The General Manager of the Mets had himself a pretty good weekend amid the snows. On Friday night, he secured the services of Yoenis Cespedes for another year, on the Mets’ terms. On Saturday, he was the life of the party at the annual Baseball Writers Association of America dinner at the Waldorf, cracking jokes about Matt Harvey. He has been lauded and praised for the way he handled the Cespedes negotiation, for his patience and calm intelligence – hallmarks of Sandy Alderson’s entire career, if you think about it. As we know, during his tenure here in New York, ‘twas not ever thus.
When Sandy Alderson took over the Mets, his mandate – be it from the Wilpon ownership or someone higher up in the MLB corporate hierarchy; we were never sure – was clear: build a winner in New York, but don’t spend too much money. In fact, before you try to build a winner, get rid of these bloated contracts. And so, slowly but surely, he did. Farewell, Luis Castillo. Hit the road, Oliver Perez. Don’t let the door hit you, Jason Bay. Even a relative bargain like R. A. Dickey was given the heave-ho, fresh off a 20-win, Cy Young Award season and would command some major bucks in the aftermath. And we won’t even mention the whole Jose Reyes debacle. All this was done while fans and media loudly groused. Not that we were wrong in our grumbling, mind you. It did appear as if once pared to the bone, the team would never recover. He was derided, given the nickname “Small Market Sandy,” deliverer of Oakland A’s payrolls to the New York market. And he would crack his jokes and urge us to be patient. We fumed anyway. It appeared that he was fiddling while Citi Field burned. What escaped notice, though, was that while he was whittling away recognizable names, he was replacing them with solid, young, cost-controlled players. So Dickey became Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud. Carlos Beltran became Zack Wheeler. And when they were ready to take the New York stage, veterans like David Wright, Daniel Murphy and Curtis Granderson were here waiting for them. All this culminated in a 2015 NL East title and a sometimes-wild ride to game five of the World Series and a team with a very good chance of repeating in 2016.
Here’s the thing, though: what happens when he’s not here anymore? Alderson is 68 years old. On the eve of last year’s Winter Meetings, it was discovered that he’s battling cancer. While he’s been at this game a long while, the cancer scare brought into sharp focus that he won’t be able to general manage forever. When he came aboard in 2010, he brought his two most trusted lieutenants with him. Paul DePodesta and J. P. Ricciardi both worked for Alderson in Oakland and each had had a shot as full-fledged GM in his own right, DePodesta with the Dodgers and Ricciardi with Toronto. In concert with assistant GM John Ricco, the Alderson machine worked the system to perfection, DePodesta handling scouting and Ricciardi dealing with development. It would naturally follow that the success the Mets have had is coveted by other teams. Nobody banked on it being coveted by other sports: it was announced a couple of weeks ago that DePodesta will be leaving the team to take over a brand new football analytics department for the Cleveland Browns. DePodesta had been considered Alderson’s heir apparent, the obvious choice to step into the position whenever Alderson decided leave. With him gone, the choice is less obvious, of course.
We can only hope that it would be someone willing to continue the path that Sandey Alderson has cleared.
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One thing that is clear is that the Wilpons do not like to go outside the house to hire GMs. Sandy Alderson was the first external GM with no Mets ties who was hired by the team since Frank Cashen in 1980. Every GM prior to Sandy came from Cashen’s executive tree – Al Harazin and Joe McIlvainne were Cashen’s assistants, Steve Phillips was McIlvaine’s assistant, and Jim Duquette and Omar Minaya had both served as lieutenants to Phillips. That said, I think it is fair to assume that Alderson’s successor will likely come from one of his mentees. With DePodesta in the NFL, that makes the two obvious candidates as Ricciardi or Ricco. Ultimately, I think it is whether the organization prioritizes past GM experience (Ricciardi) or wants to elevate the longtime assistant (Ricco) who also worked under Minaya?
When Alderson was not around for the Winter Meetings, it was Ricco who was front and center.
He and His Ownership have not yet repaired their relationship with Me. The 6 years of Misery will never go away…he’s got one nice moonshot with the 2015 WS…. The Cespee Signing is a Half a Moonshot…..
A demonstrated commitment over the next year or two will provide the rest of the patch.
I’m far away from being concerned or sad with Life After Sandy.
Exactly. Lets not get all mushy over this. We were starved and put in a cage for years. Now that we have some bread and water, and indeed it tastes great, lets not pretend all the sudden were living “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.”
Bonus points for identifying the quote without looking it up!
Your animosity at Sandy is completely misguided. It is not his fault that the Wilpons lost all their money with Madoff and then they stubbornly refused to sell the team. As GM, he did exactly what he needed to do with the resources he had at his disposal- sell off the overpriced veterans, rebuild the farm system and assemble a young core so that he can sustain a long run.
