Howie Kussoy of the New York Post is reporting that while speaking to a group of veterans at the Manhattan V.A, Hospital, Sandy Alderson admitted that the team would not be able to do anything significant in free agency this offseason and that unless help doesn’t come via a trade, it will need to come from within the organization.
With the Mets already mired in a bottom third MLB payroll, Alderson also admitted that with just Chris Young’s $7.25 million contract off the books this Winter, “it will limit the team’s spending in free agency this offseason.”
“It’s gonna be prohibitive, but improving a team isn’t always a function of just dollars spent,” Alderson said. “Most of the improvement that came from the Mets this year had little to do with the overall spending. We’ll have some flexibility. We’ll be able to do some things. We just have to see what’s there.”
Regular readers on MMO shouldn’t be surprised at this as I’ve been speculating this would be the case all year long and I don’t expect payroll to near the $100 million plateau for several more years.
“We need more offense than we’ve had this year,” Alderson added. “There’ve been two or three players who didn’t produce the way we would’ve liked. If one of them or two of them would’ve produced the way we would’ve liked, it would’ve been a whole different season. That’s the thing about free agents, you’ve got to be careful because they don’t all work out… the quick fix isn’t always the best.”
One other way Sandy said he could boost offense is by bringing in the fences at Citi Field which the team is discussing again.
Unprompted, Alderson told the group of veterans there have been discussions within the organization about reducing the distance to right-center field. At the new, unspecified distance, he said, Granderson would have seven additional home runs this season.
“It’s something that we had talked about the possibility in the past and we continue to look at it,” said Alderson. “We brought the fences in a couple years ago. It’s not about tailoring the ballpark to a particular player or a particular composition of team, it’s about making Citi Field as fan-friendly and as exciting as we can make it.”
It’s the third time the Mets general manager has discussed moving in the fences this year so expect that to likely come to fruition and for the Mets to make an official announcement after the season.
Well that’s certainly one way to boost offense when your team is flat broke, but how does this impact our pitching and won’t this boost the other team’s offense at Citi too? And did he say it’s not about the team and that it’s about the fans?
Finally, about those 90 wins?
“We’re not gonna get there this year, but you know what? We played a lot better this year than we did last year. There’s no reason that next year we can’t do it.”
So is that a goal? Or a challenge? Or a prediction?
Lots to discuss here my friends…
