And, yes, on Alderson. This is the comment I made the other day. He'll hang around as "advisor." I believe that Cohen values him as a guy who can explain every detail about running a team -- it's a lot more involved than having an opinion about the batting order. I'm sure he's a valuable resource for Cohen, who is still learning the ins and outs.
And I'm thrilled that Sandy isn't calling the shots. Overall, I thought he did a horribly mediocre, uninspired job as GM for the Mets. He needed to go and "advisor" is the perfect little box to keep him in.
On the baseball side of things for the Mets, 1 game down, finish out the season. For yesterday in baseball, I am glad Minoso is in the Hall now and Clemente Day is getting recognition around the league. As the league embraces - and hopefully adjusts - record books for Negro League players, while simultaneously expanding the union, it gives me hope we can have similar recognition/support for Latin players coming up in the Cuban, Dominican, and Mexican Leagues - or more proactively focus on them and end the corruption and de facto child slavery in the international signing market.
Aside from on field baseball - and I know my takes are sizzling and frustrating to some - the best news of the day yesterday is that Sandy is stepping down.
To be clear, this move is designed to signal 'WE WANT A PRESIDENT OF BASEBALL OPS AND WE WILL BE ASKING TO INTERVIEW PEOPLE FROM TEAMS THAT DIDN'T MAKE IT TO THE PLAYOFFS, NOT JUST STEARNES' while also allowing Sandy to smoothly exit stage left in an 'allowed to retire' political move rather than 'firing' type move.
Why? Because as much as people on SNY and Cohen/Sandy publicly didn't want to admit it, the candidates after Theo and Billy Beane who didn't even sit for interviews or didn't take the job of PBO or GM when offered it was because they wanted autonomy that couldn't occur due to his presence/influence and they didn't trust/want to work between Sandy above and Brin below.
Candidates directly mentioned that as a reason not to take the positions in the months after on smaller podcasts and local news outlets for Red Sox, Rangers, and Dodgers once the national attention stopped listening to their PC answers. It was not a 'fear of New York' or 'contentment where they currently live' as the overall narrative (while true for a few, yes,) was painted.
The cynic in me notices he is leaving after 2 months in a shift from 'Eppler led moves' like signing all the FAs in the offseason, very targeted minor league deals, analytically minded drafting, and more aggressive call ups early in the season to more 'wilpon era/Sandy's calling card' moves - the deadline deals, 'wait on that injured guy and tolerate useless players on the roster until they come back', 'it's just baseball' deflections of accountability. But it's all about setting up the interview process for PBO to be attractive and less cumbersome this time.
I am very frustrated by media and fans that continue to say 'he was a marine', 'he's the godfather of moneyball', and '2015 pennant!' as reasons to not hold Sandy accountable or even critique him as a baseball executive for the Mets.
We can have passionate discussions on his baseball decisions - FAs, call ups, trades, drafts, strategies, etc. I just hope we can have them without the 'but the Wilpons didn't spend money' justification/excuse. He chose to stay knowing the Madoff situation and made his choices form there on out. He did the same cost saving shenanigans last year with Cohen and some people still excused him, (he stayed under CBT - okay in theory going into a lockout/new owner, but the process is the issue - by giving up our 2020 1st rounder for a pre-arb minimum contract in Williams and 2 months of Baez at league minimum, use CBA escape clause to not pay and not sign Rocker after a decade of success signing at risk/injured players going back to Matz is classic Mets Sandy.)
The greater thing for me, something that made me question following this team anymore or giving them my money for merch/tix/streaming games, is the character and quality of leadership he had as a Mets executive and face of the organization and the cascade of sexual harassment in the organization.
While individual players like Bauer and Watson did terrible things, they got suspended the Mets are only just behind the Commanders as a terrible organization to work for that doesn't care about equality or a safe work environment. They got NO consequences as an organization. They got less consequences than Washington. Granted, Cohen owned the team and was 90 days into the role, but Sandy was not new. His quote about 'we're in a better place culturally so it's good for me to go' as if HE changed it is absurd, insulting, and not accurate.
