Check out this article I came across yesterday on NJ.com by David Searles, who seems to have the same concerns about the front office and their strategy as myself, but does a much better job of espousing those concerns than I usually do. 🙂
I decided to review the Mets 40 man roster to see how many players are Alderson acquisitions and how many are holdovers from prior regimes. Only 11 players on the 40 man roster were brought to the Mets by Alderson. The remaining 27 were already here when Alderson was hired (currently, two spots on the 40 man roster are unfilled).
Three years into Alderson’s tenure and this is still largely Omar Minaya’s team. I fully expected the Alderson regime to be very active in “under-the-radar” deals to compensate for their inability to spend their way out of the mistakes of the past. While there are many possible explanations for their lack of activity, the facts point to three highly paid executives employing a “rope-a-dope” strategy of rebuilding the farm system from the bottom up while allowing the major league team to flounder indefinitely.
Every year Alderson claims the Mets are not “punting” the season but his perpetual inactivity suggests otherwise. If your team is far from contending and you do nothing to improve it, it is hard to defend the assertion that you are not punting.
I fully endorse avoiding “lateral” moves made just for the sake of appearing to be active. But the expectation was this dream team front office would be finding diamonds in the rough around the league and stealing away the undervalued players from the competition. Either the league has become very sophisticated in player valuation or the Met front office is all sizzle and no steak.
I am not even asking for a trade like the ones made for Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter. You make those trades when you are much closer to contending. But three years into his regime, I expected Alderson would have found a Bob Ojeda or Howard Johnson by now. ~ Dave Searles, NJ.com
Bravo… Nice job, David… I like that… The rope-a-dope… Make sure you check out his entire post…
I still can’t believe that in three offseasons we have yet to add one MLB player who could be a significant piece for the team in 2014 or beyond. Unless of course they have serious intentions of extending Frank Francisco or John Buck. Lets hope not.
