20
2012
Will The Mets Ever Have An Extended Run Of Winning Baseball?
An article by 
Kodak Moments: Instead of worrying about winning baseball games, this is the type of nonsense the Mets concern themselves with?
I was driving into work this morning and was listening to Richard Neer on WFAN. He was talking about the Yankees and Braves success over the past 20 years. He was saying how the Braves and Yankees have made the playoffs virtually every year, and it’s not really about getting to the post season, it’s about winning championships.
The championship comment obviously applies more to the Yankees then the Braves. However, the Braves get into the postseason with the same regularity as the Yankees, they just have not sealed the deal as much as the Bronx Bombers have.
It’s just frustrating to think even about this. These teams make it to the postseason year in and year out. Yankee fans don’t even care about the regular season, or worry about it, because they know they will be there in the end. All that matters to them is getting to the post season and trying to win another World Series.
They don’t have to stress over every pitch and every move as we Met fans do, because when the dust settles they will be in the playoffs no matter how many injuries they have, or how good the other teams in their division are. They are always good enough to get in and with us it’s always the exact opposite.
We as Mets fans get excited just at the thought of meaningful games in September as if that itself is some sort of grand achievement.
It just baffles me how after 51 seasons as a franchise, we still haven’t tasted a successful run of championship caliber baseball. We’ve only made back to back postseason appearances once under Bobby Valentine – that’s the extent of our one run – assuming you could call two consecutive seasons a run at all.
Let’s not pretend that we haven’t tried this building from within strategy before. Our history is full of phases like this and no sustained postseason run has ever come from it. This is nothing new or something 20 or more other MLB teams aren’t already doing as well.
Are we ever going to move past this?
Will this franchise ever get to a time when we too could enjoy a decade long stretch of winning baseball?
Or are we doomed to what we’ve always done which is an occasional great season every 25 years, or one maybe two, playoff berths every 10 years?
That’s simply not good enough for me and it’s getting old.
About the Author: Dan Valis
I am a staff writer for Mets Merized Online. I am a Mets team analyst with a focus on the minor league system, as well as the major league club. I am a lifelong New Yorker who was born and raised to be a Mets fan. The ups and downs of being a Mets fan is what makes following this team so much fun, but at times so frustrating. You can follow me on Twitter @BgAppleMetsTalk.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 26 | 18 | .591 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 22 | .511 | 3.5 |
| Phillies | 21 | 24 | .467 | 5.5 |
| Mets | 17 | 25 | .405 | 8.0 |
| Marlins | 13 | 32 | .289 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/21/2013
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The Mets are pretty great at putting together unsuccessful seasons!! This organization does not have the minor league talent or the free agent signing ability to put together a successful run at this point. Plus, they play in a division of young, talented ball clubs (Nats, Braves) and with another team who is becoming used to winning after years of terribleness (Phils). So, for the foreseeable future…the answer is no, they will not have an extended run of winning baseball. Unless you count the occasional 7 wins in 10 games streak as an extended run of winning baseball.
We certainly won’t if we keep trading off whatever good players we have for something 4 years from now that never comes.
There is a common thread to be found between the yankees and the Braves and it comes down to what you throw out on that mound!
A Solid rotation will not only get you in the playoffs but will be a good reason why you won a lot of the championships once you got in.
The Braves grew some and bought some but more importantly they kept what they had for as long as they could while adding whenever someone worth having was available.
Yankees have done the same only they have relied more on buying and trading for that ESTABLISHED talent which is quite the opposite of the Lets trade one good known for 3 promising maybes.
It comes down to having the best pitching staff you can muster and the recent failures of the Yankees and Braves have all been the degredation of those rotations.
Beg, Borrow, Steal and Buy Pitching and you will have the sustained success.
If we had done that from 2000 on we could have had that decade of dominance.
The Hampton signing was key to getting to that WS, We let him go instead of adding more and never had enough pitching after that. All those years could have been playoff contenders if we had the Pitching.
