Sandy Alderson was hired to clean up a mess, yet the mess remains – arguably the best thing about his tenure, here in Year 4.
Omar Minaya’s fingerprints remain indelible on the major league team. You could argue the Mets’ five best players to date have been Daniel Murphy, Lucas Duda, Juan Lagares, Dillon Gee and Jonathon Niese.
All were drafted or signed internationally in a fertile 2006-08 period when Minaya’s Mets brought in a shipload of players who would reach the majors such as Joe Smith, Jose Quintana, Ike Davis, Josh Stinson, Josh Satin, Maikel Cleto, Collin McHugh, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Wilmer Flores, Jeurys Familia, Jenrry Mejia, Gonzalez Germen and Ruben Tejada. The parting gift came in 2010 – Minaya’s final draft – when the Mets selected Matt Harvey in the first round.
Or, you can argue, the parting gift was leaving Carlos Beltran and R.A. Dickey behind so Alderson could trade for Zack Wheeler, Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard. In other words, even what have been hailed as Alderson’s best moves, so far, have Minaya’s legacy as part of them.
To date no one from Alderson’s three drafts has reached the majors, he still has been unable to get a bullpen right and the two players he finally was able to spend on in free agency – Curtis Granderson and Bartolo Colon – have not distinguished themselves in the first five weeks of this season.
This is not a final report card. Alderson has been in charge 3 1/2 years, and that is not enough time for a total transformation, especially because Alderson’s initial responsibilities were slicing payroll while building the farm system. Even now he has a payroll that makes his squad more the San Diego Mets – by the way, that fan loyalty oath about true New Yorkers, does it say anything about what the payroll of a true New York team should be?
But, in the end – handcuffs or not — the GM is judged on major league results. Just ask Minaya. And Alderson is yet to have a positive enough impact on the major league roster. He said 90 wins were possible and a target, but this is not 90-win talent. He has been building to track down the Braves and Nationals. However, the Marlins just swept the Mets and moved into first place, and here is something to think about:
Is Miami ahead of the Mets in its rebuild because it did two things the Mets didn’t – draft Jose Fernandez (the Mets took Brandon Nimmo) and trade Jose Reyes (though injury and ownership interjection could have been the issue there)?
The conceit of this administration was that it would be able to find talent on the cheap, at the margins of the game. But in the first three years, the only two pieces that probably qualify (unless you want to count the Scotts: Hairston and Rice) were Marlon Byrd and LaTroy Hawkins last season.
The Mets got two-thirds of a strong season out of Byrd and then turned him into Vic Black (a reliever who couldn’t make a bad bullpen out of spring) and Dilson Herrera (a second baseman at High-A). Hawkins was a good safety net for Bobby Parnell last year and would have been this season. But the Mets felt giving a 41-year-old even $2.5 million was bad business. Parnell broke down this year while Hawkins has begun 9-for-9 in save chances for Colorado.
The belief within the sabermetric community is a bullpen can be cobbled together on the cheap. But Alderson, one of the pioneers in bringing advanced metrics to the majors, has yet to deliver in this area. The Mets’ 4.30 bullpen ERA since Alderson’s first season, 2011, ranks 29th out of 30 teams. And Alderson has used limited funds to address the pen with failures such as Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch, Brandon Lyon, D.J. Carrasco and Ramon Ramirez.
Alderson has indicated that sometime after the first month, the Mets would consider summoning a starting arm from the minors to assist in the majors. This is where the conflict of this organization exists. In his heart of baseball hearts, Alderson probably knows this Met team is still not a true contender and there is no reason to begin service time clocks or interrupt the minor league growth process.
However, once that 90-win suggestion is out there, the idea should be to put the best players on the roster. The Yankees, for example, took three starters — Vidal Nuno, David Phelps and Adam Warren — and put them into their pen to begin the year. Are the Mets any closer to doing the same with Jacob deGrom (also part of Minaya’s final draft class) and/or Rafael Montero (one of the first players signed by the Alderson regime)?
In fact, if the Mets stay in this race somehow, the onus does shift to Alderson to fix the team by using his system. So far, 24 players from the 2011 draft have played in the majors — none selected by the Mets. Nimmo — taken with Sonny Gray, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Tony Cingrani, in addition to Fernandez, still available — finally is showing high-level skills. The Mets believe he will come fast now, but he is only at Single-A.
From that draft, the Mets also like Cory Mazzoni, Logan Verrett, Jack Leathersich, Michael Fulmer and Daniel Muno, some of whom are nearing major league consideration.
Of course, Alderson is not limited to his own drafts when it comes to trying to fix the club via promotions or trade. Again, we are hardly at the final report card. But 3 1/2 years into his regime, Alderson remains too beholden to the mess he was hired to clean up.