8
2013
Rebuilding the Mets, A Historical Perspective
An article by 
In 1980, Baseball in New York featured a Yankee team that was a legitimate contender. Having won it all in 1978, they looked pretty solid. The overbearing and uncompromising Yankee owner George Steinbrenner was determined to establish his Yankees as perennial contenders by sheer force of will. The Mets on the other hand were awful and ended up losing 95 games. It’s almost hard to believe some of the guys the Mets ran out in 1980. They ranked dead last in the NL with 61 home runs, their slugging percentage was .345 with a team OPS of .644. There were some bright spots – a kid named Wally Backman hit .323 in 93 at bats for instance – but the positives were few and far between.
1980 was important, however, because it marked the Mets’ purchase by an ownership group that had the wherewithal to hire Frank Cashen as General Manager. Cashen, a former baseball writer turned lawyer, was highly regarded in baseball circles following a successful stint with the Orioles. Early on there were few trades, but in June of 1983 the Mets pulled off a trade for Keith Hernandez, and in 1984, with Strawberry hitting 26 home runs and a pitching staff anchored by Gooden and Darling they won 90 games. The Yankees that year won 87 games and finished 3rd. The following year, even with Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield the Yankees still couldn’t win their division while the drama of actual contention rose to a fevered pitch in Flushing as the Mets eventually hit pay dirt in 1986. 1988 and 1989 must to have been tough years for Steinbrenner, watching what was looking like a Met dynasty make the post season again while his team ended up 5th in 1988, dropping under .500 in 1989.
In an 8 year span from 1982 to 1990 the Yankees went though seven general managers. Then, from 1990 to 1993 Steinbrenner was banned from Baseball because he paid a guy to dig up dirt on one of his own players. Gene Michael, a long time Yankee insider who’d watched the Mets take over New York by building from their farm, was promoted to GM. In that 3 year span Michael was free to employ a very similar operational model to Cashen’s. He drafted or signed Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada, but more importantly, he held onto them. It should be noted that one difference in Michael’s draft strategy was an insistence on “character” guys.
I wonder what some of those conversations in the late 80’s among the Yankee brass were like, watching the Mets defeat the Red Sox in a fantastically entertaining 1986 World Series. I imagine Steinbrenner had his share of fits, something you might see in a Seinfeld episode. New York is after all a tough town. When something works here people notice, and when it comes to Met and Yankee success, NY is a tale of two paradigms. The Yankees learned the lessons of late 80’s and I often begrudgingly feel they were able to develop the dynasty the Mets should have had. To the Yankees, Cashen’s operational model was “the next big thing.” Michael saw the window to copy the wildly successful Met blueprint with Steinbrenner banished and he took it. The Mets of the early 90’s on the other hand resorted to ineffectual free agent acquisitions and past their prime stars as the team devolved from what was a ferociously young (albeit less than upstanding) home grown core to a detached and lethargic band of card playing hired guns.
Our next wave of talent, over-hyped as a formidable group of power arms dubbed “Generation-K,” flopped spectacularly. The Yankees on the other hand continued to systematically augment their core, purchasing complements year after year as they built their franchise into a money making behemoth. Once they had the cash advantage they took steps to sustain it. They established Yes network in 2002, further entrenching a support apparatus unprecedented in professional sports. But you have to have the advantage in the first place in order to consolidate it, and the Mets blew their one big shot on drugs and partying.
So now we end up with Sandy Alderson, the latest in our long line of GM’s, and we listen as talking heads on sports radio compare what he’s doing here to what went on in places like Oakland and San Diego. Sandy himself would tell you, however, that if he were given the equivalent of a 90 million dollar payroll all those years ago in Oakland he’d have been thrilled to the gills. Does he know how big markets operate now that he’s running one? How NY operates?
The problem with the Mets over the last few seasons is that all the bad contracts came due at a time when ownership’s finances crashed and burned to the tune of 500 million in losses. Perhaps Omar Minaya expected the Wilpons would be in a position to bump up payroll when those contracts soured. It’s conceivable that Omar saw us becoming some kind of perennial contender perpetually awash in cash following the 2006 season — we went so far as to create our own sports network. But it didn’t work, and in truth it probably wouldn’t have even if the Wilpons’ finances hadn’t collapsed.
