Mets Merized Online

Okay, so the Mets went 1-for-2 on their attempts to get a power hitting outfielder and a top of the rotation starter. Then after whiffing on pitchers Jason Marquis and Joel Pineiro and catcher Bengie Molina (the most welcome strikeouts since Kevin Bass in 1986), they didn’t even offer at pitchers Doug Davis, Ben Sheets and Jon Garland. So Omar and company spent the last week taking their swings at the remaining scraps on the free agent market to fill the back end of their roster.

But in the Mets’ case, perhaps the appropriate metaphor to their off-season is the strategy someone on a tight budget takes at a silent auction. You know you want to buy some stuff, perhaps you even need some of the stuff, but you have to pick your spots when you bid. You see a few expensive trinkets but know you can only outbid everyone for one because you might actually win the high bids. Then you see a few items you like, but not enough to outbid everyone else and blow all your cash when you could save that money for next year’s auction. And then as you’re walking to get a cocktail, you see a few cheap, but nice things that nobody has bid on so you take a flier and win.

Coming up with utility man Frank Catalanotto and righthanded reliever Josh Fogg and re-signing Fernando Tatis didn’t exactly set Mets fans hearts aflutter, although all three are acknowledged to be good character and clubhouse guys, something not exactly in abundance the last few years in the team’s locker room.

If the best thing to come out of the Tatis signing is to hasten the end of the Carlos Delgado era at first base, it was worth it. In addition to getting Delgado’s influence, or lack thereof, out of the clubhouse, the Mets could do worse than Tatis–who for the second straight season had decent power numbers coming off the bench, but was a double play machine in the clutch–as the righthanded platoon at first with lefty Daniel Murphy. The Mets are clearly committed to determining if Murphy can be a run producer at first base before deciding on turning to bigger first base fish (the Padres’ Adrian Gonzalez?) at the trade deadline or next year. It’s the right move. With Bay supplying most of the power the team won’t get from Delgado, Murphy should be under less pressure to be the 30-homer guy he clearly is not. If he hits close to .300 against righties, bangs about 20 dingers and plays solid defense (with Tatis supplementing those numbers against lefties), the Mets will be fine at first base.

But back to the silent auction metaphor: This supposed lack of aggressiveness in signing the bigger name free agents this winter–other than outfielder Jason Bay–may actually be a plan, as hard to believe as that may be. If the Mets can stay in the race through the All-Star break, they may be able to supplement the roster through deadline deals for impending free agents. If they’re toast by the 4th of July, they can look to 2011 and sign from among a better crop of free agents that will hit the market after this season.

But they won’t have a chance of being in contention with the Phillies or even the Braves and Marlins if they don’t add another solid starting pitcher, preferably a number two behind Johan Santana. The problem is the only free-agent of that caliber on the market winter was John Lackey and the Mets deemed him too expensive for their budget and not worth the investment.

What’s left to choose from? Aging future Hall of Famers John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez, former stars rehabbing from injuries like Chien-Ming Wang and Eric Bedard, and trade possibilities Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo from the Cincinnati Reds. While either of the latter two would be solid additions to the back end of a staff, perhaps as high as a number three starter, they may not be that much of an upgrade over what the Mets already have in Mike Pelfrey (if he grows up) and John Maine (if he rebounds from injury).

If Jeff Wilpon allows Omar to shop from somewhere other than the scrap heap, he would be wise to take a flyer on Wang and Bedard, perhaps even both. Surely they can’t be worse than Oliver Perez healthy. Both were number two caliber starters when they were with the Yankees and Orioles, respectively, and both should be ready to take a major league mound again by May or June. Omar should stick with his current policy of preserving what’s left of his minor league crop, stay away from trades (unless it involves unloading Luis Castillo) and go for the freebies.

Of course the whole plan goes to hell in a hand basket if Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran don’t revert to 2008 form, let alone stay healthy. At that point, no amount of short-term bargain shopping will help this franchise and we’ll see Bob Melvin in the manager’s chair by June.

The knee-jerk reaction among the unenlightened on New York sports talk radio (can someone please shut WFAN’s Chris Carton up for crissakes!) and in the blogosphere today is that the Mets blew another one when catcher Bengie Molina decided to spun the club’s offer and sign for less money to return to San Francisco. But the real fans (like the ones on this site) knew a potential dud deal when they heard one.

Omar Minaya and company have absorbed a lot of deserved criticism for their questionable personal decisions and signings the last couple of years, but on this one they were right to stand firm and resist giving Molina the two-to-three year contract he wanted. Unfortunately for Bengie, he suffered the fallout from two of the worst signings in recent years–the misguided four-year, $24 million deal the Mets gave  Luis Castillo in 2008 and last year’s disastrous signing of Oliver Perez for three years at $12 million per.

