" Sandy is coming up aces so far !"
As we all know last October was a very tumultuous time for both the Mets organization – as well as their fans. The team had just completed it second straight season of fourth place ball, and Citi Field was looking more like a monument to apathy. I don’t know if the Commissioner’s office had to do some arm twisting but a regime change had to be made – and it was !
Omar Minaya- the once highly respected Mets G.M , now maligned by scandal and bad contracts was gone along with his happy go lucky manager, Jerry Manuel. They were replaced with one of the most analytical minds in baseball history – enter Sandy Alderson. Alderson’s resume is quite substantial, and even though he was all but retired from running the day to day operations of a Major League baseball team, he jumped at the chance to right the ship of this franchise that has seen it’s share of highs and lows ( mostly lows) in it’s almost 50 years of existence.
His first order of business was to hire his manager. He didn’t settle for the vanilla ( Bob Melvin) nor did he try to appease the fans with the pick of destiny ( Wally Backman). Instead he took a chance on Terry Collins, a man with the reputation as a motivator with a short temper. Sandy augmented his own circle of advisers with the smartest guys in baseball, Paul DePodesta and J.P. Riccardi, co architects of those winning teams in San Diego and Oakland.
Faced with limited budget flexibility, Alderson tried his best to sign to cheap free agent talent. Some have worked out well ( Capuano, Issringhausen) while others either got injured or fizzled out ( Young, Boyer). He cut ties with pariah and malcontents Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.
When the time came mid season Sandy was able to shed payroll. The first player out the door was closer Francisco Rodriguez and his 17.5 million dollar option for the ’12 season. He was traded to the Brewers for 2 players to be named later which more than likely will be two mid level minor league prospects. Next up was the re-vitalized Carlos Beltran. As much as we all were sad to see him go, there was no chance Carlos would re-sign with the Mets next season, and we would have received no draft pick compensation if he had bolted for free agency once the off season came. It return we got one of the best pitching prospects in the game today – Zack Wheeler – a hard throwing pitcher who should be in a Mets uniform by the ’13 season.
But the icing on the cake was the fact that the Mets signed the bulk of this seasons draft picks – including number one selection, Brandon Nimmo. Negotiations went down to the last minute but by 12:01 he was under contract for the Mets , as well as pitchers Mark Fulmer and Logan Verrett. This organization that of late has had the reputation of being cheap when it comes to signing their draft picks have gone well over-slot in their pursuit of getting them into the Mets fold. This is a testament to the intestinal fortitude of Sandy, and it also speaks volumes of the faith and trust that the Wilpon’s have in him.
Alderson is rebuilding this team, it might not take one or two seasons but he will get the Mets a World Series Trophy !
Now if he can re-sign Jose Reyes this off-season everything will be perfect !
And with that said….. HERE COMES THE INFAMY !!!!
Mets alumni celebrating a birthday today includes:
Outfielder from the ’62 season, Gene Woodling would have been 89 today (1922) .
Outfielder/first baseman for the Mets from ’68-’71 and again from ’80-’83, Mike Jorgensen is 63 (1948) .
Mets pitcher from ’97-’01, Rick Reed is 47 (1964).I still maintain that he is one of the most overlooked pitchers in Mets history.
Mets outfielder from 1999, and again from 2002-2003, Roger Cedeño is 37 (1974). Roger in his first go around with the Mets was a exercise in clutch playing. He set a Mets record with 67 stolen bases and had a batting average of .313 in 453 at bats. He was the key piece in the deal with the Houston Astros that brought Mike Hampton to the Mets. By the time the Mets reacquired him in ’02 he had morphed into a slow weak hitting outfielder with a bloated contract.
The New York Mets sold the contract of pitcher, Gerry Arrigo to the Cincinnati Reds on August 16, 1966.
Today marks a very important day in Mets history ! The New York Mets signed free agent José Reyes on August 16, 1999. Lets just hope that the Mets have the stomach, foresight and financial flexibility to re-sign him !
The New York Mets traded reserve outfielder, Mark Little to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Australian born minor league pitcher, P.J. Bevis on August 16, 2002.
Mo Vaughn is in San Diego to follow the Mets. He got into an altercation with members of Sea World Security Staff when he fell in love with Shamu the Killer Whale. Needless to say he tried to liberate the mammal from its confines, and while he was being restrained he was overheard saying ” I was just trying to FREE WILLY !!!!”
