“Luck is the residue of design.”
This is a very good time to be a fan of the New York Mets. After all the team won the National League championship and has just topped off the offseason with the signing of big thumper Yoenis Cespedes making them somewhat of a favorite to repeat as the NL East champions. The team boasts what is likely the best young starting pitching staff in the majors.
Much of the credit for building this team goes to its general manager Sandy Alderson. We are all hopeful that he beats the cancer that is in his body and can continue to build a team that can vie for and achieve in the playoffs for years to come.
But one can wonder whether the Mets are where they are because of Alderson’s skills or whether after years of futility the fickle finger of fate has come up lucky.
The signature move that started the team in the right direction came on December 17th, 2012 when Alderson pulled off the R.A. Dickey trade that netted the team not just one good prospect (as most of the pundits thought was the most possible) but rather two. The deal involved the Cy Young Award winning Dickey going along with very light hitting catchers Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas for Travis d’Arnaud, Noah Syndegaard, John Buck, and Wuilmer Becerra. This was a win-win-win-win deal for the Mets as d’Arnaud and Syndegaard are turning into outstanding players, Becerra is showing much potential in the minors and even Buck contributed with a quick start in the 2013 season. This deal was all skill and full credit must be given the GM.
Major league GM’s are constantly making or avoiding moves. We fans see the deals and signings made but have little inkling of what offers have been declined. In the card game Bridge your partner’s pass can sometimes be as informative as a bid. So too in upper level baseball decisions. Those players not signed or trades not made can be telling but we just don’t know much about them.
Looking through all of the transactions Alderson has made since he took the job in October of 2010 you see a good number of clunkers. Trading Angel Pagan away did not work well. He brought in the likes of Scott Rice, John Mayberry Jr., gambled a Rule 5 pick on Brad Emaus, traded a fellow who turned into a good pitcher, Collin McHugh, for Eric Young, Jr. They did not tender a contract to Justin Turner just before he turned a corner in L.A.
To Alderson’s credit he read the Jose Reyes’ situation correctly. He likely let him go as a Free Agent due to the Wilpons’ financial peril but Reyes’ career and life path have been downward ever since.
Also we forget there was a time when the team had to decide which player was the keeper: Lucas Duda or Ike Davis. Many thought it was Duda who should go. Alderson kept Duda and traded Davis. We now know that was the right move too.
But on to the aspect of luck.
Just before the trade deadline last year Alderson wanted to make a deal sending Juan Lagares and Zach Wheeler to the Brewers for Carlos Gomez. Milwaukee declined to accept Lagares and wanted Wilmer Flores instead. While the company line is that the Mets pulled out of the deal because of questions about Gomez’s health I have always suspected that Mets’ ownership got cold feet about adding Gomez’s salary while not being able to offload Lagares’.
But this turned out lucky because after trying to get other high profile outfielders they hit on the Yoenis Cespedes deal with Detroit. That worked out kind of sensationally.
Fast forward to the Winter Meetings. We know the Mets desperately wanted to sign Ben Zobrist and apparently were willing to go higher than the four year/ $56 million offer that the Cubs eventually gave him. Had the Mets succeeded in inking Zobrist and slightly improving second base compared to Daniel Murphy or Neil Walker one has to doubt whether there would be sufficient money left over for the recent Cespedes resigning. It would appear that the Mets lucked out that the Cubs got Zobrist.
Another piece of good fortune was this. It’s clear that the signing of Michael Cuddyer a year ago was a disaster. The player signed a big two year contract and cost the team a valuable 1st round draft pick. He played very poorly and received a salary of $8.5 million for his efforts in 2015. Had he not retired he would have taken up a roster spot in 2016 and made $12.5 million. Even if he came to a settlement with the team over his 2016 salary his fortuitous retirement saved the team millions and opened a roster spot for another outfielder. Yoenis Cespedes, anyone?
So it seems that Sandy Alderson has been good, at times bad, and in recent times quite lucky.
Jimmy Johnson, Dallas Cowboys coach, when told many other coaches considered him lucky: “The harder I work, the luckier I get”.
Pat Riley, NBA coach, in his book “The Winner Within”: “Luck is for rabbits. Success comes before work only in the dictionary”.
My point is, when you are in a position to succeed due to the work you have put in to get there, obviously you will have some good fortune.
Larry, the Pagan trade was necessitated by Collins complaining about his bad defense; the Cuddyer signing was a pure brain fart, as was CY; Aoki would have been a better signing but no one is perfect.
