On Prospects and Analytics

David Stearns has taken heat for moves he hasn't made this winter, but he is laying the groundwork for a transformational season.

The Mets organization has no history of being a player development juggernaut. There have been some good homegrown players over the years, even a few great ones. But there has never been a significant era in the Mets' existence fueled by a farm system continually delivering talent to the major league club. Over many decades, this has been a primary reason why the club has been unable to sustain winning.

Savor the Moment

The Mets earning a playoff berth was special. Make sure you enjoy it.

When the Mets beat the Brewers to clinch a playoff spot last night, it affected me more deeply than I expected. After all, despite their stumble against the Cubs last week, I've known the Mets were playoff-bound for quite some time. But I shouldn't have taken for granted the meaning of just earning a playoff spot when your team has only accomplished that feat 9 times in the previous 60 seasons. Therefore, I will ignore anyone who tries to crash this party and put a damper on the significance of last night's achievement.

The Road Not Taken

I spend a lot of time thinking about the New York Mets. Fortunately for my mental health, it's been a much more pleasant experience since Steve Cohen bought the team than it was previously. Sure, 2021 didn't turn out to be the year that Mets fans hoped for, but the club has done a good job addressing the root causes of last season's disappointment — at least until the lockout brought MLB operations to a halt. Conversely, in the final years of the Wilpon ownership, time spent pondering the Mets inevitably brought on persistent feelings of helplessness and despair.

That Feeling When

I was walking my dogs in the woods yesterday evening when a notification popped up on my phone that Steve Cohen had reached an agreement to buy the Mets. Yesterday was a pretty tough day for me. I'm working my way back from back surgery, and have been overdoing things more than a little, in my own stubborn way. I was pretty tired and still had a couple of miles back to my car when the news came in. I felt a bolt of electricity pass through my body along with an unexpected amount of emotion. This news had been a long time coming.

Fractured Fairy Tales, 2020 Edition

Interesting story by Victor Mather in the New York Times today. As the title of the piece stated, the Mets really do have "a colorful financial history." I've been reading for years that Nelson Doubleday felt that Fred Wilpon had dealt with him in a less than honest manner. Some of that is detailed in this article. Also interesting was Doubleday's claim by in 2002 when Wilpon was attempting to buy him out of his remaining share of the club:

Doubleday claimed he had been "double-crossed" by a "sham process." He claimed in legal papers that Major League Baseball and the Wilpons were "in cahoots" in a scheme to keep team values down and manufacture "phantom operating losses" to make the game seem less financially sound and in that way create an advantage in negotiations with the players' union. (Baseball dismissed the claim as "nonsense and a complete fabrication.")

What Might Have Been

I had some fun with my proposal yesterday that we band together and take advantage of the supposed fire sale price to purchase the Mets. John from Albany, who writes at Mack's Mets, left a comment asking me if I remembered back when Wilpon and Doubleday bought the team back in 1980 that there was another group of fans that were involved in the bidding.

I honestly don't remember this. I was 21 at the time and basically falling in love with every girl that let me get past first base, and really didn't pay as much attention to the off the field stuff. I spent some time on Google trying to find some info on this, but came up empty. It's fascinating to think of the Mets with some sort of Green Bay Packers type of ownership.