21
2012
A Look At Some Of Sandy Alderson’s Good Moves
An article by 
When Sandy Alderson was named Mets’ GM, it was to be a financial caretaker of the floundering franchise. I was critical of the R.A. Dickey trade because I believe their words of wanting to sign him were hollow and I still think that, but in fairness, I recognize Alderson was not dealing from a position of strength or leverage.
There was a lot of criticism of Alderson the past two weeks, but again, in fairness, one has to look at some of the moves that have panned out for the better:
CARLOS BELTRAN: Sure, Beltran’s power numbers would have looked good in the Mets’ outfield, but in the end they would have spent an additional $18.5 million to still finish fourth. Nobody knows if Zack Wheeler will make it, but there is a chance of the Mets obtaining a quality starter, while there was no chance of retaining Beltran. After the surgery flap, Beltran was out the door. They would not have received draft picks so getting Wheeler was the best they could do.
OLIVER PEREZ and LUIS CASTILLO: Both were disgruntled clubhouse cancers not producing and only taking roster spots. Perez was especially pricey for his nothing performance. When Perez refused to go to the minor leagues to work on his mechanics, the Mets should have cut him and eaten his contract on the spot. It was Alderson who convinced the Wilpons to cut ties with them, something Omar Minaya never attempted. The culture couldn’t have changed had they stayed.
JOSE REYES: Because of his injury history and salary demands, I was not in favor of keeping Reyes. If you think the Mets are on the financial skids now, imagine how bad they’d be if they had Reyes’ $100-million contract as an anchor.
JASON BAY: Let’s face it, the Mets were never going to get anything from Bay. Arguably one of the worst free agent signings ever could not be salvaged. Sure, the Mets still have to pay his contract, but they won’t have the distraction of answering questions this spring about Bay taking a roster spot. As with Perez, the Mets could only move forward by getting rid of Bay.
DAVID WRIGHT: The face of the franchise needed to be a part of any rebuilding effort. Perhaps the Mets will regret the end of his contract, but for the immediate health of their franchise they needed Wright as he represents a commitment to the future.
JON NIESE: Niese also represents the future and signing him to a long-term contract will keep the Mets out of arbitration with him. Young hard-throwing lefties with potential are at a premium, especially those who are cost effect. Alderson also has eschewed any thought of trading him.
No GM ever bats 1.000 and I wasn’t expecting it of Alderson, despite his high-profile track record. On the flip side, no GM goes hitless, either, and in fairness Alderson has done some good by the Mets.
About the Author: John Delcos
I am an active member of the BBWAA and have covered Major League Baseball in several capacities for over 20 years, including ten in New York working the Mets' and Yankees' beat. I covered the Baltimore Orioles for eight years and the Cleveland Indians before that. I currently serve as an editor and senior staff writer for Mets Merized Online. Follow me on Twitter @jdelcos.
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Atta boy, John… although I agree with each of your points, you must know you’ve put a big bulls-eye on your chest with this piece.
BTW: One other thing you could have added is that Alderson’s restraint this off-season has been exemplary: I would not have wanted any of the junky FAs at the exorbitant contracts they’re getting.
oh boy…
Can you please write of the bad Sandy moves. Just curious. All of his good moves were trades or cost cutting measures. Hairston and Capuano were some of his good moves. He should have traded Hairston but was asking for too much in return. Capuano for 3 yr 24M deal which seemed crazy at the time but seems extremely reasonable now.
Just like most GMs. Some good, some bad. None of them are out and out geniuses…that would require that crystal ball none of them had.
At least it is now fair and balanced. Like a seesaw when it is not slanted up or down.
Disagree on Reyes. Should have traded if there was no intention to sign. Could have Gary Brown in CF at the very least.
I agree. Here is the kicker. He should have been resigned in ST 2011 or traded. Both after he showed he had no lingering injuries or thyroid problems. SA says for a rental at the trade deadline he would not have got much. Then it was too late.
ooooh boy. is Alex still banned?
-What the hell are you talking about Alderson made a good move with REYES????
How so? He just let him walk for a draft pick(Plawecki) who has no value now since we have d’Arnaud unless he becomes a stud prospect and can be traded…which is not impossible but highly doubtful since he was known as a Safe pick not a high ceiling nor low floor.
A good Move by Sandy wouldve been to TRADE Reyes like he did with Dickey imagine what he wouldve brought back in a deal….More than a Plawecki I bet.
You dont give up valuable assets for zilch
What if D’arnaud gets hurt? its called depth.
What if he gets hurt?
Well then the Dickey trade is a MAJOR BUST!
Pick your poison here ….
What if Dickey gets hurt? Are you then going to say Alderson made a genius trade?
No, of course you won’t.
Talk to me when Dickey is hurt….
In case you missed it d’Arnaud already IS hurt….
As for Snydergard talk to me when he gets to the MLB….
And the other kid? Enough said about him right there….
Sorry Boomer some of that was meant for stupid!
I don’t know how many times I have to say this to you to prevent you from reiterating the same falsehood but d’Arnaud is not hurt. He was healed up in time for winter ball. He is good to go.
Dickey had surgery in October. He is much closer to being “out” than d’Arnaud.
By the way, Rafael Furcal was traded at the deadline in 2011. He netted the Dodgers a AA prospect who in now at AAA. If Alderson had traded Reyes in the middle of 2011 I’m willing to bet a whole bunch of people would still be hammering him.
Yet all indicators are he won’t start the sason on the MLB squad….
A Catcher with Knee issues and two bulging discs in his back is hardly the bastion of health when compared to a pitcher who throws 80 and had a stomach muscle repaired….
Especially since he won the Cy Young with the injury for a majority of the season….
And you can assume whatever you want about a Reyes trade….
It would have been judged by what the actual return was….
Just as Pagan was!
Just as the Beato Trade was….
and Just as the Beltran trade will be judged once Wheeler gets up here and has some numbers to compare contributions with….
If you want to go on the Hypothetical routine I could just as easily do it as well and say if he re-signed Beltran, and Kept K-Rod they might have made the playoffs last year….
They sure would have been at least 5-10 games ahead in the division before the ASG if they had….
Thats the problem with Hypotheticals….No way to prove them either way!
And once again I will remind you that if the Mets keep him in AAA for the first 20 days of the season they will have him locked in until 2019. If he starts on the major league roster the deal ends in 2018.
This is not a hard concept to understand nor is it a tough decision. Keep him in Vegas for 3 weeks and gain a year of service.
He doesn’t have knee issues. He was fallen by another player sliding into second and suffered a partial, not a complete, tear of his posterior cruciate which didn’t even require surgery.
I’m not assuming anything. I just gave you the fact that Furcal, who was a rookie of the year, all-star caliber shortstop was traded before the 2011 deadline, the same deadline Reyes was not traded at, and the Dodgers got a AA outfielder from the Cardinals. He is now in AAA. Thats not an assumption, thats a fact.
You are the making a huge assumption that Alderson would have gotten a much better return on a 2+ month rental player as Reyes’s contract was up. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. We’ll never know.
By the way, here’s a fun fact for you. On July 30th, 2011 which was the trade deadline, the Mets lost to the Nationals, 3 – 0. The losing pitcher was R. A. Dickey who saw his record drop to 5 – 9.
So now we moved from concerns about 2015 to worried about 2019….
Next stop 2025!
And we kick the can down the road even further!
And this all assumes we even want this guy by the time 2019 rolls around….
I have no idea what that reply even means.
It means stop yelling at people who complain about the team we will be forced to watch NEXT YEAR all due to what you think you MIGHT be able to watch in 2019….
Just leave us complain about what we KNOW we are going to see next year and come back in 2015 or 2019 when they actually win something….
Because thinking that 2015 or 2019 might be a good year is not going to make THIS season appear more enjoyable!
You want to punt on the next few years for something 5-7 years down the line feel free….
Come back when you can say I told you so and they actually win….
Then you can give the guy who got us there all the applause and credit you want….
I’m not yelling, just trying to make some sense of your ranting. You keep saying the same silly and factually incorrect things over and over as if somehow that will make them true.
If you don’t understand that a player under contract for a longer time at a lower salary has value I’m not sure I can explain it to you. Seems like basic logic.
You obviously don’t like Alderson or anything he does. Fair enough.
Sounds like a personal problem of yours then I guess…
Your selling HOPE ad a PRAYER….
The market on hope and prayer is ZILCH!
We will buy (and INSIST ON) results…..
COme back when these kids actually get you some…
When d’Arnaud makes having a 20 game winner moot….
