An optimist says the glass is half full. A pessimist says the glass is half empty. A realist says the glass is refillable. A paranoid sufferer says you should be using plastic instead of glass since it’s less likely to shatter and cut you. Right now Mets fans are starting to divide into these camps. Yes, there is still some residual optimism, but thus far pretty much everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.
What? I’m being all doom and gloom?
Well, let’s start with the search for front office baseball personnel. The Mets announced it was not their intention to have Sandy Alderson be the head of baseball operations. Together he and a newly hired baseball business professional would help the club set a positive course for October baseball.
Whoops! That didn’t quite happen, did it? After several folks were prohibited by the employers from interviewing with the Mets and the one person they did interview, ex-Marlin Michael Hill, the Mets awkwardly announced that, ummm, uh, Sandy Alderson would be in charge.
Then we heard about the intention to hire a GM who would eventually ascend into taking Sandy Alderson’s role with the club. This approach would allow a baseball business savvy individual to be brought on board with Sandy Alderson filling in the blanks on how to be a GM. Former Rangers, Padres, Mets, Mariners and Royals pitcher Chris Young seemed to fit the mold perfectly. He was hired by MLB to help with administrative tasks, eventually taking over for Joe Torre as the person in charge of fines and other discipline for players who misbehave on the field. He worked with Sandy Alderson in the past and looked like the good prospect to a learning-on-the-job role eventually leading to President of Baseball Operations or some other similar step up the hierarchical ladder above and beyond negotiating contracts and making personnel changes.
Ummm, uh….that one didn’t exactly work out either. Just as Mike Hampton once bid a quick farewell to the Mets so that his kids could enjoy the school systems of the Denver area, an announcement came from Young that he was pulling out of his candidacy because he didn’t want to uproot his children from their Dallas area schools. I’m not picking on someone for putting family ahead of his own personal gain, but it sure looked like Plan B was turning into Plan 9 from Outer Space.
The Mets did bid farewell to a bunch of front office personnel that no one seemed sad to see depart. Monday they announced that Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens would not be returning in 2021 to serve in his role as bench coach. He was initially hired as a friend and mentor to then-player Carlos Beltran who was for a short time a member of the San Francisco Giants. He was actually a managerial candidate for both the Mets and Red Sox but failed to land either spot. When Luis Rojas was necessarily and quickly promoted to replace the ousted Beltran, he inherited Meulens. This time around the Mets have told Rojas they will help him to find someone with whom he feels a connection, though Rojas had nothing but kind words for Meulens in their very brief time together.
The issue now for the Mets remains the rest of the on-the-field coaching staff. All were chosen long before Rojas stumbled onto the thin ice that was the 2020 season. Batting coach Chili Davis who worked remotely for the season, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner who shepherded the worst pitching in all of baseball, returnees Gary DiSarcina and bullpen coach Ricky Bones may be subject to replacement as well. First base coach Tony DeFrancesco and catching coach Brian Schneider may have a little firmer grasp on the upcoming baseball season.
While the personnel mumbling and fumbling continues to bedevil the team, many wonder where they will be in the pursuit of free agents and trades with no one in the front office to take charge of this responsibility. Yes, Sandy Alderson has been a GM in the past, but his role is supposed to be more structural and business-focused while the GM would take charge of the roster construction. Without a GM and without a top front office baseball operations person is forcing Sandy Alderson to wear a great many hats. With the Winter Meetings about to begin next week the Mets are somewhat behind the eight ball in terms of planning and negotiating. Today we will hear who gets and who does not get contracts as it is the non-tender deadline. Mssrs. Matz, Gsellman and Castro will breathe a lot easier if they still have a job.
To hear the folks in charge tell it, the Mets are planning to be more focused on free agent acquisition than upon trades as they have precious little in their upper minors that other teams would covet and they don’t seek to cripple future success by sending away the better prospect currently in the 18-19 year old range who could help the Mets in 2-3 more years of development.
Right now the fans are still giving Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson carte blanche to build and develop the team with a new focus for perennial competitiveness. Still, for a franchise full of a tattered history of missteps and half-efforts, it’s beginning to look as rosy as it was when the transition from the Wilpon family to Steve Cohen became a reality. There’s still plenty of time, but some folks are already reaching for their antacids, expecting more in the future like it was in the past.
5 comments:
I think that despite all that, the agents and players will want to know whether Uncle Steve wants them before signing elsewhere. Hopefully, the lack of decision on front office help will not hinder the building of a killer roster in the weeks to come.
I think Big Free agents will start to sign next week but not sure how the "virtual" setting will change the process. I think, with or without a GM, the Mets will add some of the big names.
I'm really curious what the budget will be. Say Cohen lets the Mets spend up to the cap this year then we have around 60 million left after May.
In a perfect but probably not realistic world Springer/Bauer/McCann/Hand would seemingly blow by that number by a fair amount. Just that group of 4 would probably add at least 75 million (25/25/15/10). Adding to fantasy land Mets fans also want Lindor...add another 20 million and you're already 35 million over the luxury tax.
No let's add to this thought exercise. What happens next year? Cano comes back on the books (20 mil) and we have to sign/replace Stroman, Thor and Conforto and have no upper level prospects ready so probably have to use FA. We also have to give arbitration raises to the existing core. Very quickly the budget has gotten completely out of control and to keep the team competitive (realistically Conforto, Thor, Stroman extensions or replacements will not come cheap) we could easily be looking at a payroll near 300 million to do so.
What this all really means is that there is almost zero chance we get Lindor and that we probably have to settle for one of the big free agents like Springer and then look at the middle market for some of the other players. Maybe someone else can show me how the Mets can make the budget work for 2022 and make all the fantasy land moves the fans want. The fact is a guy like Gimenez is HUGELY valuable to the Mets because he is productive and cheap while everyone else starts getting very expensive. Maybe Cohen will change his mind and spend like a drunken sailor his first couple of years while the Mets build up their farm system like the Dodgers did. The Dodgers had a 280 million payroll when the new ownership group took over and then worked at paring that down.
I think more realistically the Mets try to get Springer/McCann and 2 mid level starters and a left hand relief pitcher non named Hand (unless his price drops to a reasonable level). This drastically improves the team and could possibly keep them under the luxury tax this year. They will almost certainly blow by it next year by a large amount but it then gives the Mets 2 years to develop their younger talent into players that can replace the expensive players in 2023 and beyond.
Dallas' caffeine really kicked in this morning and he makes some excellent points here. People think Cohen is going to be Steinbrenner II. While I wouldn't squawk at multiple post seasons, the fact is that you can't sustain that model without being willing to spend, spend and spend again. It makes more sense to get 2 solid FAs and then make sure you develop other solutions internally, including trading away no longer needed pieces to fill out the upper minors.
Yeah, Dallas pretty much nailed it.
Cano's salary and resolving Thor's pending free agency will be the challenges.
I have just reworked my original 2021 plan (the armchair GM). It does not include Bauer, settles in at $202M for 2021 without Syndergaard, and $178M still on the books for 2022, but with holes in the rotation and the left side of the infield. Familia's contract comes off, and Conforto is signed for 5 years. I'll post the full plan (probably need some tweaks after tonight - hearing they are non-tendering Shreve?) at some point where it makes sense.
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