Mets Fill In The Blank

If the Mets announce ______ I would praise them and think it’s a good step towards a successful year.

 

Currently it seems like no matter what the Mets do, whether it’s express interest, express dismay at prices, suggest that a guy’s not a good fit, or ponder giving a current Met off a bad season another shot they get resounded mocked and killed for it.

 

Sure, they’ve earned it. The results speak for themselves and whether or not you trust the plan, they’ve reached the point where they really need to put the money where their mouth is. That said, they do HAVE a plan, and it’s one they’re not articulating, no matter what rumors and leaks you hear. Talking about the plan hurts the effectiveness of the plan.

 

Of course, no matter how much money the Mets say they have to spend, they have all offseason to build the roster. Whether or not they spend $20, $5, or even $40 million on the payroll is irrelevant to the actual makeup of the team on 3/31/14. If that team looks like a team that can win more than 81 games, then perhaps they’ll earn some good will. It’s silly to criticize the entire painting when the artist has only drawn two lines on a piece of canvas. You may be extremely skeptical that it’s going to turn into anything resembling art, but until it does, it has the potential. Until Sandy Alderson has crafted the entire roster, it’s silly to judge each individual move, or even each rumor, as some sort of disaster. As much as you like or dislike the Mets decision makers, they DO know more about baseball and player evaluation than we do.

 

As with all teams, it’s winning that matters. If the Mets are winning consistently and fighting for a playoff spot, the fans and interest will come and people will at least momentarily forget about payroll numbers and financial crises. The offseason provides little else to talk about, so that’s what we get. You don’t have to believe in the Mets, but baseball tends to turn out way differently than anyone expects. Every year players succeed where everyone assumes they’ll fail, and fail where fans are comfortable in them succeeding. No one really thought much of Scott Hairston, or Marlon Byrd, or R.A. Dickey when they were signed, but they ended up making big contributions.

 

If you want to roll your eyes and make jokes, that’s fine. It’s a long offseason and the hot stove season is often full of lots of silliness. Just remember that there are a billion rumors and most of them mean nothing. GMs, owners, “persons with knowledge of the situation” all have their own agendas and telling you the truth about every plan they have is not one of them. Sometimes a lot of small moves that seem meaningless end up working together to make a fairly solid team. Other times seemingly solid moves end up in injury or poor production and the money is as good as not spent. There are a lot of moving parts to the Met roster this offseason, and it just seems silly to assume where they’re going to land, how they’re going to do, and then mock them for it.

A Thought On Mets Payroll

Look, no one has any idea what the payroll is going to be.  Sandy Alderson has clearly stated they haven’t finalized numbers yet, and that he’s prepared for a number of different options.

 

It’s Sandy Alderson’s third year, and he’s going to start feeling some pressure to not just point this team in the right direction, but actually get them to take a step or two.  The Wilpons have always seemed willing to invest in a plan that makes the Mets better.  They haven’t exactly shied away from spending money in the past, and the recent drop was in part due to plummeting revenues as well as financial messes.  These last couple of years are obvious exceptions to the willingness to spend money, but they DID invest more money by buying minority shares.  This was always the plan, and it stands to reason that if needed the Wilpons could manage at least a slightly higher payroll if need be.  Maybe that’s not the case, but it’s really impossible to say as we’re not privy to that information.

 

Combine those two and I suspect Sandy Alderson will pitch a plan with a slightly higher payroll, depending on if he can acquire the pieces he’s targeting, and that the Wilpons will approve that.  Alderson will be selling it as a probable way to make the Mets better, which will also increase revenue if it works out.  This isn’t to say the Mets payroll definitely increases; If the players Alderson wants that would increase payroll are not available, for any number of reasons, he’s not obligated to raise the payroll just because he has the green light.  Which is part of the reason he’s not going to tell us what the target numbers are.  (Another part being it hurts his negotiating position with free agents if they know exactly how much money he has to spend)

 

It actually makes sense to spend a little in 2013.  Barring Johan Santana returning to Cy Young form, or Jason Bay making a run at the MVP, both players come off the books after next seasons freeing up a lot of money.  It’s probably reckless to spend it all at once, and there’s no guarantee that there will be enough quality players the Mets need to acquire available to spend it.  Spend a little bit above budget in 2013 with the expectation that it’ll come down again in 2014 with all the money coming off the payroll.  While the Mets have a lot of money owed next year, they’ve got virtually none of it committed to future years.  Spending a little this off season is not going to create a logjam of contracts or leave the Mets unable to get out from under a pile of unproductive players.

 

The Mets need to get better, and Sandy Alderson has suggested that the roster won’t look the same regardless of what the budget is.  It’s probably more set than it seems.  The infield and starting pitching look pretty good, and the bench is certainly passable with guys like Hairston and Baxter and even Turner and Cedeno.  Whatever does happen with the budget, we can probably count on Sandy Alderson doing everything he can to make this team much better next year.

There Is No Replacement For Jose Reyes

There is an interesting juxtaposition among Mets fans that talk about things like trading Wright or letting Reyes walk.  The same people that justify this with statements about not competing for years and being in rebuilding mode seem offended that some (I’d say many) Mets fans suggest they’ll be much less interested in the Mets if Reyes leaves.

 

There’s always a lot of comparison, as well as attempts to avoid comparison, to the Yankees with the Mets.  They share a city and compete for the same entertainment dollar.   The common rhetoric among Mets fans is that the Yankees fans are front-running morons that only care about yelling about how many rings they’ve won and that Mets fans are truer fans that love the team, good or bad.   If a vastly diverse group of millions of Mets fans can agree on anything, it’s that Jose Reyes is a talented baseball player that’s fun to watch.   At what point does it stop being about watching your favorite players play your favorite game and start becoming about being a consistent winner?