36 comments
Anonymous
8/16/2011-11:03am at 11:03 am (UTC -4)
It bodes well for the future if they continue to invest in better draft and IFA talent. Combine that with a new organizational culture and philosophy (top to bottom from rookie ball on up) and who knows, maybe the Mets can really become a well-oiled self perpetuating winning machine like the Braves!
In theory, once the Madoff stuff is settled and minor partners ironed out, put a team on the field that can win a bit (and that has the young talent to attract the fans), the Mets still should have the money to run a serious payroll. Like the Phils.
MetsFan4Decades
8/16/2011-12:35pm at 12:35 pm (UTC -4)
As much as I’d like to blame the past several years all on Omar, it’s really more the Wilpons fault. They hired Omar and they stuck with him even when the club seemed to be taking a downward spiral.
Enter Sandy Alderson. I suppose we’ll never know if hiring him as the GM was ‘strongly’ suggested by Selig but someone knows their baseball.
I know it’s only been one season but so far, I like the direction this franchise is heading. Probably going to take a couple of years to be truly competitive but I’m a patient person. Here’s hoping this off season will see some real good moves.
MetsFan4Decades
8/16/2011-12:40pm at 12:40 pm (UTC -4)
On another note, watched the game last night. It took until the 10th inning but congrats to Izzy on his 300th save.
Watching him in the BP around the 7th/8th inning and you saw one nervous
guy. That’s when it hit me this 300th save really meant a lot to him.
He’s been waiting all week for the opportunity and Parnell blowing the lead in the 8th it looked like he might have to wait at least another night. Offense didn’t help either as we left about a dozen guys on base all night.
Mets got a slim one run lead in the top of the 10th and in comes Izzy. They sure didn’t make it easy on him – could have been a few more runs – and Izzy didn’t make it easy on himself either. Put a couple of guys on but when all was said and done, he stranded them and his 300th was in the books.
Apparently back when, he initially thought he would go down in the record books with over 300 saves b/c he thought his 11 post season saves counted. He found out they didn’t. That coupled with his arm finally recovering to a large extent from all the surgeries is what prompted him to come back. I’m sure he doesn’t regret that decision now.
Mr North Jersey
8/16/2011-4:33pm at 4:33 pm (UTC -4)
Duda showing off the power!
Anonymous
8/16/2011-12:54pm at 12:54 pm (UTC -4)
Given the Wilpon’s history of selecting GMs it most probably was Selig forcing Sandy on the Wilpons and convincing Sandy to accept the position as GM. Of course this is my opinion but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc. etc. and so forth. It is reminiscent of the football Giants being forced by then commissioner Pete Rozell to hire George Young as their GM. For those of you not familiar with football George Young turned the Giants from the laughing stock of football back into one of the most respected teams in football (I use the term “back” because at the very beginning the Giants were once the crème de la crème of football). One thing for sure at his age I doubt if Sandy “jumps” at anything, especially taking over the Mets GM position (with their history not one of the upper echelon jobs in baseball). So we Mets fans have to be very happy the direction this franchise has taken and hope the Wilpons must sell the franchise so Jeff Wilpon doesn’t pull a Jim Dolan on us.
Anonymous
8/16/2011-1:34pm at 1:34 pm (UTC -4)
It’s very much the adage that a healthy NY market is good for the whole league. The smaller markets may not like it, but it does help the league overall. So yeah, I can see this being Selig mandated. And I can see the Wilpons sulking, even though their team is going to be better.
Ceetar
8/16/2011-1:05pm at 1:05 pm (UTC -4)
Reminder: Fantasy Football league
id: 155989
pw: icecream2
Ceetar
8/16/2011-1:09pm at 1:09 pm (UTC -4)
They didn’t sign all their draft picks. This is basically the same story it’s been for years, and something supposedly was all because Omar wouldn’t go overslot (although he did occasionally) 12th round pick and a lefty. Kent Mathews. Just goes to show you that it’s not always about what you think it’s going to be about. A good draft pick might turn out to be unsignable no matter what it seemed like before hand.