When Wheeler makes having Beltran last season not worth it anymore…
When Snydergard actually wins a Cy Young
We are tired of your Kick the Can down the decade excuse for applause of the moves made….
Especially when there is no proof that success will ever be achieved!
Who’s we, Tonto? Did you buy the Mets when I wasn’t watching?
Your welcome to your opinion but thats all it is, your opinion.
Rant until your hearts content for all a I care.
Ticket Buyers…You know full well who and what I meant your just being an ass…..
You keep on preaching the coming of the future….
At some point you will run out of time to keep pushing off your admission of failure…
And then I will give YOU the I told you so….
That is if you even have the guts to show up here at all once doomsday comes to Sandyland….
Metsie:
You should be happy we have the birthday boy. Don’t be a partypooper.
Yes , the Mets did that with Ike Davis, going with poor 1B in the first 2 months of the season, starting slowly, then heating up when Ike comes on board.
If Ike proved to be a difference maker in the first 2 months, that affects the mets playoff position in July, which affects whether they are buyers or not.
The mets have not been buyers at the trade deadline since they traded for Castilo in 2007
What about syndergaard and the outfield prospect?
DEPTH???
You part with Reyes one of the best Shortstops in the game today for Depth?
Yeah that makes me feel much better about this smh…Depth can be drafted in later rounds…depth can be signed internationally…depth can be signed every year via free agency…You dont give away a homegrown star for Depth…
Only an idiot would justify that
You said he has no value now, thats what im talking about. I agree that sandy shouldve traded reyes for something.
So you agree Sandy screwed up and you applaud him for what he did anyway….
This is why your aptly named here….
Well im applauding him for the dickey trade, but i definitely think he screwed up in not trading reyes (wilpons might have something to do with it though)
He had less value than Reyes from the jump
the fact they didnt sign their other pick just makes it WORSE !!!!
too bad reyes wasnt as marketable as Mr. Wright. An infield of Wright – Reyes – Tejada – Ike with Travis would’ve cost our payroll just a tad more than it does now and would’ve been great both defensively and offensively !
Or on the flip side, trading Wright + Reyes would’ve netted us the prospects needed to surround Tejada, Murph + Ike + Travis with what they need to win
What we did was half-ass and fully moronic
I’ll take these on one by one….
Beltran – First off we saved NO MONEY on Beltran we paid the entire remainder of hisSalary and until Wheeler does something it can hardly be concluded as a plus yet considering what Beltran did last year…Also the 18.5 Mil number is WAY off base…He made 13 Mil last year and will make 13 Mil this year…..
Perez and Castillo – Easy to say he improved a team by subtraction but that really only counts if he replaced them with someone better that no one else could or would have…What he did was no more or less than what Omar would have done which is to play Tejada at 2B. His replacement for Perez (Young) played a total of 4 games that year….
Reyes – Say what you want about his being worth 100Mil…But you got ZILCH for him now as you were forced to trade away a Cy Young Pitcher to get the catcher to usurp the guy you were counting on as compensation for the loss of Reyes….
Jason Bay – If it was a good move to dump him why did he wait so long? Why not work out that deferred deal a year ago so we would not have wasted a half a season putting him in the lineup? Careful here because whatever reason you give for not doing that will also apply to Perez and Castillo.
Wright – While I’m glad they kept thier best player you have to ask what was different about not winning WITH WRIGHT as opposed to NOT WINNING with Dickey that made Dickey expendable? Some would say Dickey was the much bigger draw and was infinitly cheaper than Wright. Much less risk on him for the next 3 years than there is with Wright for the next 8 at Twice the price for most of those eight….If you make a case for keeping Wright then that same argument should apply to Dickey!
Niese – Yep he extended him and no one has an issue with that…But many of us know he is going the way of Dickey when the right package comes along, just a matter of time!
I agree no GM ever bats 1.000…
I await the piece that lists all of Sandy’s BAD moves…
Cause then we will see what the Batting Average actually is and can judge him on the whole not just the good parts…Which I think I just showed were not all as good as you made them out to be….
“DAVID WRIGHT: The face of the franchise needed to be a part of any rebuilding effort. Perhaps the Mets will regret the end of his contract, but for the immediate health of their franchise they needed Wright as he represents a commitment to the future.”
LMAO!!!!
So let me get this straight….
* Re-signing Wright represents a commitment to the future
* YET….You believe the Mets will REGRET the end of his contract…which by the way means in the future they will regret this….HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Makes PERFECT sense….
“DAVID WRIGHT: The face of the franchise needed to be a part of any rebuilding effort. Perhaps the Mets will regret the end of his contract, but for the immediate health of their franchise they needed Wright as he represents a commitment to the future.”
LMAO!!!!
So let me get this straight….
* Re-signing Wright represents a commitment to the future
* YET….You believe the Mets will REGRET the end of his contract…which by the way means in the future they will regret this….HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Makes PERFECT sense….NOT!!!
Sandy’s good moves?
this should be a short list !
Especially considering that the Reyes example wasn’t actually a MOVE just a lack of one….
Sandy Alderson = Al Harazin with an attitude ?
Nope…Harazin was a spender….He was what they accuse Omar of but the problem is Omar didn’t buy as many stiffs as harazin did….
Harazin was a lawyer with limited experience in baseball, who after leaving his first team, the mets, never was interested in being a GM again and dissapeared from baseball.
Harazin wasnt a spender, he was a lawyer who was great at the contractual side of the game.
The Wilpons when they hired Harazin saw the GM position being broken down into several components. Even by the time Cashen left in 1991, Joe Macclvaine was doing most of the duties of a GM
then when Joe Mac was in office, Steve Phillips was the former intern done good.
Years later it was Duquette. Who later pointed to a NDA when asked about the way the wilpons managed the front office.
Now the former intern done good is John Ricco, who has been an asst. GM for almost 10 years
Not one team has ever asked to interview the guy, I guess they need their GM’s to do more than just order pizza !
Dont credit or fault Alderson for Wright….that was a Wilpon deal completely. All evidence points that Alderson had no choice but to go along with the show. Wilpon was willing to open the checkbook for David. End of discussion.
Well then why no go all the way and say Sandy hasn’t done anything it’s the Wilpons that made all the moves and called the shots and Sandy is not making any decision (good OR Bad) at all…
If there is any truth to what your saying then what I said could also be true….
The problem is some of you want to put all the BAD on Wilpon and all the GOOD on Sandy’s resume….
I dont think Sandy gives a sh*t enough to be honest. His legacy is not tied into this job. He is not looking for another GM job after, so its not like he cares about his rep.
If a trade fails, why would he care?
what are they going to do? fire him?
You dont pay attention…I didnt state the Wright contract was good or bad…I said I dont fault or credit Alderson with it. It is on the Wilpons. If you think it is good, they deserve the credit; if bad look at the same place.
The other deals are under Alderson’s realm. He was the one who decided to test the trade market for Dickey (something he didnt do with Wright) and move him. He signed Francisco, Rauch, Carrasco, and the others. Same with the trades. All that is part of Alderson running the baseball operations.
But Wright was different and all the evidence points that direction. Here is the case:
A: Alderson does not go for large 2nd contracts yet Wright got one.
B. Alderson is methodical perhaps to the point of paralysis yet he didnt even find out what Wright was worth in trade. A man like this does not negotiate blind.
C. Jeff mentioned this off season that Wright had the potential to be Seaver’s replacement as Ambassador for the Mets.
D. Everyone knows the Wilpon’s have a history of being “ticket sales watchers” and making moves based upon that. A trade of Wright would have meant an empty Citi in 2013 (which might happen with Wright), something they could not stand.
And by that easoning it ws the Wilpons who made the Dey and Beltran trades….
Why not if you keep insisting they are calling ANY shot why not ALL of them….
That means Sandy gets NO CREDIT (good or bad) as he is just the messenger not the architect of this team…The wilpons are the architects instead….
Absolutely it does not. How you come up with this conclusion is baffling. Alderson is the GM and works for the Wilpons who are the owners. Are you with me so far? The owners have assigned the baseball operations to Alderson and he is calling the shots. For the most parts, the Wilpons are hands off. All decisions made, rightly or wrongly, were Alderson with the exception of Wright. This is where the Wilpons, as owners and Alderson’s boss, stepped in an exerted their authority. Wright is the Wilpon’s favorite and they decided to open the checkbook for him.
But it seems this is a concept you cannot separate in your mind.
Excuse me butr the one who came up with this conclusion…not me….
You seem to think the Wilpons forced them to sign Wright….
