Reese Kaplan -- Chomping at the Bit for Mets Changes to Occur

Everyone who is old enough to have suffered through that ignominious night of June 15th in 1977 when the Mets made the Dick Young influenced decision to trade away The Franchise, Tom Seaver, to the Cincinnati Reds for a package that included Rookie of the Year Pat Zachry, utility infielder Doug Flynn and two rookies, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman.  The gut punch that Mets fans felt still hasn't gone away completely, even after the club reacquired Seaver several years later and then foolishly allowed him to slip away again by leaving him unprotected where he was selected by the White Sox in 1984.  He made two more full seasons of Major League Baseball before retiring at the end of the 1986 season playing for the World Series losing Boston Red Sox.

While that level of strong emotion cannot be expected nowadays where free agency, player and front office Twitter accounts make the fragility of the contracts quite public.  As a result, people are more prepared for player movement and salary demands as well as inklings of what the team is willing to pay.  That increased visibility probably removes some layers of loyalty to the player and instead translates into loyalty to the uniform any given player is wearing.  If a hated player from another team was headed to the Mets, all would be forgiven if he produced successfully for his new team.  

It's interesting nowadays to hold conversations about how folks feel regarding extending or waving goodbye to the potential free agents.  The hitters and pitchers who came up through the Mets farm system probably engender a greater loyalty from the fan base than those folks who were acquired via trade or short term free agent contracts.  Consequently there is a lot more emotion about Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto than there appears to be about Aaron Loup and Marcus Stroman.  Jeurys Familia is sort of an in-between as he was home grown, did not do very well his second time around, but you still occasionally feel the "it's better the devil you know" kind of rationale for keeping a familiar player around.  

Interestingly, external players are often put up on pedestals which is the polar opposite of "it's better the devil you know" viewpoint.  People assume when you bring in a player from another organization via trade or free agency that he will replicate for the Mets what he's done on average throughout his career.  Sometimes that's true such as the case of Asdrubal Cabrera who performed as expected when he signed here.  Sometimes the player exceeds what is written on the back of his baseball card (like Aaron Loup).  Sometimes he falters significantly like Francisco Lindor.  

It's going to be difficult to plan the roster for the upcoming season until the front office structure is settled.  Sandy Alderson's recent press conference seemed to echo much of what we'd concluded already.  He needs to find a President of Baseball Operations and a GM.  While he didn't come right out and say Zack Scott was toast, he surely wasn't baking him cupcakes to welcome him back.  Similarly, Luis Rojas' future will likely be a joint opinion of the front office folks that are hired with a termination being put squarely on the shoulders of the new GM if indeed that happens.  

Behind the scenes analysis is surely being done to identify existing employed personnel who they want to bring in to interview, but traditionally those kinds of meetings don't start until after the final out of the World Series is recorded.  It would indeed seem that time is of the essence, as a POBO and GM are needed in order to identify on-the-field decisions regarding not just the manager in charge but also the players to retain or pursue.  

All of us have pet favorites for each of the roles the Mets need to fill in the front office, filling out the lineup card and taking the field.  Saying you want to target a Freddie Freeman doesn't mean anything until you know who is going to be in charge of the plan building and the negotiations.  Right now all we can do is wait.