As someone who has read more than two dozen books on the Kennedy Assassination it could be said that I am somewhat disposed to seeing conspiracies even where they don’t exist.
One of the other sports teams I follow is the New York Jets (yes, I can really pick them). For those not familiar with their recent history here’s a quick overview.
A few years ago the team’s owner wanted to change general managers. But since the owner was very fond of the coach, Rex Ryan, he made it a condition of hiring that the new GM keep Ryan as head coach. The fellow who landed the job, John Idzik, did keep Ryan around although it was widely suspected that Idzik, like any typical GM would have preferred to hire his own handpicked guy.
The Jets didn’t succeed with the Idzik/Ryan pairing and in their last offseason together the GM did not address some glaring weaknesses on the team but left $20 million in cap space unspent.
Those who see conspiracies suspected that the “master plan” was to have Ryan fail (which he did) and then Idzik would hire his own guy and use all that unspent money to greatly improve the team. The plan went bust when both Idzik and Ryan were shown the door after the awful season and a new GM, picking his own coach, had a very early draft pick to play with and oodles of cash.
So now let’s bring the discussion around to the Mets.
The leak from the Alderson biography was that the Mets GM was only about 51% in favor of bringing Terry Collins back for the 2015 season. Could you imagine a vote of confidence any lower than that? Clearly the GM had numerous issues with his manager but likely rationalized that he had never given Collins anything close to a good team to work with. Alderson must have felt he did not have sufficient reason to dismiss the manager even though he was filled with doubts.
We’re now about a quarter of the way into the season and see the Mets for what they are, a team that is just above .500, a few games behind 1st place. Things could go either way from here.
The team relies on its above average starting pitching yet fields average to far below average fielders at every position except centerfield. History shows you can only punt defense if your offense can make up for the kicked away runs. The Mets offense is and has been one of the worst in baseball for years.
I submit that Alderson probably knows right now what it would cost him to bring in either Troy Tulowitzki or Starlin Castro now or some time later before the trade deadline.
Could his thinking be that if he upgrades shortstop offensively and defensively that the team will improve the several games it would need to grab a wild card playoff spot? And if the team does make the playoffs would Alderson be justified in firing manager Collins?
Perhaps Alderson will let Collins suffer through with Wilmer Flores at shortstop. Then the team likely will fall short of the playoffs and firing Collins would seem justified.
The conspiracy theorist in me has me thinking that this is the case. Further I would predict that the first thing you will see the new manager given is a spanking new shortstop to play with.
At which point Collins walks into Fred’s office and says to him,”How do you expect me to win with what Alderson has provided me? I didn’t ask him to go out and sign a 36 year old who can’t hit and field! I asked him for an upgrade at SS and you can see what I have to deal with here. It’s not fair!.Murphy can’t field worth a lick and his offense has gone south. It’s not my fault we have all these players on the DL. How am I going to find consistency when all I was given is players like Soup and Tejada as backups? Between Murphy and Flores our up the middle defense is sucks. We can’t continue to give teams 4 or 5 extra outs every game. Eventually it will start to wear down our starters and bullpen. I need the players who know how to compete and win and blah,blah, blah….You get the point. Never take the blame as long as there are two people in the room..
While Collins would be justified going to Jeff Wilpon with complaints like that it would be futile on his part. Clearly ownership who gave Alderson an extension is far more in Alderson’s corner than they are in support of Collins. If the Wilpons thought Collins merited an extension they probably would have pressed Alderson to give the manager an extra year.
Wilpon would probably reply: “Sorry Terry. That’s baseball. Sandy gave you what he thought the team needed and you couldn’t succeed with it. Enjoy your retirement.”
Maybe it will play out just like the Jets? I’m not a fan of either one. Aldersons job is done. Rebuild the farm system while the Wilpons weathered their financial crisis. New GM? I don’t know. New manager Gardenhire or Backman.
if Sandy is the GM Backman wont be the manager just my opinion but then I wouldn’t hire backman either so maybe I’m wrong
Larry, I believe the Collins problem is Fred, not Jeff. Collins is a former Dodger, therefore… Maybe that’s why Fred proclaimed in spring training that he would be around more. However, if Collins gets fired before Wright and TdA come back, “he was never given a chance”.
Personally, I feel that Collins has enough to win on most nights, if he used it correctly. His pitching staff keeps him in every game. It’s ironic that last night after looking at the Vegas lineup, I asked how they could possibly win. They really have not a single good prospect on that team outside of Matz! I think Collins has way more for his level than Backman has for his level. Like my nephew says, “just saying”.
