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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Oh Sandy, the Home Run Apple is risin’ behind us
This pier lights our carnival life on the fetid swamp
Runnin’, laughin’ past the chop shops with the boss’s son
The Mets have settled on Sandy Alderson to be their new general manager, sources say… The official hire of Alderson could come as early as Friday, as announcements are discouraged on days of World Series games.
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1. Krusty Posted: October 27, 2010 at 10:28 AM (#3676610)I wonder who the Manager's going to be.
The Mets need to make a decision regarding Takahashi because if they don't sign him before then end of the month, they probably won't sign him at all.
Yep. Can never guarantee results in baseball, but with Alderson running the show at least grownups will be in charge and there'll be some structure and accountability.
I think your odds are pretty good on that one.
I wonder what the chain of command is, given that the Wilpons are still in charge. What promises were made about autonony and power? We'll find out soon enough.
Alderson: "This is either an offer to be accepted or a threat to be ignored."
That would work.
I like home runs when their scarcity is more in line with their value. As the most significant event that can happen in a single at-bat, they should be quite difficult to produce.
It seems to me a lot of GMs will turn to people from the organization where they last worked, the way Walt Jocketty moved a dozen people over to St. Louis from Oakland. Alderson must like some people he worked with in San Diego.
Maybe Ted Simmons? He's getting older (61), and he has had serious health issues. But Simmons is at least very familiar to Alderson, and he is well qualified for a managerial job.
Or, if he wants to go younger and less experienced, maybe Dave Roberts, another Padre coach? Or Terry Kennedy, who managed the Pads AAA club, and has been coaching for a long time and is 54 years old?
I fervently hope this is not true. I hope someone now in the farm system -- Matt Harvey, Wilmer Flores, somebody -- ends up being a perennial All-Star, HOF-caliber player whom we will look back on and say, "Signing/drafting that guy was the best decision they made since drafting Wright." We just don't know it yet.
Call me a crazy optimist. But if Steve Phillips could get that one thing right when DW was drafted, then I'm hoping Omar did, too.
Amen to both thoughts.
I fervently hope this is not true. I hope someone now in the farm system -- Matt Harvey, Wilmer Flores, somebody -- ends up being a perennial All-Star, HOF-caliber player whom we will look back on and say, "Signing/drafting that guy was the best decision they made since drafting Wright." We just don't know it yet.
We didn't know drafting Wright was a good decision at the time. We do know that trading for Piazza was a good decision at the time. Signing Alderson, IMO, is more akin to trading for Piazza, in that he's someone you can project to perform well in his role.
I have hugely inflated hopes for Flores.
Wasn't it later reported that Phillips actually tried to trade David Wright to Toronto for Jose Cruz Jr, only to be saved from torching himself by Ricciardi's reluctance?
That said, I think the only way the Mets were going to start heading where we as Mets fans want them to go was to hire a respected outsider with a history of success; never did I think the Wilpons would actually do it (largely because they themselves are the reason they need somebody with that profile). In the last few days (I'll admit it - since strike three on Saturday night) I've felt better about the Mets than I have in a long time, perhaps as long ago as that fateful night in a Philly cigar bar. Now we just have to see what happens. This being the Mets, I fear something unforeseen and unfathomably horrible happening, ripping fragile good feelings away from the hearts of Mets fans; hopefully this time the Titanic doesn't hit the iceberg.
Honestly, I'm simply excited to see what changes a new perspective like Alderson's will produce given the Mets' resources - which is to say, I'm looking forward to the process - his process - as much as I am potential positive results. A new way of doing business should be fun, and I'm so used to my team being a punchline that it's a bit strange to consider the possibility it might become "smart."
There were some other names that sounded very interesting, but I don't have a lot of faith that the Wilpons would give true autonomy to a young GM, especially if he/she was making an unconventional decision that went against the tide of talk radio and the back page headlines. I suspect they'll listen to Alderson. Perhaps Daniels would have had that leeway, too.
I do think it would be ideal if they groomed a smart young guy to take over for Alderson, but there's time to do that.
The Mets have been one of the highest spending teams in the league for years.
I relish the return of Tony Muser to MLB managing.
Home runs by the Mets are a rare event.
That gets overlooked a lot.
This reminds me of the Knicks' hiring of Donny Walsh a bit, but Alderson isn't going to as dire a situation. Still, Walsh brought instant credibility to the Knicks, and Alderson brings the same to the Mets. If you're a Mets fan, this is the best news you're received in a while. There is hope in Queens.
The Wilpons may not be quite in the class of Peter Angelos when it comes to screwing up a franchise, but they are close. Even when they don't do something deliberately and egregiously wrong, their mere presence is sufficient to guarantee disaster -- sort of a cross between The Cooler and Joe Btfsplk.
Yes, but. The 2009 payroll should have reflected at least a new capacity for the team in a new environment, where they had implemented both the move to SNY (2006) and into Citifield (2009). Their revenue stream should have enabled them to afford a payroll substantially higher than it had been from 2005-07. But then the Great Recession happened, and revenue in Citifield hasn't lived up to the hype (and I'll bet their ad revenues on SNY haven't met projections, either). And then there's that other unpleasantness, too....
This reminds me of the Knicks' hiring of Donny Walsh a bit, but Alderson isn't going to as dire a situation. Still, Walsh brought instant credibility to the Knicks, and Alderson brings the same to the Mets. If you're a Mets fan, this is the best news you're received in a while. There is hope in Queens.
A revealing comparison. The fear might well be that, like James Dolan, the Wilpons aren't really "cured" -- and just as Dolan wants his Isiah Thomas back (that is just all sorts of unfathomable . . . .), the Wilpons will eventually revert to their dysfunctional organization, undermining their GM by not really trusting him when the going gets tough. Can they really be patient? Hiring Alderson is great -- as I've said before, he's the most accomplished, best "resume" GM in Flushing since Cashen -- but it's what they do with the guy that will tell the tale.
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