Welcome, new owners, to your new team! It’s used, of
course; in fact, it’s quite far from being in mint condition. However, with
some real TLC, and a WHOLE lotta cash-money, things can change with the snap of
your fingers!!!
As a warm welcome to you, we would like to present to you
this FREE Operations Manual. This is the overview version – the FULL edition
will be available for purchase for the small sum of $10,000 – we can discuss
terms once you have taken full control of the operation! We will present this
to you in 3 parts, so that you have the time to take it all in, digest it, and
then be prepared to ask questions and make comments in the “comment section”
(wink, wink!)
Now, since you’ve purchased the team, and have looked
through the (embarrassing) financial records (and it’s still a miracle that you
actually had to BID on owning this team- they should have simply handed it to
you and said “please pay off all of our debts”), you KNOW that you’ve got a ton
of work on your hands to get this team to profitability. As you’re about to
see, you DO have some true gems on your hands – in the front office, the minor
and major leagues, and in your fan-base most of all! We will give you a broad
overview on these and other subjects – but remember, we can offer you a far
deeper dive for the low, low price of $10,000. Again, we can discuss that
later.
Here, then, is part one of our look at the entire Mets
organization for your Initial Operations Manual:
THE FRONT OFFICE
Now let’s get one thing straight – you are going to be
hiring or retaining a General Manager in the most challenging media market in
the world, good ole New York. The positive side is an incredibly passionate
fanbase; the negative side is that they’ve been lied to and abused for so long
that whichever way you decide to go you need to be prepared for the naysayers,
both loud and angry. That being said, you need to know that you can NEVER make
a move just to placate your fanbase- you need to make great, solid decisions
that will effect the team now and in the future.
We will present to you 3 examples of this, 2 who are
already successful and can be looked at as your template for success, and one
who could potentially replace your existing GM, but first, let’s discuss the
incumbent, Benedict Cumberbatch!!! Oops – I mean Brodie Van Wagenen (hereby
referred to as “BVM”).
Like his predecessor, Sandy Alderson, Brodie first seemed
to favor home runs and fastballs over defense and speed, two things that helped
put the team on the map on the way to their first four World Series appearances.
Then, this season, when injuries struck, all at once we had defense-first
players at shortstop/inf in Andres Gimenez and at second base/inf in Luis Guillorme (finally!!!!) Coupled with new addition Billy Hamilton in Center and
Tomas Nido catching, the team’s up-the-middle defense hadn’t looked so good
since the year 2000! We still had enough offense, in theory if not in
practicality (think NO RISP-movement) and with a pitcher such as Rick Porcello
or Michael Wacha on the mound, this type of defense can be critical to winning
games. Can we chalk this up to planning? Happenstance? Either way, it was
encouraging to see something that is supposed to be routine like a double-play become
just that for a change!!!
Fans should NEVER have to worry about something as simple
as highly paid, talented middle infielders not being able to make that routine
play! Look, Mets fans are highly educated about the ins and outs of the game,
and while our passion might make us shout for change before we’ve given
something a decent chance to succeed or fail, that passion is what has kept us
supporting this team even through the truly dark times (which encompasses WAY
too many years’ of this franchises’ existence!) So having a GM in place who
understands this passion, who understands what the fanbase truly wants, is
imperative to not just success in MLB but to success at the gate and beyond!
Has BVW done that? Has BVW had enough time to redo a very
broken and under-staffed organization – at all levels??? Well, to be fair, he’s
going to be judged publicly on the seemingly horrible trade of Jarred Kelenic and
company to the Mariners for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, or the equally bad
signing of Jed Lowrie. To be fair to Brodie, he has done a lot of things right;
he kept his promise to Pete Alonso and kept him in the majors from day one last
year, rewarded with a Rookie of the Year Award; he signed Jacob deGrom to a
long-term deal that will keep him a Met for the entirety of his career (an
article that I will be posting in the very near future); he maximized their
draft position 2 years in a row to “steal” extra players in the second, third
and supplemental rounds that good financial management of the draft allowed him
to have enough money to land these talented kids with; and he has hired an
excellent front office staff after coming onboard with a shortfall of talent
and a lack of a properly-sized workforce.
We know that being a GM in MLB these days means having to
wear so many hats at once, and it takes a group of experts in areas like player
development, financial management, scouting, analytics and marketing to be
overseen by someone who has put great thought and time into each of these
disciplines. To his credit, BVW has done just that – he’s brought on board
talents like VP/A-GM Allard Baird, A-GM Adam Guttridge, Special Advisor David
Wright, Special Assistants Omar Minaya and Terry Collins, Senior Director-
Baseball Operations Ian Levin, Executive Director, Player Development Jared
Banner, Exec Director, Business Intelligence & Analytics John Morris and
Manager Business Intelligence & Analytics Jon Cokorinos, amongst many others.
