he bats Lefty and that throws the top of the order a bit out of kilter….We already have a glut of LHH OFers.

What we really need is a RH Power Hitting OFer.

If he was a switch hitter it would be a much better fit.

First – This team as currently constituted is a blend of Alderson & Minaya. Omar shouldn’t be vilified so much for the talent that he brought in as much as the contracts he agreed to. Clearly, he was under the impression that his funds were unlimited. But he’s responsible for much of the young talent on our roster.

Second – Alderson came in at a very difficult time for him and the Mets. He had just lost his Dad, and the Wilpons were desperately holding onto the ball club & headed toward some ugly litigation. He’s done a remarkable job in slashing payroll and infusing the roster with young, bona fide talented ball players. He landed Wheeler for a 2-month rental, and d’Arnaud & Syndergaard for a 38-year-old knuckleballer.

Alderson’s mis-steps to date have been Carasco, Francisco, Reyes & Takahashi. The first two should’ve never been here and the latter two should’ve never left.

Third – Don’t expect Harvey & Wheeler to pitch anywhere near the number of innings that Doc did, especially Wheeler. Harvey won’t be under any restrictions, but probably won’t top 220 innings, while Wheeler will likely reach 160 innings combining AAA & MLB.

The pitching staff is rounding into a healthy blend of experience and youth. I think Lyons, Burke & Atchison will make a big difference, I expect Parnell, Edgin & Carson to take more steps forward & I have no idea what to expect from Francisco, Feliciano or Hawkins.

The outfield remains a chief concern, but I don’t think we’re as bad off as last year. Torres & Bay’s departure is addition by subtraction. I expect more from Duda & Niewenhuis this year. I think a platoon of Baxter & Brown will sew up right field with solid defense and solid contributions at the plate.

As for Michael Bourn – never gave him much thought early in the off-season, but his acquisition at this time makes so much sense. He’s a perfect fit – a lead-off hitter with speed that has a plus, plus glove in centerfield and absolutely strengthens us up the middle, which is crucial.

Left – Duda/Turner
Center – Bourn
Right – Brown/Baxter or Kirk

I think the Mets should continue to develop Valdespin at 2nd base – I mean REALLY work him , and consider moving some combination of Duda, Flores, Murphy & a young arm for a very talented OF prospect.

One thing’s for sure, this year will be very interesting.

You’re adding up players like John Wetteland, Matt Williams, John Olerud, Darin Estad, Mark Grudzielanek, Scott Ericson, Todd Jones, Rick Helling, David DeJesus, Darren Dreifort, Billy Koch, Aaron Rowand, Jeremy Guthrie and Garrett Atkns. You can’t count the WAR of players that were never in the Mets farm system. They never signed with the Mets.

Theses are the players they did sign. AJ Burnett, Jay Payton, Terrence Long, Preston Wilson, Benny Agbayani, Jason Isrinhausen, Bobby Jones, Jeromy Burnitz, Fernando Vina, Todd Hunley, Pete Walker, Pete Schourek, Anthony Young, Gregg Jeffries, Rick Aguilera, Dave Magadan and Jeff innins. Compare that to the A’s names I posted that did sign and come through their system and there’s no comparison. Had the Mets been able to sign the majority of those guys then we wouldn’t have had so many losing seasons over the past 22 seasons.

And no one is predicting Wheeler will be the next Lincecum anymore either…
They sure used to when it was convenient to pump him up as the only promising Sandy Acquisition…..

Now it’s going to be all about Snydergaard….
Cause no one can prove anything and they are safe predicting how great he will make us until he gets where Wheeler is and is then called UNPROVEN because they don’t want to stick thier necks out and stick with thier initial assesment of GREATNESS….

If Snydergaard tanks the Dickey deal could very well be a bust.
So expect to see them downplay him when he gets close enough to have evidence one way or the other.

When we had K-Rod, Beltran, Reyes, Dickey and even to some extent Pagan this team wasn’t good enough to compete so trading them off for KIDS who WOULD CHANGE THAT was smart because they were all so POSITIVE those kids would be starts and make us competitive and NOW that they are about to be here (Wheeler and d’Arnaud will both be on the team before the year is out) they are now UNSURE they have fixed the issues that the trades for youth were supposed to fix and want to wait even more, which will only lead to us trading those kids for the same reasons we traded the starts we did to get them….

Take note that the ONLY thing consistent in all the arguments and explanations from anyone who loves what Sandy has done is …..

DON’T SPEND!

