I got an email the other day asking me why I always downplay the Mets going after players like Shin-Soo Choo, Jacoby Ellsbury or Carlos Beltran. The reader wanted to know why I’ve become such a pessimist. My response to her was simple. “I don’t trust the people in charge, hence I’m skeptical of anything they say.”
In the Fall of 2010, nobody was happier to see Sandy Alderson and company take control of this team than I was. It was time for change and on the heels of the Bernie Madoff fiasco, who better to run this franchise than three of the four people that figured prominently in the success of the Moneyball A’s, right?
I figured Sandy, DePo and Ricciardi were the perfect tonic for the financial purge that was to come.
“Moneyball with money,” Paul DePodesta called it with a big smile as he cited the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees as two such models.
Wow, maybe this isn’t going to be as painful as I thought….
But here we are three years later and still no closer to contention than we were when this whole thing started.
Where are all the moneyball signings that were going to exploit all the market inefficiencies and make the Mets a championship caliber team by 2014? Can you see them?
The 2013 baseball season is officially over and the Mets head into year four of whatever it is you want to label this era – just don’t call it moneyball.
We now rush headlong into an offseason of complete uncertainty with more weaknesses now than we had in 2010. First base is a mess, so is the outfield, and so is shortstop. The catching position is still a big unknown as is the front and back of the rotation, and most of the bullpen. Our ace Matt Harvey is lost for the season, nobody knows if our closer Bobby Parnell will be ready, and Travis d’Arnaud didn’t exactly hit the ground running – so much so that Sandy Alderson has expressed real concerns and made finding a veteran backup a top offseason priority.
So after three years what exactly do I have to be excited about? That our minor league won-loss record was outstanding? That our bullpen ERA is ranked 14th instead of 15th? That our offense led the league in strikeouts while posting an abysmal .306 on-base? That our second best hitter is the subject of rampant trade rumors because he’s due to make $6 million in arbitration?
I gotta be honest, I’m running out of patience…
Running out of patience with an ownership who continues to be less than forthcoming and has made my fandom disjointed… Patience with a front office that has fallen far short of their top billing and were never up to the task of contending on a shoestring which was supposed to be their forte…
I gave them their three years and outside of all the hollow words and empty promises, I see a team that is broken and still in a state of chaos and utter disrepair.
So how can I go into this offseason believing that we’re really going to spend when everything inside me believes it’s a lie?
I love my team so much and it kills me to see them in such an incredibly bad place. The downward trend I thought would reverse itself has only gotten worse.
This team has no credibility and no real identity.
Sandy Alderson and the Wilpons are the faces of the franchise and that sucks.
Did they think they could bribe us or buy our loyalty by signing David Wright to that $140 million deal? Do they think we are that ignorant? It was just a ploy… It was just another gimmick… The Wilpons love gimmicks…
The only thing that will change this teams fortunes and make them the contender they promised for 2014 is money – money I don’t believe they have. Actually, let me clarify that… Money that they have but are unwilling to spend.
I’m tired of waiting… I’m tired of losing…
I don’t believe the front office or team owners feel the same way…
This plan we keep hearing about sounds more and more like a sham with every passing day…
The offense is a disaster and in three years we haven’t been able to add one legitimate major league bat to the active roster. Again, where are all these moneyball signings? Where are all these on-base machines? How is it possible that we haven’t upgraded one position in all this time and in fact downgraded across the board?
This is a disaster…
The only legitimate bat on this team is Wright and he was here long before this regime got here… So was the second best hitter, Daniel Murphy…
Where are all these ingenious draft picks? Will any players selected under three years of DePodesta appear on the upcoming Baseball America Top 100? I don’t think so… How is that even possible?
You want hear something really scary?
I believe that Lucas Duda will be your first baseman in 2014 and that waiver-wire pickup Eric Young Jr. will be your starting left fielder. Add in Wright, Murphy, d’Arnaud and Juan Lagares and all of a sudden you show up on Opening day with basically the same bottom ranked offense from a year ago.
Even if they do find and sign a 25 home run bat for right field – technically all he does is replace Marlon Byrd. And even if we do somehow get Stephen Drew, so what? Will the difference between him and Ruben Tejada be enough to make a significant enough impact?
I understand the extreme conditions Alderson was navigating in, but he knew the circumstances and still took the job so I won’t hold a pity party for him… Nobody put a gun to his head and believe me he’s being compensated better than most GMs.
Every year we seem to be moving the goal posts and the worst part of that is the lack of accountability…
I’m sick and tired of hearing about this bright future that keeps getting pushed further back every year… We are not the only team focusing on the draft and building the farm – all teams do that – there’s nothing unique happening here.
I love this team, but I wish we had owners and executives who love this team too… If we did we wouldn’t be worse off today than we were three years ago…
So yes I’m a confirmed pessimist… The only think that can change that is a front office and ownership that can convince me that they want to win as badly as I do…
So far, I’m not seeing that…
I’m not cut out to be a pessimist… And I’m mad as hell that these guys have done this to me…
