Many fans here at Mets360 and in the larger media sphere have blamed General Manager Sandy Alderson for being too slow in helping the Mets turn around as an organization. He hasn’t brought guys up quick enough, he hasn’t made a dynamite trade to impact the team, he hasn’t, he hasn’t, he hasn’t. It’s a long list, and I don’t really have the time or the patience to go through the entire thing here. Some of it is more accurate than other parts. But there is one thing for certain, slowly, things are changing for the better.
Take for instance the news of the past couple of weeks. Underperforming outfielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis was designated for assignment just a few weeks ago and then traded to the Los Angeles Angels. He’s now back, but on the Las Vegas roster. Maybe he’ll get a chance to prove himself later in the season, but that’s far from certain. Dillon Gee and his near 6.00 ERA were also designated for assignment just the other day, and will either be traded away or sent down to Vegas to join Nieuwenhuis. All Gee did was serve as the 2014 Opening Day starter and win 38 games for the Mets from 2011 to 2014. In the midst of the Mets being consistently lackluster, Gee was a frequent, rare bright spot. But as the team’s fortunes have taken a turn for the better this season, Gee’s have plummeted.
Likewise backup catcher Anthony Recker was recently optioned down to Vegas. Recker was a very serviceable defensive catcher for the Mets over the past two-plus seasons, and occasionally provided a tremendous bout of power when in the lineup. But a career line of .191/.266/.349 wasn’t quite cutting it anymore, so the GM had to do what must be done. Meanwhile Akeel Morris, who has impressed with a fantastic K/9 rate throughout his minor league career was called all the way up from A-ball for a cup of coffee. And Dilson Herrera, who made the jump from A-ball to Double-A to the majors last year may be sealing Daniel Murphy’s fate at ever playing second base for the Mets again.
None of these alterations so far are irreversible, but they are telling in the fact that they are being made at all. These aren’t moves a GM would make if he was “retired” or “didn’t care about winning” as some have stated on this very site. It’s easy to want a sudden solution to the problems at hand, and the Mets sure have had problems in 2015. Yet none of us know the intimate finances at Alderson’s disposal, and even fewer understand the vast complexities of call-ups, demotions, options, trades and signings that the front office has to process over a season. Is that a defense? Somewhat, but it’s also just reality.
Sooner rather than later, the Mets will have Steven Matz join the future rotation of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler, which might just be the best in all of baseball. Sooner rather than later, the Mets will find reason to call-up Michael Conforto who has bashed his way through A-ball and into Double-A in just the first few months of his first full season. Sooner rather than later, Gee, Jon Niese and Bartolo Colon will no longer be playing for the blue and orange. And sooner rather than later, the Mets bullpen will have solidified itself instead of relying on inexperience or nonsensical matchups in order to succeed. The future is now, but patience is still a virtue.
I try to live in both worlds, the fan and the writer. It’s difficult sometimes to stay neutral, or to see the big picture, especially when it’s clouded by ineptitude or raging emotions. But this team is build for now, and even more so for tomorrow. Should David Wright actually return around the All-Star break as recently suggested, the Mets will have their starting infield roster all in place for the first time in over three months. The devastation of the early season have taken its toll on the Mets, and yet first place lies at their feet. It doesn’t matter how it happened or what other teams are doing not to challenge the Mets, all that matters is now. The Mets are finally getting healthy, they are finally shedding the parts that don’t fit anymore, and they are finally, hopefully going to start playing consistently better baseball. And maybe even some reinforcements will come along too.
Don’t mistake Alderson’s silence as disinterest or inattention. Sure he might have been able to get Juan Uribe for Gee a few months ago. But that was a few months ago, and Gee was a bigger part of the plan then. And Uribe wasn’t doing crap then anyway. So everyone take a collective breath. After all, lots of people applauded San Diego GM A.J. Preller for the big splashy moves he made during the winter. To show for all that hoopla, he has a losing record and a fired former Manager of the Year Bud Black. I can’t speak for you all, but I’ll take the patient man, and the brighter future.
How much did Sandy pay you to write that? Just kidding,Pat. Great post. I know trades aren’t as simple as most fans think but we have a surplus of arms and a dearth of bats. I know his hands are tied by ownership and payroll, but I keep waiting for that trade to put us over the top.
He told me I could pitch the ninth next time Familia has a kid.
But I think he meant St. Lucie Patrick!
I fear that many of the things that you are pointing out as in his favor are things that he likely shouldn’t have done in the first place.
He picked the wrong lefty-hitting OF
He picked the wrong 5th starter to open the season
He picked the wrong backup catcher
It’s good that he didn’t stubbornly stick with these guys all year. It would have been better if he didn’t pick them at all.