It’s clear (not only on this move but in the signing of Jason Bay) that Omar learned his lesson regarding overpaying and bidding against himself. He was also wise not to overreact and regard Molina as some kind of compensation for losing Carlos Beltran’s home runs and the public relations hit they took for the communication fiasco regarding Beltran’s sudden knee operation. Molina would have been a good signing for one year as a stopgap while the Mets wait for Josh Thole to be major-league ready or scour the market for a new catcher next year. But committing two years or more to a catcher who will turn 36 in mid-season would have been a major mistake.

It is common knowledge around baseball that catchers start breaking down at around 35, and those are the ones who are in shape. Molina looks like he’s ready to be a contestant in “The Biggest Loser.” Watching highlight footage of him running around the bases, his beer belly bouncing around like jello, was cringe-inducing. The Mets need athletes, not out-of-shape guys a couple of years from retirement looking for one more good payday. Molina is an injury waiting to happen and that’s the last thing the Mets would need after last season when practically half the roster was on the disabled list.

On top of that, Molina has never met a pitch he didn’t like. While his strikeout totals aren’t terrible, he hardly ever takes a walk and that would not be a good fit on a club with high strikeout guys like Bay, Jeff Francoeur and David Wright. While Molina belted 20 homers for the Giants last year, that number would likely decrease in spacious CitiField, especially if he started succumbing to the age breakdown.

Would an experienced handler of pitchers like Molina have helped the Mets staff? No doubt. The team was obviously willing to have Bengie serve as a bridge while they developed or traded for a new catcher. But giving into this guy’s demands would have just been throwing good money after bad. Give this round to Omar and regard Molina’s decision to go back to San Francisco as a lucky break.

Well, my little Metsies, do we all feel better now? Santa Minaya has bought us a belated holiday gift in Jason Bay, may soon sign one of the flying Molina’s, and something tells me he will shock us all and trade for Carlos Zambrano (Fernando Martinez, Castillo and a pitching prospect?). But none of those momentous moves will likely happen before the new year, so I thought I’d have you all gather around the hot stove in your jammies with a cup of hot cider (spiked with a little of Tom Seaver’s GTS wine) and listen to a winter’s tale of how your benevolent story teller helped bring the Mets’ greatest first baseman ever to our ballclub in 1983.

It all began the fall of 1982, just after my 27th birthday. Since my early teenage years I had dreamed of starting my own magazine about professional sports in New York. I remembered a short-lived magazine called “JOCK NEW YORK,” which published for one year in 1969, long enough to celebrate the Miracle Mets on its cover. It boasted writers like Dick Schaap and Jimmy Breslin, and even Howard Cosell penned pieces for JOCK. I was already a magazine fanatic and when JOCK folded, I remember saying to myself, “I’m going to do this magazine one day, only better.” After starting my career at the late, great SPORT Magazine (1978-80), and then spending a year editing a magazine for the National Hockey League, I felt it was time to make the leap and start NEW YORK SPORTS Magazine. I guess I was the Joe DeCaro or Matt Cerrone of my time.

With my wife Bea as the publisher and business mind, we decided we would launch our bi-monthly magazine with a May/June issue in April 1983. That would give us about four months to raise some money, plan the first issue, assign stories and photographs, sell ads, and all that wonderful and stressful stuff that goes into launching a publication. Then in mid-December, I received a gift from the magazine gods. The Mets made a trade with Cincinnati and brought back my hero Tom Seaver. It didn’t take a lot of soul-searching to decide who would be on the magazine’s first cover.

But while the first issue would carry a romantic tribute to Tom Terrific, we had already planned another Mets-related feature for that launch issue, a profile on probably the best player on that awful Mets team of the early 1980s–25-year-old reliever Neil Allen. The young closer had managed to save 59 games from 1980-82 and had more than a little Tug McGraw in him. He was cocky, fun, opinionated and accessible. He even lived in Lee Mazzilli’s former house on Long Island. Going into the 1983 season, Allen was on the last year of his contract, had an option year and had his eye on big free-agent bucks.

A few weeks before spring training, I contacted Mets PR director Jay Horwitz and told him we wanted to feature Allen with a positive profile in our first issue and he agreed to give us access. I assigned one of my writer friends from the SPORT days, Mark Ribowsky, to visit Allen at his LI home, and the writer and the reliever spent a Saturday afternoon drinking beer and watching college basketball.