The DH, coupled with Yankee Stadium’s hitter friendly dimensions make building an offense heavy bash-you-to-death veteran team fairly uncomplicated, but the Mets have never played in a league where you can wait for the 3-run bomb, nor do we have the stadium to support it. Met success has always been rooted in young quality pitching, which is a much harder commodity to secure. We lost in 2006 to a team that had a firmer grasp of NL play, but they also out-pitched us. There is a good deal more subtlety in building a contender in flushing — speed and defense are paramount, intangibles can cost you games, and your bench is more than just a couple of past-their-prime sluggers. Success in 2006 also didn’t last because the team wasn’t crafted in the true mold of NY Mets baseball — a model epitomized by the 1969 Mets.
The Yankees, in the meantime, continue to be a perennial playoff team, but like the 10 year string of Atlanta teams that did so well to make it to the playoffs but didn’t do so well once there, the Yankees have been getting bounced regularly in recent years. The Braves were faulted for not making the expensive “A-list” move that might have put them over the top, conversely the Yankees are not faring well because no matter how many top free agents they sign, their core is slipping. Sure you can sign an elite pitcher here and a top first baseman there, but can you sign a top shortstop, third baseman, center fielder, a closer, a starter, and a catcher all in the same season? That’s a tall order and it’s pretty much what the Yankees will need over the next couple of years, again highlighting the importance of a viable farm system — especially one that can produce position players and not just pitching prospects. Much like “Generation-K,” the Yankee pitching wave that followed their excellent initial core, dubbed “the killer B’s,” seems to be very much in the midst of flaming out as well.
The Yankees did well to copy Cashen’s model, but when we tried to buy our way into contention we failed because we never recreated a viable core. We had a kind of “mini-core” with Wright and Reyes, which Minaya heavily augmented with free agents, but again it didn’t last — in fact it disintegrated with phenomenal rapidity because the core was limited while our free agents were old and fragile. That 2006 team also neglected Met roots.
Neglecting the team’s roots seems to be a recurring problem with Met front offices since the early 90’s, a tragic flaw if you will. Tradition is important because as in any organization it hearkens to past success. Sometimes that success is rooted in location, climate, atmosphere, and culture, and those things don’t change as much as we may think they do. Now we are hearing this DePodesta term, “critical mass” a lot. It’s as good a descriptor as any to illustrate the premise that you have to have both quality and numbers hitting the scene on the major league stage at the same time, and it speaks to an abundance of a particular commodity reaching a kind of tipping point where you can be more or less certain it will yield results. That commodity seems to be right-handed power pitchers with durable profiles, and for once the push seems to be true to Met roots. Will it work? Well, there are the lessons of generation-k and the killer “B’s” warning against putting all your eggs in the pitching basket, and if you do, you’d better be sure you have an awful lot of eggs … we’ll soon know.
Either way you can bet Brian Cashman is keeping an eye on the goings on in Flushing ready to pillage what he can from what success may come our way. There’s nothing new about that, in fact I’d wager this went on when the Giants and Dodgers were in town as well. The Mets and Yankees have gone after each others’ talent shamelessly, so it isn’t surprising that they’d go after each others’ ideas. My only hope is that the Mets are the ones to take the next step in creating a new winning paradigm in NY, because it doesn’t look like the Yankees will be trying anything new as long as they keep making it to the playoffs.
About the Author: Matthew Balasis
I’ve been a Met fan since August 1969 when a fire resulted in the Red Cross placing my family on the 6th floor of a building in Willets Point. I could see Shea from our balcony and I knew something big was going on. I followed them through the dark years and the resurgence of the 80’s only (sadly) to miss the fall of 86 because I was in Boot Camp. I've been serving penance ever since in Minnesota where I'm an SLP. I've written a lot about the Mets in an effort to share with my kids (and anyone else who might listen), a sporting tradition that made much of my childhood worthwhile. Follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewBalasis
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Mathew, good article, but i don’t think it’s fair to compare the Mets with the yankees. it’s not even close. while i get the whole ideas etc into building a team, the yankees spend money, keep their homegrown players instead of trading them, trade the good chips they have to acquire help for the team, and they have a good phylosphy when it comes to the roster and the team. Not to mention, the yankees have a true captain, good leaders in the clubhouse, clutch hitters since 1995, it’s just not fair to even mention them in the same breath, and as good as we were in the 80′s that only lead to one tittle and 2 playoffs appearances.