Sandy's errors and culpability in a workplace that enabled and fostered sexual harassment goes all the way back to the firing of the front office lady for having a kid out of wedlock. Yes, the Wilpons did it - but Sandy was the chief enabler and deflected publicly as the organization's face. It got worse from there. He hired the worst kept secret in baseball in D.P.M. and hired the minor league coach that got called up in 2020 to be the Hitting Coach with Chili at home and was caught in MeToo accountability right before Porter. He was able to leave quietly. Sandy repeated his enabling and excusing of harassment - by not vetting, therefore allowing it to exist and not caring enough to check for it - with Porter. In the Porter case, both Theo (who's team and systems failed procedurally to address Porter) and Sandy escaped real criticism and their weak responses were accepted without pushback from media and fans - except for high quality women writers whom The Athletic quickly sent to other stories once the preseason started. He kept Scott on board - deceptively said why, burned the bridge with him publicly before he was acquitted in court and arguably could've kept his job (that would've been not so good) - which further alienated prospective candidates so that we didn't have a GM until less than what, 10 days(?) before a lockout. He slammed players post thumbs down and sent Scott out on a presser to shame players for not drinking water with soft tissue injuries (while I agree some players likely didn't follow the protocol and were on the IL an extra few days, you don't do that to your employees and the clubhouse exponentially deteriorated after that.)
Sandy re-hired an executive as the 'business side guy' before Porter came on who was previously let go for sexual harassment concerns AFTER interviewing women in the office - some that worked with him - and encouraged him not to 'because he believes in second chances'. That's directly quoted in a Ghiroli article. Un-effing-acceptable. That dude was one of the 3 Cohen's independent review required to be fired to 'clean up the culture' and they waited until the last minute to let those people go.
As much as respecting the past with 'black jersey Fridays', jersey retirements, 'Old Timer's Day', and Seaver's statue is needed to define Culture and 'The Mets Way', we need to remove parts of the past that were 'idea killers/enabled bad culture' for true systems change.
The Mets haven't played a particularly interesting game since the last Dodgers game. All of the games have been decided by 3 runs either way and none of them were all that close. Maybe the first Marlins game and first Cubs game when they had the bases loaded late, but aside from that pretty bleh. I'll be fine w/ that if they beat up on the Buccos; but I have had a feeling of Mets blah-ness for 2 weeks and that might be part of the reason.
I don't think the deadline was as bad as most keep saying. Ruf has been terrible, but Vogelbach and Naquin are both much better than the players they replaced. Givens has pitched pretty well minus two outings; and pretty well recently. It seems like they would have needed to pay pretty big prices to get big pieces and I'm ok w/ them not doing that. I really wanted them to trade for Josh Bell, but he's been terrible in San Diego. Who knows what the true story is re: prices, etc. But I'm ok w/ how it played out. I'm not as optimistic about Ruf as Jimmy is but I'm all aboard rooting for that to work out.
I still think it's a shame Baty got hurt as I think he was going to have an impactful September. Alas, he's a 2023 piece now.
For the record, I'm not critical of Eppler's moves at the deadline. I mean, everything didn't work out perfectly, but it's not clear to me what move *should* have been made. Was Gus Bell the big move he should have made? I liked that they held onto prospects for the big Ohtani trade this winter (grin).
Funny note that the Mets catchers lead MLB with the highest SLG (.628) in September. So kudos to Eppler for that! How did he know?
Last I looked, JD was hitting like .235 for the Giants. Popped some HRs early. I like that guy, wish him well, but some big holes in that swing and he wasn't the answer. Ruf is an upgrade and, I still believe, will prove to be.
The offense looks a lot better when the DH slot is not slumping badly. I think it will be better moving forward. Whether "better" is good enough, I don't know.
As much as I appreciate Lindor as a player -- he does so many things to help a team win games -- I've still not warmed up to him as a person. He strikes me as a phony.
Nice to get a win. This team needs to get on a roll.
Unfortunately the Sherman article on the trade deadline is behind a paywall (I do have The Athletic but not NY Post), but I have to believe that Eppler had orders/guidelines from above to not trade our elite prospects. I think both Cohen and Alderson had made public statements that they didn't want to mortgage the farm for rentals. I agree with that philosophy. As for the deals that Eppler did make, they may have made sense but Vogie, Naquin, and especially Ruf have not come close to meeting expectations. But it ain't over till it's over; how they perform in postseason will determine whether these deals helped the team. I do think they overpaid for Ruf, and I hated to see Holderman go. Givens is a useful piece but he's not what we really need. You're not going to bring him in to face Harper or Olsen or Freeman. Maybe Lugo is that guy?
The "journalist" sounding the alarm about vax status is annoying but who are these players that are not vaccinated? It's insane. Very happy that Sandy is almost out of the Mets' hair.
