Meet the Mets (For Mets Fans Only!)
I didn't watch many games start to finish (I think deGrom's last start was the only one all season). But I did check in on a lot of games when deGrom or Wheeler were starting. I also tried to check out a few Syndergaard starts. As bad as the hitting was this year, and as terrible as the bullpen was on a lot of nights, it was a lot of fun to watch deGrom and Wheeler this season (at least from June through September).
The team can compete next year with a better bullpen and one more bat in the lineup. But I'm not deluding myself. This team has almost no depth, which is what doomed them this year. Once Cespedes went down, and then Frazier and Bruce missed significant time, the season was effectively over. Not a coincidence that when Bruce and Frazier came back and played like themselves, and the team added Jeff McNeil, they started winning. But there's no way that any team gets through a whole season without injuries. I think the best we can hope for next year is minimal games missed by key players to injury, and contention for a wild card. If there are injuries like we saw this year, it's another 85 loss season because there are no competent hitters to step in if someone like Nimmo or Conforto misses a lot of games.
If I were the Mets, I would non-tender d'Arnaud and try to re-sign Mesoraco. Mesoraco will be a lot more expensive, but he has also been a lot more reliable.
I watched a fair amount of games in August and September. They certainly played pretty decent ball in the last six weeks and I give them credit for battling and working hard. The better play coincides with the top three slots in the batting order: Nimmo as the on-base threat/leadoff guy; McNeil as the ideal #2 contact guy; and the reemergence of Conforto as a power hitter and run producer. Throw in some really solid hitting by Rosario and that's four guys to get excited about next year. Unfortunately, those are the only four guys to get excited about in the lineup. While Frazier certainly achieved historic lows for him this season, he can't carry the team and Bruce will always be the streaky homerun guy which we should avoid going forward. When Cespedes returns, then the lineup could be interesting. Praying for a wild card next year!
I'd give him an incomplete. A lot of curious moves regarding pitching changes and other in-game moves. But I can't blame him for the fact that nobody on the team hit from the beginning of June through the All-Star break. And it speaks well of him that the team played hard until the last game of the season. It would have been easy to phone in the last six weeks, and they didn't.
We expect a rookie player to make mistakes and need to adjust, so I will do the same for a rookie manager. I think McNeil deserves a lot of credit. He seems to hit everything. I do feel bad for Flores, he was quietly one of the best hitters on the team, but he will have to go elsewhere to be appreciated.
ml1 said:
And it speaks well of him that the team played hard until the last game of the season. It would have been easy to phone in the last six weeks, and they didn't.
I see what you did there. 
Ditto to ml1 on Calloway. Some head-scratchers for sure, but he seemed to have the clubhouse on his side and that is a good thing. If he does not learn from his mistakes then that would be a problem. (Note, Cora was also a first year manager, and while he had a much much better team to deal with, he also made less mistakes and seemed more "ready").
Agreed that Nimmo, McNeil, Conforto, and Rosario are an exciting nucleus (at least when Conforto is healthy). I will be surprised if Cespedes ever returns, and even more surprised if he is anything close to what he was even two years ago as a hitter. deGrom, Syndegaard, Wheeler, and Matz present a really great pitching core if they can get some mid to late inning support and some hitting. As noted above, if deGrom had any support he could have won 20 games easily. He lost as many games to poor run production as to the bullpen not holding the other team.
They are stuck with Bruce at $14M, Cespedes at $29M, but after that they have no one in the "really expensive and cannot be moved" category. Which means they should have some room to strategically add FAs this year--hopefully a few arms plus that catcher everyone is looking for (and few can find). Of course, they need a GM/Head of Ops AND the owners need to act like they are in New York. Although I do note that Oakland managed to put a great product on the field with small ball thinking plus one ridiculously effective home run hitter.
My hunch is that the pendulum is going to swing back towards contact hitters being sandwiched around big boppers to increase run production and put more pressure on pitchers with men on base. Nimmo and McNeil are perfect examples of this, and they should dump the Dom Smith experiment and look for corner players who hit to the gaps with some power but more contact.
mfpark said:
I will be surprised if Cespedes ever returns, and even more surprised if he is anything close to what he was even two years ago as a hitter.
I'm more optimistic than that. Mets fans who were paying attention over the past few years will recall that there was talk in spring training each year that Cespedes needed to be rested because he always experienced heel pain in the spring. If the surgeries are successful, there's no reason to believe he can't be in the lineup pretty consistently when after he's activated. And even this year when he was dealing with pain, he could still hit. Of course with the Mets luck, the surgeries won't solve his problems, and he won't be back in the lineup. But I'm confident that if he does regain his health, he's going to hit.