Each of these
hires (possibly with the exception of Terry Collins) have been great moves, as
BVW had the difficult task of redoing an entire organization on the fly,
without many existing contacts due to his prior career as an agent and without
the insight that comes from moving up within the ranks of a baseball front
office. Again, to be fair, BVW took the shortcomings that many pointed out when
he was first appointed and turned them into strengths by surrounding himself
with the right team. Regardless of the moves that he made, anything less than a
World Series victory meant that his however-brief honeymoon period was over,
and no, we have not reached that hallowed ground yet.
This brings us to whether or not BVW should be replaced.
We know it’s YOUR money on the line, and you’re going to have the urge to
possibly break up these departments and put your own team of leaders in place.
No one would blame you, but we’d urge you, as your (so far) unpaid consultants
to consider leaving this team of hard-working, intelligent people in place for
at least another season, as you learn their skillsets and styles of business, and
they yours. As we have seen too many times in sports, and in the business
world, change for change-sake too often ends in less-than-desired results.
And
to be fair to BVW, it’s NOT like he’s ever had a budget to work with that a New
York team both deserves and would seemingly require to be on top of the most
demanding market in the country, in the world. What could he do if he had the
money to extend a Zack Wheeler, to sign Marcus Stroman long-term, to go after
JT Realmuto this offseason – wait, we are getting ahead of ourselves here,
because we WILL offer a brief overview of prospective offseason moves to make
this team better. In the meantime, we have to wonder what the team and
organization would look like IF BVW had the right amount of money to work with
from day one. So, our recommendation would be to at LEAST give BVW and team
another year, with a real budget, before bringing in anyone else to lead this
organization.
Now, should you decide NOT to wait, and you wish to move
forward with someone, we have one recommendation to make – David Stearns of
Milwaukee Brewers fame!
Let’s look at Stearns, and Brian Cashman of the Yankees to
gain some perspective. First, some Yankee history. Back in 1964, a young Bronx
ballplayer by the name of Rodney Carew, 3 years since moving from Panama to NY,
was scouted by the Minnesota Twins. He was brought to Yankee Stadium when the
Twins were in town, and their lead scout had him get dressed in the uniform of
a young Cuban player, one Tony Oliva, who would go on to become the Rookie of
The Year. Carew was about an inch
shorter and a few pounds lighter, but they had to resort to this subterfuge
because the Yankees had a reputation for signing every player that wasn’t
nailed down, and filling their minor league teams with so many talented young
players that many never had a chance to show off their skillsets unless they
were traded elsewhere.
That was something the Yankees were known for, too –
trading away tons of bodies for major leaguers they wanted, like Roger Maris,
mostly with the then-Kansas City Athletics (an organization some kidded were
their Major League Farm-Team) but also with other teams. Even into the Gabe
Paul-led 70’s, think back to the huge deals that brought players like ChrisChambliss and Graig Nettles to the team!
Thankfully, Carew was indeed signed by the Twins, mere
hours after his graduation day, and as we know went on to an amazing
Hall-of-Fame career with the Twins and Angels. The chase for Carew and the
tactics used were emblematic of the way the system was screwed up, so much so
that thankfully a major league draft was implemented the very next year. And
that brings us to one Brian Cashman. Cashman has been with the organization for
30 plus years, the lions-share as their GM. While he inherited both an amazing
talent-base at the major league level and a whole host of talented executives,
the farm system he was presented with was less-than championship caliber.
He
had to buy his way through it, and the team spent literally billions – with a
B- of dollars to constantly import great talent as their once-divine right of
being in nearly every World Series was restored to the organization, if for
only a half-dozen or so years. That showed both the volatility of the draft and
young talent as well as the lifespan of dynasties in an MLB that is much more
even-keeled in it’s power-base.
Fast forward a number of years, and a lot of losing and
years without World Series appearances later, and we find that the current
Yankees team is an amalgam of both fantastic home-grown players (Aaron Judge, LuisSeverino, Gary Sanchez, Brett Gardner) and expensive free agents and trades
(Aroldis Chapman, Gerrit Cole, Zack Britton, DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton)
that, combined with a farm system that has and continues to bare great fruit
has kept the Yankees at the top or near top of their division for a very long
time. The Dodgers, upon ownership change, did a speed-version of the Yankees
current philosophy, over-spending to contend then focusing far more heavily on
what is now an amazing farm system to continually deliver top-notch players.
The main similarity between these two, very successful organizations???
MONEY!!! Lots of it, sometimes TOO much of it, but we know that in order to be
successful in today’s MLB, in spite of the current CoronaVirus-necessitated
changes, you need to spend big money to make it. Nowhere in the world is it
more imperative than in New York, and nowhere is it more important than in
Queens, providing a fanbase, once and for all, with the resources it so richly
deserves.