Definitely Brian. And while Alderson has made many good moves, the Blevins deal was a head scratcher: he had already traded for Torres earlier, had Gilmartin and Below who were pitching much better in spring training and three other lefties (like Scott Eyre) were cut that day. To trade for yet another one that had a 8+ ERA in the spring as well and give away a young kid for one year of yet another lefty seemed like a major overreaction to Collins’ constant complaining (MDD’s slow start for the Washington organization not withstanding).
You serious? Blevins was an absolute steal. He was unhittable until the broken arm, and we gave the Nats nothing of value – to them or us – in return.
I think we need some perspective on Blevins.
He retired 15 batters in a row, 14 of them when he had the platoon advantage. That’s very nice.
Hansel Robles retired 17 of 18 batters in May. That’s very nice, too. And I’m betting he faced lefty hitters in that span. And with more work, his streak didn’t hold. It’s a guarantee that Blevins’ wouldn’t either, even if his manager bent over backwards to use him in the most favorable spots.
Loved the Blevins deal. MdD nearly worthless.
Blevins helped the team immediately. MdD was, at best, an insurance policy of dubious payout.
I was thrilled to see the GM make a move to improve the team’s chances to win now.
Folks have do some pretty severe intellectual contortions to fault Blevins as a Met.
When given the chance to play regularly last year for the first time in the majors, MDD produced. I find it amusing that the default position should be — let’s disregard the biggest sample he’s ever had in the majors and declare him nearly worthless. Would you have the same opinion if we traded Flores in the offseason and his new team sent him to the minors after he made all of those errors in April?
As for Blevins, he retired 15 batters in a row over multiple 1 and 2 batter appearances with the platoon advantage. If any righty reliever was used in the same manner, he could do the exact same thing. But managers don’t trip all over themselves to create ROOGYs and declare their worth invaluable. Shoot, I already pointed out a similar stretch for Robles, who is the worst reliever on the club. And that wasn’t micro managed to give him the best matchups possible, either.
The issue isn’t Blevins, the individual. To the best of my knowledge, he’s not demanding to be used this way. When given a chance, he excelled in his role – bully for him. It’s the role and the slavish devotion to say that this one particular skill is worth micro managing for and that others aren’t.
To believe in the role, you’ve got to use a WPA argument and pretend that this usage pattern doesn’t detrimentally affect the other relievers on the staff. Right now, Blevins has an excellent WPA but what would happen if he pitched the full season and didn’t have the platoon advantage 93% of the time? Just look at the other pitchers the Mets have used recently in the role — Rice, Byrdak, and Schoeneweis — and see how they did when they had to face righties just 35-40 percent of the time. It’s not pretty.
And before you say Feliciano, he would face batters from both side of the plate and go an inning or more at a time regularly. In 2007 he faced 163 RHB and 112 LHB. If this was the type of guy that we traded for, it would be a completely different beast.
“As for Blevins, he retired 15 batters in a row over multiple 1 and 2 batter appearances with the platoon advantage.”
Gents, I may be missing something but worrying about MdD v KN seems tangential. denDekker is gone. Kirk was let go of and reacquired and dumped into the minors. Does it really matter? Neither will ever impact this team.
I was really taken by the Blevins situation. I thought he was a great pick up for MdD. We headed into the season without specialty relief LHP. I get that you dont think there is room for such individuals — Im not that far from you. However, that is not what Alderson, and certainly not Collins, see. They made decisions based on what they believe the team needed. In my eyes, the statement you made needs no furth comparison for its validation: he was put in a special situation for which he was hired and performed it with absolute aplomb. At face value he performed perfectly. That is all he can be held accountable for, whether or not any of us likes what the specific assigned role is.
JP and others like to talk about the inactivity of our GM, which I think is a fair thing to criticize.
My complaint is that when he finally got off his bottom and did something to address (notice I didn’t say help) the current team, he focused on the least valuable component of the club and not only made one, but two trades!
Leaving aside the names of the guys acquired and dealt away in these two moves, I’d like to ask one question:
Do you think the Mets’ overall record would be materially different if the bullpen featured one or two lefties instead of three?
I think that comment is a bit of “mission creep”. At one point as the season was beginning we had a total of zero lefty relievers. Given the propensity of this team’s desire to go matchy matchy that was an absolutely untenable situation. We can all go round and round on this, and like you, I think the pen management by this field skipper is appalling. However, as numbers-driven as this FO is, I can only imagine, it is fully endorsed at the top end. So perhaps to you (and I) it was a low priority, but I think it was a top priority, especially because OF was solved and so was SS. LOOGYs are absolutely a fundamental component of the Mets with this management team.
That said, I do not think the record would be different with 2 versus 3 lefties.
