As we enter into final week of July, and the final days leading up to the trade deadline, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the team and the important task at hand for Sandy Alderson. Like most of you, I’m hoping the GM is working the phones and trying to bolster the team as we make our push for a play-off spot.
Where Do We Stand?
This has been such a fun and exciting season for me. Yes, there’s been plenty of ups and downs, but that’s just baseball. The great news is that after eight years of heartache and some god awful baseball at times, we have a real chance to get into the postseason and make some noise for the first time since 2006.
The starting pitching has been phenomenal and even better then what many were expecting. I’ll put our 1-4 starters of Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, and Jon Niese up against any other team’s top four. And don’t forget Steven Matz should be back sometime in August.
Jeurys Familia has been a godsend in that bullpen. But I am also excited by what I’ve seen from Bobby Parnell (despite his first meltdown) and Jenrry Mejia. And who doesn’t think that Sean Gilmartin is one of the best rule five signings of this decade? He’s been fantastically effective.
Bottom line, our pitching has been incredibly phenomenal and all these young power arms, both in the rotation and the pen, have been well worth the wait. They’re all as good as advertised and because of them, we’re at the threshold of an exciting new era of Mets baseball.
Let’s not waste this tremendous pitching…
For years we’ve been told that when all the top young pitching prospects arrived, that the team would be ready to supplement them with the bats.
Remember “The Plan” – the one that compelled David Wright to sign that $138 million dollar extension? When’s the last time you heard the front office, or anyone on the Mets, refer to The Plan?
I’m struggling to see what the strategy is, now that all the pitching is finally here…
I see a lot of fumbling around and confusion. I see a front office that did a poor job of addressing a suffocating offense in the offseason. Their only two additions: Michael Cuddyer and John Mayberry have been colossal failures. Especially given the dollars invested and the loss of a first round draft pick.
Everyone makes mistakes and Sandy Alderson is obviously not immune to them. But what really bothers me is how he’s failed to react to what is currently the worst offensive team in baseball. For the third year in a row.
I’m not naïve enough to believe that Alderson has the financial flexibility to go out and get high-cost options like Troy Tulowitzki and Justin Upton. But can we at least start by improving a bench that is being outproduced by the team’s pitchers. Can we start there? Can we start somewhere?
I have always maintained since the start of the season that the Mets were just a couple of tweaks away from becoming a powerhouse in the National League East, and I still feel that way.
With our elite pitching all we need to do is put together an offense that can give the team an average of 4.0 runs per game. That’s not exactly a door busting offense! but it would certainly be enough to take this team from good to great.
The Mets are 35-5 when scoring four runs or more. Unfortunately, they are only averaging 3.46 runs per game, which ranks 28th in the majors and is down from 3.88 RPG in 2014.
What is the team’s biggest obstacle?
Scanning the rumor mills and all the Mets buzz in recent days, it’s actually much easier to tell you who the Mets are not going to get instead of whom they are closing in on.
If most of these reports are true, and I have no reason to believe that they are not , the Mets are already out on Ben Zobrist, Justin Upton, Josh Reddick, Carlos Gomez, Aramis Ramirez, Yoenis Cespedes and Jean Segura. The reason is mostly because of money, and in some cases we are talking about less than $3 million dollars.
Nobody is advocating that the Mets should have a $165 million dollar payroll like their division rival Washington Nationals. But if you don’t think that being limited to a $100 million dollar, bottom ten payroll, isn’t debilitating to our ability to improve and address problems as they happen, you’re delusional.
Which brings me to our inept and dysfunctional ownership, who for years have stagnated our progress and stigmatized our brand. An ownership that is so disjointed and disconnected from its fan base, that they’ve robbed us of our hope and enjoyment because we’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Whenever we do have some great news and moments to relish, the Wilpons will always find a way to ruin it for us. The good times never seem to last that long, while the bad times seem to linger forever.
It saddens me that here we are at the precipice of greatness and the dawn of a new era, and we are stuck with an ownership that refuses to provide the resources necessary to launch this team into a long run of sustained championship caliber baseball.
It repulses me when I read about how attendance and tickets sales are at decade highs, SNY viewership is recording record ratings, and their blog network is raking in record earnings. Meanwhile, the front office is precluded from pursuing any options that will cost more than $3-5 million dollars.
So while Sandy Alberson has done an awful job spending the few little resources he’s had, I can’t kill him entirely when he’s working in an environment with such tight financial restrictions.
Just like our starting pictures have to be perfect if they are to have any chance at earning a win, so too does the front office have to be perfect with the little pittance they have to spend. There’s no margin for error, and that means operating under a constant burden of stress and pressure to perform. Nobody should have to work under conditions like this.
So what do we do next…
Unfortunately, the options are very, very limited. But that doesn’t mean that we should give up or that we shouldn’t try to scratch and claw our way to a playoff spot that is well within our reach.
We don’t need to bring in a couple of superstars. But if we could find a way to add someone like Will Venable or Gerardo Parra and yes even Ben Zobrist, it would mean so much to improving our offense and our chances to succeed.
With the Mets recouping 75% of the $20 million dollars David Wright was owed this season, that’s more than enough money to bring in not one, but two productive bats. Like I said earlier, we don’t need to score 5 or 6 runs per game. All we need to do is get from 3.5 to 4.0 runs per game . That is very doable.
So it’s incumbent on Sandy Alderson and the front office to do what’s necessary to bring the players this team needs to get into the postseason where the Mets would suddenly become a force to be reckoned with. Opposing teams would quiver in fear at the prospect of having to face our starting pitching in a short series.
I believe that the Mets could go very far with this elite pitching staff and powerful bullpen. It only needs an average offense to put it altogether and go all the way.
This is our time. This is our window. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. We have the pitching, but we need the bats. Let’s not waste the incredible opportunity and future that lies before us. Let’s do this.
