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

Compare that to Tejada whom I suggest you are referring to as his replacement…

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!

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…..

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!

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.

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.

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

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 !!!

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

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.

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…

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&

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.