The Mets wasted way too much time the past two offseasons trying to acquire a President of Baseball Operations (PoBO.) In hindsight, that unsuccessful chase of a PoBO helped ruin their 2021 season. It led to the panic hire of an inexperienced GM and the continued employment of an overmatched manager. However, before any games are played in 2022, it at least seems like the Mets have learned from their mistakes. While they again came up empty in their quest to hire a PoBO, this time they got experienced hands to fill the more traditional management positions.
The Henny Penny crowd – you know, the ones always chirping about how the sky is falling – claimed that the unsuccessful PoBO search was proof of how no one wanted to come to the Mets because, among other things, the specter of Sandy Alderson still being around meant that their power was going to be limited. This Alderson influence was going to keep them from getting an experienced GM and it was going to keep them from getting any of the top managerial candidates, too.
Billy Eppler probably wasn’t anyone’s top choice to be the club’s GM. If we’re being honest, he probably wasn’t anyone’s second choice, either. But he was a guy with experience working in a major market under an owner who wasn’t shy about voicing his opinion. And in his first week on the job, Eppler seems like he was the main guy who got free agent deals signed with Mark Canha, Eduardo Escobar and Starling Marte. These may not be glamorous moves but they were necessary ones. And it seems like Eppler got guys on reasonable, if not better deals, too. And this was while the Henny Penny crowd was saying the Mets wouldn’t be able to get free agents because of Steve Cohen’s tweets.
Then the Henny Penny crowd said that Alderson would wield too much power in the hiring of the next manager, suggesting that Bob Geren was going to get the gig because of his ties to Alderson. The Mets interviewed Geren but he did not make it to the second round of interviews. Did Alderson get him an interview? That’s certainly a possibility. But his alleged Rasputin-like power didn’t get Geren anything more than that.
Instead, the Mets went through an extended process and selected veteran manager Buck Showalter. Who made the decision to hire Showalter? None of us knows. What we do know is that the final interview happened at Cohen’s house, where both Eppler and Anderson were also present. It seems fair to say that all three men had a say on the final decision. My hope is that Eppler, who allegedly wanted to hire Showalter in 2019 when he was the GM in Anaheim but was overruled by owner Arte Moreno, was leading the charge to hire Showalter instead of one who was talked into it by the other two actors at the table.
Just imagine it – a club hires a GM, who in turn hires a manager. Almost like that’s the way it should be, no PoBO necessary. Now, if this fairy tale is to continue, Eppler and his colleagues in the front office provide Showalter with a bunch of data to help him make decisions. They also talk about some overriding ideas (aggressive defensive shifts and the like) and then they get out of the way and let the guy with 1,551 wins in the majors and division titles at three different stops make the necessary calls from the dugout and clubhouse.
The Mets are in better shape now than they were at this time roughly last year, with Eppler and Showalter instead of Jarred Porter and Luis Rojas. But at the end of the day, the biggest thing is how the players on the field perform. You can have Branch Rickey as your GM and Earl Weaver as your manager but if your starting lineup has Luis Guillorme, Billy McKinney, Tomas Nido, 2021 Dominic Smith and Mason Williams in it – like what they trotted out on June 19 last year – well, it’s going to be tough to win 90 games. Especially if you’re running a bullpen game or having Jerad Eickhoff make the start.
The Mets need better health than what they experienced in 2021 and it’s unlikely that Eppler and Showalter can do a blasted thing about that. But they also need their healthy players to perform better than they did a year ago. It’s great that Smith didn’t spend a month or more on the IL last season. It’s not so terrific when his OPS went from .993 to .667 in 493 PA. Perhaps Eppler and Showalter can do something about that.
Depth wasn’t the problem in 2021. The issue was that there were so many injuries that the team saw starters and reserves on the IL at the same time. Maybe James McCann and Nido wasn’t the best catching tandem ever. But when they were both injured at the same time, that meant Patrick Mazeika and Chance Sisco became the team’s backstops. And that was horrible. But what are you supposed to do – pay an MLB-quality catcher enough money so he’ll agree to go to Syracuse? How much money would that be? If you were that catcher, would you take $10 million and go to Triple-A or take $5 million and be a backup in the majors?
And it wasn’t just catcher. It was Brandon Nimmo and Kevin Pillar in CF. And Francisco Lindor and Guillorme in the infield. And Jacob deGrom and Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard and Joey Lucchesi and David Peterson in the rotation. You want your depth guys playing twice a month or filling in when a player goes down for 2-3 weeks. You don’t want depth playing for three months or more.