 

What is baseball without the season, with the ups and downs of a 162 game scheduled filled with bad breaks and huge hits and the ebbs and flows of stress and emotion?  I don’t follow the Mets for optimal lineup constructions and high-value controlled commodities.  I watch the Mets because I love baseball and I’ve formed an attachment to the players that have worn the uniform year after year.  Jose Reyes is one of those players.  He’s a life-long Met and it’s hard to imagine him anywhere else.  The Mets have other good players, but there is something special about Jose Reyes and his fun-loving attitude.  Perhaps it’s the way he seems to love playing the game as much as we love watching him play it.

 

Sure it’s possible to make arguments about injury risks and long contracts that suggest perhaps giving Reyes too much money or too many years may be detrimental to the long term success of the franchise, but frankly I’d rather take my chances with Reyes.  Those risks exist with every player in every circumstance, and if you’re not going to take a chance with a fan-favorite and top of the line player at a sparse position, what are you even doing?   Reyes is already bordering on legendary Mets status, and that’s not something that comes along every day.   Mike Piazza came here when he was great, Dwight Gooden left in 1994 and Darryl Strawberry before him.  Ignoring that there is long-term financial value to having legends to invite back to Citi Field in the future, do we really want to let one walk away for what’s some kind of  ‘smart process of value contracts and prospect development’?  A couple more years and the Mets record book will be Jose Reyes’ biography, with a guest appearance by David Wright.

 

The Mets have struggled for years now with collapses followed by injuries followed by just about everything else.  Now you want to take the most exciting player on the team away too?   While I’ll always be a Mets fan, there comes a point when it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s easy to say that we need things to stabilize, for bad contracts to work their way off the payroll and for prospects to mature and contribute at the fraction of the cost, but in the meantime other teams are playing baseball and competing for the postseason and doing all sorts of wonderful things.  Taking seasons off is not the way to build a perennial contender.  Every year the Mets spend in rebuilding mode, defined by me as letting Reyes go and not replacing him with at least as much talent, is a year that customers find other ways to spend their entertainment dollar.  Some will go to the Yankees, some will switch to other sports.   Some will stop watching with their kids who will spend more time on video games, movies, or something else entirely.   Husbands will take their wives out to a nice dinner instead of to Citi Field, because maybe without Reyes, and winning, they don’t feel it’s worth the traffic and the rushing home from work.

 

Building a winner will eventually repair the damage, but even if you could guarantee repeated success it takes time to rebuild a fan base.  The Yankees had a healthy amount of fans show up, but even in 2000 they were 8th in total attendance.  The difference was that payrolls hadn’t yet skyrocketed to the levels they are at now.  The Yankees payroll in 2000 would be  the 13th highest payroll in 2011.  It was still possible for teams to maintain a rebuilding payroll and keep some talented stars while keeping revenues at or above payroll.  The way I see it, the Mets can’t easily get their payroll down that low, so they need to work on keeping revenues up.  Reyes can’t do it all by himself, but coupled with the right moves he could be the difference between the Mets raising attendance to 2.6 million or it dropping to 1.7.   Just in ticket prices alone, a swing like that more than pays Reyes salary per year.  Factor in revenue associated with advertising prices based on TV ratings and fans in the seats viewing them on the walls and it’s an even starker difference.   I find it hard to believe that having Jose Reyes playing baseball in New York can’t be profitable, and it’s certainly possible, even likely, that Jose Reyes can be a part of the success even four years from now.

 

There is never a guarantee that smart moves focused on the long term will lead to continued success.  There is no formula Sandy Alderson can follow that means the Mets will definitely be a perennial contender in 2014 and beyond.  Prospects, even highly touted ones, hurt themselves or flame out.  Free agent acquisitions that look like can’t misses age badly or under perform in a new environment.   Other teams in the division and/or league do a better job, or get luckier, in scouting and signing players and suddenly no one knows what the solution is for out-performing them.  It’s not hard to get into a cycle of suck like the Pittsburgh Pirates, constantly looking for All-Star prospects that maybe have a good year or two and than take off for greener pastures while the team struggles to even play at .500.  The best you can do is put yourself in a situation every year where the right set of circumstances gets you into the playoffs.  For the Mets that means keeping Jose Reyes.  It probably also means hoping Johan Santana stays on the field and is still pretty good at pitching, and that other players stay healthy as well.   It may be a long shot, but if you don’t keep yourself in the game you often miss opportunities.

 

I was at the game this year when Jose Reyes felt that first hamstring tightness and left the game.  It was a packed house for a Subway Series game, and Tejada jogging out to shortstop was like a punch in the gut.  I watched the rest of the game in a daze, barely caring about the result.   Reyes had such a great first half that there were road games in May that I was reminding myself to make sure I turned the game on in time, because Reyes would lead off and I might miss something special.  There are reasons to watch bad teams because even bad or average players hit for cycles, throw pitching gems, and smash home runs.  They can stage remarkable comebacks and rock opposing aces and there’s always the looming possibility that someone will throw that no-hitter.  Without Jose Reyes the chances of something magical happening go down.

 

Faith and Fear in Flushing, in an awards presentation to Jose Reyes, makes similar points and sums up my feelings pretty well in this quote.

except for habit and a lifetime of devotion, I can’t think of a good, rational reason to get squarely behind this team if you’re not on it.