Backman is not a sabermetrics guy, Sandy inherited him from the previous regime here. That’s why I said dumping both like the Jets just did this past off season and then maybe Wally get’s hired for the managerial position.
Larry, I think you raise some interesting things, but I don’t buy the premise of the title. He would be instantly fired if he made moves to intentionally cause his manager, which is just proxy for the whole team, to fail. I don’t believe that is what Alderson or the FO aims at.
However, I could not agree more that the decisions Alderson makes places Collins and the team in peril much as you describe. We’re a pitching team short on defense, which staggers the mind. We have small bats, yet his philosophy taken from the old days of “bloop and blast” reigns. Having never played baseball he has imposed a system of offense that has never taken root in any team wide way. He apparently has a deeper belief in his “numbers” than the objective reality of actual runs scored and earned wins and losses. As a result you get Flores at shortstop because his bat has the upside to outweigh the defense — the numbers say that somewhere, no matter how compelling the actual reality of his play is, or really, isn’t. I think Alderson has gone so far into fantasy baseball that his objective reality has become Alice in Wonderland. I have high marks for the farm, however.
We’re near first place, and spent 5 weeks there. It felt strong about half that time. The other half was a waiting game to see regression towards reality as both our pathetic offense showed itself and the competition got righted. We still have cause to watch though. We watch in amazement of Harvey, DeGrom, and Syndergaard. We know Matz is coming, and I’m genuinely excited about a healthy Wheeler without bone spurs and a new bionic ligament. I would build a pitching centric team that capitalized on the strengths we have and home environment. My team would look similar to the Royals or Cardinals, not the Blue Jays or Yankees. Instead of approaching prey like a great white shark (rely on the home run), I would build a team that attacks like yellow jackets (high batting average, speed, gold glove defense everywhere), with the ability to score through the line up. Unfortunately, to my eyes, I see a mish mash approach in what Alderson has built based on the reality of the games played and actual won/lost record.
Sometimes I think the problem is that we, as fans, assume that what we most want, a winning team especially one that wins championships, is the exact same thing that the front office and ownership wants.
I believe this is not so.
What Sandy Alderson and his lieutenants want is to please their employers Wilpons/Katz.
What the owners, knee deep in debt, want is to survive financially especially if their ultimate pay day comes from the real estate boon at Willets Point.
It is certainly the case that in professional sports one of the best ways to ensure profitability is to field a winning team, one that brings in extra fans for those high profit playoff games. But in baseball, a sport without a true salary cap, there can be situations where it can be too expensive to field a great team. This is what happened to the Marlins when they were owned by Wayne Huizenga. They lost money while fielding a championship team so he dismantled it.
It always makes me think of the Mel Brooks’ movies/play “The Producers” where the scheme was to get rich while producing a guaranteed flop.
While I do not really believe Alderson wants the team to lose I do believe his top priority is minimizing the payroll. To that end he is not willing to add to the payroll to bring in a needed shortstop even if that would improve the team’s won-loss record.
And while I agree that it is exciting to think of all the impressive young pitching the team has in the pipeline and in the majors I am always worried about how difficult it is to keep a pitching-based team healthy. Tommy John surgeries are epidemic among young power pitchers. And in an effort to keep the payroll down there is no depth at the major league level so the Mets’ bench has become a useless joke.
Larry, you nailed about the Wilpons.
We can only speculate regarding whether Alderson would change his approach if he worked for an owner who had deep pockets.
Larry, is all over it. Great comment.
+1
Oh indeed. We’ve many times discussed the difference between what fans view as success and what we fans believe is the Wilpon’s view of success. We only want winning baseball. They clearly needed a path that would allow them to remain in an exclusive club, baseball team ownership, and Alderson did and continues to do that…job number one complete. Secondarily, there is the need to win. My comments were directed there.
Chris I would include the Giants as well. Some games their offense is non-existent But their SP’s and up the middle defense are what we as Met fans are looking for.
It’s a great talking point Larry, but I think that the Sandy is trying to help Terry succeed. The problem is that the guys the Mets need are going to cost a lot of prospects, and Sandy should be hesitant to trade with another team. We are seeing Syndergaard getting called up, and it seems that the front office has been trying to help the team win, as they have called up Plawecki, called up Ceciliani for Kirk, brought up Monnell to see if he could provide a spark off the bench and called up Dilson. Some of these moves happened because of injuries, but I’m glad to see some sense of urgency from the front office.
Great article Larry, and it’s definitely an interesting point to consider.