In 2006 we had enough to get to the playoffs but lost Martinez at the end of the year. 2007 might have been different if we had not had to press peflrey into service and maybe the choke that year and next doesn’t happen if we just had one more dominating or competent starter to make that last week not as important as it became.
No Choke, and Playoffs and maybe a WS appearance or two!
This is why I rail against these trade Niese scenarios as if he is burning a hole in someone’s pocket.
And with the rotation getting as close to being a formidable one for the next few years, why I think anyone who says this team needs rebuilding isn’t really interested in winning just talking trades because they would rather play GM than watch good baseball!
Look at the Tulowitzi and Mauer contracts. What benefit did Rox and Twins getf or those huge commitment in dollars and years on those contracts with a low overall payroll on the rest of the team. There is a period to rebuild with no player making more than 12 M or approx twelve percent of payroll at 100 M and a period to contend with 5 players making 15 M at a 135 plus M payroll. 20 M contracts committed for six or more years do not work.
5 games under .500 is not the time to rebuild!
Winning 65 games or less is.
because then at least your going to have a run at the top of the draft for a few years and whatever you get for the talent that remains will add to them.
And I don’t see how anyone can call this a rebuild when for the three allstars that have left all we have is Wheeler to show for it!
Thats not a RE-Build it is a DE-Build!
A Deconstruction!
When you go from a team who needed Two to Three players to one that needs 5 or 6 your not building a damn thing but a losing team that will soon need rebuilding!
It should also be inted out it worked for years with the Yankees!
And if the Braves had tried it they might have had more than one WS win in 5 Appearances.
The Yankees have 5 WS wins in 7 Appearances doing what you say doesn’t work!
and 17 Playoff appearances in the last 18 years!
Metsie you are forgetting the most important thing. We have two albatrose contracts and would have to have a 135 M payroll minimum to even dream to contend especially in NL East. We have a so-so farm nothing to write home about. If we resigned Reyes, kept Beltran and signed a top closer then payroll is alrady over 135 M. Yes I know Reyes was backloaded but the years on doubtful legs for his contact is too long of a commitment. Financial flexability is the key. I did not even mention extending DW and Dickey. The ownership is not committed to that payroll. Once albatrose contracts come off and Phillies are out of the picture we still have Braves and Nats to contend. Yes maybe we should rip the team apart, get draft pick and rebuild once and for all. Keep Niese, Harvey and Wheeler as the core. Ike maybe in that category too. Next year is a seminal year for Ike.
And your not solving any of the albatoss contracts by purging your team of all the good players!
Especially considering what you got back for those guys…
Wheeler and thats about it.
If you have a so so farm the solution isn’t to trade away the good players that farm can’t replace it is to draft and SIGN those draft picks to get the players who CAN replace those good players making them expendable and worth trading for more kids.
But if you have no replacement for them you have not filled a hole you merely replaced one hole with another.
SO you wont need a CF which are a dime a dozen when it comes right down to it…
Now you need a 3B which is not as easy to come by and has a much higher requirement to be a fill.
We went from needing a C, LF and a 2B. We now HAVE the 2B but need a RF, LF and CF plus the same Catcher.
Thats not progress that digression.
And it’s done nothing to help our ability to draft better.
If we resign DW this scenario will happen: Wright has five productive years at best.To be fair no one comes close to his defense. We are not ready to contend with tough NL East for three years or 2015 (not 2014). Two of Wright’s five productive years wasted to get us to 75-82 wins the most. It might make 2nd W/C but very iffy. OK we have Wright still productive and albatrose contracts off books, young pitchers develop and we sign FA. All good for a limited run of three years and no rebuilding of farm. No sustained winning. Wright can net us good young prospects who by 2015 will be able to contribute for ten years. Our pitchers are young. FA can fill needs and not be used to gather a contender for three limited years and then become bad contracts all over again.
