Sandy Alderson asked a simple question in regards to Rafael Montero’s promotion to the Met’s rotation.
“What gives us the best chance to win?”
But all I heard was, “What gives me the best chance to keep my job?”
Sandy Alderson has been receiving heavy criticism, along with the rest of the Mets organization after enduring a losing streak that sunk them below .500 and into last place in the NL East. A few weeks ago, Alderson was flying high; his bold claim of 90 wins was referenced as the team started to pile wins together. Unfortunately, Sandy and the Mets must have flown too close to the sun.
The losses began to pile up and with them, so did criticisms
of how Sandy Alderson has constructed the 2014 Mets. The roster is bereft of
talent. Players under the Sandy regime are stumbling so far this year. Curtis
Granderson has struggled, but so too have players like Zack Wheeler and Travis
d’Arnaud. A year ago, Alderson was lauded for these moves. Things just are not
working out like he planned.
But just when you think you have the guy figured out, he
surprises you.Let me just say, the news of Rafael Montero’s promotion really surprised me. Mets fans everywhere have been bludgeoned over the head with the term “Super 2” so many times that they have been resigned to not even entertain the thought of a promotion based upon merit and not money. Convincing ourselves that waiting was the right solution became similar to Stockholm syndrome.
Now, Alderson is set to break the trend by starting Montero
tomorrow against the Yankees. So now we get to the question at hand. Does Sandy
fear for his job? He is in the last year of his contract and earlier in spring
training felt confident that his option would be picked up. But with the team
faltering and some people reminiscing about Omar Minaya, maybe Sandy felt the
need to make a change.
Adding Montero and essentially ensuring that he will become
a Super 2 reeks of desperation by the GM. Denying media on Sunday was a telling
sign that he really had no answers for the recent play of his team. Making this
move, and hopefully some others, is Alderson’s life preserver. Moving Jenrry
Mejia into the bullpen and eventually promoting Jacob deGrom should keep him
afloat. They will also serve as a smokescreen for Mets fans patiently waiting
for the lifeboat, Noah Syndergaard, to grace New York with his presence. Alderson went on to say that Montero’s promotion is a special case.
“He's got more experience at Triple-A than any of our other young, touted pitchers. ... We think he's ready now."
Rafael Montero doesn’t get the attention that previous Mets pitchers have received. Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler were touted as saviors upon their arrival to the big leagues. Noah Syndergaard has garnered Mets fan’s adoration since both he and Montero started the Future’s game. Montero doesn’t have the power stuff that the others possess and may not be a future ace of this staff, but now is his time because Sandy says so.
I wish the best for Rafael Montero. I think he will have a good career. He doesn’t have to be the No. 1 guy right away. I don’t think anyone is expecting that. But I do know that there is no bigger Montero fan than Sandy Alderson right now. I’m not saying he will be fired tomorrow or anything, but Sandy needs to start making a case to stay next year. Progress needs to be made and the success of prospects like Montero will do wonders to shore up his job security going into 2015
When Montero steps on the mound Wednesday, he will be pitching to establish himself and keep a job with the Mets. He might also be pitching for Sandy’s.
9 comments:
If Sandy was truly worried about his job then he would replace the stooge-in-charge on the field. His in-game decision making and bullpen management are a large part of why this talent-thin team is as bad as it has been every since his sad arrival. That they chose to re-up him for 2 more years after declining results the first three is the biggest testament to failure of the Alderson regime.
I dont think he's worried about his job at all. Im pretty sure he'd rather be commisioner next if anything. That being said, this move sounded like frustration not desperation. Theres nothing in it to me that doesnt talk about long term vs short term.
Meija deserved to start, got his chance, will now become an 8th or 9th inning guy.
Degrom while maybe a 3rd starter could become a long term bullpen solution or just pitching 20 days out of the pen and then go back to Vegas
Montero is pitching extremely well, he's an upgrade over dice-K who should be in vegas. super 2 might be really early this year and they might send him back to vegas bc of innings limits later. also i dont think they are worried about super 2 w montero. i think they think he'd be open to an extension bc unlike everyone else we talk about he's never made any money in baseball. so they figure if he's the real deal thye can get him in that 20-25 mm long term deal after this year
it helps that meija kind of worked himself into the bullpen for montero. degrom is surprising but i dont think they think he's going to be up for too long anyway.
super 2 only really matters for guys that youd go all the way through arbitration for and are star potential players where the numbers become exponential.
I have ot agree with the other commenters here. I doubt Alderson is even remotely worried about his job. This is a stepping stone to the commissioner job and I'd put money on it that there was an agreement with Selig and the league before he signed with Mets. Of course, I've bet a lot of slow horses, so.....
I'm guess Alderson is just feeling a sense of urgency - it gets late early. This is great news to me!
Less than 2 weeks ago, Sandy said that the guys down in AAA would get some time pitching out of the bullpen to prepare them for that role in Queens. I don't think that happened once, so my strong sense is that these moves, if not made out of panic, are certainly coming ahead of the timetable that Sandy was hoping for. I think that if the team continued to win, they would have kept everyone down on the farm until the Super 2 deadline, at least. But really, things were getting very ugly very quickly. Folks were angry, the media was circling, and something, anything, had to be done.
That said, I'm glad we're finally getting some of the kids up here. I have a feeling that Mejia, Familia and DeGrom will form a better bullpen than what we've been watching. And even if they struggle, they may as well get the experience under their belts.
My guess is we will never know the complete reason all these changes happened.
Alderson's refusal to discuss Mejia (or anything else) the other night before Montero and deGrom were annouinced scream of 'someone' else being part of this decision also,
It would be nice to get the news without all the anti-Mets editorializing. Just sayin'. You know, its entirely possible that what Sandy said is the absolute truth of it--Montero IS a special case and he DOES have more experience at AAA than any of the other young arms. Anytime people start speculating what someone is thinking rather than reporting what they said, I have to tune out.
You're speculating now, Stubby...
Not at all, Mack. Sandy said Montero was a special case and that he had more experience at AAA than our other young pitchers. Are those true facts? They are. Put a big period on your story and stop with the "panic" headlines.
I don't give a shit why it has happened, just glad it has.
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