If that is true then it’s just as true they could have made all the other moves as well….
Either Sandy is the GM and he makes ALL the decisions and if not then whoever does makes decisions probably makes them all as well….
Thats YOUR idea that someone other than Sandy makes decisions not mine….
So if you find it rediculous yell at the guy in the mirror who suggested it.
The David Wright deal may have had several hands in that pot, even above Fred and Sandy.
David says, hell no! im not signing with these clowns, you couldnt pay me Carl Crawford money to stay !
Union chief says, we will make sure you are tested every other day for PED’s and anything that even remotely looks suspicious is getting submitted. This contract will raise the arbitration prices for about 12 other 3B going through arbitration, some will surpass YOUR production. Think of the union David !
Im just saying…i think Sandy sucks hairy balls, but the Wright move doesnt look like he had his fingerprints on it.
Hi John,
In the end, it just comes down to one’s perspective.
If we look at things in terms of dire financial circumstances, then Sandy must be looked at only as that caretaker for the Wilpons until they can again take care of themselves and his moves in terms of business and economics irrelevant to the team itself.
But if one looks at it in terms of moves to best make the ball club competitive, all I can say is that with an outfield including Beltran and Pagan, an infield including Reyes, a batting order with the speed of Reyes and Pagan on top with the bat of Beltran protecting David Wright plus a pitching staff that included R.A. and a closer (unless we could come up with one better) in KRod with a bullpen that included Francisco as a middle relief man, we could have had a team that, with a few good tweaks instead of bad ones, would most likely have continued it’s challenge for a post-season berth the entire year instead of just a little past the all-star break as it did the past two seasons.
Our future success rises and falls with many franchise players and with those we have, still could have had (both on the roster and the farm) and could have had instead of the inexpensive ones Sandy got, not having Zack Wheeler would not have thrown a monkey wrench into it.
Also, consider this. Cutting back on the signing of our draft selections, scouting and minor league operations, however, will through a monkey wrench into our future – and for all the talk about Omar (right or wrong) what Sandy has been doing is in reality only just a continuation of that policy the Mets were guilty of in the past – not enough investment in the minor leagues.
Well put Joey.
Hi tlagee,
I was about to say the same thing regarding what you just wrote yourself!
Though they might be happy with the slow progress Sandy might have made in resolving some of their cataclismic financial problems, I wonder what they really feel about the progress of their club and what could have been.
I don’t think they had much say in those matters – Sandy might work for them but Bud Selig is the one who they owe their financial survival and thus they cannot go against the one who is providing them their protection.
Thats the problem Joey….
Fans should not give one damn aboutthe financials….It should be all about what is put on the field!
I wouldn’t give Martin Scorcese credit for making a bad movie just because he didn’t spend a lot to make it….
I don’t care if it causes the Wilpons financial hardship NOR do I care if they are forced to sell the team….
I will NEVER care about the Wilpon’s situation until they are putting on a uniform and taking the field….
You don’t win awards or get accolades by releasing a bad product cheaply….
Put out a good product and I’ll like what you do….
Put out a bad product and I’ll say so!
And I certainly would NOT accept and applaud a BAD movie in the name of the money saved will net me a good movie four years from now!
Sorry I’ll wait till you make the good movie and call the crap you put out in the meantime for what it is….
Hi Metsie,
Really funny that you should bring up Scorcese and credit for movie. When “Mean Streets” came out, it was not based on a novel and so my late cousin was hired to turn the script into one for publication. He just used that script and put it into written form. He made no pretention about writing the story or anything, yet, if you get a copy of the book, you’ll see the cover reads “Mean Streets By Michael Kaufman”.
Agree with you, of course, about the product that was produced. Since Sandy went into the free agent market last season to strengthen the bullpen (which he obviously didn’t) there were many other relievers out there, quite a few who were younger, that had better credentials and promise than those he got.
LOL Joey it was probably not a really good example to use him because I can’t name a movie he ever made that was truly bad….LOL
Just used him because track record and past performance really means nothing if the current product you put out sucks….
You can polish a turd to make it look pretty but it still smells like…..
You equate spending money to a good product.
2009 high payroll…garbage product.
2010 high payroll…garbage product.
2011 even higher payroll….garbage product.
So lets see them spend more money because we know that spending money means a better product.
This is the major flaw in your entire thesis. Part of the Mets cashflow problem is because of their asinine spending. Johan is iffy and receiving $31M and Bay is owed $21M to play in Seattle. Look at the last 20 years and you will see your boy Fred Wilpon spent a ton of money ($2B+) and put out an absolute garbage product but for a couple of short stints.
The proof is right there. Well at least Fred has one fan.
2006…PLAYOFFS
2007…Still in the game in September
2008 Same as 2007….
But lets look at other examples….
Who has had the highest payroll in baseball since 1995…
Who has been to more playoffs and more World Series than anyone in that time?
You think the Yankees did that with Kids?
Did it with a good farm system?
That might be true about the first 5 years but what about the last 12?
All the evidence points to the farm system improving. Come on now.
“Look, in two years, this organization has transformed it’s farm system from an under performing laughing stock to an exceptional example of good scouting and smart trades. This needs to be applauded. Ten players in the top fifteen have been acquired in the past two seasons. That’s tremendous. I doubt many other organizations can say that and back that up with such highly ranked prospects occupying their top list.”
Hopefully some of these guys come up and do well soon…
HOPEFULLY……
Thatsthe problem with your saying the Farm is great because doesn’t do squat for the MLB squad unless your HOPEFULLY happens…
And if it doesn’t then that Farm was basically useless and all the GREAT players we gave away to get it wasted as well…
As opposed to the FA signings who hopefully do well and live up to their contracts which often doesnt happen.
Beltran lived up to his….
Delgado did too….
Some even suggest Johan has…
Wagner did….
castillo even did cause he only made 8 Mil per year….
Compared to what Bay and Perez?
Beltran is still lving up to his despite being cheaper than when he was here….
Here is something you should remember….Since free agency has begin the only Met team wo win a world series SPENT MONEY to get GOOD players not trade them away for kids….
Mazilli was never as good as Hernandez and carter not even on his BEST day!
Never as good as reyes or Dickey on thier WORST!
Hi This,
But how long will the circle game continue? How long do we strengthen our minor league system at the expense of the parent team? The financial issues are not going away over the next few years so what happens if the development of Gee, Davis, Murphy, Parnell continues and they become eligible for arbitration or free agency within a relatively short time of each other? Do we then go the same route?
Was also thinking, if it took a Cy Young Award winner to get two of the top prospects in the country, how could Sandy expect to get anyone remotely as promising in return for Hairston?
What circle game? its been 2 years. It takes more than 2 years for players to go through the minor leagues.
And its already been documented that Sandy wanted a teams top 30 prospect. D’arnaud and Syndergaard are top 3 prospects. In no way dd he expext anything remotely close to Dickeys return for Hairston.
But anyways, if the mets still suck in late 2014 i’ll be dumping all over Alderson just like you guys.
It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when some of the best moves made by Sandy involve dumping players and not resigning Reyes when he could have had him BEFORE spring training ’11 and BEFORE the batting crown for much cheaper than the Marlins paid him.
Addition through subtraction? Sandy is very good at that.
Now we have a singles hitter at shortstop, no outfield, a journeyman catcher to start the year, a bad bullpen and on and on.
Sandy was brought in to lower payroll and he has done a great job of it. That should be his main accomplishment. the other stuff has left us with a gutted team.
The problem heres that some are very quick to tout what COULD BE despite no proof that it will actually happen….
Yet dismiss what COULD HAVE BEEN if mistakes were not made such as the scenario you proposed for re-signing Reyes before he won a Batting Title that got him that high priced contract…..
Worst part about it was Sandy basically said show me what your worth to reyes and when he showed him refused to pay the price of that rise to the challenge he made….
As for Reyes, was on the DL just a few weeks before the trading deadline. For some reason they believe the trade market for a guy like that is astronomical. Speed guy on the DL with leg injury = major haul on trade. Come on man.
Of course, the truth about his contract came out. Loria had no intention of making those payments as evidenced by Jose’s 1 year stay in Miami. The contract was way overvalued also evidenced by the fact that not only did the Mets not match it, but no other GM even approached it either. Even the Jays, who were rumored to be interested in Reyes, werent touching a 6 year deal for him.
And speaking of the Jays, why were they able to take on so much payroll? Because they spent the last few years avoiding big name FA while building up their farm system. They too traded a CY winner for a band of prospects. Hence, when the opportunity arose, they could trade with teams for pieces they wanted while taking on payroll. Hence they were able to absorb Reyes inane contract because they pocketed Buerhle, Johnson, and Buck while giving up none of their main core. And now the Jays are one of the favorites to win the AL east.
