Opinion: The Future of the Mets
In a post here, on Friday, MetsBlog’s Matthew Cerrone wrote, “Bring me Bobby Valentine… I want him to manage the Mets.”
Today, I am joining the campaign to bring Bobby Valentine back to Flushing.
In my mind, it is easy for management to say that injuries are the cause of the disappointment, but injuries are not the cause of the poor performances and the inexcusable mental and physical mistakes that the remaining Major League players have made over the course of the season.
I think it was easy to anticipate that wins were going to be scarcer when their key players went down early, but there is absolutely no excuse for the general lack of execution offensively and defensively, the poor base running, and the poor decision making and to me, that is a failure on management’s part to mentally and physically prepare players for the game. Even this group of Mets should have been better in the end and I feel that is a general failure at the heart of the organization from a philosophical level, and that is why I feel that a leadership change is necessary.
I do believe Valentine brings the right mix of baseball intellect and attitude to the table to begin to right the ship.
However, the Mets cannot make that one change and expect that a World Championship is coming.
I don’t feel that the changes that the Mets need to make start and stop with a new manager and a new general manager. The difference between today’s 90+ loss team and the 90+ loss team in 2004 to me is that there was still some sort of road map to success in place with David Wright and Jose Reyes developing as their future core with one major miscalculation in the trade of Scott Kazmir.
The team was really close to winning in 2006 and that playoff series against the Cardinals was brutally disappointing, but instead of continuing on the trail that was set by Omar after the 2004 season with “the new Mets”, he deviated and started to plug holes with the wrong players rather than continue to develop and refine the core and today, the Mets lack a road map or a vision in my mind which is evident with the problems with player development, team success in the minor leagues, and the clear lack of depth at the Major League level or coming to the Major League level.
I don’t believe that changing the dimensions at Citi Field or signing Matt Holliday or bringing in Carlos Zambrano or Roy Halladay will bring this team overall success. Look back to 2002 when the Mets brought in aging superstars like Tom Glavine, Jeromy Burnitz, and Mo Vaughn. At that time, there was no plan other than to “fix what they didn’t have the year before” and the team failed. I think that the organization in general, with the players they have acquired in the last couple of winters, have become their own Monday Morning Quarterback’s again and they only seem to address needs that were weak the prior season, losing sight of everything else.
I am not saying that bringing in Johan Santana and Francisco Rodriguez were bad moves – in fact I think they were the best moves Minaya could have made to address the needs they fulfill. But he failed to recognize other problems year over year and did not look at his team as a whole and try to improve every aspect of it, all the way down to Single-A Brooklyn.
I believe that ownership needs to acknowledge the failure and remember past failures at the organizational level and begin a complete rebuild as a result. They must begin to examine their tactics in talent evaluation, and more specifically looking at talent and developing talent in a way for their players to be successful at Citi Field. From a free agent standpoint, they should bring in talent from the outside that would benefit from the dimensions at Citi Field, rather than just players with good statistics. The fix is not one year away, but a proper plan will bring success back at all levels sooner rather than later.