Great analysis, guys. What exactly is wrong with Cespedes' heels, anyway? Not that I'm a doctor or play one on TV, but I can't even recall when I heard an athlete having surgery on one heel, let alone, two! Of course our luck would be Cespedes returns with two healthy heels and strains his hammy, again.
mfpark said:
He is emulating our President.
Our president is more of a hustler.
Train_of_Thought said:
mfpark said:Our president is more of a hustler.
He is emulating our President.
but I think Ces speaks English better
Interesting read:
Who should be the Mets' new GM, and who should round out front office?
The Mets are kicking off interviews on Monday
By Matthew Cerrone | 11:15AM
In the days after Sandy Alderson stepped down as GM due to health reasons, I mentioned how the Mets should not just hire a GM, but also hire a President of Baseball Operations to set short-term goals for the GM and staff, all of which should be based on a clear, longer-term strategy.
Four of the five teams currently using this hierarchy (Red Sox, A's, Dodgers and Cubs) made the postseason this year. It's a successful structure because it separates the day-to-day networking, media updates, transaction management and paperwork from the big picture concepts, communicating with ownership and the restructuring and overseeing of all new and existing departments.
The other advantage to interviewing for a more senior-level position is that it more or less assures the Mets the opportunity to talk with current lower-level executives from with other teams.
In most cases, the President is older than the GM, has been in multiple front office positions for 10-15 years, and has at least a modest track record of success.
According to SNY's Andy Martino and other local reporters, Jays President Mark Shapiro, former O's President Dan Duquette, Indians GM Michael Chernoff, Cubs GM Jed Hoyer, and former Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd have all been linked as people expected to be interviewed by the Mets.
It's hard to say exactly who I would like to see fill the above two roles. However, my initial instinct is to hire Hoyer to run strategy, staffing and direction of the franchise, while letting him choose the GM -- potentially a lesser-know, up-and-comer like Nationals assistant GM and VP of Player Personnel Doug Harris, Diamondbacks Senior VP and Assistant GM Jared Porter, or Cubs Senior VP of Scouting and Player Development Jason McLeod.
To read more about several of the above candidates, check out this post I wrote in June, foreshadowing some of the names we would be hearing during the next few weeks.
In the end, I'm super intrigued by the idea of installing Hoyer as President and McLeod as GM, given their success in Chicago and considering they worked together with the Padres before joining Theo Epstein in Boston and moving with him to the Cubs.
These are two men ready to run a big-market team, and what a better read on a resume than to have brought a World Championship to the Red Sox, then the Cubs, and then the Mets. That would be amazing...
By the way, in addition to hiring a GM and CEO-type President/Strategist, I'd like to see the Mets add a recent player or two as special assistants to the above two offices, as well as significantly expand their Baseball Systems department and create an old-school, new-school dynamic atop their player development and scouting departments.
For instance, the Twins last year hired Michael Cuddyer, Torii Hunter and Latroy Hawkins to provide insight and advice to team executives and current players in the clubhouse. Pedro Martinez and Jason Varitek do a similar job in Boston. This is where recent stars David Wright and, say, Carlos Beltran, R.A. Dickey or Johan Santana could be of service, as they're recent enough to relate and help the modern player, but also experienced enough to advise the front office on player-related issues.
The Red Sox currently have eight people listed as members of their research, analytics and baseball systems department. The Mets have two. In general, the Red Sox list 33 people in management of their baseball operations and administration department, whereas the Mets list 18. This may be a matter of categorizing people and titles, but ask anyone around baseball and you'll hear them say the Mets are severely understaffed.
In regards to scouting and player development, the New York Post recently reported that former manager, now Mets special assistant Terry Collins may also assume a larger role in the next front office.
My understanding is that Collins will not be a fixture in the offices at Citi Field, but instead work in a role likely based in St. Lucie, where the team runs most of its minor-league operations.
The newest trend developing in other front offices is to pair an older, more traditional scout with a younger, evidence-based analyst to serve under the director of that related department. I can see the former half being a perfect fit for Collins, who is highly regarded around baseball and with the Mets for his ability to identify talent and guide them through the farm system.
Remember, before being hired by Alderson to serve as his big-league manager, Collins was hired in 2010 by Omar Minaya to be the organization's minor-league field coordinator. Terry once told me he will forever hold a special place in his heart for the young guy hustling to find his way in the game because, despite his 10-year playing career, he never made it to the big leagues.
The point being, in a game seemingly flush with people qualified to scout using analytics, the informative old-timer relying only on his eyes and instinct is less in supply, yet suddenly again being sought out in every front office. Collins, who is adored by Fred Wilpon, can 100 percent be that guy.