Maybe Alderson ought to adopt this outlook instead of the insane Met way of buy FAs. Even he should know that since 2000, only a couple of teams were built through the FA market. Certainly, if he were a genius he would know that SF, St Louis, Philadelphia, Florida, and Anaheim were all WS winners who were built through their farm systems and then a series of trades to develop the foundation of the team. Of course, many the WS runner ups, were also built through this method.
But alas, the Mets are a big market team so they should spend on the likes of Cody Ross because he is surely going to lead the charge forward to the promised land.
“As for Reyes, was on the DL just a few weeks before the trading deadline”
That might be relevant if that was he only time we were allowed to trade him…..
Sandy knew before the season started that he had no intention of signing Reyes…
He knew Reyes would not negotiate once the season started….
So he should have traded him BEFORE the trade deadline and injury happened if you really felt Reyes was not worth keeping.
Well, why didn’t they just re-sign Reyes before the season and not consider trading him in the first place?
Reyes was home grown – a very good fielding shortstop and perhaps the most exciting offensive player not only on the team but in the game.
I can’t get my head around Sandy not even making him an offer.
Reyes was young enough that Sandy still could have gone with the youth movement and had an infield of Ike or Murphy at first, Tejada at second, Reyes at ss and wright at third which would have made it one of the best infields in the game. All could have been at those positions in 2016 easily.
Task – I agree that a GM should spend money wisely but we’re not just a big market team – we are in the number one maket in the world. That does carry a certain unique respondsibility.
They could easily fill Citi field every night if they had a strong team. Instead, as I wrote yesterday – they have lost close to 100 million dollars in potential revenue since the first year Citi filed opened. That’s a lot of money (wisely spend) to reinvest in the team.
“why didn’t they just re-sign Reyes before the season and not consider trading him in the first place?”
I am in full agreement with youon that one….
I was just trying to point out to the guys who support letting him go that even if you could make a case for letting him go why just let him go for picks that you didn’t sign or found inadequate to the point you had to trade a Cy Young pitcher on top of it to correct the mistake….
And for the record my objection to the Dickey trade is not so much about getting something for him but what we got as it has two issues…
One making the loss of Reyes worth NOTHING and two, d”Arnaud is not what this team needed the most it needed a power hitting righty OF to solve the biggest glaring need on this team.
But I agree with you totally that they could have saved a bundle of money by just re-signing Reyes when they thought he STILL had something to prove…They told him to prove he deserved to stay and he called their bluff and did….
But then they went back on thier word and refuse to pay the price of his meeting thier challenge.
Metsie you are the king of hindsight. it’s pathetic.
Yeah and your Miss Cleo we all know how credible she was right?
All your projections of what MIGHT or HOPE will happen by 2015…..
Good Luck with that, come back in 2015 when you have some proof to say these moves are good and I’ll be happy to admit you were right once they win something….
Because at least by then I will have the WIN SOMETHING to ease my pain!
But sucking until that point is not going to make me like this plan UNTIL it WINS….
SO come back in 2015 and give us all a big I TOLD YOU SO…
Just as I did to you the day Pagan was traded and I said we got crap in return….
Seems I was better at predicting the results of that deal than any of you guys were with all your half full and rose colored glasses now wasn’t I?
One other Alderson move that you missed was the given a guaranteed contract $8M contract to a player who had one good year under his belt: RA Dickey.
Did he finish that contract? NOPE!
Regarding the two year, guaranteed contract for 7.8 MIL 2011-2012, yes he did stay in NY for that.
2013 was the club option year.
Actually he did.
Option year was part of that contract wasn’t it?
Unless your semantically calling the fact we took the option before we traded him as some sort of TECHNICAL completion or something….
If Pagan was in center field the Mets still finish in fourth. The Dickey trade was something that needed to be done regardless of how it turns out.Although I would like to here this plan that has the Mets winning befrore 2015 that Alderson is not doing. What Alderson is doing is building a team that will win for 6 to 8 years and that is not done overnight, and it is not done overnight because the Mets farm system was so horrible. If spending a bunch of money is the key to winning then I guess Mets should have won from 2006 till 2011 since they spent the most in the NL during that period. Oakland should have never won the division last year, Texas should have never went to the World series. I can go on but it is probably useless, this is how you do it. Mets are going to be very very very good for very very very long.
Don’t forget the 2012 Miami Marlins with that high priced FA SS who is now the high priced SS in Toronto. They spent $118 million to finish 69 – 93.
yep and that record was due to Reyes by what criteria?
What? Leaving aside the fact that Reyes didn’t have a good year in 2012, I never said he was the only cause of the Marlins problems. I was replying to peter and agreeing that spending big money on high profile FA is no guarantee of anything. Reyes happened to be one of those high priced FAs.
I dare you to prove that they would have finished 4th….
Hi Peter,
What does Sandy trying to build a team that in the future might be able to be a winner for six to eight years have to do with breaking a team that might have been a winner for what could have been a three year period if we include 2013? Why could he have not done both?
Was a strategy that got us Zack Wheeler instead of trying to re-sign Beltran, re-signing Reyes, trading Pagan and getting rid of our closer worth throwing away our very valid chances in 2011 and 2012? Would not having Zack Wheeler, keeping those players and making some other moves involving either a free agent signing or shipping off some prospects instead have hindered our building for the future as well?
That’s the point. Both could have been done. I will not include the R.A. trade in this discussion because the team has been damaged so much that on paper the Dickey trade has it’s validity.
And don’t forget, Sandy alluded to those young pitchers in Brooklyn as trading chips. Why would one say that if trying to build a team that could be a perpetual contender? That Cyclone starting rotation got rave reviews and in a few years one or two of them can be another Neise or have the potential of Harvey and Wheeler.
The way Sandy wants to rebuild has its flaws. He can’t do it counting on the farm system alone. He has to acquire veterans to balance them off and for that he will have to go into the free agency market and go for those other than the “inexpensive” ones – which he has not shown he will do – and also trade away some prospects – as he said was a possibility with the Cyclones but hasn’t shown steps he would do so in practice.
So, 1) We could have been competitive now and build for the future and 2) One cannot build for the future only taking the steps he has taken.
The problem is the EFFECT of being so turned off to what are seen as mistakes in the extreme spending and acquiring of aging players by Omar is, in turn, causing TOO EXTREME A SHIFT toward the opposite direction, which is just as much a mistake. There is a middle ground and that has usually been the most successful road to be taken.
And again, one has to consider that Sandy is making these moves for they are simply the least expensive ones to make, considering his bosses’ unstable financial situation. It worked this year for Oakland. How often do we see that happening?
They had all 4 of those guys the year before and still finished 4th. Yes it is possible to keep your team competitive and build the farm at the same time but in order to do that the big league club needs to be a competitive and not just for a few months. It needs to be competitive over a full season and that hadn’t happened with that group since 2008 which was the 2nd of 2 consecutive choke jobs. You need to learn the difference between a competitive team and a mediocre team. We were of the mediocre variety only they were spending more than a lot of actual competitive teams. Actually were slightly below mediocre.
Hi Fonzie,
Don’t forget the 2011 team had a lot of different supporting players to compliment those four we’re talking about. Wheras we had no first baseman in 2009, Ike Davis came up in 2010 and though injured in 2011, we had him back for 2012. Castillo was the second baseman – we then got Murphy and Tejada (for 2011) Whereas we were so desperate that R.A. got his chance in 2010, we had Dickey in 2011 along with the young Neise and Gee. In 2010, Reyes and Beltran were injured.
As I said, the team needed to be further tweaked and should have been tweaked differently. It is frustrating but easier to accept that Sandy had no choice but to depend on Young, Carasco, Capuano, Boyer, Bulcohz, Hu, Harris and Emus – the “inexpensive” players he admitted he went after – than to think he had the resources to get better. And it is important to note that despite those inexpensive players who only contributed “fifty percent” as Sandy said, the 2011 team played .575 ball for more than half a season. Imagine what those who were producing could have done with better acquisitions.
Reyes missed just as many games in 2010 as he did in 2011. The injury replacements played better than the starters for a while but the cream always rises to the top. Luckily we have a GM who recognized that and started to make the necessary changes to finally start rebuilding. Wish he would’ve started sooner when he walked in the door.
And how many games did Reyes play LAST year?