The Mets’ payroll is already at a number that would have seemed unfathomable in, say, 2019. And there’s still plenty of work to do to fill out the 26-man roster. So, when the team needs a starting pitcher and a reliever or two, it’s probably time to give up the ghost of paying a third-string catcher an 8-figure salary to spend the year in the minors for depth.
Eppler still has work to do once the lockout is over. Then the heavy lifting turns to Showalter, to win over Pete Alonso and Lindor so that the veterans have his back and he can keep the entire team on the same page, so there’s no debate about if it’s a rat or a racoon. The pitching should be a bit easier, with Max Scherzer already in his corner and deGrom unlikely to cause any problems. Then it’s up to Showalter to know how long to go with his starters.
It’s fun to think about the key players staying healthy and performing more or less to career averages, backed with a manager who knows all of the angles and isn’t overwhelmed with anything that gets thrown his way. If that comes to pass, then it’s likely the Mets’ streak of below-.500 finishes ends at two years.
And if Eppler and Showalter lead the Mets back to the playoffs for the first time since 2016, maybe the streak of pursuing a PoBO ends at two years, too.
I love this article, Brian!
All these “assumers” who knew that Scherzer would only play on the West Coast, etc., etc.
And that Bryant won’t come to NY. Cohen’$ can win the day with him, if our owner wants him.
And why do we need a PoBO? Maybe all we need are what we have now. Let’s see.
“But at the end of the day, the biggest thing is how the players on the field perform.” Yup. Get better players, that play better, win probability increases.
The Mets had plenty of problems with admin and management prior to 2021, but they pretty much fielded a consensus 90 win team. Then too many players underperformed and deGrom missed half the season. Eppler and Buck are solid hires, but if Scherzer has a dead arm and deGrom only gets 15 starts, the team will have a tough time winning again. The players will dictate the level of success.
The hiring of Eppler has now appeared to be a strong move because he filled the needs of the team by savvy free agents moves and by hiring a respected, knowledgeable manager. It seems there is a plan in place to win now and for the next three years and buy time to stock the weak minors for the future. Eppler should make some moves when the lock down ends. So far he is impressive and a POBO might gum up the works.
Don’t you just love “the Buck stops here!” Finally a manager with great credentials coming to run this team. Part of that is about money. We got the last series of inexperienced managers and GMs on the cheap because the Wilpons were banking those nickles instead of spending them on a better product. Year 2 of the Cohen rebuild is off to a rocking start. Sure, two of the four new players are solid performers but not stars, but they are also signed long enough to be placeholders for the kids moving their way up the ranks. Then there is Marte and Scherzer, two bonafide stars that were added to the roster filling two huge holes. Bryant would be icing on the cake along with another big time reliever. You are right that we had great depth last year who really kept us in the hunt until the depth players needed to play full time exposing why they were really bench role players in the first place. POBO is simply another layer of management and a fancy title. In the past you had someone in charge of scouting, someone in charge of the minor leagues, someone in charge of stadium operations, etc. Yes, you need someone for all of those spots to report to, but the running of the MLB club and who to trade for and who to bring up, needs to rest with our very capable new GM and Manager. As they said in Jerry McGuire, “show me the money.” Thanks to Cohen, that’s where we are. Now let’s settle this damn contract impasse and pick up the final pieces so we can unseat the Braves and start by taking the division.
Injuries, shrug.
Conforto, Smith, McNeil were all terrible. Just awful. That’s the young “core” and they did not perform at all.
Davis probably not an everyday 3B.
And the catcher position, also, did not perform.
Oh, and our SS under-performed for the first half of the season — to a pretty incredible degree.
I agree on the unholy trinity you cite above being a big problem. And the World Series champions did lose Ronald Acuna. But I can’t shrug off no Jake deGrom for half a year.
He wasn’t just an ace he was doing stuff every five days that has rarely been seen. At some point it might have felt inevitable that he was going to go down but that doesn’t make it any less devastating. And it certainly wasn’t inevitable last winter when the 2021 team was built.
Im plenty happy with hiring Showalter. he’s the right guy for this moment (read December 2021). It will be interesting to see how Cohen, who is wildly expanding the analytics group (I mean the guy is nothing if not a numbers guy), and Showalter, who has seen it all, come together. In June when he leaves in Max for 120 pitches and he comes up dead arm for 4 starts will all warm fuzzies still be there?