On Monday morning, I got a call from Ribowsky saying he had a story that would put NEW YORK SPORTS on the map. Allen didn’t just give him the standard “these are my goals for me and the team this season” stuff; he threw high hard ones at his teammates and the organization. Ribowsky, who had a great talent for getting athletes to spill their guts, probably knew he could hit pay dirt when Allen started the interview with this nugget:

“Who wouldn’t want to live in New York? Love those bright lights of Broadway and any time I can hit those East Side bars, man, I jump.”

At the time, nobody knew Allen had a drinking problem, something that would emerge in May that season when he entered a rehab clinic. For now, Ribowsky just kept his tape recorder running and Allen supplied the rest. You can just imagine what the organization’s reaction must have been when they read these Allen quotes in a magazine:

“Look, they didn’t do a damn thing in the off-season. I don’t want to sound bitter and the team’s been good to me, but they don’t show me no interest in improving the club. The only thing I see getting Tom Seaver for is attendance. He’s 38. I don’t see him coming back and winning 15 or 20 games . . . This team here ain’t gonna score him four or five runs a game. With this team two runs might be the highlight of the game.”

Or this breathless diatribe. Nuke LaLoosh after lessons from Crash Davis, Allen was not:

“We’ve finished next to last or last place six years in a row and who wants to play for a loser. Look at this year’s [1983] team. Dave Kingman will hit .230 tops, and strike out every time he doesn’t hit a homer . . . I get along well with Kong, but other guys, especially the young guys, are just scared of him. Brian Giles and Ron Gardenhire are unproven in the middle of the infield . . . John Stearns isn’t a superstar–he can’t hit a homer out of my front yard–yet he’s constantly burning the club in public right after games. You don’t do that . . . Stearns may not be able to throw the whole year and that leaves Ron Hodges at catcher, a guy people think died because they confuse him with Gil Hodges . . . George Foster was making $2 million and wasn’t producing and came to the park in a long silver limo. The fans threw batteries at it, ripped the antennas off, pulverized it. By the end of the season, it looked like a German war tank. The pitching? I don’t understand the Mike Torrez trade. Why not get a fresh face like Floyd Bannister [who was a free agent]? Here’s a guy that throws hard like Ron Guidry, but we get guys 36, 38 years old. We trade a young arm like Jeff Reardon [to Montreal in 1981] for Ellis Valentine, who was a real head case . . . Our rotation? Seaver, [Craig] Swan, Torrez, Scott Holman and Rick Ownbey, who throws smoke, but walks six guys a game . . . It seems the front office accepts losing.”

Then a passage that would be sure to endear him to his General Manager:

“[Me and Frank Cashen] just clash. He thinks I’m young and just out for the glory. He wants me to be Tom Seaver, a conformist. Hell, I’m the clown of the ballclub, the ball buster in the locker room. Tug McGraw taught me to have a good time. No sense playing in the big leagues if you’re not having fun. I don’t care how much you make. But Cashen, he don’t like that attitude. Last year, before a game, I was on the bench with an old man’s mask on and a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. So they put a shot of me on the Diamond Vision screen. Right away, Cashen sent a message down asking, ‘Who was it, was it Allen?’–because he assumes anything like that would be me–’Tell him I want to see him.’ I said, ‘Aw, screw him. I don’t wanna see him.”

There was more, but you get the idea. During the call with Ribowsky, I had three conflicting feelings. As a Mets fan, I was completely bummed by Allen’s comments. I almost didn’t want to know that the Mets were this dysfunctional. But as the editor of a new magazine, I was ecstatic. These type of comments from a star player might get us the back cover of the tabloids, and that was before Rupert Murdoch owned the New York Post. But I also knew I had to be cautious. If these quotes weren’t real; if they were taken out of context or said off the record and we printed them, my new magazine would be dead on arrival. I couldn’t take any chances. I pressed Ribowsky. “They’re all on the record,” he assured me. “It’s not on us that he was drinking and said these things. Listen to the tape.”

And so I did and the tape passed the journalism smell test. I was sitting on magazine publishing gold.

The premier issue of NEW YORK SPORTS would hit the newsstands all over the metro area on Tuesday, April 19. A few days before on-sale, I prepared a press release and sent it off with a copy of the magazine to all the Mets beat writers, hoping to create some publicity that would generate newsstand sales. On Wednesday the 20th, after a couple of days of rain, the Mets were playing a doubleheader against the Pirates at Shea and I was home watching the first game (we didn’t have enough of a budget for an office) when the phone rang. It was Jay Horwitz . . . at least I thought it was Jay . . . it was hard to tell at first given how he was screaming and cursing at me.

