As we continue crossing off the final days of 2019 and officially say goodbye to this decade, there are many things to look forward to in January.
Most importantly, though, it’s the final month of the offseason where we won’t see major-league teams doing some kind of baseball activity on ball fields. This decade coming to a close gives us a chance to glance backward before focusing forward, like revisiting the New York Mets’ best draft picks of the decade, or their best collection of relievers during the same period of time.
As we prepare to watch the start of another decade of Mets baseball, I can’t help but think back 10 years and compare the different position the big-league squad is in at the moment. And, mostly, how much better the immediate outlook appears to be.
Better and More Accomplished Core
While it can be argued that general manager Brodie Van Wagenen still has more work to do for the Mets’ 2020 roster, this group still looks head-and-shoulders better than what the 2010 roster looked like. When strictly looking at position players, guys like Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto, Amed Rosario, and Brandon Nimmo (when healthy, of course) are all young enough to continue improving and have also already proven to be successful at the game’s highest level to varying degrees.
The 2010 squad obviously had Jose Reyes and David Wright to go along with Angel Pagan, a rookie in Ike Davis, and the vet in Carlos Beltran. But when comparing these two groups, the Mets’ current position player core clearly has greater upside.
New York’s starting rotation ended up having a productive trio 10 years ago in Johan Santana, R.A. Dickey, and Mike Pelfrey. However, I’d also take their current top three of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Marcus Stroman any day, plus the depth they have in the back end with Steven Matz, Rick Porcello, and Michael Wacha.
Shorter Wait For Financial Flexibility
This idea of getting more financial flexibility changed quite a bit once news broke of Yoenis Cespedes no longer being guaranteed nearly $30 million this upcoming season. Still, though, commitments to him and Wright will officially come off the books, along with the one-year agreements to both Porcello and Wacha, not to mention others. That’d hypothetically give BVW and the front office quite a bit of room to spend next winter.
If we go back to 2010, New York still had sizable commitments on the books to Santana, Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo, and Jason Bay. Let’s also not forget about the Bernie Madoff scandal. While that’s still seemingly impacting how the Wilpons do business these days, it definitely appeared to bring a lot more trouble to them when news of the scandal was fresh.
GM and Manager Not on the Verge of Getting Fired
Although there are times when Van Wagenen makes us scratch our heads with something he says, there hasn’t been one peep about his job security since taking over as GM last winter. There really shouldn’t be since it takes time for a general manager to get the front-office infrastructure they want in place to really start making an impact. This time 10 years ago, though, Omar Minaya was doing his best to hold onto his job as GM, which he ultimately was unsuccessful in doing.
The same can be said about Jerry Manuel, who was out as manager following a lackluster 2010 campaign at the helm. We don’t know what we can expect from Carlos Beltran as a manager simply because it’s something he’s never done before. However, there should be a certain level of optimism thanks to having a fresh voice that’s well respected around the game leading the way.
New Ownership on the Horizon?
This is probably the most encouraging change between these two periods of time.
As mentioned before, the Wilpons were just starting to deal with the repercussions of their involvement in the Madoff scandal at the start of this past decade, something that’s had a far-reaching impact on the Mets, whether anyone wants to acknowledge that or not. But if we fast forward back to present day, we know about the possibility of the Wilpons eventually selling the team and relinquishing control of day-to-day responsibilities to Steve Cohen. Even if this transaction doesn’t happen until 2025, it’s probably happening sooner than any of us truly expected.
While the Mets’ impending success or failure in 2020 and beyond depends on many variables, it’s nice to see them hopefully being more readily prepared to compete. They entered this past decade coming off two late-season collapses in 2007 and 2008, followed by a 70-92 record in 2009 before improving that to 79-83 in 2010.
The current iteration of the Mets are fresh off an 86-76 record with an intriguing young core, a general manger that — at the very least — tries to make moves, and a new manager to bring in a fresh perspective. Plus, there’s the potential for much more flexing of their financial muscles if the reports of Cohen taking ownership of the club end up coming to fruition.
A better immediate outlook for this decade could potentially result in some lean years at the end of this upcoming 10-year span. However, I’m excited for what’s ahead with regard to the Mets in the next few seasons, and even more so when thinking about we had to deal with around this time 10 years ago.