While I also like Aoki as a player more than De Aza he was also I’ll suited to the Mets needs. They needed a left hand hitting player to platoon with Lagares in center. Neither Aoki nor DE Aza are defensively adept in center. Span, Fowler, and perhaps Parra were better candidates that Alderson passed on.
Cespedes will likely be a below average defensive CFer but his big bat should make up for that
Larry, interesting fact I read somewhere lately, wish I remember where. It seems that Cespedes hasn’t played much CF. He played when he first came to the U.S., but at the time wasn’t really comfortable in a new country. Then, he didn’t get a chance again until last August.
Now, am I buying all that? Not too much, maybe 2%, but hopefully he doesn’t kick around any more fly balls and is 100% healthy, plus we love/need the big bat.
It was a Great Rebuild…all that was missing was 6 seasons of actual Baseball.
If the Mets had moved to Tampa…or Montreal… I would have accepted the process more easily. A Small Market team in Americas Biggest Market City is difficult to Justify and Accept. I
The dispicable actions of the owner in Causing the financial iussues…and the on-going caustic nature of the Ownership behavior( note, not one player leaves without a boot in the ass out the door)…. add to all of that the straight out Lying to a lkoyal fanbase….and Top it off with the terrible string of bad, unlovable baseball………………. This is what Sandy fronts. It’s an inescapable portion of what he’s done.
He’s professional about it…it’s his job…he’s good at it!
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I don’t think it’s fair to call it a six-year rebuild.
No one was talking about a rebuild starting in 2009. The team had won 274 games the past three seasons and nearly everyone out there predicted the team to finish either first or second in the NL East. In the offseason before 2010, they brought in Jason Bay, so the Mets were looking to compete and not rebuild.
The rebuild didn’t start in earnest until 2011. Four years of rebuilding followed by a World Series appearance. More than half the fan bases in the league would sign on the dotted line for that. That the Mets were able to do that without bottoming out — they never finished last in the NL East, much less last in the league — all while enduring shrinking payrolls is a testament to Omar Minaya and Sandy Alderson and their respective organizations.
Any other business with such Miscreant, ill-willed Ownership——????…I’d never “shop” there!
Hey Eraff, so I gather you’re a glass half-full guy, I get it. I agree that being competitive is always the goal. However, whether you ever accept it or not, the Wilpons were entangled in the Madoff disaster. Nothing will ever change that and as a result, their cash flow was greatly affected. Anyone who didn’t see they were rebuilding just wasn’t paying attention. To demonize Alderson is. missing the point.
First let me say that I am very happy at where the team is right now. It’s the most confident I’ve been going into a season since 2007.
As far as the article goes, I feel that Sandy got incredibly lucky with Ces this time around. He let Ces out there all this time and anyone could have snatched him up and it took Ces turning down gaurenteed money, something around $35 mil to sign with the Mets. I think 99.9$ of players would have taken that $110 mil 5 years from Washington and called it a career. If Ces took that offer, I strongly think the gNats are the favorites, not us to win the division. I honestly think it took a lot of luck on Sandy’s part that Ces is here and not somewhere else
Where do you ‘blog editors’ come off thinking you know something a major league GM doesn’t know? As to the Gomez deal I strongly suspect Alderson never had any intention of making that trade. Take the time to read Aldersons biography, particularly the story concerning his negotiations with the Giants about Zack Wheeler. He played the Giants beautifully and used Houston as a dodge to get Wheeler. This guy was a Marine fighter pilot who fought in Vietnam Nam, a Harvard law school grad and the true inventor of Moneyball, which by the way has nothing to do with on base percentage. In other words his resume is a hell of a lot more impressive than yours or any New York ‘sportswriter’ or a phony like Mike Francesa. Pay attention and learn.
No doubt, Sandy has been good & lucky. However, to be able to be in position to be either means that you are at least taking ‘swings’. Sure, he has made a few boo-boos (Cuddyer, Turner, C.Young, McHugh), but how many times in past years and years before Sandy did the Mets have GMs that would just sit on their hands and not do a damned thing, while the crosstown Yanks were making every move imaginable ??? In order to succeed, you have to take a chance on failing.
A reporter once asked Michael Jordan how it felt to make some 30+ winning shots at the end of games in his career ?
MJ’s response was that while it felt great, it did not feel as good as the other many more that he missed over his career !
No guts no glory.