Sandy Alderson is aiming for the cuddly monkey

Three cans wins you the squeaky bunny, five cans gets you the fluffy lion, take out all our little people, you’ll get… cuddly monkey.

Feeling lucky Alderson?

I’m reaching the point of offseason nausea.  Not much will be decided (apart from who is going to accept the qualifying offers) before the winter meetings.  Tim Dierkes, Ken Davidoff, Joel Sherman and almost every single Met blogger has posted a list of people they think Alderson might target and acquire before the start of the 2014 season.  The carnival illustration hopes to illustrate that all of these predictions are merely shots in the dark.  The Mets will likely sign two offensive free agents and look to make a trade.  That is as conclusive as things get, but as the waiting continues we feel the need to speculate.

Two things you should note from my wonderfully brilliant metaphor: One, the game is rigged.  You could spend all your bullets aiming at Shin-Soo Choo and not knock him down because he’s just using you as leverage for another deal.  Two, the prizes may not be worth the effort or investment.  At a carnival the stuffed prizes might look great when they are sitting up on the shelf but when you bring them home you learn they are poorly sewn and filled with saw-dust.  Need I remind anyone of our bygone days with a certain Jason Bay.

At this point in the offseason you can assume that the only person who knows the intricacies of Sandy Alderson’s plans are employed by Alderson in the Met’s front office.  You can further assume that the best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry.  Just because Alderson might have pegged Johnny Peralta, Curtis Granderson and Corey Hart as his targets doesn’t mean he’ll get them.

As you read these legion postings of who will end up where keep these things in mind:

• Nobody knows the future (And if they did, they would be wasting those talents predicting baseball contracts)
• Value is in the eye of the beholder (i.e. We might think that Daniel Murphy is worth something that Dodger fans do not)
• Choosing wrong… could be choosing right (Just because you think a team got a bargain on someone doesn’t mean it will be a bargain down the road.  I once envied the Mariners in signing Chone Figgins.)

A Parting Poem:

There is a place where the season ends

And before the Agents meet,

And there free agents sit and wait,

And there the teams align their fate,

And there the GM will compensate,

For the failures at his feet.

 

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

And the ballgame winds and bends.

Past the pits where the speculators grow

Where they talk and talk though they never know,

And watch where the best free players go

From the place where the season ends.

 

Yes we’ll talk and talk though we never know,

And watch where the best free players go

For the players, they mark, and the players, they know

The place where the season ends.