Matthew Cerrone (Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Contact) is lead writer of MetsBlog.com, which he created in 2003. He also hosts the MetsBlog Podcast, which you can subscribe to here. His new book, The New York Mets Fans' Bucket List, details 44 things every Mets fan should experience during their lifetime. To check it out, click here!
OMG. I'm getting teary-eyed recalling that amazing catch. It sure felt after that amazing play we were going to win it.
Tough to weigh in when you don’t know if the guy has any real assurances about autonomy and/or budget.
A strange hire if you ask me.
If I were Frazier, Cespedes, or deGrom I would feel totally ripped off by having my strategic partner now suddenly negotiating my financial future.
Especially deGrom. That is one person I would not want to make uncomfortable if I were the Mets.
And if I was the Wilpons, I would not trust any offer made to deGrom--who knows if Van W will show too much favoritism to his former star client?
Then there are the little factors, such as he has never worked in a front office, never overseen a minor league system, never negotiated trades with other GMs, never managed a research and analytics department, never headed a scouting operation. You know, small things like that.
Well, he does suit up well, has a great smile, is telegenic, and gave a really good press conference. Maybe he will hire some experienced staff and let them do their jobs well? We shall see.
mfpark said:
A strange hire if you ask me.
If I were Frazier, Cespedes, or deGrom I would feel totally ripped off by having my strategic partner now suddenly negotiating my financial future.
Especially deGrom. That is one person I would not want to make uncomfortable if I were the Mets.
And if I was the Wilpons, I would not trust any offer made to deGrom--who knows if Van W will show too much favoritism to his former star client?
Then there are the little factors, such as he has never worked in a front office, never overseen a minor league system, never negotiated trades with other GMs, never managed a research and analytics department, never headed a scouting operation. You know, small things like that.
Well, he does suit up well, has a great smile, is telegenic, and gave a really good press conference. Maybe he will hire some experienced staff and let them do their jobs well? We shall see.
There are plenty of people out there who are crunching the numbers and can tell you what Jacob deGrom's market value is. There isn't going to be much disagreement over that, and anyone will be able to see immediately if an offer to him is out of whack. So I'm not concerned about that.
In terms of the rationale the team gave for the hire, it makes a certain amount of sense. Agents are in the business of scouting and identifying talent before anyone else. It's hard to argue that CAA didn't have success with their own scouting system.
The potential for success or failure is going to come down to what kind of leader Van Wagenen is. At that level of the organization, the real work is going to be done by people lower in the organization. So the questions to be answered are about what his vision is, how do they use data, how do they set their priorities, etc. The big unanswered question for me is -- will Van Wagenen be humble enough to admit what he doesn't know? Will he listen to people who have expertise in areas where he's inexperienced. It's a rare high-level executive who can get to that kind of a position of authority and admit that there are things he doesn't know, and things that his direct reports are more expert on. So we'll likely see pretty quickly what kind of leader he is, and whether it's going to be a disastrous hire, or an inspired choice. Given the Wilpons' track record, I think we all know which one the odds favor.
I think the Wilpons liked the idea of an out-of-the-box hire which this qualifies. I thought they were going to hire the young man from the Rays. The fact that he's an agent isn't bothering me as much as the fact that he's the agent of so many key players on the Mets. I agree with mfpark. The confidential nature of the agent/player relationship is out the window as Van Wagenen has an unfair advantage over deGrom. How does he approach this negotiation? From a fan's standpoint, I'm of the opinion to give deGrom his money now. He's a Cy Young frontrunner and if he wins the award, if I were the Mets, I'd be rewarding him for his amazing year and especially, for his professionalism. The poor guy endured a very frustrating season with grace and tremendous focus. I like what Van Wagenen said in the press conference and I like his positivity. He's the GM in a critical moment for the Mets. If the rotation stays healthy and with one or two acquisitions, the Mets will compete. They're almost there!
bub said:
New York sports are in the toilet right now. Really need good Mets news.
All the NY teams suck these days. Except the Devils (and Islanders) sort of. Sad to see for such a great sports area.
The Rangers are in youth movement/rebuild mode so not much was expected but they have some talented young guys. I commend them for the rebuild.
Not much was expected of the Jets but that opening game demolition of Detroit raised false hopes. Also rebuilding. I think Darnold is for real but is a rookie, with all that entails, and one with a fairly weak cast around him.
A lot has already been said about the Giants's current situation and future.
I don't know a lot about the basketball teams. Haven't been watching.
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Enjoyed catching up on this thread this morning. This season was, without question, the most detached I've ever been from the team. Did not watch a game on TV after the first week of July. Part of that was because they sucked and part was because I was busy this summer. We did make a road trip to Pittsburgh which was fun. Went to David Wright's send-off on Saturday. Very special night.
Hoping that spring training rekindles my passion for the Mets.
Let's go Mets.