Thats what they really support and this whole REBUILD from within thing is just a convenient excuse to NOT SPEND….”We are REBUILDING…We are NOT READY”

It’s not about the state of the team with these guys it’s not about how many kids we have their entire philosophy and argument is geared toward what they TRULY want to see done here…..

MONEYBALL!

They read the book Bought into it’s premise and want to see it here possibly because they believe they will be able to anticipate the moves and look smart on a blog by predicting them!

They don’t really care if the team wins as most if not all don’t go to more than a few games every year….

It’s not about the PERFORMANCE it’s aboutthe SPENDING….

And every story we will ever hear is based on how to justify that….
When Sandy does (if he lasts long enough to) spend then you will see them turn on him for doing what Omar did….

Their only hope is that we will be annually broke so he can’t and they will get what hey want…

MONEYBALL in NY!
Every argument you see here from the Sandy side is designed to justify the continued use of MONEYBALL!

And they think eventually it will suceed enough to boost attendance….
Well look at the attendance numbers for Oakland…..

It doesn’t work.

And Jessep, without those three other starters, Linscum and Cain would not have been enough to get them past game 162 – they fell four games short of the wildcard after being tied with Colorado the last day of August. If they only had a third stater who could have had an ERA that just wasn’t a bit lower than the league average

Or are we just sweeping that under the rug at this point?

Yes, it is interesting that suddenly to justify Sandy not signing free agents, the talk about Wheeler suddenly becomes more cautious and no longer expressed like this:

http://nymag.com/daily/sports/2011/07/alderson-mets-carlos-beltran-trade.html

In a playoff series you want great pitchers. Good pitchers are what the Reds had last year. Great pitchers is what San Fran has in Cain.

If you want to say the Mets should look at SF I’m with ya – but you cannot compare the Mets pitching to 2010 Cain/Lincecum right now.

It’s just like the Mets in 05…. they were gearing up to build around Reyes/Wright because they were ready. Harvey and Wheeler are not ready… yet

The Giants built around greatness, not a collection of alright-good pitchers.

Fair enough yet the reason for our difference of opinion is that your primary focus is on Linsicum and Cain and mine is spread out more among the rest of the rotation.

Again, would rather have five dependable starters – even if not one was considered an ace – than two really great ones and then three others like Sanchez (5.01), Zito (5.15) and the then traded Correia (6.05) who was replaced the following season with 45 year old Randy Johnson. In essance, the Giants had only four starters who could be considered their future on the major league level going into 2009. Same with us in Gee, Dickey, Harvey and Marcum (our Zito)

Wilson was the closer (ERA 4.62 and overall the bullpens were equal in that both were bad and overall their pitching was still ninth in the league in aggregate ERA.

Even our team was younger overall. In 2008 the Giants aggregate age was 29.8 while in 2012 ours was 27.7.

at NO POINT did the Giants say “We are not close enough to get players”
The HAD Zito and Cain had just come up.

Maybe Cain had more starts than Harvey but whose fault is that? Many said Harvey pitched well enough to start the season last year….would have been where Cain is with Wheeler taking the spot of that other Ace in waiting….

So the parralells are far closer to the Giants than any other team whose philosophy you have mentioned as a template…

The one KEY difference is they had 4 top 10 overall picks to build with…..
Netted them:
Lincecum 10th overall – That guy ou cite as their key rebuild piece
Bumgarner 10th overall – another rotation arm
Posey 5th overall – Thier most potent hitter not on roids
Wheeler 6th overall – Who they traded to us!

If there is any difference between them and us it is those TOP PICKS which I have said to you for two years is REQUIRED to rebuild but you keep insisting is not.

Okay now we’re getting somewhere. You’ve mentioned guys acquired in 07, some in 06, some in 09… now we have a date, perfect.

You’re wrong still.

The 2008 Giants had a 24 year old Cy Young winner, and a 23 year old Matt Cain who finished his 104th mlb start.

The Giants built their 09 and then championship 2010 moves with the knowledge (not the hope) that they had 2 young aces.

I don’t understand how you can compare Mets 2013 to Giants pre09?

Harvey & Wheeler today are where Cain/Lincecum were in 05 or 06 at the latest. You cannot make a comparison to the Giants based on their 2 aces and then ignore the facts about ours. Wheeler has never stepped foot on an MLB mound – Lincecum had a cy young in his pocket on opening day 2009. Matt Cain had over 100 career starts – Jon Niese today doesn’t even have 100 career starts.