Everyone knew Nimmo was going to sign. If they’d botched that it would’ve been a pretty big mistake.
rustyjr
8/16/2011-1:18pm at 1:18 pm (UTC -4)
They signed the bulk of their picks – & they paid more than the did in recent years – that IMO is a victory
Will these players all pan out ? No but you take the chance
Ceetar
8/16/2011-1:34pm at 1:34 pm (UTC -4)
I don’t care how much they paid. They’ve signed their top picks every year, it doesn’t really matter how much they paid. But last year and this year is the first time in a while they’ve had picks this high that would get that much money. They had three picks in the first two rounds this year. Last year they had one. The last time they had that many they had 4 in 2008 and signed them all (Issac Davis, David Havens, Bradley Holt, Javier Rodriguez)
Omar had a bad 2009 draft, letting a lot of high round picks go unsigned, but all in all, his drafts have been pretty good.
MetsFan4Decades
8/16/2011-2:48pm at 2:48 pm (UTC -4)
I believe the quality of the ‘top picks’ by Omar vs. Sandy that might wind up being the difference.
Anonymous
8/16/2011-1:38pm at 1:38 pm (UTC -4)
Yeah, it was the signing 19 of their top 21 that, to me, was the difference to previous years. Better sign them and see them flop than not sign them to save a buck and end up with flotsam and jetsam in the organization.
Ceetar
8/16/2011-1:50pm at 1:50 pm (UTC -4)
Well they signed their first 19 last year as well, and 31/33.
Anonymous
8/16/2011-1:57pm at 1:57 pm (UTC -4)
What are we debating here again?
MetsFan4Decades
8/16/2011-2:33pm at 2:33 pm (UTC -4)
LOL.
To me, it’s not so much the close number of picks both GMs have signed, it’s the picks themselves.
This year, it appears they went out on a limb and signed better talent, money be damned. The fact that they spent more money in overslots than ever attested to that.
Won’t know though if those picks are any better than Omars for years to come.
Ceetar
8/16/2011-5:55pm at 5:55 pm (UTC -4)
well, you might as well toss dice to determine a prospects ‘ceiling’ but we got guys like Davis and Thole and Niese. (and Gee) from Omar. Reese Havens, Niuwenhuis. (Meija, Familia) Harvey.
The organization is in a vastly different position than it was throughout most of Omar’s drafts, and the draft pool was different this year as well as the Mets having two first round picks. Which is the main reason they spent more this year. (But i thought the Mets were broke?!?!?!?!?)
It looks like Sandy’s one big ‘gamble’ was that one big overslot guy he signed at I think 15.
SaltyGary
8/16/2011-1:27pm at 1:27 pm (UTC -4)
The Mets signed 36-50 including the first 11. They did great.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/draftdb/2011xteam.php?team=1013
Take a look at how poorly a team like the Yankees did with signings:
http://www.baseballamerica.com/draftdb/2011xteam.php?team=1028
SaltyGary
8/16/2011-1:31pm at 1:31 pm (UTC -4)
Why in the world would a team want to sign all their picks. Many of them will never be able to make it to the MLB so why throw money at them for the sake of locking all of them up. Plus there is just not enough room in the minor league system for the teams to keep all those players under control. Also many are HS kids that want to go to college first. Your view is not in touch with reality.
Ceetar
8/16/2011-1:09pm at 1:09 pm (UTC -4)
They didn’t sign all their draft picks. This is basically the same story it’s been for years, and something supposedly was all because Omar wouldn’t go overslot (although he did occasionally) 12th round pick and a lefty. Kent Mathews. Just goes to show you that it’s not always about what you think it’s going to be about. A good draft pick might turn out to be unsignable no matter what it seemed like before hand.
Everyone knew Nimmo was going to sign. If they’d botched that it would’ve been a pretty big mistake.
Ceetar
8/16/2011-1:37pm at 1:37 pm (UTC -4)
There’s plenty of room in the minors. But either way, tehre is a difference between not signing a 12th round pick and a 30th.
EVERY draft pick is valuable. isn’t that the whole point of trading Beltran/getting two players for K-Rod? Bring in talent, hope it pans out. There is research to be done involving which kids are going to sign, and the very idea of ‘over-slot’ that people have beaten to death is that you keep guys from going to college by throwing money at them. But you can’t say that Alderson was smart to not waste money on iffy talent but Omar was an idiot for doing so.
Does it matter that the Mets signed Nimmo for 500k or so more than they did Davis in the first round? not at all. It’s about getting them into the system.