Finaly somebody with a brain. Great to extent David Wright but what is the point of having his production around when the Mets will not make October. Trade him to a contender and explain why he is traded (because we like you so much we owe it to you to be on a contending team in his prime) so you can get players for the future.
Same should be done with RA Dickey and maybe with all players with one year left on their contract when you as a club cannot or will not extent the player.
And if you don’t the 5 years of Ike Davis, Matt Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, and Tejada will be wasted, not to mention the 3 or 4 theres left on Dickey…
Lets weight that…Waste ONE player or Waste 5…Which is the bigger waste?
You think we are 5 years away that really souncds like your problem not a problem with Wasting Wright.
It means you think Harvey and Wheeler are worthless, Davis too….Means no reason to keep any of them for the same reasons you say Wright will be wasted.
The same applies to Dickey.
Hi Hotstreak,
Believe me, if the Wilpons weren’t in such a financial albatross brought on by situations that had nothing to do with the Mets, committing to such a high payroll (even with Bay and Santana) would be looked at in terms of the players being wise investments for their return instead of a case of not having the money. Owning a team in the largest market in the country affords owners that wider range of flexibility.
Hi Joey,
I just got home.I am sorry for the delayed reply. I totally agree but reality is what it is. Grin and bear it or go balistic like Yankee fans who are spoiled brats. The good news is without a winning product attendence will go below 1 M a year to a point they will be forced to sell. The franchise is worth anout 1 billion dollars. Sooner or later somethings got to give. Either sh*t or get off the pot.
The good news is anything’s possible in baseball. The bad news is we still have players too flawed, a GM incapable of being proactive and creative, and owners who care more about their pockets than putting a winning team together. In fairness, it is their money, they can do what they want with it.
No doubt there is a pattern here. And not a good one. Year after year it’s the same story; Mets teams that can never be consistently competitive as the author states. After so many years of futility, one could only point the finger at the owners. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not for lack of trying or reluctance to spend money. Hell, even when they opened their wallets and were in the top five payroll spending teams in the MLB, they still were failures at producing a consistent winner.
I think it has everything to do with who they’re willing to hire in FO positions and the amount of interference once hired. They have truly been micro managers through the years and know enough to only hire someone willing to accept this. Their lower echelon employees that work at the ballpark have always appeared to be working under a reign of terror. Fearful they’re being watched every moment and not sure if they’ll still have their job tomorrow. This is a mentality that is sure to apply to FO staff too. Not a good way to function day to day.
So I really don’t know if producing a consistent winner is even a possibility under this ownership. Lets just hope they finally decide to sell.
I believe that’s what they’re striving for right now, I believe them when they tell the fans ‘we’re committed to fielding a contending team for years to come.’
Now…their reasons might be suspect. The more you win, the more you make. The Wilpons want to hold onto this team at any cost – think we all have seen that and can agree on it. They know it’s the mindset of ‘if you build it, they will come’. They Wilpons are business men, after all. What they’re not is baseball savvy.
I would have liked to see new owners but I’m realistic to know in the short run, the WIlpons managed to hold on, with a little help from their buddy, Selig.
What happens from here is anyone’s guess. Here’s hoping the plan they’ve got gets us fans what we’ve been waiting for, for too long now.
An extended run of winning? What’s that? As a Mets fan I dont believe I’m familiar with that concept.
One day, we may have major league teams in Europe, a player who wins 20 games as a pitcher and also hits 40 homeruns as a position player in the same season. We may have a major league player who is also starring in the NFL and NBA and the same time. We may have a pitcher who throws 125 miles an hour or a hitter who breaks DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak and bats .400. We may even have a pitcher with 3 perfect games in the same season. And, the Mets may have an extended run of winning baseball. Never say never, but probably not in my lifetime !
