Reese Kaplan -- Job Number One for New Owners

Mets fans are on the edge of their seats this weekend, but not for the overcrowded subway series with the crosstown rival New York Yankees.  Surely those games carry extra bragging rights for whomever emerges with victories.  That's a fun activity if the Mets indeed are the victors as there's been so little to brag about during this highly dynamic and grossly abbreviated 2020 season.  

No, the real issue on the table is that it's the final submission of proposals to purchase the team from the Wilpon family come Monday morning, August 31st.  So instead of pondering what wild-assed trade transactions may be taking place for the New York Mets in their September wobble towards the wildcard, instead it's time to ponder who might be the new members residing in the owner's box come 2021 and what it means to the future of the team.

Well, instead of pondering on the pros and cons of the virtues of the investors and con men bidding to supplant the Wilpon amateur hour, let's look at what they need to do when the take hold of the reins and start steering the ballclub into a new direction.  Obviously the Mets have been spending oddly, hiring strangely and bidding farewell to some players before it's time while holding onto other long past their expiration dates have arrived.  

The first order of business for the new owners will be deciding the front office.  The Wilpons' decision to hire never-before-GM baseball agent Brodie Van Wagenen to assume this critical role has resulted in typical Mets fashion.  BVW has had some success.  Let's not forget what he's done well.  He promoted Pete Alonso weeks before typically done by most other teams to preserve longterm negotiating leverage and he rewarded his GM with a 53 HR Rookie of the Year season along with a Home Run Derby victory at the All Star Game.  It frankly doesn't get any better than that.  

He also made the decision to hang onto deposed first baseman Dom Smith instead of trading him for the proverbial bag of balls.  For folks who forget his 2019 season, he hit for average, for power, his smile lit up the rest of the ballclub and he was thrust into learning the outfield on the fly to allow him to be in the same lineup as Alonso.

Perhaps BVW's best trade ever was sending three minor leaguers to the cheating Houston Astros to pick up ex AAA batting champion J.D. Davis.  No one knew where he was going to play, but someone he managed to get over 400 ABs and accumulate more than 20 HRs while hitting for a high average at the same time.  

Many of the boo birds who were ready to crucify Van Wagenen for the major trade sending minor leaguers (and salary relief for major leaguers) to Seattle to pick up dual All Stars Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano are pretty much holding their tongues this year when both are playing the way everyone had hoped when the deal was made. 

The problem with BVW is that he's a win-now-at-any-cost type of inexperienced GM.  As a result, he's pillaged the minor league system with little to show for the purge except a lack of depth in the mid to upper levels.  I won't go line by line reciting who has gone and what didn't result from the deals, but suffice to say the Mets are not going to see a lot of personnel from within during the new reign post-Wilpon because there's precious little there.  

Now this past week BVW committed one of the cardinal sins of the front office but leaving his mic on to criticize the behavior of the baseball commissioner.  The Wilpon family came down with both barrels, quickly apologizing to Rob Manfred and jointly throwing their green GM under the bus.  If the Wilpons remained in charge, you'd bet that BVW would be cashing his last Mets payroll check at the year's end.  

The question remains for the new owners is whether or not the unproven GM has done more harm than good.  The new owners probably want to curry favor with Manfred as well, yet they may not want to toss $5 million dollars down the sewer by relieving the man of his two remaining $2.5 million years on his contract.  On the other hand, it's possible they think that the public relations victory by replacing someone who has not done what he was hired to do might make that $5 million a decent investment.  Either way, it appears to be job number one for the Wilpon replacements.