ORLANDO, Fla. — As a Mets fan, you don’t like the speed, and I get it. You are wondering why 29 teams have managers in mid-November and yours doesn’t.
You would have more tolerance if the Mets were working through the finer points of popular candidates Wally Backman and Bobby Valentine rather than having the results of a protracted search come down to the rocky road of Terry Collins or the vanilla that is Bob Melvin.
You would be less uneasy if the Pirates — yeah, those definition-of-losing Pirates — had not just found the ignition key to hire away another candidate you liked, Clint Hurdle. Losing to the Pirates, even in November, doesn’t feel right.
But this is going to be your lot this offseason, Mets fans. Consider this Job-ian manager search the training wheels for the winter. Because your patience is going to be tried.
You are not going to get the manager you want. You are going to watch as the Yankees probably land Cliff Lee. You are going to be slowed even further now that new GM Sandy Alderson is tending to matters after his father was struck and killed by a car Saturday night, leaving lieutenants Paul DePodesta and John Ricco to do most of the business here at the GM Meetings.
I feel your pain, Mets fans. I get it; you’re tired of how the past few seasons have played out. But one of the reasons your organization fell from contenders to chokers to clowns was due to a leadership that mistakenly saw bold gestures and action as competence.
There is a distinction between indifference and patience. And I believe — from talking to Mets officials — that the organization is wisely in the midst of employing patience that very well could make them the heavyweights of next offseason.
For now, no one move can elevate this roster from dubious to no-doubt contenders. The only way that can happen is if Jason Bay, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes return healthy and near their peak of effectiveness and Johan Santana can return in, say, June as something close to an ace. If all of that occurs — and what would you put that at, 15 percent, maybe less? — then the Mets can size up the July trade market to make a run at October.
And if it doesn’t occur, then the Mets are essentially using the 2011 season to enact a four-corners strategy to let a large chunk of the horrible Omar Minaya Era contracts elapse. The Mets could be shedding anywhere from $50 million to $60 million in expiring long-term pacts. That promises to provide them the financial flexibility to be in every major free-agent and trade discussion at the 2011 GM Meetings.
Again, I know you Mets fans do not want to hear about the next GM Meetings. But the worst thing the Mets can do is chase another pipe dream or cause new problems by trying to make an old one disappear.
If the Mets do not want Luis Castillo or Oliver Perez around — and they don’t — then just cut them; the combined $18 million is spent already. The compounding mistake would be erasing those bad deals by taking on worse ones that last beyond this season just to appease fans by looking busy.
Also understand that Beltran and Reyes have low value right now due to injuries, dips in performance and large dollars owed. Ask yourself this if you were not a Mets fan, but a GM of another team, would you trade for either guy and give up good prospects and take on a significant part of their contracts. No, you are Mets fans, you know how risky both are — and so does the industry.
Even if the Mets were willing to eat some money, they could not expect a significant return. Patience, Mets fans, patience. If either or both perform well in the first half of the season, than the Mets will be either in a playoff race because of that and/or the value of the players will climb again. At worse, those two represent $30 million coming off the books 162 games from now.
For now the Mets will hope they pick right on Collins or Melvin, hope they spend the roughly $5 million they can spend well on a couple of relievers to deepen a troubling pen. None of that is sexy, none of that jump starts your November days, Mets fans. I know.
But patience can be truly virtuous as early as next offseason.