Reese Kaplan - Let the Hot Grill Season Begin!

Since the beginning of his tenure with the Mets Sandy Alderson has worked within the shackles of literally no money to spend (depending on the story of the week in that regard), so you’d like to think you could cut the man some slack.  After all, you can’t dip into free agency in a big way if the checks are going to bounce.  That left the trade market, but when he went to count the chips in his pile it was as thin as a Pringles.  

Consequently not out of design but out of necessity we started playing Moneyball without money.  He sought out potentially undervalued players to fill the roster.  Sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t.  He has often been called “Nero” for doing nothing while the franchise burned around him, but he has generated a lot of activity.  Unfortunately most of it was just treading water or worse.  Let’s take a look at some of his illustrious off-season acquisitions:

     

• Letting Jose Reyes walk away
• Chin-Lung Hu
• Collin Cowgill
• Allan Dykstra
• Ramon Ramirez
• Andres Torres
• Brad Emaus
• Mike Baxter
• Ronnie Paulino
• Willie Harris
• Miguel Batista
• D.J. Carrasco
• Blaine Boyer
• Pedro Beato
• Taylor Buchholz
• Chris Young
• Ronnie Cedeno
• Vinnie Rottino
• Rob Johnson
• Elvin Ramirez
• Rick Ankiel
• Greg Burke
• David Aardsma
• Frank Francisco
• Jon Rauch
• Scott Atchison
• Pedro Feliciano
• Aaron Laffey
• Shaun Marcum
• Brandon Lyon

Now let’s see the positive side of the off-season ledger:

• Scott Hairston (who he let walk away)
• Marlon Byrd
• LaTroy Hawkins (who he let walk away)
• Scott Rice

That’s quite a track record – a very, very bad one.  It seems, however, that he is a different animal entirely when it comes to the mid-season deal:

• Zack Wheeler
• Noah Syndergaard
• Travis d’Arnaud
• Dilson Herrera
• Vic Black

(Of course there’s one clinker here, too – Frankie Rodriguez for a few warm but injured bodies in a combined anger management/salary-dump deal).

So it would appear that when he has the mission of dumping salary and loading up on prospects once the team has fallen out of contention, he’s much better at his job.  I got to thinking about this dichotomy when trying to rationalize the inertia surrounding the team right now.  To most observers the Mets are knee deep in both starting pitching and bullpen arms, yet none are being traded to address the holes at shortstop, first base and to hit leadoff. 

Could it be he’s crazy like a fox and the whole off-season was designed with July madness in mind?  With Harvey gone, he couldn’t publicly proclaim the season was over, but why else would you ink a Chris Young to a one year overpaid deal and Bartolo Colon to a reasonable two year deal unless the intent was to flip them at the deadline?  Daisuke Matsuzaka is a goner, too.  Dillon Gee is probably on thin ice as his salary inches northward.  In fact, if Jon Niese was healthy and right handed, he’d probably be on the July trading block, too.   Think of it as the Tampa Bay Rays model – keep players until they’re about to be too expensive, then move ‘em out.  (The whole David Wright contract blows a hole in that theory, of course, but hey, they need to sell at least one t-shirt).

The long term goal was to build from within a viable, cost-controlled franchise.  Adding a Stephen Drew doesn’t fit that model, though a Chris Owings or Nick Franklin would.  With no in-house solutions for first base or shortstop (since it’s obvious they want no part of Wilmer Flores at either of those two positions) they probably feel they can hold up for ransom any of the contending teams seeking to fill holes in their rotations to ascend to the next level.  Right now the trading partners are not quite so desperate (witness the disinterest in Ike Davis as Exhibit A). 

90 wins is likely a pipe dream filled with Colorado’s and Washington’s finest, but “The Plan” could still have merit if he waves his magic wand in four months and turns expensive pieces into top notch prospects.  Best of all, he can find spots in the rotation for Wheeler, Syndergaard, Mejia and even de Grom if he is aggressive in his dealings.  We’ve seen what he can do when he has the off-season to think about things.  Let’s hope he continues the traditional July pillaging of the rest of the league.  So let’s throw another vet on the barbie and see what sizzling deals can be made.  Between now and then, unfortunately, there’s likely to be very little to attract the increasingly disinterested fan base.