I wanted to address some of what’s been written about Sandy Alderson, Terry Collins and the Panic City Mets.
Joel Sherman – While upper management has insisted the dollars are there, executives from other teams say their Mets counterparts tell them that the budget is either tight or non-existent. Is that gamesmanship by the Mets to try to get competitors to lower demands or honesty? Because if it is honesty, that means the Mets brass is lying to their fan base through the New York media by saying they can spend.
Joe D. – This has been an issue for years now. It was back in 2012 that Fred Wilpon came to Spring Training in Port St. Lucie and proclaimed the financial problems were in the rearview mirror and that Sandy Alderson had no limits and could sign anyone he wanted. It wasn’t true back then and it’s still not true today. Unfortunately you still have too many writers and bloggers who twist and turn over Alderson, Collins, and the team in general, that shouldn’t be taken seriously because they’re either oblivious, willfully ignorant, or in cahoots with the Wilpons or MLB. At this point, you have to be an ass-hat if you don’t know how negatively team ownership impacts this team.
Mike Vaccaro – Day after day, week after week, the Wilpons and their chief henchman, Alderson, have allowed the good will of a hot start and the patience of a fiercely loyal fan base and the daily magnificence of their pitching staff to disintegrate to the point where there’s no longer rage as much as resignation – to another lousy season, another year when a little aggression and a little imagination might have made a difference.
Joe D. – While the team has played some awful baseball that has included way too many heartbreaking losses and punches in the gut, I disagree that team brass is already resigned to another losing season. It may very well turn out that Vaccaro is right, but I need to see what happens between now and the July 31 trade deadline before I throw Alderson completely under the bus. It’s still early and I don’t see many teams proclaiming themselves sellers yet. That’s not to say Alderson doesn’t deserve some blame. The $125 million he has had to spend has been largely wasted on the likes of Francisco, C. Young, Cuddyer, and aside from two hot weeks in two seasons, Granderson too. And he has yet to pull off one trade, that didn’t backfire, to acquire a top MLB offensive player. He’s been living off the good vibes of three smart dumps for prospects, while riding the coattails of Harvey, DeGrom, Familia and Matz, three of whom should be All Stars this year and neither of them his doing.
Joel Sherman – We have seen this con with this organization before. It often comes up when the Mets leak that they are monitoring a player in free agency, then the player signs elsewhere and they criticize how much the player was paid. It is all misdirection. “Monitor” is a fake-out to try to gain points from their fans for actively pursuing someone they had no intentions of signing and then the overpay is to shift blame to a greedy player rather than a parsimonious organization.
Joe D. – It’s amazing that you still have some Mets media and sites that are used as propaganda machines for the Wilpons. They’ll post rumors that the Mets are after Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos Gomez, etc. for weeks on end and never include the quotes from opposing GMs who laugh and say they haven’t spoken to the Mets in months, or that it’s a complete web-created fabrication. The problem I have with what Sherman says here is not that it’s not true, it’s a completely accurate description of business as usual for the Mets. My issue with this is that Sherman is a huge part of the problem and he’s like the pot calling the kettle black.
Bottom line? Collins has borne the brunt of the incoming fire for years now while Alderson has been the Teflon Don, making wisecracks, alienating many, and doing his thing. He’s in the fifth year, said he expects 90 wins, and also asserted he’d be disappointed if this team failed to make the postseason. He said these things to the team’s top customers, the season ticket holders.
He even implored one ticket-holder who said he was dissatisfied with how he addressed the offense in the offseason to please withhold judgement until we get a chance to see the offense play this season.
Alderson has a lot of explaining to do. And so do the Wilpons.
That’s all for now, more later…