Look,the expectations now,no. I don’t foresee an extended winning streak now… But If the Mets build around Harvey/Wheeler/Wright/Davis,They will be legitimate… I say try and add new bullpen pieces,I’d suggest trying to snag Darren O’Day from Orioles.
Niese is 5 M a year and Wright 20 M a year. You are not with Moneyball. Please remember we have a 95 M payroll and need other players C, three OFer’s and a closer.
I just want to point out bad contracts Braves unloaded.
Nate Mc Clouth
Andruw Jones
Jeff Francour
Also Mark Treixeira was too expensive for them.
They aslo let Jon Smoltz, Gary Maddox and Tom Glavine go.
They also knew when to let Dale Murphy go during their rebuilding phase.
Maybe the Braves do not get too attached to players and have a plan to win.
“They aslo let Jon Smoltz, Gary Maddox and Tom Glavine go”
Yep and it’s one of the reasons why they have never won more than one World Series.
or haven’t won the Division in the last 7!
Are you saying any of Jon Smoltz, Gary Maddox and Tom Glavine were worth their salary or asking price at their stage when lthey were let go.
Again have they paid anybody including Chipper 20 M or more.
They moved their bad contracts.
Who has won multiple Wolds Series in last ten years?
Meanwhile except for a brief but rapid retooling phase (not rebuilding) they were competive. Their farm system developed talent. They had stability in GM and manager. In other words they are a franchise to emulate. Get a flash disc and steel their blueprint.
“Who has won multiple Wolds Series in last ten years?”
The Yankees!
And yes if they bit the bullet and paid some of those guys to stay they might have won more than one WS!
Especially true for Maddox!
From 2001 to 2011 the (last eleven years) their have been no multiple winners. However that is not my main point.
If St Louis get in WS this year and wins they will be back to back winners. St. Louis let King Albert go. Both the Braves and St. Louis have moderate payrolls which are comptetive. Both had consistent FO and managers. Both teams knew when to let players go.
As for Detroit and Dombrowski.
http://patcaputo.blogspot.com/2012/06/curtis-granderson-and-detroit-tigers.html
Yep and replaced him with King Carlos!
And they didn’t just LET Pujols go they gave him a pretty substantial offer that got topped by someone else….
Hardly the case here in Metville…Hell we made no offers at all just turned our nose up at any parameters mentioned even before other teams set them above our affordability!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Series_champions
Actually Boston won WS in 2004 and 2007. But they are not a model way to stay competitive as bad contracts will catch up to you and bite you as players age.
You go right on believing that my Friend….
Tell us how many teams that don’t sign big cotracts and spend have won the WS in the past 20 years?
How many have won more than one and done?
How many has Oakland won in all the years of doing what you think is the key to being a winner for a long consistent time?
Pirates?
Kansas City?
Astros?
Padres?
They all do what you say should be done too…
How many have they won?
http://www.athlonsports.com/mlb/which-mlb-teams-spend-wisely
1) Twins
2) Cards
3) A’s
4) Marlins
5) Yankess
This is spending monely wisely based on parameters shown at linked site. Padres I believe are in top ten.
Note fter Twins gave Mauer exorbinent contact they in my book will not smll playoffs for a long time.
Spending wisely does not equal NOT SPEND!
St Louis spent to get Beltran didn’t they?
Twins, when was the last time they won something?
Same for the A’s
Marlins spent wisely? Ok….
Yankees spent wisely whats thier payroll at right now?
You seem to like what that site has to say but all the WS winners on it spent money unlike us!
We can argue all day long about bad trades…..bad contracts….debating over Moneyball and Sabermetrics. For those who are driven to insanity by their fantasy league teams and are so delusional that they feel like the money spent or saved is their own..I have an answer.
I don’t.care how old you are…if you have been paying attention since you were a kid there
are adages about this game.
1) Pitching is 70 % of this game….always has been..always will be!
2) In general players at 35 years of age are slowing down. The ones that play well past that age are the ones able to make the adjustments.