Cut back to BVW for a moment – if you think that, either
with or without a huge cash infusion, that he’s NOT the right person to lead
this organization, then there IS one man whom we’d love to see you bring in;
he’s someone that – hopefully like you- has been a Mets fan since birth, an
already very successful major league GM (actually President of Baseball
Operations/GM) with the Milwaukee Brewers, one David Stearns!! David (great
name, by the way) has already led the under-budgeted Brewers to some
prominence, as he’s been smart in acquisitions (Christian Yelich!!!!!!), strong
in player development (Josh Hader) and excellent in drafting young talent.
The
Manhattan native actually started in the Mets front office, right out of
Harvard, and went on to make his mark with the Cleveland Indians and working
for MLB as well. He’s young (35) and smart, well-liked within the game and
possesses all of the qualities you look for in hiring someone to hopefully
steer your organization for the next 10 years or more. It’s worked across town,
it’s worked in Texas with another Mets-fan, Jon Daniels, and there’s no reason
why it wouldn’t work in NY with Stearns, as LONG AS he’s given the right amount
of money to spend, not just on the big leagues but on the amateur draft and
international marketplace.
Both the Dodgers and Yankees have practically
“broken the bank” when it comes to signing international players, so much so
that now, when great players are recognized in places such as the Dominican
Republic and Venezuela, their first thoughts are to try to sign with these
teams as their paydays and paths for advancement have been proven time and
again. Now the Mets haven’t exactly been wallflowers in this department, but
wouldn’t it be nice to know that the Mets became the number one destination for
both international prospects and major league free agents to want to sign
with??? THAT would be an ultimate sign of accomplishment!!
With David Stearns behind the wheel, and again, we still
think BVW deserves at LEAST one more year to prove himself, but with Stearns
behind the wheel we think you would really be on your way to building a first
class organization!!
In Part Two of our Operations Manual, we will take a look
at the next, critical parts of your new team: the state of the current roster
and minor league systems. Until then, get some sleep, stay hydrated, and start
transferring over some of those millions to the team’s coffers – they’re going
to need them!!!
12 comments:
Very interesting "Part I". I look forward to Parts II and III.
The Yanks have had their share of injuries in recent years, but their spending keeps them flush with talent to step right up. As my brother screamed, BVW said the team was flush with starting pitching, bro' felt strongly otherwise, and bro' is right - again.
Smart GMs don't trade away terrific talent - not just Kelenic, but Woods-Richardson will very likely be painful mistakes to watch for years to come.
The one thing I want you all to walk away with after reading this is the people that Brodie hired within the organization to work in the analytical and draft divisions of the team.
This is a great team that has greatly improved how this team conducts themselves at building a new future for this team.
And he fired Fonzie.
This is a really good post, David. Hope Steve Cohen and A-rod are paying attention
Thanks Tom & Mack!!!
John From Albany- keep reading - you will see a nice mention of Fonzie and his recommended future with the team!
Mike- thank you so much!! I think if they listen to all of us dedicated fans, they will certainly be much better positioned to be successful as owners, before and up to contending. Will sure be WAY easier for all of us to swallow the changes from the new regime, whoever it is!
I may have to FedEx a copy of the completed copy to the new owner's- whether its a him or a they! Would LOVE to hear other suggestions to add!!!
Excellent Read David!!
LGM LGM LGM !!!
Dave - All Fonzie begging aside, it is a great work.
You could also point to how Doubleday and Wilpon built the 1986 championship. First, they brought in a solid baseball guy with a history of success - Frank Cashen and let him run the show. Frank brought in Lou Gormen and Joe McIlvaine as his lieutenants. They then started stockpiling pitching prospects. We know how Gooden, Sid Fernandez, Ron Darling and others they traded for or drafted but they also had some misses like Tom Gorman, Wally Whitehurst and others like not signing Clemens after they drafted him. The trick was that they recognized it was a numbers game. Not all prospects make it but by stocking up, you get enough that do.
The point is that the winning formula is right in the Mets History - Fundamentals and defense like Gil - stock piling prospects to build your foundation and have as chips for trades.
Absolutely John FA- great example!!! Cashen, as I mentioned was forced on them. Let’s hope Manfred doesn’t do same with new owners. Doubt we’d get that lucky twice!
And thank you!
And thank you!
Well written. Have you ever thought of writing a blog or for a newsletter. Yeah i know the answer
You should be hired by the new owners and put on the management team
Thanks Unknown. Been blogging about the Mets for 16 years- but would love to be on the new owners management team but that won’t ever happen. In the meantime I would just love to see the Wilpons out finally.
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