Reese Kaplan -- How to Build a Long Term Mets Winning Team

One of the things that winning teams do is blend outside talent with inside talent.  You can’t generally develop a full roster from your own minor league system unless you are so financially strapped that no alternatives are possible.  Similarly, you can’t piece together an All Star Team from the best of the free agents and trades to guarantee you’ll be in the playoffs.  Teams have tried both approaches and at best they guarantee short term success.

Going forward, the Mets are in the position of making some key decisions.  While a great many fans (and baseball executives) live by the mantra of “Go big or go home!,” the fact is that the formula to cram your roster with only the top-rated players is not easy to do, not financially friendly nor is it an iron-clad and proven method to make the postseason.  For people who doubt the assertion about hiring or trading for the best of the best, allow me to point out Francisco Lindor.  

So looking into the near future when the Mets are facing the loss of several key players to the promised wealth of free agency, the team needs to decide what to do to build a long term winning strategy.  One lesson they hopefully learned in 2021 in particular is not to count on health or historical performance results to propel your team into October.  

As much as it pains me to say it, the Mets need to look at the Yankees as an example of how to groom your in-house talent to make them a key part of the future while supplementing it with outsiders who can address specific gaps your minor league system or bench are not ready to address.  Where would the Yankees have been during their recent good years had they not developed Bernie Williams, Robinson Cano (ugh!), Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettite and many others while bringing in folks like Paul O’Neill, Roger Clemens (ugh!), Randy Johnson, Tino Martinez, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi.  

Down on the farm the Mets have a couple of promising big bats in a pair of 21 year olds in Brett Baty and Mark Vientos currently lighting up Binghamton with power and aggressive play.  They also still have Ronny Mauricio at 20 years of age in Brooklyn struggling a bit with his batting average but showing excellent power, too.  They appear to be much thinner on pitching, so an astute GM would be focusing his attention on supplementing the youth in that area.  

It’s entirely possible that the new Mets front office management won’t wait for players to hit Social Security before allowing them to make their debut in the majors.  Right now you could certainly make the argument that a raw Baty or Vientos would be preferable to a struggling free-agent-to-be like Michael Conforto and the never ending parade of third basemen.  

In 2022 and beyond I’d like to see the Mets embrace the enhancement and ladder-climbing ability of their minor leagues while looking to re-embrace the trade as a viable means of improving the roster.  The problem with trades is that you know who you have and what they are capable of doing.  Your fear is that once they leave, they will blossom into a bigger star than they ever were in New York.  

It happens.  Accept it.

  

What did the Mets get for letting Daniel Murphy walk away in free agency?  What about simply releasing Justin Turner?  How about sending prospect Amos Otis away for the immortal Joe Foy?  How about the bundle of four players including Nolan someone-or-other for Jim Fregosi?  How about Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell as part of a three-player offer for Juan Samuel?  

It works the other way, too.  They gave up loser Robert Person and got John Olerud.  How about the four minor leaguers gone for Johan Santana?  Then there were the four players sent to the Red Sox for Bobby Ojeda...thank you Calvin Schiraldi for helping the Mets win the World Series.  They got Sid Fernandez from the Dodgers for spare parts.  Troubled pitcher Neil Allen who succumbed to his personal demons brought them Keith Hernandez.  Minor leaguer Preston Wilson netted them Hall of Famer Mike Piazza.  

Given that risk is a two-way street, whomever is in the front office should be open to listening to offers for anyone on the roster, including “Oh, no you didn’t!” folks like Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor and J.D. Davis.  You can’t summarily dismiss a trade until you hear the office and do an intelligent analysis of how it could benefit the team.  

Similarly, look at the best of the best when it comes to free agents, but remember the lessons of Jason Bay, Bobby Bonilla and others who demonstrated vividly that what you’ve gotten from them in the past won’t always translate to the future.  Sometimes it takes a year of adjustment like it did for Carlos Beltran.  Other times it’s simply throwing money away paying for past accomplishments that didn’t help your team one iota.  

As a long time critic of Sandy Alderson, I do acknowledge he had to work most of his Mets career under the padlocked wallet of the Wilpon family.  He shopped exclusively in the aisle for has-beens and never-wases.  With Steve Cohen as the owner, he should have more financial flexibility, but an open wallet is not a mandate to spend like it’s the only way to succeed.  It’s time for the Mets to identify younger players whose paychecks are good but not enormous who can help during their prime and not at the tail end of their careers.  This combination of admirable spending and judicious trades, combined with more aggressive promotion of in-house talent could allow the Mets to model a long term strategy for success.