3) In a short series…anything can happen
The Braves had their 14 year run because of their starting pitching. Did any team in baseball match their staff of Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and either Steve Avery. Kent Merker or Denny Neagle?
The Yankees won more championships but not because their starters were better but instead because they had the right pitchers and the best weapon of all, Mariano Rivera!
I suggest that our current approach and plan to give us a long successful run is the growth of what may be as good a starting staff as there is. Jonathon Niese looks like he has turned the corner and will blossom into our version of Andy Pettite. Matt Harvey has already shown that he is the real thing. Zack Wheeler has been considered to be even more talented than Matt Harvey and will join the team sometime this year. Add in Dillon Gee who has shown his promise too.and if Dickey is resigned our rotation could be terrific That could make us a team that will compete for the whole season. Not necessarily to make the playoffs but a team to win 85-90 games.
No doubt we would need to resign D.W. or if we had to trade him get back equal value to fill our holes at catcher and in the outfield. but the bottom line is that starting pitching staff
I think ours could dominate for years!
Alan: I am glad you appreciate Niese because many Met fans would trade Niese before Wright and they are wrong. I also appreciare you are open to trading Wright. No we are not looking to move Wright but if we get good value especially to fill multiple needs within two years or sooner then do it.
Hi Alan,
We do have the potential to have one of the better young rotations for years to come but at the same time the teams you mention above were also supported by good hitting, relief pitching and defense and we have no idea where a lot of that supporting cast is going to come from. Unless traded, we can count on Davis, Murphy, Tejada and hope Thole gets his act together but the jury is now out on Duda and there are two other outfield positions that need to be addressed plus we are uncertain as to third base. Our bullpen is a wreck.
Where are all these other players going to come from if we won’t either trade some prospects for them or sign free agents and have second thoughts when players become eligible for arbitration? It has to be a combination of building from within and from without. There also has to be a sense of support from the front office instead of feeling being kicked in the teeth and not having faith in it while performing well.
If we were focusing our resources on improving the team instead of cutting back on them to the bare bones to keep the business economically a float for the current ownership, I think we would all feel a bright future can lay ahead. However, this is an organization more concerned with the survival of the current ownership than the product as evidenced by having no faith in the players and kicking them in the teeth when for two straight seasons they were making some noise – along with cutting back on the signing of their draft pick selections which is one way of working toward the future.
Baseball is cyclical for the most part, the exception being the two teams mentioned, really who has had sustained runs of success lasting longer than 20 years. One team sustained it for longer…(the 1920ish Yankees to 1960ish-Sorry don’t feel like researching this early) Modern era though maybe those late 60′s early 70′s Orioles? The A’s in the 70′s The Big Red Machine…Nope.
The Yankees were able to sustain because of their ability to keep their roster together because of $$$$, and with a HOF SS in Jeter, Bernie, some judicious signings and trades and HOF closer in Rivera. Plus Pettite and Posada. (Jeter Posada Williams Pettite Rivera being all ‘up the middle players’) the SP they always would sign or trade for by hyping prospects and dealing to smaller market teams that couldn’t afford their star starters anymore, and the ability to outbid anyone in FA.
The Braves were a little luckier, but they had the ‘Big 3′ in that rotation for nearly 15 years…All of them HOF plus Chipper as a HOF position guy, every year for 20 years.
On the losers side listed by one commenter, all those teams had a common denominator of budget constraints and poor luck and or FO’S with bad drafts and poor free agent signings as well as an inability to keep any good to very good talent they developed. See Bonds Pittsburgh and KC Beltran and Damon.
Sustainable? i’ll take 8-10 years any day, or competitive like back from ’84-’90 every year.
In a big market, with the amount of revenue the Mets generate, i’ll argue that anything more than 3-4 years down cycle is reprehensible in this day and age. So in answer to the article heading will the Mets ever have an extended run of winning? i say no, because 20 years or even 10 is anomolous.