We did good Mr Balasis, but the New York Mets didn’t win anything in 1989. try the Chicago Cubs that year,
I never said the Mets won anything in 89, only that it was a “tough year for Steinbrenner” — and it was, they went 74 – 87.
Pitching has always been the key to succeess…
But it isnt always developed pitching as the Yankees showed.
They didn’t really develop more than one starter and one reliever of thier Pitching core…They went and purchased guys like Clemmons and Johnson to keep thier Pitching at a top competitive level.
We all think the Omar spending failed but it didn’t in 2006 and what was different between then and the two years after?
Thats right the Pitching! Not a real ace among them!
The issue was he had to spend so much on the regular position players that he never got the top pitcher he needed to put them into the playoffs after 2006.
Which is why I say if he had just spent a little more he would have gotten that glory and that would have carried them through the 2009 season, Maybe made them attractive enough to lure Halladay or Lee to pitch for them, and Continue it until the kids like Harvey came up to replace one of them.
The failure of the 2006-2010 season is not the spending cause many teams spent more than us and managed to NOT lose money….
The Failure is we never got the Pitching any team needs to stop losing streaks from being longer than three games.
And 2010 might not have been as bad as it was if we had not screwed up the diagnosis on Beltran’s injury and let him have the surgery right after he injured himself….Then he doesn’t miss half a season in 2010.
Uh.. didn’t he bring in Johan?
Yes and thats it! And he didn’t get him til 2008. Pelfrey was our #2 that year.
Name the other Ace that pitched with Johan….
Would we have won the WS if all we had was Seaver and no Koosman? Gooden and no Darling?
If he had Johan for the 2007 season chances are we don’t collapse and make the playoffs that year too…Glavine was no Ace (just a former) but even he was a damn site better than Pelfrey and considering we only needed ONE WIN in those last few games a guy like Johan gets that win for you…Where Glavine could not.
“We all think the Omar spending failed but it didn’t in 2006 and what was different between then and the two years after?
Thats right the Pitching! Not a real ace among them!”
Seems you forgot.
Martinez would like to have a word with you….
Did he bring in a true ace in the 2 years following 2006 or not? You could say 2007 but not 2008. The problem wasn’t JUST the pitching. It was the go all in on one name and then backfill with crap after that. Having 145M payroll with holes all over the place was the issue.
I’ll answer that when you can show me a list of Aces that was available to get at the time….
Eh what the hell NO he didn’t get one other than Johan….
Now the question is was one available to be had or or did the only ones available REQUIRE a trade of prospects that Omar wasn’t prepared to give up or didn’t have due to the state of the farm he was left?
Like I said elsewhere here today….
Minaya didn’t ruin this team he just ran into some bad luck in 2009 and then compounded that by listening to QUACKS who said Beltran shouldn’t have surgery right away that carried the hurt into the 2010 season.
Maybe if Beltran is projected to start the season @100%, Bay isn’t required, Maybe he doesn’t slump, Maybe they go after Pitching that year instead.
What Omar did WAS working until they hit some bad luck on the injury front and the BIG mistake was mismanaging the injuries from that bad luck.
Penny wise, pound foolish … yeah I remember that.
There wasn’t a whole lot available back then … but regardless it really points to why it’s such an inherently massive advantage if you can develop and hold onto your own ace caliber pitchers.
But Matt hardly anyone keeps thier developed talent past FA…
They just become too expensive as Prince Felix just showed.
That guy will not be a Mariner by the time his contract runs out.
It’s not enough to just develop them, you have to keep them too and I am of the mind that it’s just as easy to BUY ptiching and develop all the guys who can play behind them because if you have a glut of regular position players you will have plenty to trade to get someone else’s development.
Unless I’m in the top 10 of the draft and I see a can’t miss Ace in the draft I would pick all position players and then hope to turn them into everyday players (greater contribution) or trade them to get the Pitching I need!
I don’t know, I think the opposite is what’s actually employed in practice by most ML teams, they draft and develop ace pitchers and if they look like they’re going to be good ones they’ll sign them to team friendly extensions (like Niese) before they reach arbitration eligibility. This way you’re potentially looking at a good 6 – 8 seasons of team control … that’s a lot of value there when you consider the single most expensive commodity in the game is elite starting pitching.
Still only have them for the fist 6 years in those cases and they wind up playing thier prime somewhere else when they get thier FA money or traded for more kids by the team that developed them.