And, yes, on Alderson. This is the comment I made the other day. He'll hang around as "advisor." I believe that Cohen values him as a guy who can explain every detail about running a team -- it's a lot more involved than having an opinion about the batting order. I'm sure he's a valuable resource for Cohen, who is still learning the ins and outs.
And I'm thrilled that Sandy isn't calling the shots. Overall, I thought he did a horribly mediocre, uninspired job as GM for the Mets. He needed to go and "advisor" is the perfect little box to keep him in.
On the baseball side of things for the Mets, 1 game down, finish out the season. For yesterday in baseball, I am glad Minoso is in the Hall now and Clemente Day is getting recognition around the league. As the league embraces - and hopefully adjusts - record books for Negro League players, while simultaneously expanding the union, it gives me hope we can have similar recognition/support for Latin players coming up in the Cuban, Dominican, and Mexican Leagues - or more proactively focus on them and end the corruption and de facto child slavery in the international signing market.
Aside from on field baseball - and I know my takes are sizzling and frustrating to some - the best news of the day yesterday is that Sandy is stepping down.
To be clear, this move is designed to signal 'WE WANT A PRESIDENT OF BASEBALL OPS AND WE WILL BE ASKING TO INTERVIEW PEOPLE FROM TEAMS THAT DIDN'T MAKE IT TO THE PLAYOFFS, NOT JUST STEARNES' while also allowing Sandy to smoothly exit stage left in an 'allowed to retire' political move rather than 'firing' type move.
Why? Because as much as people on SNY and Cohen/Sandy publicly didn't want to admit it, the candidates after Theo and Billy Beane who didn't even sit for interviews or didn't take the job of PBO or GM when offered it was because they wanted autonomy that couldn't occur due to his presence/influence and they didn't trust/want to work between Sandy above and Brin below.
Candidates directly mentioned that as a reason not to take the positions in the months after on smaller podcasts and local news outlets for Red Sox, Rangers, and Dodgers once the national attention stopped listening to their PC answers. It was not a 'fear of New York' or 'contentment where they currently live' as the overall narrative (while true for a few, yes,) was painted.
The cynic in me notices he is leaving after 2 months in a shift from 'Eppler led moves' like signing all the FAs in the offseason, very targeted minor league deals, analytically minded drafting, and more aggressive call ups early in the season to more 'wilpon era/Sandy's calling card' moves - the deadline deals, 'wait on that injured guy and tolerate useless players on the roster until they come back', 'it's just baseball' deflections of accountability. But it's all about setting up the interview process for PBO to be attractive and less cumbersome this time.
I am very frustrated by media and fans that continue to say 'he was a marine', 'he's the godfather of moneyball', and '2015 pennant!' as reasons to not hold Sandy accountable or even critique him as a baseball executive for the Mets.
We can have passionate discussions on his baseball decisions - FAs, call ups, trades, drafts, strategies, etc. I just hope we can have them without the 'but the Wilpons didn't spend money' justification/excuse. He chose to stay knowing the Madoff situation and made his choices form there on out. He did the same cost saving shenanigans last year with Cohen and some people still excused him, (he stayed under CBT - okay in theory going into a lockout/new owner, but the process is the issue - by giving up our 2020 1st rounder for a pre-arb minimum contract in Williams and 2 months of Baez at league minimum, use CBA escape clause to not pay and not sign Rocker after a decade of success signing at risk/injured players going back to Matz is classic Mets Sandy.)
The greater thing for me, something that made me question following this team anymore or giving them my money for merch/tix/streaming games, is the character and quality of leadership he had as a Mets executive and face of the organization and the cascade of sexual harassment in the organization.
While individual players like Bauer and Watson did terrible things, they got suspended the Mets are only just behind the Commanders as a terrible organization to work for that doesn't care about equality or a safe work environment. They got NO consequences as an organization. They got less consequences than Washington. Granted, Cohen owned the team and was 90 days into the role, but Sandy was not new. His quote about 'we're in a better place culturally so it's good for me to go' as if HE changed it is absurd, insulting, and not accurate.