Anonymous
8/16/2011-1:53pm at 1:53 pm (UTC -4)
Omar seemed to draft decent, but more sign-able talent, while Sandy has gone for the higher ceiling guys. So yeah, Omar drafted decent guys, which are in the Mets system, but there have never been such highly regarded prospects in this system for the same reason. Yes, Ike turned out very well, and Harvey seems to be on track as well, but it certainly isn’t like the Braves or the Giants with their high level prospects. And isn’t that a tribute to Omar’s GM style of signing type A players, thus losing said high draft picks?
SaltyGary
8/16/2011-2:29pm at 2:29 pm (UTC -4)
Are you really annoyed that Sandy didn’t sign the #372 overall pick in the draft or are you just rying to be an ass? What information do you have to suggest it was a possibility or if it was feasible financially. He was HS LHP and that is all we really know. You have no information to even suggest there was some kind of incompetence on Sandy’s part and it’s not fair to compare who was a better drafter. so early All we know is per Rubin “signed 37 of 51 picks. The Mets appear to have committed at least $6.2 million to draft signings”. With that information I am very happy how the draft has played out SO FAR.
Anonymous
8/16/2011-2:38pm at 2:38 pm (UTC -4)
As 4D mentioned above, it’s the higher ceiling guys that were targeted, that also warranted higher costs with signing. That is where I am happy. Not that they threw $$$ to the wind, but that the $$$ they did throw around was targeted at obtaining high ceiling guys.
Speaking of Warrant, didn’t the lead singer just die? or was that another band… hmmm…
SaltyGary
8/16/2011-2:43pm at 2:43 pm (UTC -4)
Yea I don’t know how anyone can complain about this draft especially the resident optimist…
Yes it was Warrant. I did own that Cherry Pie album back in elementary school and thank goodness I became a Phish head in HS. He looked like shit in a recent picture.
Dan Higgins
8/16/2011-1:45pm at 1:45 pm (UTC -4)
I just paìd $22.85 for an ìPad 2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.78 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $625 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, CentHub.còm
Anonymous
8/16/2011-1:59pm at 1:59 pm (UTC -4)
delete.
MetsFan4Decades
8/16/2011-2:36pm at 2:36 pm (UTC -4)
This spammer has been dumping this same crap all over baseball blogs.
If these lazy people would put half as much effort into doing something that was actual legit, they might just get somewhere in life.
Ceetar
8/16/2011-5:50pm at 5:50 pm (UTC -4)
i reported him to Yahoo.
Taryn Cooper
8/16/2011-1:51pm at 1:51 pm (UTC -4)
Great post Rusty Jr – you are inviting trolls with the “batting 1.000″ line about Sandy though – ha ha. I just hope that over time, this franchise becomes more credible and has a “way” of doing things, not just haphazardly signing FAs and drafting with no real plan in place.
Anonymous
8/16/2011-4:53pm at 4:53 pm (UTC -4)
I know, everyone hates to even hear a whisper about this, but just read the following:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-16/madoff-trustee-wins-appeals-court-ruling-on-calculating-investors-losses.html
So, if all that I’ve read with Wilpons taking out more than they put in, there certainly will be some damages to pay, for sure. How much? Let me check Dwight Gooden’s magic 8 ball.
MetsFan4Decades
8/16/2011-6:39pm at 6:39 pm (UTC -4)
I think the Wilpons knew all along they’d be looking at paying back around the $300 million withdrawals (over and above the amount invested). I’m sure it’s the billion for ‘you should have known better’ as Picard implies that they’ll fight tooth and nail.
Anonymous
8/16/2011-11:45pm at 11:45 pm (UTC -4)
Just read this: Beltran went on the DL retroactive to Aug. 8 with a strained right hand. A hand injury, go figure.
TRS86
8/16/2011-11:54pm at 11:54 pm (UTC -4)
I thought I read hamstring?
Anonymous
8/17/2011-12:53am at 12:53 am (UTC -4)
I actually did the same thing and did a double take since hamstring at least would be in the area I would have expected.
http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22297882/31352195
Anonymous
8/17/2011-1:00am at 1:00 am (UTC -4)
I saw hand. Hopefully not serious.
they are leading the division aren’t they? So really more about the playoffs, unless they are at risk of missing.
Anonymous
8/17/2011-1:39am at 1:39 am (UTC -4)
They’re 2.5 behind the d-backs and falling further behind the braves losing to them head to head. Feel bad for Tron. Was reading some of the blog comments under the link and they were pretty brutal. They don’t know tron….