Halladay, Lee, Santana, Sabathia….Look at thier situations….
Some teams actually seem to be actively delaying starting the MLB clock on certain players whom they then lock up in these long term deals that swallow the arbitration years (I think Longoria is a case) … they end up controlling them well into their “prime” years.
That’s very true, and there are many reasons why they’ve been better … but one major reason is because the Yankees have always been true to their traditions and we have always gone against ours. I think part that is the result of the Wilpons and their meddling. Most GM’s come into the job of running a franchise and learn as much as possible about a team’s history & tradition because as stated above, traditions usually celebrate success and as such are mnemonic practices in a sense — they reinforce what’s worked in the past. What’s worked for any organization historically is often a product of environment, culture, atmosphere, and is often particular to that organization. This is why tradition is such a huge part of elite military units and successful companies. Wilpon’s disdain for Met traditions — he’s gone so far as to try and re-invent who we are as a franchise with new-Ebbets er, “City” field — points to an owner who has overtly disregarded key elements of the past and who has presided over management groups who have looked to other traditions (trying to be like the Yankees for instance) rather than digging up the historical blueprints of our own past success. We need someone in charge who understands the Mets shouldn’t try to be like the Yankees, or the Phillies, or the Giants, we need to be the Mets. When you think Yankees you think history, tradition, “ghosts” … there’s a reason they continue to win world championships regardless of ownership, GM, or management … they’ve always been true to who they are. The Mets on the other hand — starting with our absurdly self-conscious owner — well, we have always seemed insecure about our identity …
We should have a long standing “tradition” of pitching and defense and a scrappy winning style of play … why did there have to be this huge outcry when City Field was opened before our clueless owners decided to celebrate some actual Mets history? I think it’s a bigger problem, organizationally, than people realize, and I think that While Alderson certainly has his faults, Depotesta at least seems to be focusing on players that do appear to be in the mold of traditional Met winners from the past. Power right handers on the pitching end and scrappy hard-nosed grinders on the position player side. Alderson knows a lot about successful business models and as an ex military guy I think he also understands the value of tradition and organizational integrity … there are some good signs recently in this respect.
We Matt I suppose you might be too young to remember but our franchise has ALWAYS been tied to the Dodgers and more to them than the Giants who is the other team the Mets were meant to replace.
Yankees have always been thier own island.
Giants were always the Manhattan (Rich Upper Crust) Team much as the football Giants are percieved these days.Jets being the team of the working Joe.
The Dodgers were the NYC Blue Collar team and the Met tradition has ALWAYS been to fill the gap of the Dodger loss and appeal to those working class fans. (I would say they have succeeded in that wouldn’t you?)
I remember going to oldtimers night back in the day and at that time Oldtimers night was always the retired old timers of the team playing a myriad of old timers from thier greatest competitors.
You know who always filled our side of the Old Timers? Mostly EX-Dodgers because there were not enough Ex-Mets to make a team!
Hell we even play in the location that the Dodgers balked at when Robert Moses wanted to build them a stadium in flushing meadows. They had wanted and asked to build a stadium right around where the Barclay’s Center is now. I think Rickey was even willing to pay for it at the time.
The Met tradition was always to appeal the working class fans.
The Dodgers were the NY workng class family team.
It’s not a surprise that the Dodgers would still hold sway and remain part of our tradition. Until such time as they have more than two World Series to hang thier tradition hat on.
Perhaps JoeyD has a point when he says the decline in attendance has coincided with the new stadium and it’s pricing. Perhaps it IS priced out of the league of their CORE audience (the working class fan).
As for the Wilpon meddling I don’t really see a LOT of meddling, at best a few isolated cases that are hardly proven to have been meddling at all….
What is more likely in the few cases that do get cited is they have decided to be good soldiers and comply with Seligula and his guidelines, Especially in regards to Overslot and overpaying FAs.
Others did not limit themselves and took advantage (Yankees) and now that the rules are such to COMPEL them to not spend so much they are not doing what they have done in the past that made them successful, they LOST thier advantage!
In a way they got something for thier compliance….When they got into trouble the League and Seligula came to thier rescue!
Doubtfull the Yankees would ever get a loan from the MLB to pay for thier spending.
As for Meddling well untill someone can make up thier mind of if they meddled a GM into spending or meddled a GM into not spending, I can only conclude that no matter what is the case it’s just a convenient excuse for blaming them for the lck of success of the GMs they have hired.
