September 9, 2011 Around the Blogs Paul Festa

Blog Roundup: Post Double Header Edition

The Mets got a dose of reality last night as they got swept in a double header by the Wild Card-leading Atlanta Braves. Tonight, they go back to their easy schedule, opening a series against the Chicago Cubs (While the St. Lucie Mets play the Cubs’ A-ball team in the playoffs). In addition, Sunday is the tenth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, and it is sure to be an emotional day at Citi Field.

Now for a dose of the Blogs:

Metsmerized pays tribute to Mike Piazza’s post-9/11 moment.
Amazin’ Avenue looks at how history may have exaggerated baseball’s impact on post 9/11 America.
Baseball Prospectus says the Mets were involved in a couple of CATegorically historical moments.
Mets Minor League Blog has a video retrospective of 20 years of B-Mets baseball – with some familiar faces.
NJ.com Fan Blog is optimistic about the 2012 Mets, even if they don’t find the Holy Grail.
Mets360 has a report card on Sandy Alderson’s first year. He narrowly avoids getting grounded.

Have a nice weekend, and keep clicking on Mets Today.

Paul Festa

Paul is a freelance writer, blogger, and broadcast technology professional residing in Denver. A New Jersey native, he is a long-suffering Mets fan, a recently-happy Giants fan, and bewildered Islanders fan. He's also a fair-weather Avalanche and Rockies supporter. In his spare time, he enjoys the three Gs: Golf, Guitars, and Games.

Joe September 9, 2011 at 3:03 pm

“He narrowly avoids getting grounded.”

The column says most of his moves are good or at least partially defensible, the latter low risk ones at that, and the only “clunker” is a who cares bad pick-up of a disposable reliever.

Some here are pretty snide about Alderson, but so far, I really don’t see why. Part of it seems to be that some voices saw him as some sort of god, which I never did, and it isn’t HIS fault if they did.

If you want to be mad, be mad at the owners for limiting his discretion. Not having money to spend is not HIS fault. It is too soon to see how he will do long term and his decisions so far, like many GMs, were mixed.
- Joe Janish September 9, 2011 at 3:31 pm
  
  You seem to miss the point entirely about Alderson. People ARE angry with ownership, which is exactly why many are snide in regard to Alderson — because he is an extension of ownership, and the latest in a long line of b.s. messages. The current angle created by ownership is “OK, we realized we had some dummies here before, but now we have a bunch of really smart guys — who by the way are really efficient in spending money, and we know the current trend is to not be wasteful”. But the bottom line is that nothing has really changed — other than the public admission that this ownership cannot and will not spend the necessary dollars to compete in the biggest “big market” in the country.
  
  I know that teams don’t HAVE TO spend money to be successful, and I recognize all the small-market teams that have found success. But they don’t matter, because they are not in New York. This is the city where the very best of everything does business, with no expenses spared. If you can’t afford to keep up with the competition in this city — no matter what your business — then you either move out or sell out to someone who has the resources to make it work.
  
  The Mets have been non-competitive for three years now, and they will continue on that path for at least the next two — and it wouldn’t matter if the GM were Sandy Alderson, Omar Minaya, or Branch Rickey, because everything ultimately starts at the top. So when you see fans bashing Sandy Alderson, it’s not necessarily a direct attack on him, but more likely a jab at the Mets ownership.
  - Joe September 9, 2011 at 3:58 pm
    
    You are basically saying that Alderson is a stand-in for the real problem — the ownership. Your whole point is the ownership sucks and put the Mets in a sucky position. No kidding. So, blame them. Going on and on about how bad Alderson is still misplaced venting.
    
    A manager or GM is given a bad hand, you have to judge how he played the hand dealt. Sneering at THEM for the bad hand, and this happens in other contexts too btw, is to my mind stupid.
    
    I get it is a type of coping mechanism. But, since bad as they are, Alderson will help determine if the team will be at least watchable and have some chance to be watchable in the future, I still need to judge how he deals the hand dealt. On that level, I give him a B.
    - Joe Janish September 9, 2011 at 4:05 pm
      
      Interesting. What would you grade Omar Minaya, and why?
      
      Keep in mind that Minaya and Alderson have had equal amounts of autonomy, and that Minaya was subject to the whims of Fred and Jeff Wilpon (and briefly, Tony Bernazard as well).
    - Joe September 9, 2011 at 6:04 pm
      
      I don’t know. In the long run, OM didn’t do that bad. The team could have got to the playoffs three years in a row. Injuries hurt them the last two years and at least one of those years, I’ll give them a mulligan. There were some expensive contracts that peeve me. If the likes of Castillo, Perez, Bay etc. aren’t his fault, fine. He’s gone. I care about Alderson now. I will see how he fares long term.
      
      Izzy’s reply is the sort of thing I mean — who the heck cares about Boyer? I can go down the line, but it would be repetitive. The point being that ALDERSON is to blame because of limited payroll and instead of looking at what he did as a whole, all I see is whining. At least this is better than some who was yelling at me about John Franco.
    - Joe Janish September 9, 2011 at 11:44 pm
      
      I have a hard time grading Alderson positively or negatively — to me he has been completely ineffectual.
      
      If the 2010 team returned completely intact, and added only players from within, they would have been about a .500 and out of the playoff race. Alderson didn’t bring in anyone who could truly be termed a difference maker — unless you want to count Isringhausen, who wasn’t really a “find” of Alderson’s but more about Izzy begging his old friend JP Ricciardi for a job and getting a flyer. I suppose you could say Capuano was effective but it’s not like his ability to eat innings made the team remarkably better in the grand scope of things; same with Byrdak, Beato, and Paulino, who all played fine but were basically extra parts whose spots could have been replaced by others without seeing much of a change in the won-loss record. Would the Mets have lost ten more games if instead of Capuano, Beato, and Byrdak, they had in their spots, say, some combination of Misch, Schwinden, Stinson, and/or replacement-level free agent(s), and Mike Nickeas in place of Paulino? I think it’s debatable, and further, if they did lose 10 more games, it’s moot because either way it’s out of the playoffs. In fact, I’d argue it would have been better for the Mets to have a worse record, in order to have a higher spot in next year’s draft.
      
      In any case I’m still waiting to see something significant from the front office — and that may take a few years.
    - Izzy September 9, 2011 at 5:03 pm
      
      Alderson deserves al the bashing he gets. What’ has keptthis team from being a total disaster?? It was the guys Omar found and stashed away. Alderson brought us Hu and Emaus not even Buffalo caliber players and refuese to give far superior talents a chance liast Spring. Turner and Tejada are in NY because of Omar and the absolute pathetic guys Alderson put on the roster. Alderson gave us great relief helpin guys like Boyer. Alderson ignored KROS when he went toolins and said he wanted his contract chamged…Funny how Milwaukee got it changed in 2 days while the Ivy Leaguer couldn;’t figure it out. Alderson gave us mediocre backups and had the roster filled with corner outfielder first basemen so guysike Reyes couldn’t get any rest. Alderson gets an F. He’s one nothing. Just think if you like his stuff how good we’ll be when next year’s Hus and Emaus’ show up to replace Reyes and compnay.