MONUMENTAL METS MISTAKES VOL. 2
As noted the other day, my brother Steve suggested, and he
and I collaborated on, writing articles about five specific transactions the
Mets should’ve done or...should’ve not done, that were Monumental to
the (lack of) success of this franchise over its nearly 60 years of existence.
Everyone can make mistakes – but you want to avoid Monumental
Mistakes like these five if you want to have a successful franchise.
Previously, we addressed Monumental Mistake # 1:
Not drafting Reggie Jackson, and drafting "answer to a trivia question" Steve Chilcott instead.
Today?
Monumental
Mistake # 2:
Trading
the Great Tom Seaver.
The Mets’ Tom Seaver joined the worst franchise in baseball history over a five year period (1962-66), won NL rookie of the year
in 1967, earned a Cy Young in his 25-7 season in 1969 and a second Cy Young a
few years hence, and led the NL in earned-run average three times by the
end of 1973.
He was the face of the NY Mets franchise, and arguably baseball’ best pitcher.
After 7 enormously successful seasons (1967-73, in which he went 135-76 for a mostly weaker than average hitting team, averaging 262 innings per year and with an overall 2.38 ERA), the Mets and Seaver agreed to a one-year $172,500 contract, an amount that looking back, and all things considered, seems ridiculously low.
If we read the CPI charts correctly, based on CPI, the equivalent
of a dollar in 1967 would be about $7.50 in 2019, so Seaver’s $172,500 contract
X 7.5 = about $1.3 million. Or about
1/30th of what he would be paid today, in real terms.
The Mets were getting an incredible bargain.
Seaver then signed a three-year extension in
1975 that paid him $225,000 per year, keeping him the highest paid pitcher in
baseball. He won his 3rd Cy Young in 1975 and led the NL in Ks in both 1975 and
1976.
But a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was
reached in 1976, resulting in free-agency for the first time and the rapid
beginnings of a seismic upward salary shift in baseball.
Other good, but mostly lesser, players started
getting huge increases, leaving Seaver sliding down the salary scale by
comparison. What did the Mets do to remedy the matter? Nothing.
Mr. Scrooge, disguised as Mets’ chairman of
the board, M. Donald Grant, refused to renegotiate his contract with the great
Tom Seaver, the heart and soul of the team and best player this franchise has
ever had.
Noted sports writer Dick Young of the Daily
News, who couldn’t tie Seaver’s shoes, took Grant’s side in frequent articles
against Seaver, and things went downhill.
Ultimately, 10 1/2 years into this
one-in-a-lifetime pitcher’s career, a man on an undoubted Hall of Fame
trajectory, Seaver was foolishly fire-saled to the Cincinnati Reds in mid-1977
over Grant’s refusal to reward the player known as The Franchise. The players
gotten in return were the types of players losing franchises play.
The
Mets did not recover from this fiasco until 1984. Understand, Seaver, even if he had been renegotiated
a reasonable upgrade contract, would have been dirt cheap by today’s
standards. But a contract, I guess, is a
contract. Consequences be damned.
The loss of fan goodwill was incalculable. I
recall going to a Labor Day weekend double header between a dreadful Mets team
and the superior Montreal Expos on September 3, 1979, beautiful, perfect
weather...and maybe 2,000 fans present.
Tumbleweed blowing through.
Meanwhile, in the first 4 of Seaver’s 5
seasons with his new team, the Cincy Reds, he went 70-33 (.680). Ouch!
How do you compound such a Monumental Mistake?
Here’s how…you do it AGAIN.
The Mets thankfully reacquired Seaver in 1983,
when he went a so-so 9-14 with a solid ERA for a relatively weak hitting Mets team that
had the beginnings of something special: a rookie star in Darryl Strawberry, a solid speedster in Mookie Wilson, an acquired great Keith Hernandez in mid-season 1983, and an upcoming minor league super-phenom named
Dwight Gooden.
Keeping Seaver to guide Gooden would have been helpful, like, say, Joe DiMaggio staying around to help the arriving Mickey Mantle. But no, Seaver
went to the White Sox.
Monumental
Mistake revisited.
In the Windy City, he put up a terrific season of 15-11 in
1984 and another gem at age 40 in 1985 of 16-11.
Did that loss of the great one impact the
Mets?
Yes, and most likely in a huge, post-season sort of way.
The Mets missed making the playoffs in 1984
and 1985, falling 6 games behind the Cubs in 1984, the same Cubs franchise that
Seaver grabbed by the throat in 1969...Seaver very possibly gets them into the 1984
playoffs had he not left.
In 1985, the Mets lost out to the Cards on the
second to last day of a brilliant season, when having a 16-11 Seaver in the team’s
pitching equation probably puts them in the playoffs too.