Maybe if they had a guy as good as Cashen they would trust him enough to leave him alone!
I’m fascinated by the historical demographics you mention. I think so much of what we inherit today that we take for granted is really a product of cultural precursors, I wish I knew what it was like back when the Dodgers and Giants played in NY. I’ll bet it was great … this old timer in our neighborhood used to tell us stories about how the players in Brooklyn would sometimes play with neighborhood kids, amazing.
When I accuse the Wilpon’s of actual meddling I think it’s more along the lines of Jeff around the time of Duquette and again towards the end of Omar’s tenure … but I also feel like the Wilpon’s have tried in a sense to “shape” the team’s culture in their own image by placing such a premium on character and by their preoccupation with their own public persona. I understand that there was some natural cultural inheritance that we acquired from the Giants and Dodgers, but those of us who don’t remember the Giants and Dodgers don’t get it and actually resent being identified with these extinct baseball artifacts as we feel the Mets are very much in their own tradition — namely born of the quirky optimism of the modernist 60′s, a willingness to try new things new approaches, uniforms, funky gimmicks, a mascot even … we were often laughable but no one was laughing in 69, or in 86 when we were world beaters. So, yeah, the misstep in trying to link to a Dodger past at the expense of Shea, hurt many fans to their core. The odd thing is that Doubleday loved Shea, he thought it was important preserve the memories and was a proponent of renovating and modernizing Shea — It was Wilpon’s idea to tear it down and essentially try and overwrite our own history with Wilpon’s nostalgic Dodger past.
If you deny your own tradition and your own history, not only are you bound to make the same mistakes as you did in the past, you are also blind to the things that brought you success.
Well Doubleday may have wanted to upgrade Shea but he was one of a group of maybe 10 people who ever really thought you could save Shea from what it was….An Ugly concrete and steel structure that had the decor and ambiance of a typical Concrete Parking lot with a garden at the center. They did so many refits at Shea they could have built 5 new stadiums for all they spent and in the end when you looked at what it would cost to make Shea a decent stadium it was actually cheaper to just start over and scrap it.
The jets left shea for a damn good reason it was not a great stadium at all….
Had lots of Memories but thats about it! And truth is those memories were few and far between….69, 73 and three or four years in the 80′s
The rest of the memories are all pretty much BAD ones!
As for Jeffs interference….Any GM worth his damn, confident in his decisions, and with a gravitas of respect, can overcome any of Jeffs attempts and inserting himself into a decision. Cause Jeff might be the go between the GM and Fred but it’s not like Fred is unreachable without Jeff’s permission as he comes around PLENTY to get his ear.
So blame them for not hiring GMs with the stones to stand up to Jeff or push for what they really want but don’t excuse that lack of balls by blaming the guy who needed daddy to leave him a career in his will he couldn’t get otherwise.
As for the demographics it is KEY to attendance….
We work hard for the money and the Mets have to work just as hard to get it from us.
Something that is not happening these days and as a result Attendance continues to decline.
And we KNOW Sandy has not been limited in his spending he has CHOSEN not to do so.
So even if we wish to claim that the lack of spending is the fault of the Wilpons that reality is no longer valid.
Hi Metsie,
You know we’re going to have a friendly disagreement about Shea.
You know the Jets left not because of Shea Stadium but because the Mets held a stranglehold on that lease which cost the Jets a tremendous amount of revenue loss that went right into the coffers of the Amazins instead. Once the lease expired they wanted nothing to do with both the City and the Mets ever again.
As far as Shea’s beauty, I remember how beautiful it was that first decade. Just look at the films and videos of those old days and see how bright and cheerful the place was. The scoreboard in right was beautiful before it was turned into an ugly Budweiser sign. There was open space behind the outfield fence, the color selection of the seats were bright instead of dark and drabby, the interior was kept clean and the place overall did not feel or appear cluttered. It was a wonderful place to be at until the owners allowed it to decay so – distance and height from the field regardless.
Unless it was not structurally sound, renovating it would have been more advantageous in the long-term because so many fans associated with it. Perhaps had Citi Field continued as being a part of the Met tradition instead of a shrine to a ball club of a half-century before, it would have eased the transition pains for some of us.
