Mike's Mets

I haven't enjoyed all of the changes the 2020 season brought to baseball. I hated the extra inning rule. No matter what the sport, I'm never a fan of deciding a result in any other way than continuing to play the game until a team breaks a tie. Shootouts in hockey and soccer, putting a runner on second in baseball and all other gimmicks of that nature should never be seen at any level above youth sports, at least in my opinion. Seven inning games in double headers seemed like a necessary evil for this season, but I hope not to see this in future "normal" seasons. I'm more agnostic on the DH in the NL. I'll miss some of the strategy involved with pitchers hitting, but I won't miss watching those pathetic at bats that most of them had. I believe the rules needs to be the same in both leagues, and it seems quite unlikely that the AL would ever abandon the DH, so if I had a vote that mattered it would be to keep the DH in the National League, too.One change t…

It's a pretty good bet that catcher J.T. Realmuto is a likely free agent target for the Mets this winter. We don't know exactly what the Mets priorities will be once Steve Cohen is officially approved to be the new owner, but putting a better club on the field next season would almost certainly be a priority. As a catcher and a right-handed bat, Realmuto would be a significant upgrade for this team. He'll be 30 next season, so it's likely he begins his next contract at the tail end of his prime years and he'll be more than a bit past that prime by the end. Of course, that's the reality with most free agents due to the length of time it takes them to achieve free agency. Except for the ones that come up to the majors very young, most players will be somewhere around 30 by the time they get to test the market.It's been a long time since the Mets were real players for the top free agents, but it's likely that they'll be competing for those that fill sp…

In The Athletic Monday, Jayson Stark had a piece on the unusual success of the Tampa Bay Rays this season. The Rays manage to field a remarkably competitive team year in and year out, despite having a budget that makes Fred Wilpon look like a profligate spender in comparison. Most people who follow baseball fairly closely are aware of the way Tampa Bay operates. Despite incredible budget constraints they manage to compete most years. Since 2008, they have managed to finish with a winning record 9 times out of 13 seasons. Two of the years they fell short they went 80-82. Their only awful season in the stretch was 2016, when they finished last in the AL East with a 68-94 record.
As much as it pains me to write this, let's contrast with the Mets in that same period. They had the reverse results, posting a winning record in only 4 of those seasons. They lost more than 90 games twice, and lost 88 games another 2 times. There never was much of a coherent strategy during these years. When…

After I had written my last post on the type of organizational changes the Mets could make to ensure sustained success, I took a few moments to think about the one time in my life that really happened. My first year as a Mets fan was 1969. I was 10 years old, and it seemed to me quite likely that my team would go back to the World Series every year. After all, we had Seaver and Koosman, and all the other teams didn't. Although the Mets managed to sneak back into the Series four years later, my youthful optimism definitely took a beating in the 1970s. Despite continuing to have Seaver and Koosman and eventually Jon Matlack, the only time the Mets managed to win their division between 1969 and 1986 was the "Ya Gotta Believe" season of 1973, when the futility of the rest of the NL East allowed the Mets to grab that honor despite a quite mediocre 82-79 record. Other than that bit of luck, the Mets wouldn't finish above third place until 1984, and usually brought up the r…

Tim Britton had a really interesting piece in The Athletic earlier this week titled, "Why Steve Cohen’s first major investment should be in the Mets' infrastructure." It's a really good take on a topic that we've discussed in this space. So much that has been written about how the effect that Steve Cohen taking over might have on the Mets payroll and which free agents the Mets might sign this winter. The idea that Cohen would make the Mets operate a lot smarter seems to me of much more importance going forward, and Britton's piece is the best one on that subject that I've come across so far.Now don't get me wrong here. I'm also excited about the prospect of the Mets running larger payrolls, not only because it makes them players for top free agents like J.T. Realmuto, but because it makes them more likely to hold onto young players that come up through their organization. I thought one of the more unforgivable moves of the Wilpon era was letting Z…