“You told me you were doing a positive profile and you screwed me and the team,” Jay shouted, seasoning his comments with a heavy helping of the F-word. “Jay, what do you want from me?” I squeezed in. “The guy said all that stuff on the record and I had to print it,”

“I don’t care,” he said, or something to that effect. “You and your magazine are banned from Shea Stadium! Don’t ask for a press credential and don’t have any of your writers ask. You’re banned!”

The next day, the Neil Allen story in NEW YORK SPORTS became a full-fledged controversy. Although we didn’t get back page headlines, there were articles in the sports sections and prominent columnists like the Post’s Dick Young (public enemy number one because he was responsible for the Tom Seaver trade) and the New York Times‘ Dave Anderson wrote pieces in support of the magazine’s story. In Anderson’s case, I actually played the tape of the Allen interview for him over the phone so he knew we were legit. Allen, of course, denied he said any of it.

We also offered to play the tape for Frank Cashen in the hopes of getting our Shea ban rescinded. My wife managed to get the GM on the phone. He listened, sighed and told us to “just go away.” End of conversation.

Cashen had taken over as the Mets GM in 1980 after Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon purchased the team from the Payson family. He was an accomplished baseball executive and a conservative man who always wore a bowtie. Cashen was in the process of methodically resurrecting the Mets franchise and there was no way he was going to allow a disrespectful, loud-mouth young reliever to create chaos and undermine the cause. Once our story broke Neil Allen was as good as gone from the Mets. The admission of the alcohol problem and the rehab visit in May had to seal the deal. Now Cashen just had to find a team who wanted to unload a similar problem child.

On June 15, the day of the trade deadline, Frank Cashen made what is still probably the greatest trade in New York Mets history: Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey to the St. Louis Cardinals for Keith Hernandez.

Okay, I won’t take ALL the credit for helping create a situation in which the Mets wanted to unload Neil Allen. But I don’t think we could have obtained a player of Keith Hernandez’s caliber–even if Whitey Herzog did consider Keith “a cancer” on the Cardinals–if Allen wasn’t included in the deal. At that time the Mets didn’t have much else to trade and Darryl Strawberry and Mookie Wilson weren’t going anywhere.

Fellow Mets fans, you’re welcome. Sweet dreams.

Postscript: The 1983 premier issue of NEW YORK SPORTS outsold Sports Illustrated on the newsstands in the metro area. After a one-year hiatus to raise funds, the magazine began regular bi-monthly publication in May 1984 (the Shea Stadium ban had been rescinded that winter) and published six issues before suspending operations after the May/June 1985 issue due to lack of capital.

As we count the hours until Omar Minaya overpays Jason Bay and Benji Molina (when he really should be figuring out how to trade for Bronson Arroyo and Brandon Phillips) there are plenty of reasons to keep throwing coals into the hot stove, especially now that significant snow is falling over Citi Field and environs.

Lost in the shuffle earlier this week as we debated the merits of various free-agent signings, was a story about Outlived-His-Usefulness Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announcing the formation of a “special committee for on-field matters,” (doesn’t that sound like a politically-correct euphemism for “umpires?”) which will be tasked with “examining the full range of competitive issues in baseball, including postseason scheduling, pace of games, umpiring and instant replay.” The genius who gave us that wonderful idea to decide home field advantage in the World Series through the winner of a mid-season exhibition game (which used to be compelling without contriving a reason to make it so) added that “There are no sacred cows. It is an opportunity to examine the game that we love, to try to do what we can to improve on that already great game.”

No sacred cows? Ah, excuse me Budman, but I have a really hard time believing that you would put the following two items on the agenda: getting rid of the designated hitter and shortening the season, which you’d almost have to do hand-in-hand with making the first playoff round a best-of-seven unless you want Game 7 of the World Series to preempt the showing of “It’s A Wonderful Life” next December. But these blessed bovine would be off-limits because the former would make the player’s union go ballistic and the latter would force Jeff Wilpon to reduce Omar’s budget even more.

But there is one rule change that His Seligness could champion immediately; one that the union, team managements and owners might all support. It’s something I have been on a hobby-horse about for a couple of years now.

It’s time to increase team roster sizes to 26 players.

You’re probably wondering “what difference would adding one player per team make in competition?” Have you been watching extra-inning games the past few years, especially in the National League?