As for Alderson, mercifully he seems to be slipping into the woodwork. It cant happen fast enough. He’s a loser, with a loser game plan, and a losing record. I dont think Alderson, or Eppler for that matter, had much to do with Max or Showalter – we are seeing Cohen assemble the team he wants. As for Scherzer we learned a lot at his unveiling party: his family lives 30 min from Port St Lucie, so he will get a lot of ‘home time’ during the year and that there are at least 43 million reasons annually to choose the Mets. For that, I’d put on Pinstripes and get a Derek Jeter tattoo. This is pretty important because any hope that Cohen wont be hiring a PBO is off target in my opinion. While I think predicting the future in baseball is the near equivalent of unicorns and fairy dust, I’ll step out here and say it will be a surprise if David Stearns is not the Mets PBO after his Brewers contract comes to a close. It is clear he is Cohen’s #1 choice. It is clear that Cohen to Eppler is not the best chain of command. Baseball operations are nothing like they used to be in scale of enterprise or money. Eppler is not going to be overseeing the minor league operation no matter his scouting heritage. Eppler will have plenty on his plate dragging this team, and his own legacy, to getting over .500.
Chris F:
>> As for Alderson, mercifully he seems to be slipping into the woodwork. It cant happen fast enough. He’s a loser, with a loser game plan, and a losing record. <<
I endorse this message and I am not running for elected office.
I was wondering the other day if he ever did anything good for the organization in his roughly 10-year reign. Obviously, the second-half of 2015 worked out well — though he tried to trade Wheeler & Flores for Carlos Gomez. He left the farm system in a shambles. Mediocrity at best. No executive core — no up-and-coming bright minds under his tutelage. Never built up analytics (feel like he hired Ben Baumer and that was that). An organization with a mangled approach to hitting (thanks to Sandy's interference) & little regard for speed or defense. He annually misread the market. If not for Cohen's unreal influx of money, the team would be facing a total rebuild. This after years of the "sustained success" mantra. The reality: a lost decade. He never extended young talent, never did anything creative with the draft (and blew last year's completely). It just goes on and on.
What good did he ever do?
That said, I've kind of landed on this: He's worse than awful, he's mediocre. Mind-numblingly, lazily mediocre. Just kept trying to trade for Jay Bruce. It's not all terrible. There are decent moves, some good draft picks. The farm system was never the worst in baseball. Just never good enough, never an asset. The overall state of the team went nowhere, probably slipped a little.
I guess I'm hard on Sandy most because of the sickening sycophants. The fawners. But finally, here and there, I'm seeing isolated folks waking up to the realization that what he did to the Padres, he did to the Mets, too.
Hopefully his son, Bryn, follows him out the door. How'd that kid ever get such a big job? Oh, wait.
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When I saw Jimmy’s name follow Chris’ comment, I knew it was going to be vicious. Chris set the ball by the net, and Jimmy spiked the ball so hard it hit the floor and popped.
“As for Scherzer we learned a lot at his unveiling party: his family lives 30 min from Port St Lucie, so he will get a lot of ‘home time’ during the year and that there are at least 43 million reasons annually to choose the Mets. For that, I’d put on Pinstripes and get a Derek Jeter tattoo.”
If that isn’t the line of the night…
I gotta think that Sandy is looking for the exit door… the team is clearly in better hands now and he is not getting any younger. So realistically, the Mets would fill two FO positions in the next 12 months. For now, Cohen may be enjoying having a less crowded table to work with. And once he has a better team and a brighter future installed, he will have a better job to offer whomever he prefers in his FO… might even be the best job out there to dangle.
Meanwhile, I had this thought today… keep in mind I love great defense… we get Hosmer (let KeithH. rave about him all season!) to play defense at 1B, add a decent LH bat. Let Pete be the primary DH, thereby freeing up JD and Dom for trades. Defensively, Hosmer may be the best 1B out there, and wouldn’t that be a handy piece to add to the lineup?
If you want to nix this idea, please offer a better substitute.
His net has been a negative rated WAR player on FanGraphs for every year he’s been in the majors. Every year… incredible. And he’s a lefty…
Hosmer is a horrible idea. Standing pat at 1B is 1000X better than this, no other substitution needed.
*Hosmer has been a negative rated WAR player every year…
I think my brain was still thinking about volleyball.
1. Is it true that the Mets payroll is currently the highest in MLB?
2. Assuming #1 is true, does the quality of their ML roster indicate that the payroll is justified?
3. Assuming #2 is false, are you sure they don’t need a PoBO?
1. I assume this is true
2. What are the contracts you’d want to get out from? Cano, yes, but that was 3 GMs ago. Lindor? Possibly but that was an ownership decision. McCann? Yes, but I’ll live with that being the biggest complaint.
3. Yes, I’m sure.