The bandwagon is passing me by, and I’m not climbing aboard. I’m talking about the bandwagon Mr. Met is operating and inviting all comers to join. From what I’ve been reading, it’s getting pretty crowded.
A consensus seems to have grown in the off-season months that this is the season the Mets turn it around. “It” is their streak of six straight losing seasons, four of which belong to the current general manager, Sandy Alderson, who a curious new book says has revived the Mets.
It’s more than a stretch, I think, to think or say this is a season of revival for the Mets; to believe the Mets have been revived is downright foolhardy. Where is the evidence of that revival?
Alderson, who was a talented general manager way back when he served in that role for the Oakland Athletics and was tutoring Billy Beane, added one supposedly significant player for this season. Is Michael Cuddyer going to lead the Mets to the playoffs?
As the 2015 season begins, the Mets are only one of several popular picks by people who are paid to watch teams play baseball and comment on what they do when they play. Most also like to predict before the season starts what teams will do during the season.
I have never liked making predictions. Teams often make significant changes during the season that help determine what they do by the end of the season. No one can predict those things in April. Nor can anyone predict if teams will lose significant players to injury. What about an unexpected 50-game or 80-game drug suspension?
The game nevertheless goes on. Sports Illustrated has picked the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series. Other outlets have named the Washington Nationals as the team that will win the World Series. The New York Times is among that group, at the same time picking the Indians to finish fourth in their division.
Among other teams that gained attention before a pitch was thrown – and not necessarily for legitimate reasons – are the San Diego Padres, who punctuated their frenzied off-season Sunday by acquiring Craig Kimbrel, the majors’ best closer in recent years, and disappointing outfielder Melvin (B.J.) Upton, Jr. in a seven-player trade with Atlanta.
In addition, there are the Chicago Cubs, whose fans are as excited as their Mets’ counterparts with anticipation; the Boston Red Sox, who don’t appear to have the pitching necessary to win a division title and the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose estimated $270 million payroll is an opening-day record.
To say the predictions are all over the place is an understatement. But how about this one?
In commenting on a column I wrote last week about the unnatural relationship between the Mets and the New York Daily News, Bill Madden, the newspaper’s fine baseball writer, wrote in an e-mail, “I’m picking the Mets third, behind the Nationals and Marlins, with 87 wins, enough to get them the second wild card. I actually think they’re going to be pretty good….”
He apparently thought some more because five days later on the News’ website he elevated the Mets to an even loftier level, “penciling them in for 92 wins and first place.”
Make room on the bandwagon for one more.
Pardon me, but I just don’t get the excitement over the Mets. I understand that their fans – I know some of them – have had it with losing, are eager for improvement and will grasp at any positive sign. But a starting rotation that has the potential to be the major leagues’ best doesn’t guarantee enough to convince me.
The rotation should be good; maybe Matt Harvey will be the best pitcher in the league. But what has Alderson done to build a support system for Harvey et al?
Alderson, in fact, hasn’t done much at all in building the 2015 Mets. The pitchers and other starting players are mostly the product of Alderson’s predecessor, Omar Minaya (2005-10) and his staff.
Harvey was the No. 1 selection in the last draft the Minaya regime oversaw. Three of the four other active starters were drafted by the Minaya men – Jacob deGrom, Jon Niese, Dillon Gee. Zack Wheeler, out for the season following elbow surgery, was obtained from San Francisco for Carlos Beltran, one of Minaya’s first free-agent signings with the Mets.
Relief pitchers, healthy and injured, Jennry Mejia, Bobby Parnell, Josh Edgin and Jeurys Familia came with that group.
The starting lineup has these Minaya players: first baseman Lucas Duda, second baseman Daniel Murphy, shortstop Wilmer Flores, center fielder Juan Lagares. Catcher Travis d’Arnaud was acquired in a trade with Toronto for two players Minaya had drafted.
Alderson’s staff is responsible for free-agent outfielders Curtis Granderson, who last year batted .227, 34 points below his career average in his first year of a 4-year, $60 million contract, and Cuddyer, whom the Mets gave $21 million for two years even though he is 36 years old and three separate injuries limited him to 49 games last season.
The Mets brought in Cuddyer to protect David Wright in the lineup, but which Wright will he be protecting? The third baseman had a poor enough year in 2014 to get people wondering if at the age of 32 he’s in serious decline.
His .269 average was the second lowest of his 11-year career, and his 8 home runs, .324 on-base percentage and .374 slugging percentage were the lowest. Long gone are the years when he drove in more than 100 runs, which he did five of his first six full seasons. Wright needs protection all right, but maybe from his declining self.
When Alderson became general manager four years ago, he unwittingly walked into the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, which crippled the Mets financially. They have supposedly moved beyond that financial fiasco, but Alderson continues to play a small-market game in the biggest city in the majors. The problem is his protégé, Beane, plays it better in a legitimately small market.
The players Minaya left behind do not form a unit strong enough to win a playoff spot, even with the pitching. The idea would be for Alderson to build around that base. I don’t believe he has. The Mets could prove me wrong, but I doubt it.
If Mets fans want to see what a general manager does when he is legitimately trying to turn his team into a winner, they should turn their eyes west to San Diego and see what the Padres’ rookie general manager, A.J. Preller, has done.
Adding the proverbial icing to the cake he spent the off-season baking, Preller acquired the best closer since Mariano Rivera in a deal just hours before the first pitch of the opening game of the season. Kimbrel instantly went from a team that could finish last in the N.L. East, even with him, to a team Preller hopes will challenge the $270 million Dodges for the N.L. West title, or failing that goal, will win a wild-card spot.
Previously, Preller obtained outfielders Matt Kemp, Wil Myers and Justin Upton, third baseman Will Middlebrooks and starting pitcher James Shields. To get Kimbrel, the Padres also had to take Upton’s brother, the newly named Melvin.
In two years with the Braves as B.J., Melvin Upton, Jr. batted a woeful .198. Those years were the first two years of a 5-year, $75.25 million contract, the biggest free-agent contract the Braves ever signed. Little wonder that the general manager, Frank Wren, is no longer the general manager.
The Padres’ deal with the Braves involved big contracts. The Padres will owe Upton $46.5 million for the last three years of his contract and Kimbrel $34 million for his last three years. They owe Justin Upton $14.5 million for the last year of his contract, and they signed Shields to a 4-year, $75 million contract.
“They have the All-Star game next year, and they’re trying to do everything they can to win this year and sell many season tickets as well,” a baseball executive said, explaining the Padres’ strategy. “When you have the All-Star game, you try to increase the season ticket base and you usually can keep them for three years.”
On a telephone conference call Sunday evening, Preller said, “Ownership showed they wanted to put a winner on the field.
In Miami, Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins’ owner, is employing a similar strategy, the executive said, because the Marlins have a new television deal coming up. That pending development explains why the Marlins gave Giancarlo Stanton a 13-year deal for $325 million last November and fortified their roster with first baseman Michael Morse, second baseman Dee Gordon, third baseman Martin Prado, catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, backup outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and starting pitcher Mat Latos.
In my view, if the Nationals have a challenger in the N.L. East, it’s the Marlins, but I don’t want to shatter the dreams of Mets fans