The search for the next Mets general manager is (almost) over, and for now we don’t have a lot else to talk about. Unfortunately the most important facts are hidden from us; the candidates’ plan for the future. Looking at past history is certainly helpful, but what really determines who the best choice is is the game plan that person has to bring the Mets to the World Series.
Nothing will dispel the adjectives and storylines currently trending among Mets writers. We’ve heard broke, dysfunctional, disastrous, cheap, stupid, tyrannical, clueless and many others. Signing a general manager that’s perceived to be a good choice may quiet that some in the offseason, but that’s only a band aid. If and when the Mets announce their choice this week, the team won’t actually be any better.
This is why signing a guy as a figurehead of autonomy is not the way the Mets should go. A quiet offseason does nothing for ticket sales or profits. It’s the actions of the new hire that will do that, and even that’s unlikely until those actions, acquisitions and trades, put up statistics in regular season games and the Mets look like a winning club. So we can speculate about who is the best choice, but until we see the decisions made, it’s not easy to know that.
Until the Mets are winning, consistently, all those stories people are writing about the Mets being dysfunctional will continue. You’ll hear people crack jokes about Prevention and Recovery, joke about the Mets doctors, criticize Jeff Wilpon’s apparent involvement in the way things are done and reference Bernie Madoff any time anyone gets more money than is thought to be fair or the Mets don’t sign or talk to a player that someone thinks they need.
Outside of the fanatic fan, us bloggers and tweeters and hard-core followers, most people don’t even know or care who the general manager of the team is. If the team is exciting, popular, and winning they will come to the stadium. If it’s not, they won’t. No GM is a savior; it’s going to take a lot of hard work from everyone all the way down to the 40th guy on the extended roster to get this team back to respectability. It’s not about names or faces or organizational structure but about winning. So let’s get this general manager selected and into the office so we can start with the process of building our 2011 World Champion New York Mets.
Jon Heyman is reporting tonight that the Mets have decided on Sandy Alderson. If this is indeed the case, my point stands: The team is not yet better. Let’s take the next step and start interviewing smart, talented people to manage the team. And let’s start keeping some things internal before blabbing it to the media. Either announce it officially, or don’t tell Heyman, because telling him is as good as announcing it.