I’d like to know when the 25-man roster became sacrosanct. Look, in the good old days when teams carried between eight and 10 pitchers per team (and the latter only happened when teams like the Mets started going to five-man starting rotations in the late 1960s), the 25-man roster was more than enough. Most teams had seven guys on the bench and the 25th guy on some teams was a permanent fixture on the pine. But then came one-inning closers, middle relievers, pitch counts for starters, and now most teams have a 12-man pitching staff, for a time even carrying 13. That leaves just five bench players, enough to have just one extra catcher and just two extra infielders and outfielders. And if a team decides to carry a third catcher, your starters and bench players must be incredibly versatile or your screwed. (Frankly, I don’t think most Mets fans are upset about the Alex Cora signing–as silly as that was–because they dont think Cora can help the team somewhat, but because Cora is not a great use of one out of a precious five bench roster spots.)

Teams are especially screwed in extra innings. At least in the DH American League a manager can conserve his pinch hitters in the middle innings if his starter is going well or he doesn’t have a quick hook. But if a manic Jerry Manuel pinch hits for Pelfrey in the sixth inning, finds himself in a close game, plays lefty-right up the wazoo with his bullpen in the 7th, pinch hits for Feliciano in the 8th, and the game is tied 4-4 in the 9th, by the 11th you’re calling up Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell to play the outfield or bringing in Jeff Francoeur to pitch. It’s really becoming a joke.

And remember a couple of spring trainings ago, when the Yankees were agonizing over whether to keep an aging Bernie Williams one more season? With a 26-man roster, Bernie would have played in 2008, perhaps even last year to add another ring.

To me, the 26-man roster in the age of huge pitching staffs is a no-brainer. However, baseball would have to institute one more rule to prevent abuse of the extra spot: Teams could carry no fewer than 10 pitchers (few, if any, would do that anyway) and no more than 12 (sorry, 13 pitchers would defeat the purpose of the roster increase and if a team has to carry that many pitchers they don’t deserve to compete in the bigs anyway).

I can’t imagine that the Players’ Association would have a problem with adding 30 more players to major league rosters. In fact, I’m sure an increase in roster size has been on their radar but they probably haven’t suggested it because they feel they have bigger fish to fry with the owners (like staving off a salary cap movement or getting bigger and bigger contracts for the Jason Bays of the world). The owners would probably try to negotiate some kind of give-back in return for adding more players to the payroll, but really, don’t you think that 26th guy would be a rookie or a player making close to the MLB minimum?

In fact, I’ll make it easy for the owners. I’ll find the best 30 guys from my Over-40 league to take the last roster spots and we’ll play for free.

I’ll admit it: Patience is not one of my virtues. After all, I live in New York City where your blood pressure can reach the danger zone just trying to drive from the east side to the west side or watching Oliver Perez pitch. And when you’re a passionate baseball fan in your 50s, you’re not that fond of channeling dearly departed Brooklyn Dodgers fans and humming, “Wait till next year.” BUT, fellow Mets fans, we have to face facts, read the handwriting on the wall, bite the bullet and all those other wonderful clichés of resignation now that it is obvious (after the Halladay and Lackey non-signings and the likely non-signings of Holliday and Bay) we don’t really have a shot at beating out the Phillies this year unless whatever crippled our team last year is contagious and moves south.

Frankly, the seeds for Omar Minaya’s failure to entice top free agents to the Mets were sown over the last three years of on-field debacles–which when added to the pressurized atmosphere of playing in New York–has likely alienated any free agent who isn’t a client of Scott Boras (who would gladly send one of his non-pitching clients to hit in the Grand Canyon if a team paid enough money). You would think that American League pitchers such as Halladay and Lackey would salivate at the notion of throwing in pitcher-friendly CitiField (the ridiculously oversized house that Jeff built) to lineups without DHs. But no, Lackey stayed in the AL to pitch against the Yankees three or four times a year and Halladay decided to pitch in a bandbox. Nice.

Having said that (to quote “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), I’m in favor of Omar not making a reaction signing to pump season ticket sales or to save his job. Signing Jason Bay for five years? Are you crazy? Only a borderline superstar gets that kind of length on a deal. Bay projects to be the kind of player that will already seem overpaid by year three. While I like the idea of signing Benji Molina, no way a 36-year-old catcher gets three guaranteed years.

Look, Minaya and Manuel are already dead men walking. What Mets fans need to do is steel themselves for a 2010 season where we can be competitive and find out if all our injured players from last season are healthy, if David Wright’s 2009 stats were an aberration, if Jonathan Niese and Fernando Nieve can be reliable starters, and if Daniel Murphy can be a solid everyday player. How can we be competitive? We sign a couple of middle of the rotation “Marquis” names, try to bring in Orlando Hudson to play second base, perhaps use Mike Pelfrey and Fernando Martinez as trade bait for a young outfielder or veteran arm and gear up for a run in 2011. The bottom line is this: Jeff Wilpon should not let Minaya talk him into throwing money at the remaining free agents just so they can save face or possibly contend for a wild card. Does this sound a little like the Mets would be the New York Knicks? Perhaps, but I’m not suggesting throwing away the season, just not bankrupting future pennant runs for a quick fix or to save face.

