That’s more like it
Mets, finally, acted like big-market franchise
Sandy Alderson and the Mets ownership should remember what last week felt like, remember what it sounded like at Citi Field at the conclusion of a trade deadline that for them — more than any organization — ricocheted from good to awful to great.
From small moves that made sense to a big move that embarrassingly fell apart in real time and in public, and finally to the kind of knockout transaction a large-market team with prospects and, yes, money makes.
The Carlos Gomez fiasco may turn out to be a good thing for this organization — and not because it rebranded Wilmer Flores into a rally-around hero.
But because the Mets got knocked down and didn’t stay down. They, instead, validated that this time their words were not just words. Alderson was willing to “overpay” in prospects to get what he wanted. The Tigers had to trade Yoenis Cespedes — had to because his contract is structured in a way that Detroit could not have made him the qualifying offer and recouped a draft pick. It was deal Cespedes or get nothing for him at the end of the year.
Nevertheless, in the end, the Mets made sure they distinguished themselves, pushed to the front of the line, by leading a trade with a real prospect: Michael Fulmer.
And ownership wasn’t just talking about a willingness to add payroll this time. With less than a 50 percent likelihood to make the playoffs, the Wilpons didn’t pocket the money from David Wright’s insurance and Jenrry Mejia’s suspension. Instead, they signed off on approximately $8.5 million extra in payroll to bring in Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe, Tyler Clippard and Cespedes for the rest of the season.
It improved their chances in the standings — and also in their standing with their fans.
This is worth remembering, too. The sound of Citi Field on Friday night, when it felt like the Mets were back in the bigboy league.
Mets fans love this team. The animus is pent-up years of frustration. But fortunately for this franchise it never devolved into indifference. The anger — the leadership of the organization must remember — is a good thing. It means they care.
They just wanted to know that an ownership that wasn’t spending and a GM who could come off as aloof were meeting their passion. That they cared as much. One week will not offer full confidence of a 180-degree pivot.
Which is why I think it is so vital that the ownership and the GM remember what it feels like and sounds like when they behave as they should — like a bigmarket team with its foot on the gas pedal.
This does not mean do a San Diego Padres thing from last offseason and just willy-nilly add big names and hope a team manifests from it.
It means that they are contenders and with this level of starting pitching should be for years. It means Alderson and his lieutenants — with an able baton pass, it turns out, from Omar Minaya — patiently have stocked the organization with myriad levels of prospects. And it means ownership always should recognize Citi Field is in Queens, which is in New York, which is not San Diego. It is a huge baseball market.
When you have prospects and you have money and you are a contender, you are now in it for everything that makes sense. Not “monitoring” the situation as a fakeout to con fans that you are going for something that you are really not.
The Mets began trade-deadline week with a contender and made it a better contender. They did it in a very Yankees way — which is perhaps the only time Mets fans will tolerate sharing a sentence with the Yankees.
Brian Cashman over the years has shown expertise for augmenting a contender with useful supplementary pieces such as Johnson, Uribe and Clippard using good, but not great prosp ease non-contenders of contrac want to disappear from the payroll
And when an organization is co with a big bat it feels compelled to (think David Justice, Bobby Abreu, A Soriano), Cashman has been good ing sure the Yankees were the selle best choice. This is what the Mets d Cespedes. The Tigers did not have places to move him. Alderson mad he wound up hitting cleanup for the
He did this after Gomez fell th He did it with a Mission Impossible few minutes left before the deadl did this — with ownership’s bles despite the fact it means when M Cuddyer gets healthy, the Mets’ b agent sign from last offseason (one that cost them not just money but the 11 th pick in the draft) will become a bench player.
In the willingness to add the star, devalue past money spent and include Fulmer, the Mets were big-market, go-for-it in a way they have not been in years.
With the Nationals in town, their fans responded with a reminder yet again how fast hate can be flipped to love in this sport (and maybe all endeavors).
The organization is not in the clear, of course. These are the Mets. They have a way of falling from good graces quickly. But this was a week in which one player (Flores) cried because he thought he was leaving and another (Zack Wheeler) begged to stay. It suggests something positive is happening in and around this club.
And the Wilpons and Alderson honored that by making it even a better club, by behaving exactly how a big-market contending team with prospects should behave.
Good for them.