Joey your one of the few people who actually liked Shea…
Waiting in line for an hour to use the bathroom, Long lines at the concession stand because there were too few of them…
As for your assertion the jets were losing Revenue that was not truly the case and it did not get solved when they moved to Giants stadium where the Giants had the stranglehold on consessions.
The mets did not have such a stranglehold at the time and complained loudly when the Yankees came to play there and were getting what in the MET contract said proceeds from BASEBALL they felt they should have gotten from the Yankees but never did.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I suppose….
Compared to CitiField orYankee Stadium it hardly can be compared in the same beauty breath….
I don’t need to see the films and Video I had season tickets for a decade and can tell you it was not a great place to see anything compared to other stadiums and facilities.
And the sightlines were MUCH WORSE in Shea than they are in those few sections where sight is limited.
Everything with a roof over it made it impossible to see fly balls and where they were going.
It was not what you could ever call an Architechural stroke of genius.
I forgot to mention it was the bathrooms that made Hess want to get the team the hell out of there!
Like many others, I have fond memories of the place. But, that had more to do with what happened there, than anything to do with the stadium itself. People, events, etc. And often, going back your mind softens the edges (you remember the good, not the bad?)
But it was a great place to watch a game. Assuming you were in the field level. Upstairs? man, those stairs were scary steep! And forget about being in the back rows of the mezz or loge!
bathroom lines, always fun (pity the poor women too).
by the end, i highly doubt there was a shot at refurbishing Shea. You could never really modernize it, and the infrastructure really seemed shot (I am surprised a deck never came down). Now, you can certainly argue the merits of what they built to replace it, but i don’t think you can really say that after 45 years, that Shea did not need to be replaced!
I think we ALL have fond memories of the place….
But there were so many issues with the design and so much had changed regarding what infrastructure was needed there was no way to fix that place without blowing it up and starting from scratch.
Funny story regarding Yankee Stadium…
Most TV production trucks before the year 2005 used a cable called Triax (copper) to connect the cameras to the trucks used to make the broadcasts. It is still used by many of the older trucks still in use, many of which have been converted to be Sports trucks because you don’t need a lot of capability and the highest quality equipment for a sports broadcast. Since tape decks have been replaced by EVS servers they simply took the old decks out, converted to HD and put in the servers.
When they built the NEW Yankee stadium they opted to go all fiber optic thinking it was the new standard and everyone who showed up would use the better technology. Until all those converted Triax trucks started to arrive! LOL
They had luckily had a good cable running design in the plans and were able to run Triax so that most of the trucks that would come could use it. It wasn’t a problem for Yes as they had a brand new truck built for them that could use the fiber without an issue.
But for the first couple of months trucks had to rent Fiber to Triax converters (100K a pop to buy) to be able to use thier cameras and broadcast the games.
Hi Metsie,
Of course, beauty is only in the eye of the beholder – that has to be the reason why my better half married me over 36 years ago! LOL
But it is true when it comes to one’s opinion about Shea. Have not denied that I grew up with Shea so that I am biased because it was a big part of my life which I wanted to hang onto as I was getting older and so many of the people and things that I loved were being lost.
But as far as the long lines for the bathrooms, those still exist at Citi Field today. There is still only so much a restroom can hold when too many have been drinking too many beers.
Also, regarding the sight lines, I never had it when sitting just past third base (section 525 at Citi FIeld) where a third of left field was cut off from view – we could see nothing to the left of the commerative “Shea” Baseball that was in line with the left fielder playing his normal position. I know how bad it was with the overhang at Shea – I once sat in the last row of the mezzanine and hated it – but at least if somebody made a great catch I was able to see it.
But again, it’s all a matter of one’s taste. As mentioned in the past, I truly love the old style interior of Citi Field. Whenever one gets off from the rotunda escalator and sees the left field stands it’s like stepping back in time and feeling as if one was in an old time ballpark from almost a century ago as we’ve seen in photographs. Very imaginative.
Matt – with all this research did you delve into what Minaya inherited as a farm system? The article seems to give its usual bias to the current GM in an effort to defend the current losing.
I also didn’t know Beltran was a past his prime free agent. That was a great signing and as many people state on this site the amount of money was necessary for him to take his talents to Queens. Given the choice bt the Bronx or queens we all know what that choice is….. It is always the Bronx.
Seems curious that we are crediting frank cashen for turning around the Yankees. I think Gene Michael knew baseball well enough not to have to follow anybody’s lead. And as an aside he drafted better players than cashen ever did despite the pick advantage the Mets usually carried.
