The “fowl” poles are emblematic of everything that is wrong with this organization. The only way the team will cease being a consistent disappointment is with through new ownership, but, sadly, that appears to be farther away than winning a pennant. Let’s face it, Jeff Wilpon is the true GM of this team, and if that continues to be the case, you might be better off with an obstructed view.
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Players come to the Mets and under-perform. They leave and they're good again. They come back and they stink again--except for Jeurys Familia, who has stunk consistently.
This is the perception of most Mets fans. Most fans are alike in that they believe only their team makes mistakes, only their players are cursed, and only their general managers get fleeced in trades.
The problem of the Mets is that they rely on making bets on a player here, and a player there. Sometimes it works (Cespedes) and sometimes it doesn't ( Cespedes) . They hire Brodie Van Wagenen --a bet that this agent can evaluate the talent of his clients (Cano and Lowrie) by virtue of that relationship. The owners are swayed by a good interview with Mickey Calloway whose glaring lack of ability to handle the NYC media was guaranteed to make him fail here by magnifying his every mistake. Did they not see in their own city how a Joe Girardi and Joe Torre are relaxed and easy, and honest with the make-or-break NYC media and Sports Talk bottom-feeders?
The Cardinals, Cubs, Yankees, Astros ,Red Sox, Cubs ,Indians ,A's and Braves all have a consistent system, culture and strategy for success. And it shows. They all win consistently and have loyal--not mutinous--fans. Their owners are hands-off and don't fancy themselves as Baseball-Geniuses.
Wilpons: look in the mirror!
These teams aren't the sum of their trades, hires, and free-agent acquisitions and brilliantly counter-intuitive moves.
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The Mets have been in a position in almost every game this year to actually win it. Very rarely blown out. Despite the injuries and underperformance by Cano and others the Mets have been just one hit, one bad outing by a relief pitcher or one bad decision by the manager from winning the game. As a Met fan, the season has been painful and frustrating to watch. A Met fan since 1962, this is par for the course.
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Nobody seems to want to talk about the true problem: underperforming players. Why is it that the Mets can't get the players to perform even to their own averages? It seems everyone the Mets sign immediately has long-term injury issues or simply immediately has the worst year of his career.
The d'Arnaud deal was a failure every step of the way, and the Dodgers took advantage, extracting value from him in a way the Mets failed to, and now of course he's having a decent year for Tampa. Where is the analysis of how Mets management botched every single decision on d'Arnaud this year, and whether they've learned from it? Where is the analysis of why he couldn't play here, but now that he's elsewhere he's a solid player?
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You have to put your efforts into building a world class farm system. Theo Epstein did it for the Red Sox. Every position player on the team that won 108 games last year and starting today is from their farm system that Epstein built. The only reason they’re not in first this year is the pitching. Sale, after being signed to a big contract, and David Price are having off years, and the bullpen is atrocious, which is GM David Dombrowski’s fault. He let middle reliever Joe Kelly sign with the Dodgers and didn’t replace closer Craig Kimbrel. The Sox have lost something like twenty late-game leads. When you see a team, like the Mets, trade away prospects for dead wood, like Cano, you know your organization is in trouble.
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Phooey. Those 10 year deals are something nobody needs to emulate.
I'm a Yankee fan and I'm not looking forward to being stuck with an aging Stanton slogging around the field for five years or so after he ceases to be productive.
Spend some money on scouting, get a bunch of good young players, make sure they can play defense.
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Emulate the hapless Padres?! Proceed at your own peril. Machado signing was absurd. He’s a head case who chokes when the chips are down.
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No, spending big bucks on a free agent who has no interest in coming to New York to play for the Mets but instead an interest in coming to New York to chill and enjoy one of the greatest cities in the world is not what you should do.
If the Mets let Cano pretend he was on the Yankees he would be twice the player he is now. Free agents are cancerous for the Mets, as the players really are just interested in where the team happens to be located, nothing else.
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Let’s remember the Mets did do a sell off of sorts that brought them the team that went to the World Series in 2015 and the wildcard playoffs in 2016 with the addition of a free agent - Cespedes. They sold off pieces and got players like Wheeler, D’ Arnaud, and Syndegaard and drafted highly touted players like Harvey, and Conforto that helped get them there and now others have bubbled up through the system such as Rosario, Nimmo, Smith, Alonso, and McNeil. Let’s also remember, and “if” is a small word that means a lot, if Cespedes was healthy and Harvey doesn’t get injured and ultimately moved, and/or the current mostly young starting rotation perform as they have in previous seasons we might not be having this conversation. That’s not saying the Mets couldn’t be doing better drafting and developing players. They certainly could. It’s also not saying they made the best choices this year when they made trades and “revamped” the pen, although to be fair injuries have played a part there as well. An average pen alone would have them near the top of the division. What it is saying is hind sight is 20-20. To that point I think we need to wait a few years to see what happens in San Diego. “Highly touted prospects” is an interesting concept in baseball. San Diego could turn out to be the Astros. They could also turn out to be an average team that may or may not go to the playoffs and in the meantime is paying out a couple of high priced free agents they might not be able to move.
