Tom posted the interesting comment below:
Hmmm – ever since the big bloggers call, the A-list of Mets bloggers has been suspiciously “cool, fine, mellow” with whatever crapola comes down the pike. Way too much “I trust Sandy” chanting as if Aldersonism is new religion. C’mon, this is a pretty big pile o’ crap for Mets fans to handle here.
As osh41 correctly notes, this guy starts with excess baggage – it’s a poor Wilpon-dominated choice (Collins is Sandy Koufax’s guy and Fred does what Sandy says). Alderson is already under the Wilpon thumb. Another disaster for the team we can’t help but root for…
Interesting comment. I can assure you there is no blogspiracy and we don’t collaborate on storylines. Whatever you are reading is whatever each individual blogger feels.
For me, I see no reason to be negative today. I need to hope. I need to trust. God forbid we’re entering another cycle of disaster. This has to be the beginning of the good times. It just has to.
As for Osh41’s comments about baggage….yeah, the losing-the-clubhouse stuff worries me. That’s what all the Colactus joke is about, and I wrote about my fears about two weeks ago.
The deal is done. Terry Collins is the manager. I wish him tremendous success as the Mets begin the best decade the franchise ever has had.
This team was never on the precipitous of disaster. They’re an under-performing injury riddled team, and a real manager helps with that. it can’t be worse.
Warthen worries me, if that’s true, and it certainly doesn’t seem like Alderson is the forward thinking innovative genius people make him out to be, but the team is hardly in disaster mode. fill out the starting rotation properly, keep guys healthy and make the right decisions regarding those injuries and they can compete.
There is a portion of the fan base that needs to be angry all the time. You see this with radio guys too. If a host isn’t angry enough he “sold out” or has “lost his edge”. I think worrying about pleasing that angry demographic is a hard road to travel because you will always have to be angry to keep them happy. I wouldn’t want to operate that way.
Get used it. Any one who knows me (online or off), and I mean really knows me, knows I have not changed one bit since partnering with SNY, yet I get this exact comment at least 10 times a day going back to 2007.
It’s the nature of the beast. People will believe what they want to. The best we can do is just keep being ourselves.
It’s absolute crap that people are already throwing this front office under the bus before they have made a single significant player move.
Mets fans need to get over themselves, they don’t know how everything works even if they think they do, it’s getting really tiring listening to this shit every day.
Oh, and a quick follow up, some enterprising blogger needs to bookmark a lot of the anti-Terry anti-Omar posts so that if the Mets win the World Series in the next few years all of the hyperbolic nonsense can be thrown in all the doubters faces.
This reminds me of when Metallica released Load, and we got to hear a load of spit about how they were going in a new creative direction, and to just give them a chance, and we had to be more open minded, etc. Now, x years later, we get to hear that Metallica admits its mistakes, blah blah blah.
I can’t blind myself from what I see. What I see is this team just robbed itself of what was going to be its pontiff, its spiritual leader. He wasn’t going to win by committee, politically-correct style. He was going to bang down the doors, come what may. That’s a team I can get behind, 100%, win or lose.
I’m just not getting inspired by Collins. Not that he’s a bad guy, but he doesn’t inspire me to love this team. I see some signs that things can go in the wrong direction. He doesn’t seem like he’s his own man. He seems like a guy you assign to manage a lot of guys in an impersonal way, sort of how Alderson did down in DR. I see a management vs. players issue brewing. Hope I’m wrong.
I do dig that we are comparing the Mets to Metallica.
Its’ tough to scream and yell when the new managment team is one month into it’s stewardship of the ball club. I guess we have seen some much bumbling and fumbling by the past regime that when we hear an inteligent man speak of a plan and start to put the plan in motion we don’t know how to react.
I’m with Matt on this. For the bloggers out there we have to just keep doing what we are doing. Even some of my friends have said to me “I hope you don’t change how you blog” and my reaction to that has been to look at them sideways as if they have been smoking something.
I can’t understand a large portion of the Mets’ fanbase these days. If the team can make you so angry, why do you continue to follow them? There are far more important things to be angry about.
