On family vacations when I was younger, — be it at Disneyworld, Washington D.C., or Busch Gardens — my family would always argue where to go first, how much time we would have to do this or that, etc. The debates would end with my dad, declaring “I have a plan.”, and that would settle the bickering. The way he said it made it sound as if he had spent hours online researching the best hot-spots; tirelessly coming up with a well thought out and detailed itinerary for our various excursions.
We took a trip to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia; I was about seven years old at the time. It was on that trip that my illusion of “the plan” was shattered. As we perused through the horse manure-covered dirt roads, it became obvious quite quickly that there was no plan. My dad was insistent that he had a plan of which historical buildings to visit and when, however in actuality, the master plan was completely improvised. In his defense the day was very enjoyable and we all had a great time. However, today “the plan” is a running joke in my immediate family; a joke my dad doesn’t exactly appreciate.
What makes me cringe, is hearing the Mets and Sandy Alderson talking about this master “plan”. The “plan” that convinced David Wright to commit to this organization for possibly the remainder of his baseball life. The plan that apparently involves being the only franchise in the sport not to sign a major-league free agent. The plan that the fanbase is expected to trust in, yet knows absolutely nothing about or if it even truly exists.
Maybe there is an actual plan in place to make this team a contender in the near future; or perhaps, — similar to what my father did on family trips to settle unrest — this illustrious plan is just an attempt to extinguish the outrage of the fans. Maybe, in reality, there is little to no plan actually in place outside of cutting payroll, building the farm, and sign AAAA players to fill the holes; more often than not unsuccessfully.
To what to degree of a plan there actually is remains a mystery to those not running the organization or named David Wright, but one aspect of this supposed plan is this: the Mets are indeed punting in 2013, and that is a fact no matter how many times Sandy Alderson says otherwise.
We can only hope that this “plan” that is being forced on the fans is legitimate, and that the front office is not just flying by the seat of their pants, randomly walking through the manure down a dirt road trying to figure out where in the world to go moving forward.