Gilmartin was there since December.
Other than that I don’t disagree with your post. It’s disappointing that a “numbers-driven” management team thinks this strategy is a net positive. When I’m doing my personal pros/cons for this administration, this is a big con.
I don’t know how you can still sit here and continue to tout that den Dekker was in any shape or form better than Kirk.
Hitting? Kirk had a .223 ISO last year. Career .142 ISO. He might not give you a high average, but he has power. den Dekker’s career ISO is half that, and he doesn’t even give you a high average either.
Fielding? Kirk has a career 4.1 UZR/150 at CF, and 2.4 UZR/150 overall. den Dekker is 3.9 UZR/150 at CF and 1.8 UZR/150. Rdrs has the metrics slightly pointing toward Mdd, but with their limited sample sizes, i’d basically call their defense the same.
Neither player had the necessary innings to judge them properly by fielding metrics. You can call them even and what little numbers are there support you. But my eye test had MDD better and it wasn’t particularly close. If both players were in the game at the same time, I have no doubt that anyone who watched them play for more than a week would place MDD in CF.
What Kirk did last year was not repeatable and expecting it to be was the mistake. Perhaps what MDD did last year wasn’t repeatable, either. But if given a choice between “not” and “perhaps” — it’s a pretty easy choice for me.
“What Kirk did last year was not repeatable and expecting it to be was the mistake”
Again, i think you’re mistaken.
How often do guys increase their walk rate 50% when they get to the majors? Mdd had a 8% walk rate in the minors, and last year it was 12% in the majors. Unlike power, which can come and go, things such as a batter’s eye usually don’t fluctuate that much.
I’d much rather bet on Kirk have a .200+ ISO going forward than Mdd having a 10%+ BB rate.
In 202 PA in Triple-A in 2013, MDD had a 9.9 BB%
In 384 PA in Triple-A in 2014, he had a 10.4 BB%
I think you’re being underhanded referring it as a “50%” increase, when it was a few percentage points different than what he did in the high minors.
Plus, you are fully aware that he changed both his swing and approach, making that few percentage point change even less meaningful. The hitter MDD was in 2012, when he had a 4.4 BB%, was completely different than the one he was the second half of 2014.
The the taking the air of out of Vegas also needs to be taken into account for walks.
Here are the splits for the bench bats that have been around the last few years
AAA BB%/MLB BB%
Eric Campbell- 15%/9%
Josh Satin-14.7%/12.7%
Andrew Brown-13.3%/7%
Kirk-9.8%/9.3%
Mdd-10.2%/10.5%
Looks like an aberration to me.
Huh. I just noticed that Kirk also had a 12% walk rate last year. It came with a 30% K rate, but if he’s providing .150+ ISO then the tradeoff is worth it. Plus, we’re raving about guys like Baez and Russell, who also have crazy strikeout rates.
I don’t think it’s particularly instructive to post the raw totals.
I think you would need to add up all of the PA and all of the walks, find out what the totals were and then figure out what the SD would be to really determine if something was an aberration. Otherwise you’re giving the same weight to what Andrew Brown and MDD did, even though the latter had three times as many PA.
Just eyeballing it, Satin and Kirk went down a little bit, MDD went up a tiny bit, Campbell went down a fair amount and Brown didn’t have enough PA to sway things very much. To me, the aberration is Campbell.
The Mets lineup was put together to be adequate, for the most part. Granny and Cuddyer should not be together. One or the other, preferable Cuddyer because he swings the bat. There was no reason to keep Gee as even after Wheeler got hurt, we had Montero and Syndergaard with Matz right behind him.
However, Alderson makes moves that are considered safe individually but collectively leave the team short in other areas. And, let’s not mention roster construction, six outfielders and no backup infielder, no backup shortstop, etc…
Safe is very close to patient. Sometimes it has been a detriment to Alderson and his decisions. But overall I think it’s helped make this team a better product. Overall is the key word.
My big issue with Alderson is the job he’s done evaluating available ML talent.
The Granderson signing is an Albatross that will hinder them for the foreseable future. Also, I don’t buy your “fewer understand the vast complexities” argument”. Also, If Sandy wasn’t so cryptic at times and playing it close to the vest it could be a lot clearer.
Nice post!
Alderson will need to make a very important decision regarding Daniel Murphy if/when Wright comes back. I don’t want the Mets to demote Wilmer Flores or Dilson Herrera.
Thanks David!
The majority of the above comments show how out of touch us Mets fans can be. Here we are in first place (last time I checked) and some still trash the front office. Who do they think promoted Herrera, Syndegaard, Plawecki and DC ? And has a SS (Flores) with 10 homers. Lets get a grip on realty. A please don’t trash even this post like many will.