We need to have–dare I say it?–patience. This knee-jerk reaction to Halladay and Lackey going elsewhere is misguided and just wasted energy. We have to start from scratch next year with a new front office and field manager and use the knowledge gained from this season (i.e. is Jose Reyes ever going to be a championship player?) and the money saved to sign next year’s crop of free agents and make trades. Unless they suddenly re-up with their current clubs or my research is faulty, the following players will be available on the open market: Derek Lee, A.J. Pierzynski, Joe Mauer, Carl Crawford, Adam Dunn, Jason Werth, Cliff Lee, Brandon Webb, Huston Street and Aaron Heilman (just kidding).

Perhaps looking at that list you’re thinking, “Well, Halladay, Lackey and Bay are better than a lot of those guys.” But frankly, I’d rather have Crawford and Werth than Bay, and if he’s healthy, Webb just as much as Lackey. And what if, by some miracle, Mauer doesn’t sign with Minnesota and after the Mets just miss on taking the wild card this year, he feels he’s the guy to put them over the top (like Gary Carter did in 1985). We can dream, can’t we?

So I don’t think we should rip Omar Minaya for not signing stars who weren’t going to sign here this year. We should rip Omar Minaya for creating a situation over the last three years which made it completely unpalatable for a star player to WANT to sign here. And while the 2009 injury bug excuse is a valid one, there were other problems that prevented this organization from competing last season. 2010 has to be devoted to rebuilding the foundation and setting the stage for next season. But the architect and builder must be a new GM and manager (if not a new owner, but that’s too much to ask for).

So my fellow Mets fans, take a deep breath and resolve that starting today you are going to be patient. Except when Oliver Perez pitches.

Like thousands of kids who grew up as Mets fans in the late ’60s, early ’70s, I wanted to be Tom Seaver, the closest thing to pitching perfection as I ever saw or will ever see. I got as far as being the number one pitcher for my small NY college baseball team in 1977 (the year Tom was traded) and ‘78. Had that been 30 years into the future, I’d have done everything humanly possible (except for taking performance enhancing drugs) to get to the show because being a major league starting pitcher has to be the greatest job in the world. In what other profession (other than perhaps backup quarterback in the NFL) can so many mediocrities make so much money.

That’s what I thought when the news came down earlier this week from the Winter Meetings that the Brewers had signed Randy Wolf for three years at $30 million (with a fourth-year option), the Cardinals had signed Brad Penny for a year at $7.5 million and that fourth-starter types Joel Pineiro, Jason Marquis and Doug Davis were looking at multi-year deals that even had Omar Minaya running scared. And between you and me, I don’t think even John Lackey is worth the money and the years they are talking about right now. Roy Halladay perhaps. But Lackey? No. Bulldog isn’t enough for me.

It was bad enough we had to watch helplessly last winter as Omar showered the pitiful Oliver Perez with $36 million over three years, the biggest waste of money since Fred Wilpon met Bernie Madoff. (And, by the way, I agreed with his not going after Derek Lowe, who the Braves now want to unload.) Now I’m worried that the Mets may throw good money after bad and overpay guys who are really no better than back of the rotation arms. And if I hear one more “but he gives you innings,” I’ll lose my lunch.

Listen, for every pitcher that turns his career around in his mid to late 20s, there are probably a half dozen who have a one-season positive spike (thanks to a pitching coach, throwing in a pitcher’s park, being on a good offensive team, etc) and then fall back down to earth. I can’t cite specific stats or data to back that up, I’m just going on 45 years of following baseball. How about one example from the 1973 “Ya Gotta Believe” Mets: Pitching for the Braves in 1971 and ‘72 at the ages of 25 and 26, George Stone went a combined 12-19 with a 5.51 ERA in ‘72. He was basically a throw-in in the Felix Millan trade before the 1973 season, and as a fourth starter that year went 12-3 with a 2.80 ERA and should have pitched Game 6 of the World Series (I’m now two for two in mentioning that fateful situation in blog posts here).

Let’s say Stone had done that last year and was a free agent this winter. We’re talking an Ollie Perez deal, perhaps even more. What did George Stone do for the Mets the following two years? A combined 5-10 in 24 starts with an ERA of 5.03 and 5.05 and a hits to innings-pitched ratio that would make Bobby Ojeda collapse in the SNY studio. The question is this: Why do scouts suddenly not believe their reports or their instincts when a middle-aged (in baseball years) pitcher has one decent season?

