In a critical rebuke of Sandy Alderson’s tenure with the Mets, Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes that Sandy was hired to clean up a so-called mess by his predecessor Omar Minaya and yet the team is now worse off than it ever was before. He says the best things about the current team are Daniel Murphy, Lucas Duda, Juan Lagares, Dillon Gee and Jon Niese – all of whom were drafted or signed internationally by Minaya.
He mentions several high upside players that were left to Sandy including Matt Harvey, Jenrry Mejia, Jeurys Familia who have already debuted and exhibited major league talent, and other promising players like Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz who are yet to come.
Sherman writes:
You can argue, the parting gift was leaving Carlos Beltran and R.A. Dickey behind so Alderson could trade for Zack Wheeler, Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard. In other words, even what have been hailed as Alderson’s best moves, so far, have Minaya’s legacy as part of them.
To date no one from Alderson’s three drafts has reached the majors, he still has been unable to get a bullpen right and the two players he finally was able to spend on in free agency – Curtis Granderson and Bartolo Colon – have not distinguished themselves in the first five weeks of this season.
Sherman does say that this is not a final report card on Alderson, but that after 3 1/2 years he has to start showing some results borne out of his own drafting and developing.
He also takes a shot at the Mets ownership saying, “By the way, that fan loyalty oath about true New Yorkers, does it say anything about what the payroll of a true New York team should be?”
In the end – handcuffs or not — the GM is judged on major league results, says Sherman. Just ask Minaya.
Among his other points:
- Alderson is yet to have a positive enough impact on the major league roster. He said 90 wins were possible and a target, but this is not 90-win talent.
- Alderson has been building to track down the Braves and Nationals, but at this point the Marlins have done a better job rebuilding because it did two things the Mets didn’t – draft Jose Fernandez (the Mets took Brandon Nimmo) and trade Jose Reyes (though injury and ownership interjection could have been the issue there)?
- Alderson’s belief in this sabermetric notion that a bullpen can be cobbled together on the cheap. But so far he has yet to deliver in this area and has used limited funds on failures such as Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch, Brandon Lyon, D.J. Carrasco and Ramon Ramirez.
You can read the entire article here.
You may recall that during the Spring I warned that this will be the year that Sandy will be on the hot seat, and that by and large he has gotten a free pass during his first three years because of financial constraints and a failed ownership.
That said, Sandy went into this offseason with three years of his own acquisitions under his belt and $50 million to spend this Winter. This team and their results are finally all on him.
I would expect to see more articles like this one as long as the Mets continue to flounder at or below .500 in a season where transformation was promised back in the fall of 2010.
It’s hard for me to be critical of Sandy or Omar with this current ownership in place. I have believed in both Omar’s and Sandy’s visions, but I feel that each of them were undermined in different ways by the Wilpons and were left out to hang unfairly.