Sorry dude, you don’t get a pass on
this site. Besides, what do you think the point of a sports blog site is anyway, to chant Lets Go Mets and wave pom-poms?
It took Alderson four years to tear down the Mets and rebuild them into the promised playoff team. So far he is fulfilling his end of the deal and has the Mets in first place by doing it his way. Now he has to keep them there in order to keep his promise. Four years was a long time to suffer with a poor baseball team that refused to immediately improve themselves. Sandy deliberately put an inferior team on the field those years in order to get to this point. Now there are no excuses, he has to balance the present with the future. Sandy has not been the only patient one because the paying, dedicated fans have been even more patient than him. It is time to deliver.
Sandy’s strengths are his ability to take proven major league talent and identify prospects that are going to contribute above average at the major league level. His weaknesses are evaluating major league talent and holding his tradeable assets beyond the trade expiration stamp. His other weakness was giving TC an extension.
Patrick, I enjoy your even handed laid back articles and this one was no excetion.Do you think you are up to tackling Terry in the next one?
I’ll certainly take that under advisement.
Sorry Patrick, Im just not buying. The delays, and personnel mismanagement have cost us a year in the rebuild, at a time when the back-end clocks are ticking and free agency looms on the rapidly approaching horizon. The handling of Duda and Ike was agonizingly slow and the outcome clear to many long before. Alderson failed to give a directive to Collins to get the young players in games no matter how bad it turns out. Instead we got endless ABs for the Bobby Abraeu’s and Chris Young’s and a manager saying we dont have time to play kids when there are games to win. It was wholly misguided and completely unacceptable. In the end it got us nowhere, and the worst of all nowhere’s imaginable…in the middle 10 teams in of the MLB…not playing in the post season, and not getting the best draft picks. I would much rather have finished dead last and improved through very high draft picks. Look at the game today: those kids taken at the top of the draft in Alderson’s era will be game changers. Our highest pick, Conforto, will also be good it seems. That 4 years has gone by and shortstop is still a question is shocking. The FA signings have almost singularly been a total bust.
Ok were in first place. But lets not take that too far. Were in first place in the weakest division in baseball, and the worst first place team in the league. If we were not in first we would not be in a wild card position presently. If that relationship holds we’re in “win the division or bust” mode. Also keep in mind, if the Nats havent had their first-third meltdown, we would be in neither first place nor in a wild card position (presently). From a tactical perspective, he has preserved the team for the Wilpon/Katz group by reducing payroll to shocking levels for a biggest of the big market teams.
Im not looking to be Debbie Downer. Im happy to be in first place. We have won a few more than we lost, and that is a good thing. We have some exciting players and there is a future, but that future is not infinite. The idea of slow being acceptable is something that needs to be evaluated very carefully.
I agree there are areas not to be impressed. But that has as much to do with the coaches and player performance as it does with Alderson. He can only set the team on the right path, and I think he’s done that. Next year’s rotation alone is a sign of better things to come. His biggest failings so far has been middling signing like Chris Young or some bum relievers. Colon, Granderson and Cuddyer are all overpays, but they are at least helping this team succeed at the moment, and that’s all we can expect.
Yawn. With all due respect, who cares except the both of you?
I’m glad you’re reading and commenting on the site.
With all due respect, if a subject doesn’t interest you, don’t waste your time commenting on it. At least two people find it interesting and that’s all that matters.
I think Sandy has been a mixed bag. Some clear successes, some failures.
The worst part of his regime has been the sycophants who treat him as some kind of minor god.
Well actually, no. I don’t mean to bust your b***s but you guys decided to have your own little tiff about 2 very marginal ball players, going off on a tangent far from what the original topic was. Just my opinion but there’s nothing more boring than 2 baseball fans beating each other the head with sabermetrics. And yes, your right, I shouldn’t read them, so I will follow your advice. My apologies.
Either first or second place all season. Establishing one of the best starting young rotations in baseball. Finally a front office that values the need for drafting offensive talent and many of you fools still don’t get this guy. His finger had to go in the dyke while the team that is beginning to shape up arrived. The Granderson and Cuddyer deals were bones thrown to a whining, ignorant fan base and media. The second guessing and lack of understanding about the need for patience is moronic. If the Mets were to win the World Series this season most of you cryberries would give Omar Minaya the credit.
Sandy just isn’t a knee-jerk reaction GM. I can’t put the injuries or the Mejia suspension on him. So trying to find serviceable pieces until his starters come back from the DL has to be accepted.What I do put on him is knowing you have 7 starters before the start of the season Gee should of been moved. Even if it was for a low minor league player(s). You could of applied that 5 million+ elsewhere (SS?)