Keep doing what you’re doing, Shannon.
I also do not understand angry fans at the Collins choice. He had a one in four shot. We should have all been resigned to each of those 4 (full disclosure: I was resigned to all except for Backman and Melvin was my top choice, so that’s where I am).
This weird angry response makes me wonder just what the fans expectations for next season are? Are we signing Lee and Crawford? Trading for 2 Aces? Getting Chase Utley for second? I want a winning record next season. Being in the chase will be great. I expect Sandy/Terry to be able to that.
Here is the problem with Met Fans (and all sports fans in general)
Things with their team are either “GREAT” or “SOMEONE NEEDS TO GO!”
There is usually very little middle ground!
The problem is the Middle ground with those people fall into the “Got knocked out of the Playoffs” area!
Things are only great if you at least made the WS.
If you don’t make the WS but win the division then the team is close and you will get a 50/50 split on who needs to be replaced which is the start of the “SOMEONE NEEDS TO GO!” level.
This is why fans (and Met fans in particular) always seem to be trashing the team! Cause with the exception of 2000 we have not made it to a WS since 86!
Which means every year but that one was a “SOMEONE NEEDS TO GO!” year!
What I am saying is many fans are an all or nothing bunch! That says Emotional but not Rational!
They complain under the guise that they “CARE SO MUCH” about the team that it ruins thier lives to see them not in the playoffs and they get pissed.
I guess it makes them feel as if they are better fans than those who look more rationally at the team, the dirction it seems to be going, and how they are progressing/digressing.
I for one don’t think complaing that your team isn’t winning RIGHT NOW makes you a better fan than someone else. Impatient YES! Better fan? NO!
I don’t personally subscribe to Sandy’s Sabermetric philosophy. I think it takes a lot more than getting on base to win championships! But he got the Job and now he has to prove his philosophy and show it works to make a better team. And if he doesn’t win I expect he will go the way of Minaya and Phillips and get canned too! He is going to be replaced SOMETIME. How long depends on how well he does his job.
I will give him three years to get the team in order and make it a winner. I care less about where they will wind up as I will about the deirection of the franchise. If it keeps moving forward I will say he is doing a good job regardless of the win column.
If I see it stagnate I will say he needs to work harder.
And if it starts to go backwards I will be the one to say “SOMEONE NEEDS TO GO!”
I will at least give him time to implement his plan and prove to me it can work before I start complainign about it!
And to the guy who made those comments I have a slight correction.
Podesta pushed for Collins, I’m sure Sandy’s influence was just enough to not have Wilpon say no way he already lost a team!
Collins got it because he had an in at the FO. Just like everything in life your job opportunities are based on WHO you know more than what you know and what you have done!
You wrote: Things with their team are either “GREAT” or “SOMEONE NEEDS TO GO!”
I spent the first 32 years of my baseball life watching the Yankees, and sometimes the Red Sox. The last 2 years, I’ve followed the Mets, and I concur with your finding. Maybe what you say could apply to other teams’ fans as well, but it seems to me that Mets fans are defensive, blaming the media and loathing the Yankees.
I’ve noticed some irrational koolaid drinking since Collins was hired. Hey, maybe it turns out to be a great decision, but there are reasonable grounds to be incredulous at what has just happened.
I see a lot of Mets fans saying we’re not in a position to second guess Alderson. Very odd.
if it’s stagnate you will say he needs to work harder? But you’ll give him three years?
The Mets better improve by more than 3 or so wins a year, or someone’s head better roll.
failure is not an option here, I don’t get why we should accept that.
“Sold out” might a tad harsher than I intended, Shannon. I’m a fan of what you do. But when you become a beat reporter, the equation changes. You can’t just say what’s on your mind any more or management will close you off; it’s a game of give and take. Al beat reporters know this.
I do think there’s been WAY too much Alderson worship on the Mets blogs – let Sandy do things his way, like he’s some of baseball guru who knows oceans more than a hard-core New York fan. He doesn’t.