Not really sure what this article is about
Well if i had to put it in a single sentence its about how the Mets have neglected their own roots and their own traditions to a fault. Also the “past their prime” free agent acquisitions (I believe) referred to practices from the early to mid 90′s more so than Omar’s tenure.
LOL Matt some would say they ARE honoring thier tradtions by making a team of lovable losers like they had in the early 60′s and late 70′s!
Yeah but sometimes the lovable 1966 pumpkin turns into a scary 1969 corvette …
Also, I don’t think Michael ever drafted anyone as talented as Gooden or Strawberry … but they had character flaws — we all hear the comparisons — Gooden could have been better than Clemens, Strawberry better than Bonds … and I think it’s true early on they were better but they squandered it.
I’m convinced Gene Michael tried to systematically duplicate the Met success of the mid to late 80′s — amassing a cohesive core of prospects and moving them through the system to the majors as a group. His only “tweak” was he insisted on high character guys, and that was the difference — they ended up sustaining their success and realizing their potential because they kept their noses clean.
Good read Matt. I will say though that when Michael became the GM of the Yankees they did already have Mariano, Bernie, Posada and Pettite in the organization just before he took the position.
Wasn’t Jeter drafted in 92 our of HS?
Yes, that is why I didn’t mention him.
Who signed Pettite and Posada?
Pete Peterson???
Who officially signed them? I can’t say just that they were drafted prior to Michael assuming the role of GM.
The Yankees also drafted / signed and developed several good players in the 1980s – but ended up trading most of them in “quick fix” trades for veterans. RH Jose Rijo or OF Jay Buhner come to mind for example who ended up having long & productive careers elsewhere but were given away in shortterm rentals.
It´s true that several of the Yankees core players weren´t procured by the “Stick” Michael administration. However, they were developed and – most of all – kept during that tenure as the Yankees stopped shooting for “today” after well over a decade of “quick fixing” things and were almost forced to rebuild without Steinbrenner being able to open his wallet or mingling with decision making at the major league level.
And looking at the current Mets´ team, at least three players procured under Omar Minaya´s watch, i.e. Matt Harvey, Jon Niese and Ike Davis could be key towards the Mets longterm chances and be part of their longterm core. Besides several complementary players also procured (not necessarily developed) by the previous administration. Let alone the state of the art Latin American pipeline that Omar Minaya & Co. built up and that gives the Mets a leg up in that market even today – and several graduates being represented on the current Mets Top 30 prospect list. Whether they were technically signed under Minaya or under Alderson.
On a side note here is another instance of DePodesta once again recognizing the results of some of the prospects that were already here when he got here. He has been consistant with this from Season 1.
@MartinoNYDN
Heard DePodesta on w Duquette and Ferrin, and thought it classy that he went out of way to praise Minaya regime for Tejada, Harvey, Kirk etc
https://twitter.com/MartinoNYDN/statuses/299945930457751552
Good for depodesta, now, if the arrogant SOB of a GM would do the same and recognize that even though minaya left the franchise in a bind financially with the acquisition of PO’ss like Bay. Perez and Minaya, his work in the minors was not as bad as he thinks it is
I doubt the GM is sitting somewhere saying why is Depodesta giving Minaya credit? I’m sure it’s easier for some though to believe otherwise.
MNJ, because he’s an arrogant as***** who thinks is better than everyone else… that is why!
Well I understand that has always been your opinion.
Am i wrong?????? I know you love the guy, but have i been wrong? the things he’s said and done is the stuff as***** do.
There is no wrong or right. That is your opinion. Your more than welcome to it but if your asking me if I agree with you then you should know by now that I don’t.
Of course you don’t.. wouldn’t expect anyone from the desert but salty gary to even dare to say anything negative about the guy.. But reality is he’s an as***** whether you wanna admit it or not it’s your prerogative.
Like I said your more than welcome to your opinion.
Hey maybe we should change the saying to “Opinions are like Sandy’s, everybody’s got one”?
Yeap, Thanks for allowing me to express my opinion in my respectful manner unlike your leader/boss TRS…
Lol when have you ever expressed anything in a respectful manner. Oh you meant me.
Memo to Dr. Dooby and Metro 12.
Oh, and TRS too it seems.
Can someone please look into the issues with the name box on the site?