MFU Newsletter 9/1/18

Tim Ryder
Tim Ryder
Sep 2, 2018 · 4 min read

The direction of this franchise took a nose-dive a long time ago and with each passing press conference, it seems that we still haven’t made ground-impact yet.

After nearly a decade of simply appearing to put forth a championship effort, a culture change has become an absolute necessity.

A fundamentally sound organization conducts operations (business and baseball, alike) in a manner conducive to the betterment of the on-field product, ultimately.

In most successful professional sports franchises, ownership hands the keys of the on-field operations to a person or group of people who they trust to turn their system into a championship one.

Here in Flushing, things are done quite a bit differently.

When Mets GM Sandy Alderson stepped down earlier this season due to a cancer recurrence, the team named a triumvirate of current front office personnel to man the ship.

Assistant general manager John Ricco, and special assistants J.P. Ricciardi and Omar Minaya took the reins, but under one, stupefying condition:

Mets COO and part-owner Jeff Wilpon stated at the end of the press conference that all decisions would ultimately go through him.

Yes, all decisions, including the then-upcoming trade deadline and just-passed waiver deadline, in which the team remained mostly silent as opposed to trading each and every impending free-agent (Jerry Blevins and Devin Mesoraco, to name a couple) in order to build for the future.

That plan was botched.

Not only did the Mets miss the boat completely on restocking a much-improved but not-quite-there-yet minor league system when they stood pat in a lost season, they’ve all but refused to take any meaningful steps forward.

The Mets system is full of ready or near-ready ballplayers like Jeff McNeil, Peter Alonso, and a bevy of good, young arms that they’ve stockpiled over the last few seasons.

These players should have been getting looks and veterans should have been getting shipped out since the beginning of July.

Instead, we’ve had to watch Jose Reyes stink it up all season and only recently got to begin the Jeff McNeil Experience.

We won’t even get to begin the Peter Alonso Experiment until 2019.

And then, of course, there’s the David Wright situation.

Oh, our dear captain. He willed himself all the way back to this point, practically on the precipice of returning to the major leagues after over two years on the sideline, while dealing with the ever-evolving effects of a 2015 spinal stenosis diagnosis.

After multiple major surgeries (neck, back, shoulder), Wright, now 35, is back with the Mets rehabbing.

After being moved to Triple-A Las Vegas earlier this week, there was an aura of hope and strong emotions running through this battered fan base.

Then John Ricco crushed our souls with this quote to Mike Puma of the New York Post.

“It’s unrealistic to think he would be activated anytime soon, based on what we have seen to this point,” he said. “But we really have been taking it step-by-step and giving him every opportunity to get back.”

“To be a major league player takes a lot physically,” Ricco said. “So we tried to put in place a program that he could come back and show us he’s ready to be a major league player and so far he hasn’t reached that, whether it’s in terms of the playing time or playing skill. It’s kind of an all-of-the-above at this point.”

This is how you treat a franchise player who gave his probable Hall-of-Fame career in an effort to bring a championship to this franchise?

As we were told back in June, all decisions are going through Jeff Wilpon these days. What a heartfelt gesture from the only owners Wright has ever played for.

The very next day, it was reported that it’s Wright who is actually in the driver’s seat regarding when he’s ready.

A source, as per Puma, indicated that “David is driving this train for the most part. He is coming back.”

Wait, what? So we have the team saying one thing, David Wright saying another, and then before Friday night’s loss to the Giants, this saga took another startling turn.

As per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, Mets manager Mickey Callaway told reporters that Wright hadn’t been medically cleared to return to major league play yet, even though he just played in nearly three weeks of MiLB rehab games.

Callaway “confirmed” to DiComo that there’s “a different medical threshold required to play in MLB games versus minor league games”.

Whether this is true or not (Narrator: “It wasn’t.”), this gives us yet another piece of hard evidence as to what is fundamentally wrong with the way this organization is being run.

For the love of Tom Seaver, hire a president of baseball operations to handle the side of things that you, Jeffy, have no business dipping even your little toe into.

Let that major hire make a major hire of his own and bring in a general manager who is focused on all aspects of the game, from the traditional scouting aspect to the use of advanced analytics.

This fanbase has suffered for far too long. We’ve remained loyal through a cascading waterfall of embarrassing failures.

We deserve better.

Tim Ryder

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minding my p's and q's

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