Richard Herr - Don’t Wait Until Next Year! It Starts Now - 3

I’m throwing aside that old cry of “Wait until next year.” Next year starts right now. 2017 is creaking its way toward the end of the season, but preparations for next year have to begin. There are a couple areas of concern that have to be handled right away so they are in place at the end of the season. The club has to be ready to move forward with the off-season programs in place. Needless to say, this series of articles is going to stretch into the off-season as I consider the whole list of topics, rendering the title of this series obsolete as time goes along.

This article might hit after the season ends, but we are getting to the decisions that could be made after the the season's over.

So what's the next area for consideration?

GENERAL MANAGER

I was ready to coast along on this one. I was ready to tell Sandy to fix a couple of things and we could glide into next season. Then I saw something that totally changed my mind. I found out that the Mets’ minor league system was rated 27th out of 30. I had already been worrying about the system. I kept seeing the poor won-and-lost records for the teams. I noted the sub-par numbers on many of the players. I thought things were bad, but third worst?

I’d like to go back a little bit to trace Sandy’s history.

He was hired originally to settle the finances of the club after the owners lost a bundle in the Madoff Ponzi scheme. The previous GM was Omar Minaya. He had some bad contracts driving up the payroll: an ill-advised one to Luis Castillo who had quickly aged, one to Oliver Perez who promptly injured his arm playing in the Mexican League, and one to Jason Bay, a homerun hitter the owners moved into a brand-new stadium that was the size of the Grand Canyon. Omar had also had a very stupid argument with a reporter (however, that wasn’t going to affect the objective views of the rest of the New York Press).

Sandy did get the payroll down, to the delight of the owners. Unfortunately the team’s performance suffered on the restricted budget. Sandy did manage to bring the team’s performance up for a few years, but the team has been bugged by injuries. They also don’t look like they are going to have the glowing future I thought they would.

The Mets did look good in ’15 and ’16 owing in large part to the number of young players in the system that Sandy inherited from Omar (Even though the Press labeled his farm system as bad). The list includes: Jacob deGrom, Jeurys Familia, Steven Matz, Matt Harvey, Hansel Robles, Rafael Montero, Jon Niese, Lucas Duda, Ike Davis, Wilmer Flores, Daniel Murphy, Juan Lagares, and Angel Pagan. Sandy was also able to take a couple of Omar pieces, R.A. Dickey and Carlos Beltran, and turn them in to Noah Syndergaard, Travis d’Arnaud, and Zack Wheeler. On Sandy’s part he’s been able to produce Michael Conforto, Michael Fullmer, Amed Rosario, Dominic Smith, Seth Lugo, Robert Gsellman, Kevin Plawecki, Brandon Nimmo, Matt Reynolds, and Gavin Cecchini. A large number of these players came out of the 2011 draft that was overseen by the now-departed Paul DePodesta and Chad MacDonald.

Sandy has also let go of some pretty significant players. He traded away Angel Pagan for a couple of guys who weren’t even as good as a bag of baseballs. He let two players go, Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy, who are all-star players on division-winning teams.

What conclusion do I draw from this? SANDY CANNOT JUDGE PLAYER TALENTS. He has bypassed skilled players to save money. He has shown little player recognition in his stocking of the farm system. He keeps trying to pick players on the basis of what his computer tells him about sabermetrics, not about skills. The damned system is rated 27th!

I would be advocating letting Sandy go, to be replaced by someone who is a little more talent-savvy, but I’m holding back from that. I’m saying, Sandy, the system is broken, you’ve got to fix it. You’ve got to hire some player-development people who are going to bring the farm system up to - yes, New York Press, I’m saying this - Omar Minaya standards.

Why am I not out to get a different GM? This is the 3rd in this series of articles. In the first two, I advocated getting rid of the owners and the head of conditioning. Since that time the muscle man has been rehired for next year. I also don’t see any move afoot on the part of the commissioner to replace these very same owners I want to get rid of. If these owners stay, they would make the decision on the new GM.

That’s where I’ve got a problem. I have this recurring nightmare, from which I wake up screaming. Jeffy Wilpon calls a press conference to announce, “We have decided to part ways with Sandy Alderson. I am here to introduce you to our new General Manager-------------Isiah Thomas.”

I could see that happening. Could you?