a handful of draft choices forfeited in order to be reasonably competitive and most likely after all other alternatives had been exhausted.

One #1, one #2 and one #3 draft choice’s were spent on Kenny Rodgers, Spike Owen and Danny Tartubull. That’s it. The minors were built up and prospects were kept. The chances of one of those making the HOF recently being discussed on this very website. Just one player drafted in the top 10 of the first round formed their core. Scouting and developing became the mantra. Along with Jeter 1st rnd #6 came Posada 24th rnd, Petite 22nd rnd and Bernie and Mo IFA’s. You really couldn’t have planned it any better. One SP, a closer, C, SS and CF.

Not all prospects made it, even some of the guys who made it to the Bigs didn’t pan out. Gerald Williams for instance. Others got traded for the right guy. Roberto Kelly for Paul O’neil, Tino for Heathcliff Slocum.

At some point around 1994 the NYY built what was, and I cringe when I write this, a somewhat likable team, as much as they could be. Jimmy Key, Bernie and Gerald Williams, Stanley, Velarde, Melido Perez, Pat Kelly, Jim Abbott and started to play some pretty fun to watch baseball. This ’94 team was really nothing more than a bunch of guys on their way up or trying to establish themselves. Not a superstar among them. Later on other hold the fort guys started to be signed but they didn’t cost draft choices either. Rains, Straw, Gooden but by that time the CORE was fully established and guys like Tino, O’Neil and a lowly PTBNL Scott Brosius simply extended that core and built the framework for what followed. Some other trades were made for Wells, Cone, Clemmens, Knoblauch but they all had to fit in, cause there was something to fit into, not just a whole bunch of guys on their last legs and contract.

The Mets aren’t broke because of the free agents they’ve signed over the last few years. The Mets are broke because of a whole confluence of occurrences that have nothing to do with all the under performing free agents but they HAVE left a stench in Flushing and have left a gaping hole in our minor league talent base due to the forfeiture of six 1st round draft choices and six 2nd round draft choices over the last 13 years. Sure we have some good looking prospects and I’m positive that some will pan out and a couple will become stars but guess what? The same can be said about almost every team in MLB and plenty of them are well ahead of us in this area.

Omar got our farm from dead last to about 15th or so. Mejia, Harvey and Familia are the best shots we have to become stars but they cannot do it on their own. They NEED the Wheelers, Nimmo’s, Muno’s, Evan’s, and I pray Marquez to join them up here and we NEED to have the Flores, Lagares, Kirks, Gorski’s, Edgin’s, Verret’s, Leathersich and others to make positive contributions.

This is where the patience has to come in. Prospects must be prepared to make positive contributions and to do that they must be groomed, not zoomed. Scouting evaluation and development must take priority over a potential wild card run for a couple of years. Minor leaguers must be prepared for the position they are going to play up here. Thole, Duda and Murphy collectively have more experience playing elsewhere then they do playing where they are. This is no way to run a professional baseball organization.

Will Alderson be able to pull it off? Who knows. One thing most of us can agree on is that a serious build up of top talent in the farm isn’t going to hurt his successor if he can’t, but again, the only chance he has, and by extension we have is to employ patience, realize we didn’t get in this hole overnight and it’s going to take more than a season or two for us to dig ourselves out of it.

Does it suck? Yeah it does. Did it suck for the NYY when Gene Michael began his work? Yeah it did but how many complaints do you hear from Yankee fans these days?

So, if Francisco was one of the last ones to sign, he would HAVE to come here, because the Mets would have been the only team that would give him them opportunity to close – That’s exactly what happend with Madson, and that’s why he signed for so little.

However, remember that while ultimately Madson did sign for 8M at the time that was not the expected case at all. I think that many teams might have been in on him early in the off-season if he was only 8M. It’s all a game that is played. Do you press your luck or do you go after one of the guys you want and offer what you think is market value instead of being left out to dry? Not only that, I think he was looking for tradeable players later on and I am not sure that would have applied to a guy like Lidge.

The Reds waited on Ryan Madson and got him for 8M, which is only 2M more than Francisco got – The Reds had a patient approach and because of that they got Madson at a cheap price, we had more of an aggressive approach and because of that we got Francisco and Rauch at an expensive price.

If the Mets waited they could have gotten the same quality pitchers for a lesser price, and with the money that they saved by being more patient could have been used to fill other holes on the team.