Compare that to Tejada whom I suggest you are referring to as his replacement…
Hi Fonzie,
Don’t forget Reyes played hurt during 2010 – to the point he didn’t switch hit but batted (I think) totally from the left side. Beltran was out most of that same season as well. Davis started out the year in the minors. Castillo was still playing second.
The bullpen, however, was viewed as one of the strong points of the 2010 team. Take a look at the difference in the performances between 2010 and 2011 – and notice the new faces. Only two bright spots were holdovers from the 2010 squad. And one of those, as we know, was traded mid-season.
The starting pitching wasn’t as strong because Pelfrey and Maine didn’t come through, granted, but then those Sandy got for the back end failed as well – Young became injured for the third year in a row and Capuano was ineffective but got the seventh best run support in the league.
So overall, our pitching performance dropped and though Maine and Pelfrey did not do their job, Dickey, KRod and Acosta did – all three who had returned from the 2010 squad. The ones Sandy added – the ones that before the season began were deemed to add depth to the pitching staff and make it a strong point – didn’t.
The look in the jump of runs scored and overall hitting production in 2011. Why the increase – despite the loss of Ike Davis and David Wight? Jose had a career year, Murphy took over for Emeus, Duda, substituting for Davis, did his share, Thole hit for an average – and Beltran was back.
Before the season began run production – which was supposed to be our weak point – became our strength thanks to the hitting we already had in the organization and despite the loss of Davis and (for a good part of the season) Wright . The players that Sandy added – Eamus Harris and Hu, didn’t contribute to that increased run scoring.
That’s what I meant by the 2011 team with just a few proper tweaks could have continued playing the brand of ball it was had 1) Sandy acquired better pitchers than those inexpensive ones he did, 2) he had he not only weakened the bullpen but also put it in disarray by sending off the closer with nobody then knowing what their role was, 3) did not send off their top hitter because we needed more run production to offset the pitching woes (though we scored the same 4.4 RPG without Carlos, that is also an indication that we would have increased our production the second half with him.
So referring to the 2010 squad and looking ahead to 2011 it cannot be said that we needed a GM to start tearing the team apart and rebuild it. When he tweaked the team with the players he did that winter, it was obvious 2011 was going to be a long season – and that is why I have said one has to give so much credit to the holdovers for that .575 clip for more than 81 games because they were carrying the team literally all by themselves despite the inexpensive solutions Sandy got to improve them.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/2010.shtml
“They had all 4 of those guys the year before and still finished 4th”
BULL!
They didn’t have Davis and his 32 HRs….
They didn’t have Dickey pitchng to the Cy Young….
They didn’t have Harvey instead of Pelfrey….
They didn’t have Murphy for the entire year….
Sorry but they did not have the same team Torres and Ramirez had that finished 4th place!
Just the fact they got what they did LAST year with the scrubs you replaced all those guys with is LIVING proof they would NOT be a 4th placed team if they had kept even ONE of them!
Yes we’ve had this discussion before. They could not continue to incur all those losses while waiting for Harvey,Gee, Niese and Ike to turn into something special which as of now, Niese is the only one to put up one consistent season. Hence the reason why large salaried players were purged and the rebuilding around that young cost controlled group you just mentioned commenced. If they played as well as their names looked on paper we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Dr Dooby laid it out so well that even a middle school kid could figure it out.
But then again you could look at 2010 and see a lineup of Ike, Castillo/Tejada, Reyes, Wright, Pagan, Francouer, Bay, Barajas/Blanco and swapping out Francouer with Beltran after the allstar break a team that was 11 games over without Beltran and 8 games over the day he returned, injury or not there’s no excuse for that team to play 15 games under 500 the rest of the way after they reached 11 games over. Not with they way their starting rotation pitched. No excuse at all. Boston lost way more players to injury in 2010 and won 89 or 90 games. Bull is right. They shouldn’t have sucked in the 2nd half but they did didn’t they.
Lineup? You forget what has made this team better in fact the ONLY thing that has improved (no Thanks to Sandy)
the PITCHING!
2011 Dickey didn’t get to 20 wins and why? NO RUN SUPPORT!
2012 We lost a lot of games due to lack of runs and offense….
In 2010 and 2011 we lost it mostly on lack of Pitching,
You want to talk team you have to include them too!
Newsflash they lost money anyway didn’t they?
Maybe if they had won a few more games…
Maybe if they didn’t purge the stars that drew people to the stadium….
Maybe if the GM didn’t tell anyone listening to him in July the season was over…
They wouldn’t have HAD losses but PROFIT instead…..
There is no way the Wright and Reyes deals belong on here…
Both players should have been traded for prospects ala Dickey/Beltran
It really baffles me that the same people who preach that we should build from within say that we should have gotten rid of BOTH Reyes and Wright – two home grown players.
Go figure!
to me they were a package deal, u either keep both and go for the gusto or trade both. but keeping one over the other is just half-assed.
and we def could’ve kept both here. the mets could have approached reyes with an extension after 2010, nothing stopping them from doing that. A 6 year deal would’ve been cheaper then and take him to 2016 when he turns 33
Same with Wright, locking him up to a cheaper deal for 7 years, 3 seasons ago would’ve been smart.
we would have Wright til 2017 when he turns 35
2B would be Tejada, Ike has 1B and Murph til traded can sub in for Tejada or Wright at 2B/3B and give either a breather.
Or You trade Reyes for a top package, get a SS, move Tejada over to 2B
Or who gives a fawk
Its Friday night, the world didnt end and I should be getting laid tonight
Why waste any more brain cells on the mets when the front office isnt either
Peace out !
It has nothing to do with building from within and has everything to do with developing a sustainable core
ok and wright and reyes is the sustainable core. Or are you arguing that a team in the number one market in the world can’t hold on to players that went through their minor leagues and developed by the Mets? Because they are too expensive?
That’s the type of money spent wisely – better to keep Reyes than to let him leave.
We could have had a set inflield of home grown players for the next four years with a run producing short stop and Tejada at second and concentraded on other areas.
>>Or are you arguing that a team in the number one market in the world can’t hold on to players that went through their minor leagues and developed by the Mets? Because they are too expensive?
If he isn’t he should be cause thats the way it is. Yes, we all know that NY is the largest media market in the world. Its also a very expensive place to build a new stadium which the Mets are on the hook for. Couple that with significantly declining attendance due to the poor performance of high priced FA and you have a recipe for disaster. Which is exactly what happened to the Mets.
In 2010 they lost $10 million on revenues of $350 million. In 2011 that number jumped to a whopping $73 million in losses and attendance was off by over 600,000. Couple that with the Madoff debacle and you have a team teetering on the brink.
Why do you think the Mets had to get an emergency loan of $25 million from MLB in 2010? Why do you think the Wilpons started selling shared in the team?
Contrary to what some people seem to think the Mets are trying to build a winning team. They have to or they will go bankrupt. Gotta keep paying for that stadium and other expenses like salaries win or lose and its a hell of a lot easier when you win and get attendance up. But in the near term they had to cut salaries just like any business has to cut expenses when they are losing money.
There was no way the Mets were going to keep both Reyes and Wright. Didn’t have the money. Reports are that 2012 losses significantly less than in 2011 and they could be back in the black in a year or so. Until then, yeah, cash is tight.
The trouble is, Boomer, that the Mets won’t make money while their attendance keeps going down. They won’t make money until they field a team that a family of four will pay $300 in tickets parking attendance ect.to watch. A family might go once or twice a year but that would be about it.
They could easily fill that stadium.
Certainly it won’t be the payroll that will cause them to go bankrupt – it will be pushing a team on the field that no one wants to pay to see.
And when one thinks of it, we’re talking about how much money the Mets have or don’t have when it’s really how much money the Wilpons can’t put back into the team.
Resolve the problem by selling the team. If Fred wants it so badly, he is going to wind up with nothing – and us fans with even less than that.
And therein lies the rub. Attendance started going down when the team was shelling out huge contracts to guys like Beltran, Bay, Santana, etc., under the mistaken belief that if they spent big bucks on free agents they would 1) win and 2) attract fans to the park. They did neither. And the contracts remained while the attendance kept going down.
The only way to get out of this mess is to try and put together a cheap, competitive team that will bring back fans and revenue growth and allow the Mets to, hopefully, do a better job on signing quality free agents to supplement the home grown talent the are amassing.
We all want the Mets to put a winning team on the field but they tried the high priced, big named FA route and it cratered the franchise. Thats not to say that some teams can’t be successful going this route, the Yankees for example. But the Mets didn’t spend well, had some bad luck with some of their signings and here we are. When you are losing $70 million a year you just don’t have the money to take risks on yet another monster FA contract.