If you’re telling me that the SF Giants are the blueprint and the Mets need to do with their roster what the Giants did with Cain/Lincecum then you are conceding the next 3 years.

Atlanta didn’t trade Murphy until the year before they won a WS….
Drafted Chipper with the first overall pick in the 1990 draft.

All thier success came after 6 consecutive years of being 5th or 6th of 6….
And once they had all those guys THEN they started trading away guys like Murphy…

If you compare the Mets and A’s draft records from 1983-1997, you will find the A’s had 110 players drafted that made the Majors and had a combined WAR of 427. During that same time period the Mets had 121 players drafted that made the Majors and had a combined WAR of 502.6.

How many more times do I have to state I am comparing the stage the Mets are in now to that of the Giants after the 2008 season when they were 72-90?

And how many more times do I also need to say I had also provided a history of of the Giants to show that they didn’t just begin to supplement their young players with free agents after the 2008 season but in years prior to that as well?

Don’t know why those who have the same perspective as I do were not confused with what I was saying – as evidenced by their own replies which specifically alluded to the 2008 SF/2012 Mets comparison. Don’t know why they also had no problem separating that comparison from my prior posts which focused on what San Francisco was also doing in the off-seasons prior to the conclusion of 2008 and how they are all tied in to each other (as also evidenced by their earlier replies to those posts too).

SaltyGary understood this when he wrote “You guys are focusing too much on who they signed instead of why they signed these guys and that’s Joey’s point.” He then added “When you look at teams like the 90′s Braves or The Giant’s that Joey mentioned, they built the foundation with youth while putting complimentary pieces around them and when they thought they were close pulled the trigger on higher ticket items to get over the hump.

Salty and others did not feel my words were so contradictory that it was hard to understand what I wanted to say. Disagreeing is something different.

2013 Mets – in your opinion if you were running things, what year would you compare them to the SF Giants? 07? 08? 09? 06? what? Are you saying Alderson SHOULD be managing his roster like the Giants did in 2 thousand and what? 6? 7? 8? 9?

Because when you talk about them moving on from bad signings like Rowand, Aurilla, Zito – you’re saying the 2013 Mets should follow the 09 Giants blueprint are you not?

That is not what I said.

“In 2014 (if we compare the 2008 Giants to the 2012 Mets) all our pitchers are going to be more developed, including those just coming up now and Harvey from last season”.

How does saying “all our pitchers are going to be more developed” imply I was saying “in 2014 our pitchers will be more developed than the Giants staff in 2008 “?

Jessep, it appears word games are being played to twist things around. I had also pointed out that after going 72-80 and with only the ninth best aggregrate pitching in the league in a weak division – and in the context of equating San Francisco’s 2008 to our 2012 – that the Giants went out that winter and acquired four position players. First you said I got my information wrong, then suggested I might have just not worded myself properly (while others understood what I meant) and then went on to point out there were acquistions made prior to and after that winter – failing to acknowledge that I had already discussed that (remember Donal’s funny comment about the Giants being better off by having done nothing?) and was therefore focusing on the moves made after 2008 when they had just finished their fourth consecutive year of no better than 76 wins in any one season (also the same with the Mets from 2009 thru 2012)

But even more important is ignoring what Just, Metsie and Salty understood what I was attempting to get at.

I have not been talking in terms of results – I have been talking in terms of approach or “vision” as Sandy would call it. Eventually staying that course worked out for them – consistantly trying to add pieces from the outside while their pitching staff was growing.

The Giants had been taking that approach since the end of the 2005 season when their great eight year run (1997 – 2004) ended and they needed to “re-build”. They did not wait around on just the hopes that their young pitching staff would develop – nor did they use “being burned” with Zito, Rowand and even Rich Aurilia as an excuse to stop trying. Had they followed Sandy’s path they would not have been in the post-season two of the last three seasons.

Same with the Nationals, Reds and even Detroit None waited for a young nucleus to show signs it was ready to come of age. In fact, who would have ever thought that three seasons that the kids who were part of a team that went 43-119 would be in the world series? They NEVER WOULD HAVE if they did not get those three big bats that I previously mentioned to go with those kids.

I think that is where you’re failing to use common sense, and why do you keep changing the year? Just stick to one year and go with it and lets stop changing it from 07 to 09 then back to 08.

So are you saying the Mets 2013 are like the Giants 2008? Is that the comparison you wish to make?

Go Figure….
Sandy’s doing a GREAT JOB….But the team still sucks!
Thats what they think!

We are negative for saying get this team some help there are enough kids here already.