You can read a full recap at Amazin’ Avenue.
Sandy had spoken earlier about not having been tempted yet to trade some pitching depth for a really good outfielder, or for anything else, but he then rattled off a dozen or so names and talked about the minor league roster crunch and that perhaps he’d be tempted soon. My question was meant to be a followup to that, where I asked, or tried to ask, what would push that temptation to the point that a trade is made?
He responded with a lot of talk about how close they came to making some moves with Bourn or Upton, and talked confidentially about the club, but it did dance around the question a bit. I was trying to figure out what the factor would be that changed his mindset from tempting to need and if part of the temptation might stem from the current plan getting derailed a little bit?
Perhaps if I could’ve asked a followup question I would’ve asked “If the Mets had won 83 games last year instead of what they did, is it more likely you would’ve traded for Upton?” What I was really looking for is if the temptation to trade these players is going to be the result of the team’s success, or is going to drive the team’s success. When does focus shift from making shrewd transactions to needing to acquire the player you want, even if it’s an overpay. Is it only when adding a player like Justin Upton makes the Mets a favorite to make the playoffs, or can it be done simply to make the team better and let other factors, such as long-term success from Zack Wheeler, be what puts them over the top?
The Mets are the aware of blogs, and their importance to the baseball community. This has become increasingly obvious, but it was still a shock to be invited to a conference call with Mets VP Dave Howard who not only was kind enough to do this call with us, but also confessed to reading at least one Mets blog. He also got in a subtle dig at Yankee fans (seems to be a common topic lately) when he mentioned how passionate Mets fans are and how many more Mets blogs there are than Yankees blogs. The topic of the day was the new ticket information; something that affects everyone from blogging fans to casual fans. For specific details about the new pricing schemes, giveaways, and breakdowns (and really for future details, since he’s always on top of it) go read