It’s not like the Mets aren’t spending money, their payroll is going to be about $100 million this year. But a huge portion of that money is tied up in dead contracts and guys like Santana and Wright. Santana is getting $25 million alone in 2013. Add on Wright at $10 million and the $6 million they are paying Bay for NOT playing for the Mets and you are over $40 million.
I’m no fan of the Wilpons but looking at the financial hole that he allowed Omar to put the Mets in, would you allow Alderson to go spend like crazy on FAs until they got their financial house in order?
Boom – I agree that money should be spent wisely and at times it hasn’t been.
But the final year at Shea I believe the Mets broke their attendance record and they did quite well in their first year at Citi Field – it’s been the past two years that attendance has plumeted – and that’s when they started salary dumping.
Yes, it ties into the Madoff scandle but Fred should have sold the team when the scandle first happened.
Unfortunately, you, me and all Mets fans are paying for Fred’s mistakes.
You’re correct on the attendance figures at Citi, it’s been a big down hill since 2009. But don’t forget, the own about $46 million per year to the city for the bonds they took out to build that place. And their payroll in 2011 was $150 million.
The Madoff scandal hurt the Wilpons personally but they really didn’t affect the baseball operations. That was bad decisions and bad luck by both the Wilpons and Omar and his crew. In Bay and Santana alone they were paying for a star pitcher who was getting Tommy Johned and a left fielder who couldn’t stop running into walls and forgot how to hit to the tune of over $30 million. Oof.
I’ve been a fan of this sorry ass franchise for longer than I care to admit and if they don’t start winning soon I may start cutting myself. But the writing is on the wall. They are going to rebuild this team with young kids and won’t start supplementing with pricey FAs until at least 2014 when they get some real salary relief.
Let’s hope these young guys are as good as advertised.
Amen to that brother.
I would like to believe that what they are doing is to make shrewd moves for the betterment of the team – and for the future.
However, not re-signing Reyes before the 2011 season convinced me that they were making moves because of money and not because of the future.
Reyes was an exciting player to watch and probably would have paid for himself in attendance. Certainly a better team would help attendance and in turn put more money in the Mets pockets.
But this is the route that they have chosen and with dwindling attendance – its going to make it that much harder for them to meet their overall financial requirements.
Hi Boomer,
In this case, that is connecting the wrong dots.
The dwindling attendance was brought on because the Wilpons built a smaller ballpark and out priced the fan base. Look at 2009, when Citi Field would draw just out of curiosity. My wife and I wanted to go to but got turned off by the high cost of tickets along with the high cost of processing fees. OK, that was just us, however, many others interviewed at the time said they would no longer be able to go to as many games as they used to because they could no longer afford it. Many season ticket holders from prior years could not renew their packs for the same reason – or renewed them with less expensive seat locations.
With standing room, Citi Field had a total capacity of 45,000. Seats itself just under 42,000. That first regular season game ever played was almost but not a complete sellout. Same with all three games of the subway series. Big crowds, yes, but not enough to turn away fans wanting to get in at game time. This was because it was just too unaffordable.
In 2010 the Mets got off to a good start and were battling Atlanta for the division lead through the all-star break (they were only four games back after 88 games). Yet there was already a significant drop in attendance for the same time frame compared to the year earlier. The only time they topped 40,000 was for opening day and the subway series.
The Mets will not draw capacity crowds even with putting together a winning team because it is too expensive. Even the Yankees have seen a steady three year drop in attendance. The problem was not caused by Omar and a high payroll. The problem was caused by the Wilpons making a night at the Mets more expensive than a night at the Met combined with Bernie Madoff suddenly putting Sterling Equities in a financial nightmare.
Though their price gauging and public BS caused a the drop in attendance, if it wasn’t for the Madoff scandal they would still be turning a profit thanks to the attendance drop being offset by SNY. Now, they are so much into debt that even the selling of their television rights to SNY plus the dividends they received from being majority owners of that network isn’t helping them.
The argument that Omar hurt the team on the field can be debated but what can’t be argued is that the cost of those contracts hurt the team financially.
And Boomer, we should add that it’s not the Wilpons losing money, it’s the Mets due to the loss of corporate money invested into the ponzie scheme and the annual returns the Mets were getting. The revenue the Mets are making – and that includes revenue being made by cost cutting measures – is going toward paying those debts that the New York Metropolitan Baseball Team still have to deal with despite the half-billion loss of that investment and the annual dividends that made taking on that debt not too big a risk. Had that not occurred, we would not be hearing talk about the Mets having lost $70 million last year which is more about switching around figures in a ledger book to make it appear so.
The Mets are making money – unfortunately, it cannot be used to re-invest back into the organization. But they don’t want to admit that publicly so there is the perception that they are losing money instead. Hey, even the Kansas City Royals last season made money.
Hi Joey-
Yes, I’m sure there is something to how incredibly expensive it has become to attend a game. But that is not limited to the Mets. I live in Boston, 6 blocks from Fenway. Want to buy a season ticket to the Red Sox? Too bad, not happening. They have a waiting line that is about 30 years long to get a ticket and have for years, even when they were horrible..
I do agree that the Wilpons have not put together a compelling product that people are willing to shell out big bucks for and in baseball parks across the country, hell most professional sports, the average fans are getting priced out of the game.
But I do not agree that the bad decisions made by the Wilpons and Omar haven’t set this team back substantially and but the team in a place where they had to go on a new path of building with younger, cheaper players .. at least in the short run. With Alderson and DePodesta, we are seeing moneyball in Queens. Will see if it works as well for us or even better than it did for the A’s.
If you want to see an interesting article on the Mets finances take a look at this from March 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/sports/baseball/25mets.html?_r=1&
Hi Boomer,
Along with the Red Sox there is also the Cubs, but then remember the links I posted which showed how very much less expensive it was to see the world series champion Giants (even with their own dynamic pricing) and the L.A. Dodgers last year as well – and that included good field level seats down the lines. So it wasn’t a matter of the Wilpons having no choice to charge so high a premium in order to make money, it was a matter of the Wilpons trying to squeeze the fans for every penny they could, i.e.., maximum profit. The Giants have done quite well of late with a payroll much higher than the Mets and we know how high the Dodger payroll has become as well.
Know we disagree about Omar putting the team back substantially, but again, how? Certainly not with the large roster payroll – that was a matter of it not being cost effective in terms of production. Without Maddoff, those bad contracts would have been nothing more than a waste of money but not one putting them in the red.
And look at the players he produced after taking over as GM – Gee, Harvey, Neise, Parnell already and those like Familia and Mejia possibly down the road. An infield of Davis, Murphy and even Tejada (who then allowed Sandy to dump Reyes). A good fifth infielder in Turner. Granted, Thole didn’t pan out as we had hoped behind the plate but he has still proven he is a major league catcher, albeit a backup and not a starter.
Duda has the bat but yes, is one dimensional because of his glove. But with him, Pagan and Beltran, we would still have a formidable outfield.
We might not have had the deepest minor league talent but we can’t say we didn’t have a good croup, either.
And as mentioned, re-building, for any reason, cannot be limited to the farm system. More than 90 percent of all minor leaguers do not even spend a day in the majors with perhaps the exception of the September call-up. Re-Building also has come through good free agent signings and trades which often involve prospects (i.e., Toronto).
But if want to talk in these moves as far as being necessary due to the bleak economic situation of the Wilpons brought on by Madoff and their own pursuit of maximum profit, then yes and starting from scratch was by default the only path we could take. But if one looks at it from a baseball perspective under normal financial conditions for a big market team, those moves are atrocious.
And I think instead of “money ball” Sandy used the word “inexpensive” as far as the players he acquired, not talking about how they were undervalued and could fit into certain roles maximumizing their specific strengths, but rather that they were only players who could produce fifty percent and one cannot win with them.
In that case, I think Sandy just put an indictment on the money ball concept as it is currently looked at. Otherwise, except for those like Steinbrenner, Magic Johnson and a few others, most teams always looked to see if they could get a lesser expensive but still adequate enough player – which might today be called money ball but before hand was simply known as economics.
Ciao
Just because you didn’t want to sign Reyes doesn’t mean it was good move letting him walk. Wrights contract is far worse and his injury profile the last fees years Is similar. In addition, Alderson gave the same bogus speech about wanting to keep Reyes as Dickey. Hollow all around. We would be far closer to contention with Reyes today. A combo of Retes and Trjads up the middle would be tremendous.