It’s called desperation and for that I blame free agency, expansion, Tony LaRussa and every manager who has copied his over-reliance on the bullpen. When you layer those factors onto the already well-established precept that starting pitching is without question the most important part of building a championship baseball team, it’s no wonder that anybody who can get throw a ball close to 90 mph for strikes once in a while is going to become a multi-millionaire.

I won’t get into the tiresome debate about how free-agency and huge contracts have impacted the game, but the unintended consequence of the huge investments in pitchers has lead to them being treated like delicate pieces of china who might break if you just look at them. A huge irony or contradiction of that last statement, depending on how you look at it, is that said huge investments in high draft picks has also led to rushing young pitchers to the majors before they are ready. Mike Pelfrey: I rest my case. I don’t care what the signing bonus has been, you don’t bring a young pitcher to the big leagues unless he is a Dwight Gooden-esque prodigy or he has absolutely dominated at least Double A for a full year. All of the above has led to the evolution of middle relievers (who used to be the weakest pitchers on the staff) who really need to be good because–thanks to LaRussa and his ilk–your best relief pitcher can only pitch the ninth inning with nobody on base or else it will lead to the apocalypse. And coloring all of those factors has been the rapid expansion of baseball over the past four decades, which has added dozens of pitchers to big league rosters who really have no business being in the majors.

So when it comes to pitching, especially starting pitching, it will always be a seller’s market no matter how many guys are free agents and no matter how bad the economy is at the time. It’s going to take a front office with a great scouting department and a strong will to resist the temptation to sign these mediocrities. Which is why I don’t agree with that blowhard Mike Francesa when he wails that the Mets shouldn’t go after Roy Halladay. Normally, I’d rather sign a free agent than trade prospects, but if you’re going to spend big money, you might as well go for the gusto, even if it does cost Pelfrey (a cream puff who would be replaced with Halladay), Daniel Murphy (a guy without a real position) and Fernando Martinez (who would be out of the picture if the Mets sign Jason Bay or any other left fielder). Hey, the Phillies are thinking about trading Cole Hamels for the guy!

I understand that signing free-agent pitchers can be something of a crap shoot. But does it have to be insane?

Next to opening day and any day the Mets are in a playoff game, the first day of the Baseball Winter Meetings used to be my favorite day of the baseball season. I say “used to be” because this industry trade show (no pun intended) that lasts almost a week doesn’t generate the adrenaline, anticipation and excitement that it did in that golden age when men were men, women were women and baseball players were bound by a reserve clause and could be traded at will. Sure, as a fair minded human being and citizen I believe in the concept that everyone should have the freedom to determine where they will they work. As a baseball fan . . . not so much. While I’ll be quite pleased if Omar Minaya comes home with a reasonably-priced Matt Holliday or John Lackey in his luggage, I’ll find it much more satisfying if he’s able to fleece the Blue Jays out of Roy Halladay, even if did cost us Mike Pelfrey, Daniel Murphy and Fernando Martinez (a trade, by the way, I would make in a minute). Admit it, what’s more fun: arguing about whether your team’s GM overpaid to sign a player or arguing about whether your GM fleeced another GM or got fleeced? And what’s better than being able to debate for hours the trades of other teams? To me, that is (was) hot stove heaven.

But those great days pretty much ended with the end of the reserve clause. Now, for the most part, a team’s success isn’t based mainly on whether their organizations have astute GMs and scouts, but whether their owners have big bucks and cable networks providing them millions to throw at free agents. (I don’t buy the argument that you still need smart scouts when deciding which top free agents you’re gonna buy. If every team had the same budget, every team would have tried to sign Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be checking the baseball blogs every 15 minutes this week to find out who got signed, who got traded and whether we’ll have to draw up the petition to get Omar fired. But the Winter Meetings will never again be like December 1973, when 26 trades were made involving 58 players. How do I have that stat at my finger tips? Not because of the internet. It’s because that year, in spite of still grieving over the Mets loss to Oakland in the World Series (Yogi, please don’t pitch Seaver on three days rest!), I was so juiced about the Winter Meetings I decided that my ear would be glued all week to a transistor radio (remember those?) when I wasn’t in a college class and I would meticulously write down every single trade (including the waiver deals and the ones for cash) on 3 by 5 index cards. I didn’t know then I would be chronicling one of the busiest Winter Meetings ever. Willie Davis for Mike Marshall. Jimmie Winn for Claude Osteen. Steve Stone (and three other guys) for Ron Santo. Lou Piniella for Lindy McDaniel. Even Tommie Agee was traded that week–from the Cardinals to the Dodgers. I was completely jazzed even though all the Mets did that week was count their losing World Series share.

