First, your updated playoff standings:
AL: Yankees (1) vs. winner of Oakland (WC1a) or Texas (WC1b) and Baltimore (WC2), Oakland (2a) or Texas (2b) vs. Detroit (3)
NL: Washington (1) vs. winner of Atlanta (WC1) and St. Louis (WC2), Cincinnati (2) vs. San Francisco (3)
Notes: Well, I’m not going to bother with the “If the season ended today” shtick, because, with one game left, we know that the A’s and Rangers will not finish the regular season tied atop the AL West. The winner of this afternoon’s game in Oakland will be the AL West champion. And if the Yankees win OR the Orioles lose, then the Yankees will be the AL East champs. If the Yankees lose AND the Orioles win, then the two teams will play a 163rd game tomorrow in Baltimore to determine the division winner, with the losing team playing in Friday’s wild-card game.
–Here’s my column on Francisco Cervelli off last night’s Yankees game.
–Since the Mets end their season today, playing a late-afternoon game at Miami, let’s discuss a few issues about them and, in particular, the dreadful way in which their season ended.
Here’s what one talent evaluator from another club, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said about the Mets’ 2012 season: “They’re not as good as they played in the first half and not as bad as they played in the second half. I’d say they’re OK, talent-wise. Not great, not terrible. They have some players we’d be interested in acquiring.”
Now, let’s hit on some points of interest involving both reflection and projection:
1) The Mets reached a high-water mark of seven games over .500 three times, the final instance on July 7, the next-to-last day of the first half, when a victory over the Cubs vaulted them to 46-39. Since then, they are 27-49.
For Mets fans, the campaign proved depressingly similar to the 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons _ an encouraging start, then a crash. Yet the die-hards should probably appreciate this sequence as being the lesser of two evils.
“It’s very difficult to monetize a strong second half,” said Vince Gennaro, the president of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), who specializes in baseball’s finances. “Had (the Mets) inverted their season, they would’ve been in much worse shape.
“When a team comes out of the blocks strong, by the time the fan base is ready to say, ‘Hey, this could be real,’ people can’t just pull the trigger and say ‘Let’s go to tomorrow’s game.’ They buy tickets for later in the season. The winning motivates ticket purchases which many not show up in the immediate attendance. I’m sure their first half actually helped their second-half attendance.”
For the season, the Mets were down 1,355 fans per game from last year. That’s obviously bad _ it ranked 18th among the 30 teams, according to Baseball-Reference.com _ but it surely would be far worse if not for the promising start to the season.
“Had the Mets inverted their season, it would’ve been a disaster,” Gennaro said. “(A second-half surge) is pretty much too late and then it doesn’t necessarily carry over because whatever happens in the offseason gets added to the mix in the fans’ mind. You never get the full payoff.”
Theoretically, then, the Mets should have a few more bucks to spend this winter on upgrades. Of course, whether they actually spend a few more bucks is another issue altogether.
2) Nine years and one job ago, I spoke with A’s general manager Billy Beane about how his players looked to him to execute July roster upgrades.
“That’s good, when your players have expectations,” Beane told me, when I wrote for Newsday. “That means they have faith in you. This is when the exciting part of the job comes into play.”
This past July, Mets players looked to Beane’s mentor Sandy Alderson to acquire an experienced relief pitcher. The trade never happened, which hurt the Mets doubly: Their beleaguered bullpen cost them some crucial games right after the break, and the players were emotionally deflated when the front office didn’t toss a life preserver.
You can’t fault Alderson, whose job is to think about the big picture, too much. It would’ve been foolish to trade a significant prospect for a fungible reliever, and the Mets’ bullpen recovered a while ago yet the losing continued due primarily to terrible offense. Nevertheless, every decision has consequences, and this decision to stand pat cost the Mets goodwill among their players and their fans.
3) The best news of all for the Mets is that their starting rotation, usually the hardest unit to build, appears in good shape. Dickey comes off a brilliant season, long-term commitment Jon Niese didn’t wear down as he had in past years, Matt Harvey offered an encouraging peek and Zack Wheeler, like Harvey, is highly regarded by other teams. Whatever the Mets can get from Johan Santana next year will be a bonus.
The bullpen? “That’s a relatively easy area to improve,” one official from another club said, although it hasn’t come easily for the Mets since they traded Francisco Rodriguez in July 2011.
The outfield represents a significant challenge, with none of the three spots solidified. But the real drama will come in the efforts to retain Wright and Dickey, both of whom can enter the market after the 2013 season. Here’s where the Mets can create considerable positivity among their still emotionally scarred fan base.
We know what the baseline comparable is for Wright: His Virginia pal Ryan Zimmerman’s six-year, $100-million deal with Washington. The Mets will definitely have to go higher in dollars and probably in years as well for Wright, who turns 30 in December.
What about the oddity that is Dickey, who turns 38 next month? Given how well knuckleballers age, an official from another club suggested that a four-year, $50-million extension would be reasonable to keep Dickey out of free agency a year from now. Dickey has an extremely team-friendly $5 million team option for next season. Would the Mets actually invest that much in Dickey? They’d be buying high, for sure. If I were king – or, in this case, Alderson – I’d let roll the dice and let Dickey pitch next year for $5 million. Gather more data before pulling the trigger.
4) Alderson is now essentially halfway done with the four-year deal he signed two years ago, although the Mets have a team option for 2015, and there is still much cleaning up and fixing to be done. His moves from last offseason didn’t work very well, but there is little long-term damage; Frank Francisco’s $6.5-million salary for 2013 represents the most pain.
There has been far more drama than Alderson envisioned (see: Picard, Irving, lawsuit of), and the team ownership hasn’t shaken off an addiction to short-term ramifications. Nevertheless, Alderson plows onward with some leverage; if he left the job before his contract expired, he’d get the benefit of the doubt and blame would shift once again upstairs. Next year, with Wheeler likely to arrive in the big leagues and Alderson’s 2011 draft picks maturing, will be the best test yet of his work.
–Have a great day.