Did they rush it? Maybe. I don’t think they got bad players and I don’t think if they over spent they harmed anything really.

I think in reality for both Francisco & Rauch, the Mets were one of the least attractive spots for a late inning reliever to come to and if you wait for the market to simmer to 1 year contracts, you could be left with Bobby Parnell as the closer.

You had Papelbon get a $50mil/4 year deal Bell get 27/3. The market for a team looking to not overspend for a closer wasn’t looking too good paired with reports of Madson’s deal falling apart.

With Rauch look at guys who got similar $ across the board… Dotel, Hawkins, Wood, Oliver, Broxton. You can make a serious case that Rauch on his best day may not be better than some of those guys on their best day but you can argue he’s healthier and more consistent.

While your point Vinny is recognized, if the Mets had sat around and waited and were then left with no closer, everybody here would have complained that guys like Francisco and Rauch ONLY signed for X, and now we have Parnell and Acosta in the 8/9th inning.

Personally, I would love to see a Mark Cuban type guy buy the team but the other owners don’t like his style. In the next two years, the Wilpon’s should concentrate on keeping the fan base as happy and interested as possible. If they are smart there will be uniform number retirements for Gary Carter and Yogi’s number 8, along with number 17 for Keith. Give away baseball bats on a revised version of Bat Day. Announce to he fans that Darryl, Doc and Ron Darling will be remembered too with some sort of event. These things will fill some of those empty seats. Make Citi Field and the property more a shrine to the history of our players and managers.No disrespect intended but enough with the Dodgers…… A light pole wit a sign “Casey’s Ct” , a “Gil Hodges” Way and a statue of our “FRANCHISE” would mean so much to the fans…..

Fellow fans….instead of dissing each other and dreaming about being the GM of the team instead of Sandy…let ownership know about what they can do to give back to us in a way that would further deepen our love for this team

In fantasy baseball one can select any player for their “team,” not so in real baseball. In real baseball available players have a choice and oftentimes other teams are deemed more attractive than us even within our own market.

Why is this? Credibility and the opportunity to win championships. Players also enjoy playing near to where they grew up, like Harang last year who took less to play at home in SD while his wife was pregnant with their twins. Garland is another guy who’s often described as a California guy. All things being equal players might just prefer the lifestyle elsewhere better than here.

Compounding the problem in NY is the cost of living, taxes, congestion and the fact that very few Major leaguers actually grew up in the tri state area. Far more grew up in California, Texas and the deep south. That’s a reality.

Even players who did eventually come here either hemmed and hawed (Bay) or would have gone crosstown for 20 M less (Beltran) or actually did choose to go elsewhere (Delgado) Very few have the NY Mets on the top of their list and that’s just a reality that the typical fantasy affiicianado fails to take into consideration.

When this team was in a true compete mode and was more than willing to over pay for services it was difficult to attract the best players, now it’s even more so the case.

The NYY once had the same problem. Players and agents were all too willing to engage the NYY in contract discussions but just to raise the price elsewhere. Now players are flattered when the NYY go after them and no one wants to leave when their deal is up. What changed? The perception of the Organization is what changed. Players and agents know the deal. Their in the baseball business. They know a well run organization from a willy nilly one. They know who’s done the necessary work beforehand to position themselves ahead of time for a long run of competability and who’s taking shortcuts that are bound to fall short and result in the 2nd half of their contract playing out 72-90 seasons.

Until this Team starts producing it’s own all around above average starting players along with a couple of true superstars thrown in here and there, backed up by credible depth both on the bench and in AAA/AA no one is going to want to come here as a first option.

Flores got hurt and got hurt again during his rehab. Does he get hurt if he’s with us? Probably who doesn’t but it’s really more about the thought process at the time we lost him.

At that time he was a 21 year old who hit 21 HR’s in A+ ball and a very well regarded defensive catcher. That’s a guy you don’t take a chance on losing in the rule 5 especially when you could have just signed Alou a week later. that’s all it would have taken to avoid losing him in the rule 5 draft. One week. Would have saved our #1 pick too because SF going after Zito most likely declines to offer arb.

I’m not saying we definitively don’t lose Flores later on due to some kind of roster screwup or that we draft a future All Star with the pick we retained, just that we would have had a chance and for a team that always has so many deficincies in the rotation, bullpen, everyday players, bench, depth how can you not make every single effort to obtain or retain players who could fill some of those weak spots.