Agree on Beltran. Castillo, Perez and Bay were lay ups. Will see in Niese…..
Hope springs eternal rambling incoherent vitriol
Alderson won’t spend money till next year, it has extremely obvious for years, the rotation will have 4 starters under control, and another strong draft should help the system to have enough talent to do so without depleting the system. The main thing is 30 mill off books from Santana, whatever amount from bay, I assume a large amount, 6.5 from Francisco, they will have a core of young starters and some bullpen arms, with Davis, wright, Tejeda, d arnaud, to add to. The payroll will be the same it is now or maybe even around 90, with them adding 2 or 3 key free agents
Forget money off the books. The Mets have already had tens of millions of dollars “off thebooks” that they haven’t reinvested in the team. Whatever comes off the books goes back to the Wilpons.
We need veterans to round out this team. Wright and Santana are the only veterans we have.
Here´s my list of Alderson´s Top 10 moves:
# 1 Beltran for Wheeler
Even if Wheeler tears his labrum tomorrow or decides to retire and go on a mission for 2 years, that was a tremendous haul for 2 months of Carlos Beltran who was not going to be re-signed due to the financial restrictions in terms of receiving market value in return.
# 2 Signing Niese & Dickey to very team friendly extensions.
Niese will be under contract longterm at a very affordable rate, especially looking at his 2012 breakout. Dickey signed a very team friendly extension which included the bargain 5 million $ option which may have helped significantly in terms of
# 3 Dickey, Thole and Nickeas for D´Arnaud, Syndergaard, Buck and Becerra
Yes, parting with the reigning CY winner is tough. However, nobody expected a major haul like this. D´Arnaud is a consensus top 15 overall prospect in Baseball. Sure, he´s a catcher. And like Buster Posey or Joe Mauer for example (among elite catchers), he has missed some time with freak injuries, breaking a wrist here or injuring his knee there. However, he is the top C prospect in Baseball right now. Which certainly has a ton of value. A Dickey for D´Arnaud straight up deal would already have been applauded by most experts. Getting Syndergaard, and thus another consensus Top 50 overall prospect in this package was a major coup. Now, obviously, Syndergaard is further away and is a lot tougher to project that D´Arnaud. He probably won´t help the Mets before 2015 even if all goes well for him. However, again, looking at the return, this was a trade that EVERY major league GM would have loved to make. Alderson got blasted by a lot of people for asking for the moon for Dickey, supposedly. Well, he ended up with the moon and more for RA. Becerra is a nice lottery ticket add-on. And the Buck for Thole swap even adresses the shortterm lineup balance, even if both probably are below average C at this point in different ways.
# 4 Offering arbitration to Pedro Feliciano
…and then drafting Michael Fulmer with the compensation pick for him. Fulmer doesn´t have the ceiling of Syndergaard or Wheeler but looks like a really good young pitcher too. Basically the upside is a Chad Billingsley type # 2/3 starter if all goes well. And that in return for an overused “LOOGY”.
# 5 Keeping the Mets competitive while rebuilding
Unfortunately, the major league roster Alderson inherited was extremely shallow in terms of depth – but at the same time featured a totally bloated payroll. With ownerships struggling to avoid a bancrupcy, the off-season budgets in 2011 and 2012 were miniscule. Instead of rushing the few good upper level prospects into action (like the previous administration did towards the end of their tenure), Alderson kept the big picture in mind and instead signed several very useful players such as C.Capuano, S.Hairston (twice), C.Young (twice), R.Cedeno, J.Isringhausen, T.Byrdak (twice) or J.Rauch for less money overall than one season of Francisco Rodriguez to fill out the roster shortterm.
# 6 Getting out of the K-Rod contract
While this move mainly helped the Wilpons´ keep a grip on their franchise and thus may not have been positive in a bigger picture from a fan perspective, looking at who pays Alderson´s monthly cheque and is his employer, this was a tremendous move. He found the loophole in the contract and struck, before Boras found it. He got two fringe prospects in return who may never have an impact. But the move saved 17.5 million $ in 2012 – and may well have saved his owners the franchise. As unfortunate as it may be. But from a financial restructuring aspect, it was a sound move.
# 7 Slowing down the pace of development
Besides procuring quality young talent via trades and in the draft, the current FO has implemented a player development program that pretty much gets everyone on the same page. Prospects aren´t moved as aggressively as they used to be (look at how that worked for Pelfrey, Milledge, Gomez, F-Mart, Mejia, etc. in the past). Instead, they move up more gradually and get to build confidence while playing at a level appropriate for their stage of development. It makes them readier to succeed at higher levels than being rushed due to supposed needs at the major league level or to “challenge them” and “prepare them” for the pressure in New York as Bernazard & Co. liked to do.
Matt Harvey probably would have been in NY by late 2011 under the old administration. By spending an extra two thirds of a season at AAA, he was a lot better prepared than, say, Mike Pelfrey 5 years before him.
# 8 Implementing an organizational approach in player development
Besides, slowing down the pace, the Mets now have an organization wide philosphy regarding prospects. Whether it´s the way pitchers are handled, i.e. how many changeups a SP has to throw per game, how the strikezone is attacked, how many days of rest between appearances, how many pitches per game or max per IP. Question: How many serious injuries did Mets minor league SP endure in 2012 ? Pretty much zero, so something must be done right here. It´s also part of the reason why the depth in young pitching is so improved. If you keep your arms healthier and more successful, the attrition rate will be a lot lower. Similar things are done offensively, where even very raw talents have gradually improved their batting eye and stopped swinging at everything.
# 9 Extending David Wright
Look at the upcoming free agent markets. There aren´t any impact hitters available, especially not RHH ones any time soon. Wright not only is the best bet for an .850+ OPS on the 2013 Mets – but also on the 2015 or 2016 Mets in all likelihood. Usually, 3bmen age a lot better than up the middle players. Take a look at Adrian Beltre and Aramis Ramirez who were right with Wright atop the 2012 leaderboards at ages 33 and 34 respectively. Michael Young & Scott Rolen started fading at age 35/36. Chipper Jones even remained productive until he was 40. Rarely do you see a 3bman fall off a clip in his early 30s. So, if you want to give a “2nd generation longterm contract”, it´s to a 3bman (or 1bman for that matter where the same thing applies). That Wright is a fan favorite (at least among the casual fans who don´t blame him for a lack of world peace or a lack of carrying the team on his shoulders for entire seasons), certainly doesn´t hurt. Wright will be the first homegrown star in franchise history who will begin and end his career with the Mets. Unlike Seaver, Doc, Strawberry or Reyes.
# 10 Knowing when it´s your time
Which it certainly wasn´t in 2011 or 2012. Instead of craving to public pressure to try to add to an ill-fated run like in 2004 (with the Kris Benson & Victor Zambrano trades), Alderson realized that his team played over its head in the first halves of 2011 and 2012 and didn´t waste young talent on shortterm upgrades in trades in July.
In 2011, Jose Reyes had an MVP 1st half while Carlos Beltran and Daniel Murphy also played surprisingly well. However, the 2011 Mets – like the 2010 and 2009 Mets before them – had very little depth due to a minor league talent pipeline having run dry. So, once injuries struck (most of all to Reyes, Wright, Ike Davis and later on Murphy), it was clear that this team wasn´t going to win 90 games and reach the playoffs. Even while keeping Beltran and K-Rod and trading Matt Harvey and Jeurys Familia for a top pitcher. Instead he dumped K-Rod and traded Beltran – for the longterm well-being of the franchise.
Likewise in 2012, RA Dickey, David Wright and Johan Santana essentially carried the Mets on their backs for almost three months. When Santana began to fade, Gee getting hurt around the same time, with Pelfrey already out and Miguel Batista and Jeremy Hefner suddenly joining Chris Young in the rotation, it became obvious that this wasn´t going to last either. Again, instead of throwing away prospects, Alderson stood pat. Rightfully so.
And to be complete, here are the 5 worst moves:
# 1 Letting Jose Reyes go for little
Now, maybe there are things we don´t know – like when did the 2012 budget change, what effects did the Picard case have, etc. in the 2nd half of 2011. Still, letting Jose Reyes leave as a free agent wasn´t only bad from a PR standpoint but also not using ressources in a good way. Sure, Kevin Plawecki and Matt Reynolds may end up as solid players. Still, looking at the Beltran haul, trading Reyes would have been the right move, assuming Alderson knew he wasn´t going to make him a market value offer.