Sandy's errors and culpability in a workplace that enabled and fostered sexual harassment goes all the way back to the firing of the front office lady for having a kid out of wedlock. Yes, the Wilpons did it - but Sandy was the chief enabler and deflected publicly as the organization's face. It got worse from there. He hired the worst kept secret in baseball in D.P.M. and hired the minor league coach that got called up in 2020 to be the Hitting Coach with Chili at home and was caught in MeToo accountability right before Porter. He was able to leave quietly. Sandy repeated his enabling and excusing of harassment - by not vetting, therefore allowing it to exist and not caring enough to check for it - with Porter. In the Porter case, both Theo (who's team and systems failed procedurally to address Porter) and Sandy escaped real criticism and their weak responses were accepted without pushback from media and fans - except for high quality women writers whom The Athletic quickly sent to other stories once the preseason started. He kept Scott on board - deceptively said why, burned the bridge with him publicly before he was acquitted in court and arguably could've kept his job (that would've been not so good) - which further alienated prospective candidates so that we didn't have a GM until less than what, 10 days(?) before a lockout. He slammed players post thumbs down and sent Scott out on a presser to shame players for not drinking water with soft tissue injuries (while I agree some players likely didn't follow the protocol and were on the IL an extra few days, you don't do that to your employees and the clubhouse exponentially deteriorated after that.)
Sandy re-hired an executive as the 'business side guy' before Porter came on who was previously let go for sexual harassment concerns AFTER interviewing women in the office - some that worked with him - and encouraged him not to 'because he believes in second chances'. That's directly quoted in a Ghiroli article. Un-effing-acceptable. That dude was one of the 3 Cohen's independent review required to be fired to 'clean up the culture' and they waited until the last minute to let those people go.
As much as respecting the past with 'black jersey Fridays', jersey retirements, 'Old Timer's Day', and Seaver's statue is needed to define Culture and 'The Mets Way', we need to remove parts of the past that were 'idea killers/enabled bad culture' for true systems change.
Lee, I commend you for your passion and tenacity on the topic. Not easy to find, synthesize and present all this evidence and information.
The Mets haven't played a particularly interesting game since the last Dodgers game. All of the games have been decided by 3 runs either way and none of them were all that close. Maybe the first Marlins game and first Cubs game when they had the bases loaded late, but aside from that pretty bleh. I'll be fine w/ that if they beat up on the Buccos; but I have had a feeling of Mets blah-ness for 2 weeks and that might be part of the reason.
I don't think the deadline was as bad as most keep saying. Ruf has been terrible, but Vogelbach and Naquin are both much better than the players they replaced. Givens has pitched pretty well minus two outings; and pretty well recently. It seems like they would have needed to pay pretty big prices to get big pieces and I'm ok w/ them not doing that. I really wanted them to trade for Josh Bell, but he's been terrible in San Diego. Who knows what the true story is re: prices, etc. But I'm ok w/ how it played out. I'm not as optimistic about Ruf as Jimmy is but I'm all aboard rooting for that to work out.
I still think it's a shame Baty got hurt as I think he was going to have an impactful September. Alas, he's a 2023 piece now.
For the record, I'm not critical of Eppler's moves at the deadline. I mean, everything didn't work out perfectly, but it's not clear to me what move *should* have been made. Was Gus Bell the big move he should have made? I liked that they held onto prospects for the big Ohtani trade this winter (grin).
Funny note that the Mets catchers lead MLB with the highest SLG (.628) in September. So kudos to Eppler for that! How did he know?
Last I looked, JD was hitting like .235 for the Giants. Popped some HRs early. I like that guy, wish him well, but some big holes in that swing and he wasn't the answer. Ruf is an upgrade and, I still believe, will prove to be.
The offense looks a lot better when the DH slot is not slumping badly. I think it will be better moving forward. Whether "better" is good enough, I don't know.
As much as I appreciate Lindor as a player -- he does so many things to help a team win games -- I've still not warmed up to him as a person. He strikes me as a phony.
Nice to get a win. This team needs to get on a roll.
Unfortunately the Sherman article on the trade deadline is behind a paywall (I do have The Athletic but not NY Post), but I have to believe that Eppler had orders/guidelines from above to not trade our elite prospects. I think both Cohen and Alderson had made public statements that they didn't want to mortgage the farm for rentals. I agree with that philosophy. As for the deals that Eppler did make, they may have made sense but Vogie, Naquin, and especially Ruf have not come close to meeting expectations. But it ain't over till it's over; how they perform in postseason will determine whether these deals helped the team. I do think they overpaid for Ruf, and I hated to see Holderman go. Givens is a useful piece but he's not what we really need. You're not going to bring him in to face Harper or Olsen or Freeman. Maybe Lugo is that guy?
The "journalist" sounding the alarm about vax status is annoying but who are these players that are not vaccinated? It's insane. Very happy that Sandy is almost out of the Mets' hair.