I think that may be a tad overstated Glenn. The best of our pipeline has arrived, so pretending we have a killer farm for any kind of sustained run is simply not near what the rest of the world sees. Outside Dom Smith, the number of impact makers looks pretty thin. Yes, we all are in love with Rosario, but he didnt make the top 10 SS prospects. I dont count Matz as his prospect status is basically done. So as of now, Smith is the only top prospect in the system.
Alderson has done a good job rebuilding a mess of a franchise. But, acquisitions of young talent like the Mets got in Dickey trade, etc., hardly “excaped notice”. A nice fairy tale. These moves were deeply scrutinized and discussed ad nauseum.
Alderson’s strength is trading established star players for prospects. The Mets, in a few years, will be unable to afford all their young star pitchers. It will be at this time that the Mets might be making another “RA Dickey like” trade of a Harvey or deGrom for new blood in the system in order to maintain the relevance of the franchise. Hopefully Ricco or Ricciardi will be up to the task as Alderson will probably be retired at that point.
The Alderson downside was that it took him 4 1/2 years of pretty bad baseball and some pretty poor decisions before he reached the pinnacle. The lack of Wilpon funding contributed to this. Sandy looks smarter when the Wipon’s write a $25m check for a star player, or $12m check for a shortstop, or a $6m and $4m for a relef pitcher when in the not so distant past LaTroy Hawkins was an unaffordable risk.
Alderson has had a good run since July 24, 2015 but remember that Gomez was his first choice at the trade deadline and Zobrist was his primary free agent target this winter. Sandy has reached the goal but not in any impressive fashion. He is a better than average GM but not a “pathfinder” as the article suggests.
Alderson has done a solid job. I look at the new BP Top 100 list and there’s Matz, inherited, followed only by Smith and Rosario. Two guys. This achieved during a long stretch when he traded for prospects, focused on building the system, and didn’t have to make any “win now” deals. The system isn’t a shambles, but I fail to see the great accomplishment over 4-5 drafts. I guess what bugs me is that it’s often stated as an accepted truth that SA “fixed” the farm system. It looks pretty average to me. At this point, you can’t even find an exciting 7th-inning guy.
James, I understand your thinking as I was thinking that also. Here is an interview with Jim Callis put out today:
http://metsmerizedonline.com/2016/01/mmo-exclusive-mets-prospect-inisght-from-mlb-pipelines-jim-callis.html/
The good news is that the Mets system graduated alot of talent to fix the big league team and traded some away. The bad news is that guys like Nimmo, Church, and Stanckiewicz were early reaches that have not made it yet, but now the system needs restocking. Once you graduate, and you can restock, now you are full. Had they traded away Reyes and Wright and do a complete rebuild like the Braves, they would have been better off and had more prospects. But, even the Braves kept Freddie Freeman to have something decent on the team.
I think the system is fine and will be restocked, I hope. Unfortunately, these things take time and they take the right eye for talent. The Astros started about the time the Mets did but invested heavily in scouting where the Mets, ahem, saved money. The Braves scouted hard, the Mets saved money.
Why criticize him for wanting Gomez First? Other than your own hindsight, Gomez would have been a pretty terrific option as well. On That day, I preferred Gomez because of the year already remaining in his deal.
Gomez was a good break for Alderson because had he not been damaged goods, he would have cost Wheeler and Flores – quite a haul. For Cespedes, he only gave up Fulmer and Cessa – a sizable downgrade in each player at this time. While Gomez would have been for an extra year and a draft pick, again Alderson lucked into resigning Cespedes for an extra year and getting that supplemental pick when he leaves that he would have gotten from Gomez leaving. Again, lucked out, and we are quite happy supporters of this good fortune.
I agree with Metsense . Aldersons FA signings and basement bargain shopping hasn’t pan out as effectively as his dumping of high salary players he inherited. Can we instead contemplate life after the Wilpons? Now that would be a blessing for all Met fans.
+1 from your first sentence to your last.
I believe we’re collectively trashing the system now. Nimmo is on the brink of being an addition. Rosario is a 20 year old big talent. Chechinni..Urena…. some of the Arms…
They surrendered some near MLB Pitching for Cespee— so, you need to recognize that.
Herrera has yet to peek thru
“All In”????…almost amy team would love their scenario—I hate the owners, and Sandy still owes me…But at least enjoy the Reality of this team.
DePoedesta didn’t work for Sandy in Oakland as Sandy left years before Depo was hired away from the Indians. He worked for him with the Padres