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The Mets got the young players to complete but their miss the chances by bringing overrated declines old players and overpaid for them. Talent is not the problem with the mets is ownership that cannot manage what their have
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The money quote: "The lesson, as always: It’s not how much you spend, but how you spend it."
And the Mets have consistently spent badly.
The problem is ownership -- and management. The agent-as-GM model doesn't work. See "Cano, Robinson," who was a client of Brodie's.
Until Mets ownership hires a good GM -- and coach -- and then stays out of baseball operations, the Mets will be disappointing. Sadly, the Wilpons are not about to change, and if the Mets do spend the big bucks, it will be on yet another player who does little or nothing, except doom them to another under .500 season.
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As a lifetime Padres fan, go ahead and laugh, I can tell you exactly where they are headed. Last place in their division and maybe just ahead of the Marlins in the final NL standings.
They've got a lot of young talent but the worst manager in MLB. Nobody knows how he got the job, nobody knows how he keeps it. Very glib, very confident as they repeat the same mistakes year after year. Quoted today in the SD paper saying yet again that team batting average with runners in scoring position was an irrelevant stat and cyclical. They're dead last in baseball.
After Thursday's game? The Mets will be ahead of them. So yeah, sign some good players but get a good manager. Otherwise it's just a waste of time and money. And fan's patience.
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The Metropolitans will not consistently do well until the Wilpons sell. They, along with Dolan the lesser of the NYK, do their fans a great disservice.
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Machado would have been a better acquisition than Cano...
And the prospects in Seattle are progressing well.
The Mets have several promising young position players in Alonso, McNeil, Rosario and Conforto.
Good. Trade Syndergaard. And Vargas. And Wheeler. Frazier and Ramos if you can get anything for them.
Then a long slow build around McNeil and Alonso who will be around for years. And deGrom because he knows how to pitch, so will be a good pitcher into his late ‘30s, though he’ll never have a year like last year.
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The Mets are not a free agent away from the World Series. They are new owners away from the World Series.
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Spending big bucks is not the key. They need to become a TEAM! Only then can you identify talent shortages.
Really? The Padres and Machado are 5% of the way through their contract. We will have a long time to reflect on the direction they've taken.
7
Wilponzi schemes are always tragic.
This Met team is no different.
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As a Mets fan since their start, I know that the real solution is not possible … which would be for the Wilpons to sell the team.
As a second choice, put everybody on the block except for deGrom, McNeil, and Alonso. (I do doubt there would be any takers for Familia, unfortunately.) Then get some young players, and cut the prices for the next two or three seasons.
3
@John Graybeard
I was 14 years old in 1962 when the Mets were stocked with National League retreads. And I missed the '69 series, which was a "miracle," because I was in the service. In my humble opinion, the only time that the Mets have had a "winning culture" was during the 1985 and 1986 seasons, as opposed to the Yankees, which has it, win or lose.
1
If the Mets signed a 300 million dollar outfielder they’d want to make him a catcher. If it was a 400 million dollar pitcher, they’d make him a shortstop.
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I wouldn't hold your breath, the Mets post Madoff (when the Wilpons were raking in a ton of money, because the payroll was paid for by Madoff funny money) are a team that basically has decided to milk the team for all its worth and give fans a mediocre team, while charging world class prices for the experience. Other teams, even small market teams, try to build a team that is competitive for a championship, the Wilpons, using "coupon-metrics", try to build a 'competitive' team, which translates to 'we don't have to win anything with these fans, all we need is team where we can say 'well, we were .600 team the second half of the year' or "we came within 5 games of the second wild card", and pretend like that is a great team. All we are going to see is more of the same, 'value' players that are once good players well past their expiry date, that they hope at times can look good.
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And who pays for these too high salaries? Ownership? No. The cost gets passed down to the fans. Cable bills goes up, seats at games go up, food at games go up, parking....
2
@L. Clements
I am tired of hearing fans say this, it is nothing more than an excuse to support the Wilpons, who are basically milking the Mets for every dime. The Mets have the 7th highest revenue stream in baseball (SNY alone is 250 million dollars a year), they have the 4th highest game experience cost in major league baseball, but they put teams on the field with a payroll that even if you count the broken down wrecks they have on insurance at full value (cespedes, Lowry), they are roughly at the median payroll in baseball.
And let me ask you this, the Mets high payrolls stopped after 2008, the Mets have consistently loaded the roaster with a bunch of over the hill free agents, have ticket prices declined? Has the cost of concessions at the games gone down, or merchandise? the answer is no (please, please don't give me the bar room argument about stub hub prices or the desperate promotions the mets run during the season, at the start of this season the Mets actually raised the face value on tickets, if you can believe it).
The Mets could bring in a big time free agent or two, especially now that the market for them has dried up a bit, and not break the bank, but the Wilpons basically don't care if the Mets ever win another championship, all they care about is putting a cheap team on the field and rake in the $$$$ from silly fans.
2
As a long suffering Met fan, the same story, year after year:
"Read 'em and weep".
A major market team in pricing,
a AA minor league team talent and
a beer league ownership mentality
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