Reese Kaplan -- Let's Avoid Midnight Massacre, The Sequel

Back in 1976 and spilling over into the following year the Mets were involved in a player vs. front office war spurred on by the newspaper columnist Dick Young who affiliated himself closely with M. Donald Grant.  Grant felt that Tom Seaver was not going to be bigger than the team and should not be paid an extraordinary amount of money despite what he'd done as "The Franchise", the appropriate nickname given to him for the magnitude of what he did to elevate the Mets from stand comedy routine into two-time World Series contenders during his professional career which had run at that time from boyhood rookie in 1967 to three-time Cy Young Award winner by age 32 during that 1977 season.  

The pinnacle of the dispute apparently occurred when Dick Young chose to mention Nancy Seaver, Tom's wife, in one of his columns.  While what he said wasn't terribly obnoxious (by Young standards anyway), the fact he brought a player's wife into a sports column in a throwaway paragraph concerning Nolan Ryan's wife and Nancy Seaver being close and how Ryan's new found contract exceeded what was being paid to Seaver.

It was that crossing of the line from professional to personal by Young that Seaver called the straw that broke the camel's back.  He demanded a trade away from the Mets and M. Donald Grant set out to find the most equitable package possible after having already told Seaver that the Cincinnati Reds were the most spirited in the bidding for his services.  

On June 15th that season the Mets engaged in what's become known as the "Midnight Massacre" when Seaver was sent to the midwest for a package containing co-Rookie of the Year Pat Zachry, stellar glove man Doug Flynn, and two rookie outfielders named Steve Henderson and Dan Norman.  Considering what Seaver had done for the club's history and his routine yearly selection to the All Star team, no one felt it was nearly enough compensation for the man regarded as the greatest pitcher of his generation.  However, even if Cincinnati had somehow managed to throw in half of the Big Red Machine offense into the package, the emotional gut-punch of the deal left fans feeling taken, used, angry and crushed.  

Accompanying that deal was the one sending sometimes troubled first baseman/outfielder Dave Kingman to the San Diego Padres for future Mets manager Bobby Valentine and minor league pitcher Paul Siebert. Injuries derailed Valentine's development and he was out of the majors before age 30 as a result.  Siebert was not awful, but his career was done by age 25 going in 87 games with a losing record and a 3.77 ERA.  That hardly seems like equitable compensation for one of the NL's most feared long ball hitters.

Many years later Frank Cashen tried to right that wrong by bringing Seaver back to Shea Stadium in 1983.  Bobby Valentine by then was a coach on the team and he revealed, "Ovations weren’t part of the day back then, the real raucous ones where it just kept on going. But they cheered Seaver from the time he finished warming up in the bullpen, in the loudest, most enthusiastic way, and as he walked from the bullpen all the way to the dugout, and as he left the dugout and went out to the mound to throw his first pitch. Wow.” 

Of course, it was also Frank Cashen who gambled and lost that no one would take a then 39 year old pitcher earning around $1 million onto their roster, but the White Sox were more than willing to do so.  He remained with the Chicago team for all of 1984, 1985 and part of 1986 before ironically getting moved to the future World Series opponent, the Boston Red Sox.  By then Seaver was 41 years old and far removed from his stellar Cincinnati Reds 1981 season when he went 14-2 with a 2.54 ERA.  

All of this history came to a head when articles began appearing regularly concerning the opt-out clause for current Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom.  While he hasn't had the World Series appearances of Tom Seaver, he's actually pitching at an even higher quality.  deGrom is keenly aware of what the Mets spent on pitcher Max Scherzer and infielder Francisco Lindor, so he knows what the team will pay for appropriate talents.  For those folks old enough to have suffered through the Midnight Massacre of 1977, many fear a sequel is in the works.  Steve Cohen has surprised many folks already both with his acquisitions and his terminations when players are not performing.  It is not the same environment it was back then and if all it takes is money to keep a fragile but stellar pitcher like deGrom around, the PR nightmare of letting him walk away would not be a balanced ledger of media mania.  Cohen should and will make it happen.  There are other pending free agents who need consideration as well, but the club allowing a second Seaver-like transaction to happen is unconscionable.