Then, in the 1986 championship season, Seaver sadly
was closing out his career elsewhere, instead of spraying champagne in the
Mets’ clubhouse. He was still reasonably effective in 1986, too, with a 4.03 ERA that final year. What a moment that would have been.
And perhaps Seaver as the Elder Statesman could
have put a needed damper on the partying mentality of the Mets that eventually
short-circuited what could have been a 1980s Mets dynasty.
Seaver would have made them far more
successful, perhaps guided them to a few more World Series, and gave fans like
me, a fan since 1962, and Steve Brennan, a fan since birth, so much more
positive things to reminisce about, made us feel so much more satisfied in
being a Mets fan all these DECADES.
But the front office dumps let the immortal
Seaver go...twice. Not one, but twice.
MONUMENTAL METS MISTAKES.
In the next (3rd) edition of Monumental Mets Mistakes, we move
on to the Mets failure to do what it took to retain their first offensive
superstar, the “Black Ted Williams”, Darryl Strawberry.
Until then, my friends.
8 comments:
That move (or multiple moves) was simply a huge mistake.......it seems even worse now that we can look back and see what Tom was able to do for other franchises.
He is a franchise icon and he should have been a life long Met.
I hope the team doesn't repeat this mistake with players like Jake, etc.
I was numb after the Seaver trade.
I first watched heroes like Willie Mays, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges be dealt. Than came Terrific Tom.
This made me turn my back on baseball, one, and the Mets, two until a couple of years prior to starting Mack's Mets.
It is a business folks. Nothing else.
The first time was clearly a mistake. The Mets owners (post Joan Payson) did not have her passion for the team, nor the money to operate in the new free agent landscape. Sad to say, we've come full-circle on that with the Wilpons. That is why I can't wait to see them gone. I can't fathom letting a player like Pete Alonso walk away.
The second time was a much tougher decision for Frank Cashen. He could only protect 15 players from the compensation draft of 1983, and he had other players that he did not want to risk being lost. I know Jeromy Burnitz and Butch Huskey don't seem like much now, but they were the future back then. Cashen took a chance that another team would not want an aging Seaver over a younger player. He guessed wrong. The White Sox saw an opportunity to get Seaver and have him win his 300th game as a White Sox.
No amount of ineptitude by the Mets can take away from the Seaver legacy while in Queens. Yes, he won his 300th in Chicago. Yes, he got his no-hitter for another team. It doesn't diminish at all what he did in a Mets uniform.
Bob W, good points. I wonder if the Mets had never let Seaver go in the first place if the White Sox would have been so heartless as to pry him away when they did - his having already been traded took away any baseball backlash they'd have gotten gettig a life time HOF guy like Seaver.
In any event, his being traded the first time was like trading Michael Jordan in his prime - unthinkable.
Yes, the deals/non-deals on the list turned out badly, but IMO they did not reach the level of "monumental mistakes".
Chilcott looked like he had the potential to become a superstar Catcher, a true rarity in baseball. The fact that he suffered career - ending injuries early in his career does not make drafting him a MM.
The Seaver situation was blundered by Grant early on, but Tom's reaction to Young's articles was so strong that he demanded a trade and said he would not stay in NY even if they offered a good deal. It was a case of trade him or let him walk.
In the 2nd Seaver loss, Cashen (probably the sharpest GM we've had) miscalculated, feeling that Seaver wouldn't be taken, so he protected the kids instead. I don't remember why there even was a "protected list", or how the White Sox got to "draft" unprotected players. Can anyone fill me in on this?
The Strawberry case, not locking him up (as I'd like to see them do now with 4to, Squirrel, Pete and others) was definitely a blunder, though his desire to "go home" to LA was so strong that he might not have accepted the Mets offer anyway. Years later, after he retired, Straw said leaving the Mets was "the biggest mistake I ever made".
First off, to Tom's point. Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the White Sox at the time, was a showman in the style of Bill Veeck. He probably would have taken Seaver no matter what to have him win #300 with the Sox.
To answer Bill. The compensation pool was a solution come up with by the Players/owners in the early 1980s possibly in the CBA that came out of the 1981 strike. The owners initially wanted direct compensation from another team signing one of its free agents. The players wanted no compensation, fearing it would stifle free agency if teams lost a player for signing a free agent. The compromise went like this: Each team submitted a list of 15 players that were "protected". All other players, majors and minors, in that organization went into a "compensation pool". A team losing a player to free agency could then select any player from that pool (not necessarily from the team that signed their free agent). So, if someone like the White Sox signed with another team (say, Britt Burns with the Yankees), the White Sox could pick an unprotected player from any team (say, Tom Seaver from the Mets). As it turned out, this was widely unpopular with just about everyone, and was abandoned in the next CBA.
I don't remember hearing about that, but it sounds like a good explanation. Thanks, Bob.
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