# 2 The Pagan for Torres & Ramirez trade
It made sense when it happened – considering Pagan was even discussed as a non-tender and was coming off a lackluster season, getting two players for the price of one. However, Torres looked like a 34-year-old and Ramirez´ mediocre peripherals finally caught up to him. Pagan would have left anyway after the 2012 season as a free agent, so the longterm impact is miniscule. Still, this is a bad trade looking back.
# 3 Wasting money on mediocre relievers
DJ Carrasco, Frank Francisco and to a lesser degree Jon Rauch were signed to at least meaningful contracts, considering the Mets shoestring budgets. Now, Carrasco´s & FF´s collapses weren´t foreseeable, but that money could have been spent better elsewhere. Now, of course, the best bullpens are usually built from within – and the Mets didn´t have many choices there in 2011 and 2012. This will fortunately change soon with a plethora of young pitching climbing up the ladder and several of these arms likely to be bullpen bound. Still, these signings didn´t get anyone excited when they happened – and rightfully so.
# 4 Insulting Mets fans´ intelligence
It´s pretty obvious that the Mets have been”rebuilding” for the last couple of years, maybe even since 2010, Minaya´s final season. While I´m happy with trying to compete while rebuilding and don´t believe in total tear-downs, just stating the obvious instead of talking around it and claiming that “our focus is totally on 2012″ in late August of 2012 with the Mets totally out of contention is bogus and an insult to the intelligence of Mets fans. Maybe a lot more fans would be on board with this rebuilding if the plan was stated a bit more openly.
# 5 A lack of creativity on the waiver wire
Sure, Hefner & Baxter have been helpful and I also like Greg Burke´s profile as a submariner who dominated in the upper-minors in 2012. However, the front office has been rather passive in terms of working the waver wire and making small trades.
The Marte for Cowgill trade is a nice step into that direction, trading from superflous depth ( a fringe 1b/3b prospect blocked by Wright & Ike at the major league level and not as promising as his age peers Flores & Rodriguez in the minors) to get a scrappy RHH platoon OF who should get 200+ PA in 2013.
However, I would have expected a bit more action & creativity instead of just assessing your own talent. Heck, in over 24 months on the job, the Mets have made a total of merely 7 trades if I am not mistaken – two of them over the last week. And that´s even including Hu for Antonini.
Oh – and obviously getting payroll under full control again has to be a good moved.
The 2012 and 2011 Mets about the same number of games than the 2010 and 2009 Mets – in spite of cutting payroll by over 50 million $ and rebuilding the farm system at the same time.
“# 5 Keeping the Mets competitive while rebuilding”
Have we been watching the same team?
Outside of that, hey, MNJ’s on the right track. Why not submit this?
The 2009 mets?
u mean the team that had season ending injuries to
Delgado
Reyes
Beltran
Santana
along with Wright missing time…and like the 2004-2012 teams, the 2009 team was competitive right up to the June/July mark…
Yes, thats an awesome comparison !
Question: How many season ending injuries did the 2012 team suffer though in the first half?
Ike ?
Murph?
Tejada ?
Wright?
Torres?
Duda?
Bay?
there is a difference between your team sucking beer belly farts for 90 mil ( and 50 of that went to 3 players )
and a 2009 team filled with veterans on the DL
keep up the good work !!!
Nice comment. You should of submitted this as a fan post. Overall you make some good observations.
I agree with most of the points here.
Well done.
DrDooby……
That had to be the fairest and most astute analysis of the new regime that I’ve read anywhere to date. GREAT JOB!
I particularly liked that as #10 you added “knowing when its your time”. I can’t emphasize how important that truly is. And this is probably where I argue most with others here on MMO who still believe to this day that all the Mets had to do was add to the existing core. Not only were those teams flawed and had holes, but there were the intagibles also; that was the same core that was responsible for the series of late season collapses. Something needs to be said for chemistry and mettle….and those teams didn’t have it, plain and simple.
Omar for the most part operated like every year was their time and just kept spending and adding to that core. It did get us close, but something was terribly wrong for those late season collapses to have happened. Mike Francesa, who I’m not particularly a fan of, kept saying after the first collapse in ’07, that the core needed to be broken up. I thought he was nuts then. But the truth was he made all the sense in the world.
Hi Dr. D,
Very fair assessment looking both ways though on some topics as you probably have guessed I do disagree with. But it’s being open and well thought out.
But remember some of the good moves you point out are still hopes, dependent upon the outcome of those prospects. My point of contention is that you feel the team was going nowhere when Sandy took over. If I agreed with that, I would probably be agreeing with you down the line. We had a good club that needed some tweaking and thus we could have been competitive for the entire year than just through the all-star game the past two years.
Injuries decimated us in 2009 and 2010 so it wasn’t at all in the cards that 2011 and 2012 could not have been their time Certainly the two year process of liquidating ourselves of our top performers and going to the dollar store to replace them cemented that it was not going to be our time.
Very interesting points about slowing down the pace of development, but remember too that in 2012 how many kids were rushed up to the majors too soon (i.e., Kirk, McHugh and others)? Also, don’t forget that development also includes that PPPA mindset of Sandy which probably hurts more than help because it is conformist and not based on individual strengths and weaknesses.
But a lot of thought went into it and it made for much better debate by focusing on the subject instead of focusing on attacks.
Congrats.
No idea how to submit stuff to be honest…
I just e-mailed Joe for you. There’s a link on the right side of the page underneath “Latest Mets News” to submit your Fan Shot for the future. I always enjoy your comments. I hope you make frequent use of the link.
I know you can’t have an article on his worst moves because the swerver would explode from the size and little jessup would cry herself to sleep thinking that her lord and obvious master and love of her life forever is not perfect, is notm god, actually isn’t even a human being. Goodby site that once was great but now is over run with the alderson staff and cult.
Oh and by the way, Omar Minaya’s legacy won’t only be that of the GM who lost control of the payroll and thus led to the end of the longtime “quick-fix” Mets Way – with an assist to Bernie Madoff.
It will also be laying the groundwork for the turnaround of the farm system by implementing a State of the art International Player procurement and development program which is now starting to deliver.
Omar’s mistake was believing that pipeline would start flowing by 2009 and the Opening of CitiField. Dreaming of an exciting outfield of Milledge – Gonez – FMart and a rotation led by Mike Pelfrey & Deolis Guerra…
If Omar inherited the system he left behind for Sandy, we probably never sign Ollie and Castillo, never trade for Delgado, as guys like Niese, Tejada and Ike would step in where we had voids at 2B, 1B and SP in 2004
to simultanously rebuild a farm system and commit to a WIN-SORTA-NOW mentality has never been done.
the real issue was that the task Omar was given was one that no GM could ever pull off, he was running up a mountain, in the dark, on stilts.
In a perfect world, everything works, in reality, people get hurt and you need depth to sustain those injuries.
the problem with this is…according to the wilpons
Depth doesnt sell tickets….stars do….
when was the last time you could say the Mets had enough depth to sustain a 162 game schedule and still win over 85 games ?
the wilpons have never gotten it through their thick skulls…
stars sell tickets in December, a winning team sells tickets all year long
Hi Just,
Though I always said Sandy inherited good building blocks from Omar and Omar inherited virtually nothing from Phillips and Duquette, I never connected the dots to consider that Omar might not have had to trade for a Delgado, sign those contracts for Perez and Castillo, and probably would not have to look for players like Alou, El Duque, Green, Valentine, etc.
As we saw, he didn’t have a Davis at first (Mike Jacobs in subsequent years proving he was not the answer, didn’t have a Murphy or Tejada or even Turner at second or young arms in the rotation like Gee, Neise and the young other than in age Dickey. Gomez, Milledge, Humber and others were not the answers down on the farm, either.
So I guess because he had the financial resources to do, Omar was able to get a championship caliber set of “stop gaps” as he was taking steps to re-build the team too, which he also left to the one who took over for him.
So those who praise Sandy for what he is doing should give the same credit to Omar. Those who say Sandy could not have taken the same measures as Omar did due to financial circumstances are correct as well. But the ones who profess the moves made by Sandy (including the dumping of Reyes, Beltran, Pagan and Krod for nothing more than Zack Wheeler) were the correct ones to be taken, regardless if Sandy also had the money to spend like Omar – are wrong.
This Delcos piece is simply utter nonsense. Agree completely with Metsie on all points. There is a negative to every one of these “positive” fantasies. Andrew Keh analysis in Saturday’s Times lays out the dismal picture: here we are on Dec. 22, and the Mets have no outfield, and the only team that has not signed a major league free agent! Why is it so hard for some to admit that Sandy A is a fraud, and 2013 is another lost year?