Mets GM Sandy Alderson did an exclusive Q&A with the New York Post‘s Steve Serby recently, and talked about his expectations for the 2017 season, manager Terry Collins and the National League East (specifically the Nationals) among other things relevant to the state of the Mets.
Alderson said that he thinks the team will perform at a level similar to what we saw from the 2015 team because everyone will be healthy, despite not adding any fresh blood from last season.
“Over the last couple of years, the team has performed at a much higher level, and I think we can do that again,” Alderson said. “I think that while we haven’t seen a lot of new faces or won’t see a lot of new faces in spring training, other than some young players that we have coming through our system, we’re gonna have players coming back who weren’t able to perform, mostly for health reasons last season, and as a result I think we’ve got the potential to be better than we were last year and comparable to what we were in 2015.”
With a healthy roster, Alderson believes that manager Terry Collins is the right guy to lead the team because he was able to do so in the face of adversity last year and still make it to the playoffs.
“We had some success in 2015, and in spite of injuries last year we made a big run at the end of the season and ended up in a wild-card spot, so players continue to respond to him,” Alderson said. “So if that continues to happen, he continues to happen, he continues to be the right guy.”
Despite the fact that the Nationals haven’t made tremendous upgrades this offseason, the talent level they possess still make them a feared rival and one the Mets will have to compete with throughout the 2017 season.
Alderson said that the Nationals are a good team and should be “deemed favorably,” but he also talks about how the rest of the division stacks up as well.
“Philadelphia’s getting better, Atlanta’s getting better, the Nationals will still be very good, and Miami was very good last year, and suffered that terrible tragedy losing Jose Fernandez, and from their standpoint, hopefully that will not be a hangover from that loss,” Alderson said.
Lastly, Alderson said it would be gratifying to bring a championship home to New York, and that the sting of the loss in 2015 at the hands of the Royals still hasn’t gone away.
“It would be gratifying for all of us in the organization, especially to be able to do it here in New York City largely because I know how much it would mean to Mets fans here in New York, ’cause I know how much they cherish their memories of 1986, and in some cases 1969,” Alderson said. “It would be great to make that a trifecta.”
You can read the rest of this insightful and interesting interview conducted by Serby here.