I mean when your always pulling out the injury excuse or the who could have expected this guy to suck excuse how can you justify not doing absolutely everything possible to rectify the situation? How can anyone justify throwing away a draft choice and risking losing a player at a position of dire need that still hampers us to this day, and probably will for another few years?

Even guys that don’t make it to the Majors are assets to the organization even while their in the minors. Often times a GM will take a flyer on an underperforming guy he really liked but missed out on in the draft. Their asserts while their in your system. No one should know that better than us. How do you think we got Piazza, Leiter and Santana? Young guys like Geotz, Burnett, Petit and Mulvey were parts of those deals. Catchers are always sought after in trades. How can you justify leaving Flores unprotected when he was litterally the only credible prospect at that position that we had above rookie ball when all we had to do was wait one single week to sign Alou?

Yeah he hasn’t had much of a career to date being a rule 5 3rd string catcher for a couple of years and being hurt and then hurt again during his rehab and then being blocked by Pudge and Ramos but he would still be the best catching prospect in any level of our organization if we still had him and his age right now is the age Ruiz took over in Philly and he’s had a good run with them.

Waiting one more week before signing Alou most likely gives us a chance to add a good player and absolutely would have saved us a good prospect as well but we don’t need any of those right?

We always talk about 09 to 10 and now ’11 when we talk about the injuries that kept Mets from competing

But this is getting way off the initial topic and now going into the twilight zone. As is always the case with this guy – now he’s all over the place.

With NO backup depth in the minors it really calls into question whether we should have spent so many 1st and 2nd round picks just to get competitive.

The fact is to a large extent a teams potential is determined by the work done, or not done in the preceeding 4-10 years. Trying to acclerate the process by going all in on type A free agents, depleting what little depth you do have in the farm through trades and rushing whoever shows even the slightest glimpse of being able to do anything can produce temporary short term results but they almost always fall short and quickly lead you back to where you started. That’s what’s happened to us three times now in the last 20 years and what do we have to show for it?

One NL East title and one World Series appearance and a really ****ty short term projection.

Hardly worth it in my opinion.

and about the draft pick, how do you know we would have drafted anybody good? The Giants didn’t. I know we could have had a CHANCE to get somebody good, but there was just as good of a CHANCE that Alou would have gotten a big hit to put us into the posteason that year.

And your the one that’s spinning with Berkman, he was already in the lineup everyday – he did not replace Pujols’ production.

If you can’t understand the difference in giving up a couple of marginal organizational filler types and a first round draft choice and a 21 year old catcher who hit 21 HR’s in A+ ball No one can help you.

If you recall I said before (and in the past) the Mets last season they were all healthy enough to contend was 2008. Since then they haven’t fielded a team that’s stayed healthy long enough to be accurately evaluated.

Monkeyball doesn’t work. Now we have full time starters who would at best be backups on mostly every other team.

Very few teams would hand RF to Duda. Very few would hand Murphy 2B. Very few would live with Bay’s production in LF. Very few would install Torres full time in CF and very few would count on Thole as the full time catcher but no team in MLB would have ALL of these guys in full time roles.

Individually a good case can be made for all of them and while no team doesn’t have poor hitters or defenders at some positions, no team has so many one dimensional guys being counted onto to be full time starters and guess what? The reason is, as always, there’s no one else! Why not?

Why is there never anyone else?

Cause we spend all our top draft choices on guys we can’t even trade for a used jock strap.

That’s why.

I didn’t say the Phils suffered the type of losses to injury the Mets did in 2009.That was record setting loss to injury for the Mets. They have however lost alot of time to the DL and haven’t missed a beat.

Like I said I don’t know what’s gone on in the past with you and Agee but I’m not in any way 2nd guessing the draftpicks the front offices of years past have made.I’m calling out ownership for neglecting the most important aspect of a winning franchise. There’s a big difference. ven with the near misses and heartwrenching losses,as a franchise we’ve had way too many losing years.With our resources in NY,that’s a disgrace.And if this continues then it won’t make a difference if Branch Rickey comes back from the dead to run the Mets.

St Louis did lose Wainwright and their closer retired and they were still able to win 90 games. That says a lot about that franchise.I hope to say the same about our team.