I follow the draft as much or even more so than most baseball fans and I can’t tell you jack shit about the 21 unsigned players other than 2nd round pick Ted Stankewicz whch to me was the most egregious mistake. Losing out on a young talented arm like Stanky over 60 or 80K made no sense at all.

Who’s to say 1 or 2 potential impact players don’t come out of those 34. Maybe they all bust but the average fan or even a guy like me who follows the top 100 amatures pre-draft can’t tell you about the back half of the draft. With the new CBA taking away the big market teams advantage in the draft maybe they felt the 34 IFA’s have just as much upside as the 21 missed which wouldn’t have been 21 more. No team signs every one of their picks so it’s probably safe to say they may have signed a dozen more in a normal year. They did sign around 38 of their picks in 2011 which was a much deeper draft by far.

So far 2 of the IFA’s signed in Aldersons 1st year with the team Mateo and Montero look like they have a chance to be tremendous pitchers so I’ll at least give them the benefit of the doubt.

Also one of Steve Phillips drafts, I don’t remember the year but there were 25 out of 50 unsigned and I don’t remember anybody dwelling on that. I’m not saying that I know anything about these 34 kids other than the 2 SS’s but there’s not one person who can tell me for sure that the picks that went unsigned are any better than any of those 34.

We weren’t supposed to be having this conversation after 2011, either. Remember Sandy saying 2011 was only going to be a “transition year” and after we rid ourselves of many expensive obligations (i.e, Perez, Castillo, Beltran and KRod) he would have more flexibility to work with in 2012.

This. I’ll go so far as to say if not for Madoff SA would be a relatively unknown MLB employee under Selig.

Based on that the questions on this article of ‘If not for Madoff’ are all moot.

Is is saying the Mets are onto something? (which i doubt)
Is it that there’s a reason why the other teams draft so little?

Or is it Alderson and Co. again trying to turn water into win because they “think” they know more than the other GMs who’ve been in many post season games and have won a few World Series.

Which is it?

WAIT A MINUTE!?!?!?

This deserved it’s own separate comment because of the absurdity of it coming from Alderson’s biggest advocate on this site.

You get what you pay for?

LOL, Are you familiar with what Moneyball was all about? Do you know what “exploiting market inefficiencies” means? Do you know why sabermetrics are used for by GM’s and I don’t mean Fantasy Baseball GM’s?

You get what you pay for? Who needs Alderson for that? We could suck without him.

- Traded for Al Leiter, he got along with them right?
- Traded for Keith Hernandez
- Traded for Gary Carter
- Traded for Mike Piazza ( I think Fred or Nelson Doubleday actually did urge Phillips to go after him..but they URGED him)
- signed Jason Bay
- signed Oliver Perez

…..okay wait..

Let’s go back to Steve Phillips so that covers Phillips, Duquette, Minaya, & Alderson

Of these 4 general managers – which ones did the Wilpons force to make moves and which ones acted on their own.

Let’s eliminate Alderson okay? Because according to some people here, anything bad that has happened the last 3 years is the Wilpons and not Alderson. So Sandy is scott free right???
But Omar and Steve Phillips are horrible and bad men and get slammed here almost on a daily basis while Alderson is excused.

GIVE ME A GOD DAMNED BREAK!

the Wilpons have consistently made short-sighted decisions that had long term ramifications.

Whether Sandy is complicit is what we really are debating.

IT DID HAPPEN…and thats why Sandy is here. To say that he still wouldnt have chased free agents if Madoff never happened is a fool’s statement because Sandy wouldnt be here if Madoff never happened.

Also, to say Sandy wants a 100 million payroll and this is his idea is upsurd. He’s here because Selig wants him here and the Wilpons needed him here. As if anyone in this business would rather keep a crippling payroll just to inforce their own agendas, instead of raising it and having the possibility to compete. Thats ridiculous and something that no human would entertain; everyone wants to win.

This payroll is because of the Wilpons, not Alderson. Frankly, I haven’t read anyone going around yelling that Alderson and his Moneyball leaning ways are the reason for this team’s low payroll. That Joe suggested that Sandy wants to keep this team handcuffed because he wants this team at a low payroll is wrong. A lower payroll than 145 million doesn’t mean crippling the team by slashing 50 million!!! That is done out of nessesity. Couldn’t he have just meant lowering it to about 125 or 130 million? Him wanting a lower payroll had to mean slashing 50 million?

Ever think that maybe the Wilpons wouldn’t let him trade Reyes?
Ever think that the Wilpons wouldn’t let him draft more expensive players?
Ever think that the Wilpons didn’t give them enough money to sign more of the players they did draft?
Ever think that the Wilpons maybe approached Sandy at some point to tell him what they have to spend on a team’s payroll?

Since when does Sandy Alderson have the authority to tell the Wilpons what they will spend in any given year on payroll?

Sandy might have a philosphy, but whoever actually believes he came here and decided to cut payroll himself just to fill the team with undervalued players who are cheap is a fool. A fool. A fool. A fool.

Now, if you got a problem with the players he has signed….more power to you. He’s done a horrible job with the incredibly small amount of funds he has had to spend. Other than Scott hairston, Sandy has produced zero quality major league signings. But, you usually get what you pay for, and good players usually aren’t found at the dollar store. And that is why you can blame the Wilpons as well for those players.

Not saying it’s an excuse for Omar but it is the event that seems to have cost him the most!

Bay wasn’t here long enough to hurt him….
Perez would not have been here.
Nady probably plays the OF and we don’t sign Alou…

Think about all the moves that people point to as mistakes and most of them start off with that first Sanchez domino falling over.

You’re blaming every single extenuating circumstance in order to look for an excuse to blame Omar but you ignore the real reason – the team lost big games than got hit with practically record setting injuries. And that’s why a lot of us said “wait a second” ..Omar wasn’t as bad as these people are now (after the fact, after the games) saying he was.

I felt it was time to move as well, even though i would have preferred to retain him and just fire Jerry Manuel. And I get people will respond with the reason that bringing Alderson in had more to do with cutting finances and then trying to compete and if that’s the case that was the wrong way to go about it. They could have saved money, kept Omar, hire a guy like Bobby V, Wally, or another veteran manager to work with Omar and I would have liked to see them work with that small budget. My feeling is the team would be better by now and not as much money would have been lost the last 2 seasons because the teams would have been better, smarter and more creative ways to stay competitive would have been visited and maybe not make the post season but they would have been better longer into the season resulting in more money for this franchise.

This whole business of Alderson either being forced upon the Wilpons or the Wilpon choosing to hire him to cut finances with no desire to compete was a bad way to go about it.