You wouldn’t think those index cards filled with 1973 Winter Meetings trades would have much value, but like the anal pack rat I can sometimes be, I saved them in a small box where they could remain in pristine condition like my old baseball cards (before I stupidly tossed them out). In spite of free agency, the Winter Meetings continued to warm the cockles of my cockles. Then in the fall of 1977, my senior year of college, I was hired as an intern at the late, great SPORT Magazine, the publication that I adored as a kid growing up wanting to be a sports writer. Like a male version of Ugly Betty, I got coffee for the editors, clipped newspapers for the research department and fact-checked features by writers like Dick Schaap, Dave Anderson and even Woody Allen. After a few months on the job and getting a few short items in the front of the magazine, I summoned up the courage to suggest writing a feature for our December 1978 issue (which hit the stands in November) that would be a labor of love: talk to GMs about the science of making baseball trades.

To my amazement, the editorial staff decided to give the kid a shot. I decided I would build most of the piece around an interview with a recently retired GM since active guys probably wouldn’t want to reveal trade secrets (no pun intended). At that time, veteran Boston Red Sox General Manager Dick O’Connell had left the team the year before and he agreed to meet me in Boston. As nervous as Mike Pelfrey when there’s a man on first, I met O’Connell at one of those exclusive clubs where wealthy and conservative Boston brahmins smoke cigars and sip brandy. As a middle class kid from the Bronx, I was a tad intimidated and hoped I wouldn’t balk. But it was O’Connell who wouldn’t talk. Every question I asked about what goes into making a baseball trade was met with short, single syllable answers. And I hadn’t even yet asked him how in the name of Babe Ruth he could have traded Sparky Lyle to the Yankees for Danny Cater in 1972. As the interview went on, I felt my story slipping into the reject pile. I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of my editors had suddenly shown up to pull me from the game.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. I had to pull something out of my hat. Instead I reached into my briefcase and grabbed my entire batch of 1973 Winter Meetings index cards. I nervously fumbled through them until I found one that read: December 7, 1973–Boston Red Sox trade pitchers Lynn McGlothen, John Curtis and Mike Garman to St. Louis Cardinals for pitchers Reggie Cleveland, Diego Segui and infielder Terry Hughes (the same day O’Connell also acquired Juan Marichal from the Giants for cash). I stuck the card right in front of O’Connell’s nose and practically screamed, “Why did you make this trade?” The interview was over.

That particular tale has a happy ending. Although one editor wanted my story idea killed, I begged the editor in chief to give me a couple of weeks to phone interview every GM who would talk with me so I could cobble a story together. I tracked down a bunch of guys, including then Mets’ GM Joe McDonald who revealed the inside story of how he made the Tom Seaver deal with the Reds (on the urging of his son Jody, now a radio sports jock, he wouldn’t make the trade unless the Reds included Dan Norman). Given Seaver was (and still is) my baseball idol and that June 15, 1977 was one of the worst days of my life, I had to resist the temptation to tell Mr. McDonald where he could stick it and if he could give me M. Donald Grant’s home address.

But 31 years after my story on the trading game was published in SPORT, I still love the Winter Meetings, even if deals are made for a slew of reasons that have nothing to do with the actual ability of the players. Every morning and evening this week, I’ll be yakking on my cell phone with my friend Craig discussing whether Omar Minaya had redeemed himself or is still a bumbling idiot without a clue. Do you think Omar can get Seaver back?

We have a special treat for you, courtesy of one of our readers, Stephen Hanks, who took the following shots in 1970, 39 years ago today. It was Camera Day at Shea Stadium. As we honor the 1969 Mets later this evening, here is a look at the then, defending 1969 World Champion Mets!

“The Franchise” Tom Seaver

The Skipper – Gil Hodges

Jerry Koosman was so underrated!

This Bud’s for you!

Jerry Grote was a class act all the way!

Ray Sadecki and baby faced Gary Gentry

Tommy Agee hit .286 and won a Gold Glove in ‘70!

Eddie Kranepool and Ron Swoboda – Look at those sideburns!

Rookie Ken Singleton and Wayne Garrett, with Nolan Ryan in the background!

Look at those arms on 1969 World Series MVP, Donn Clendenon.

You can see these wonderful pictures in their full size by visiting Stephen on his Facebook page. Thanks for sharing Stephen!