As the season has winded down, and the New York Mets have slid as far as you can slide without being eliminated from playoff contention, Mets fans have been calling for the guillotine for Luis Rojas. Okay, maybe not the guillotine, but many want him kicked to the curb. For good reason as well. He has made questionable in-game decisions like leaving a reliever in for too long, or deciding to not walk a batter in a crucial situation too many times. Rojas, still only 40 years old, should be able to bounce back with some organization or even find himself back in the Mets minor league system. That will leave Mets owner Steve Cohen, and the new general manager that he picks, with a major decision to make.
Earlier on Friday, Ken Rosenthal sent out a tweet that excited many in the Mets world.
A package deal that would work for the Mets: The A’s Beane and Melvin. Column: https://t.co/NA1oun4XAj
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) September 17, 2021
The connection with the Oakland A’s makes sense on multiple occasions. To start, the connection between Alderson and Billy Beane has been strong since the 2002 season that was captured in the 2011 movie Moneyball. Beane was also a member of the Mets for two seasons, and was recently featured on the Once Upon a Time in Queens documentary. On another front, the state of baseball in Oakland has been on the decay as evidenced by their decrepit stadium. As the team has fought for a new stadium, the feeling has grown that they’ll be leaving that city. There’s a good chance that the A’s will be the next professional team to plant their stakes in Las Vegas.
The issue with that is that the A’s, as they currently are assembled, don’t exactly match the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas. The A’s are still built to be a scrappy bunch, and are in the bottom half of the league when it comes to payroll. That doesn’t match the current state of the flashy Raiders and Golden Knights, the current teams that are in Las Vegas. The change of a city, and moving from Oakland to Las Vegas will most likely mean a culture change. This could spell the end of the line for Beane in Oakland, and would open a big door for him to reunite with Alderson in Queens.
While everyone loves a reunion, and it makes total sense on paper, is it really a reunion that would make sense for the Mets? It might have been a move that made sense when the Mets operated under their last ownership group, but this is supposed to be a new era under Cohen. The Mets currently sit at the third highest payroll in baseball at just over $199 million. That’s a full $110 million more than the current Oakland A’s payroll. Beane has never had the experience of working with a high payroll. While he has seen success in the teams he’s assembled, he has done it with completely different means. How would he react to all of a sudden having all of that money to work with in his pocket? Cohen should be hesitant to hand him the keys.
The other reported person that the Mets were looking at to take on an executive role with the team is Theo Epstien. Epstein, once thought of as the wunderkind of MLB executives, is now a seasoned vet working as a consultant working for the MLB offices. Epstein was responsible for ending the two greatest championship droughts in baseball history, the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox. Not only are the Mets similar to those teams that he helped because of their lack of a recent championship, but they are also in major markets. Epstein has experience managing those big pay rolls, and Cohen could feel more comfortable handing the keys of a payroll that could only increase next season if the Mets re-sign Javier Baez, over to him.
While the season may not be over yet, the New York media has been licking their lips trying to predict the next manager and general manager of the Mets. Rosenthal’s speculation about Bob Melvin and Beane is interesting speculation at this point, but it’s important to remember that it’s only that at this point. Should that situation become a possibility, Cohen should think twice before hiring Beane. There will be other candidates out there on the market who have experience working with large team salaries, something that will become commonplace during the Cohen era. Beane is without a doubt one of the smartest baseball executives around, but that doesn’t mean he fits well with a team that will present a large quantity of spending money for him to use. While some reunions work out sometimes, there are some that just are not meant to be.
Beane played for the Mets from 1984-1985
The Mets payroll is over $110 Million more than the A’s for the 2021 season
I couldn’t agree more Dalton. I just wish Alderson had nothing to do with this process. He needs to stop injecting this team with infection, and bringing in Melvin and Beane would be just that. Although one can see trying to bring a philosophy from 20 years ago to the Mets as a natural connection, especially Alderson cronies. Theo is not a new discovery anymore, but he is, and knows how to build, a winner. The Mets need a new vision not some legacy Alderson disaster to keep the Mets in a perpetual position of failure.
Alderson and his ideas are bad for the Mets and bad for baseball. He is in denial of the resounding failure his philosophy has brought to this team and a level of toxic misogyny and malcontent that remains. His tentacles need to be excised from this club completely.
One last note because I hear people crying about 2015. That was on Cespedes, but we all know the target Alderson had was Carlos Gomez.
I looked up a little about Bob Melvin. He and his family have 2 residences, one in Berkeley Ca., not far from Oakland, and one in Greenwich Village, of all places. He apparently spends most of the winter in New York, and seems to love the amenities there.