Now we pretty much have to write off two seasons under this guy – it’s almost hard to imagine they’d make this choice. But then again, it’s the Mets. The team we love. The franchise that breaks us every time.
Fair point Tom – I went for the attention grabbing headline. My commerce is pageviews and I spend it on influence. By the way im making a whopping $25 a month now on google adsense! Figure 60 hours a month…
I have never been a beat reporter so I can’t comment. I’ve taken maybe more swings than anyone at Dave Howard and he was nice to me on the phone. The trick for me is to be both civilized and critical.
@Tom W – you can if you don’t care about credentials, which is how I feel. To me, access and credentials only enhance my blog. I’d gladly light them on fire if it meant the team winning a world series, because, at the end of the day, I’d much rather be blogging about wins and rings from my sofa than discussing losing from the field during batting practice.
Well that’s fair enough, Matt – and your blog’s quite a good one. Generally straight up too. I’ve just found that whether it’s city hall (I used to be a political reporter) or a team’s front office, you generally have to engage in some give and take to keep sources happy, and to preserve insider access.
I do think you’re working to try and “balance” the Collins coverage at your place, which is understandable. A good portion of Metsland is viscerally unhappy with this choice and how it went down, and you’ve given that some voice which I admire.
I do hope somebody asks about this tomorrow at the news conference and that it’s not a friendly “welcome aboard” event for Collins – and safe territory for Alderson and the Wilpons. They ignored fan sentiment – and judgment too – and should be asked why they did that.
Matt, just to be honest, I think I have to concur with some others. First of all, your blog is my favorite in baseball. I love Mets Police, but the Yankees and Mets between them don’t offer a blog that’s as interesting a read as yours. If you were to combine all their blogs together, I’d still rather read yours. (I’m a Mets Blog addict.) I credit that partially with the quality of Mets fans, an articulate bunch, and those who are left are a distilled caring core. Credit goes to the organization of the site, and the general focus of the articles.
Sometimes though, I get the feeling that the guys running it are into the koolaid. I think there has to be some realpolitik there. It’s hard to gain access if your dissing someone.
On the other hand, I think the Mets Blog is tolerant of strongly dissenting opinions, and this is a huge credit to the site.
While I disagree with Tom’s comment (and would argue that the access has encouraged many Mets bloggers to raise their game), I’ll admit this: There’s a part of me that wished Dave Howard remained Shannon’s Moby Dick. I would’ve read Shannon chasing that white whale for years.
Matt you’re so right! It’s a funny concept. However maybe it’s the start of a new book about how an exec and a blogger became bowling partners. Of course the book will need to be ghost-written by Greg Prince because I can’t write more than a paragraph….
To be brutally honest, I find I’m not as angry as I was yesterday about Collins – though that could easily change at 11.
That and my general reax to “we’re all behind Sandy” and “let’s see how the new era goes” sentiment across several Mets blogs got distilled into my single comment here. Which in a way is a credit to Shannon, ‘cos I kinda figured I’d get some great Mets conversation out of it. And Mets Police delivered, of course.
Q: Hast see the white whale?
A: Yeah Ahab dude, he’s on the Excelsior Level.
Matt,
You’re right, you haven’t changed since partnering with SNY. You were an apologist for anything the Mets FO did before, and you’re an apologist for them now too. I hope you can understand that some of us aren’t quite so anxious to switch from your old “In Omar We Trust” t-shirts to the new “In Sandy We Trust” ones that you’ve been (figuratively) shilling at your blog since he was hired. Wanting the Mets to win and being a loyal fan shouldn’t require obediently accepting whatever managment decides without even questioning it, or disagreeing with it. Alderson has done nothing so far to earn our trust … by hiring Collins against the OVERWHELMING wishes of a long-suffering Mets fanbase, perhaps he’s already earned some *dis*trust.
Angry, impatient, intolerant Mets fans reflect our broader society – me-first, instant gratification, inability to heathfully cope with change and/or disappointment. I find it pretty sickening, actually – anger, petulance, and playing dirty has become acceptable social norm rewarded en masse, and we see that all the time in a very loud, vocal, dysfunctional subset of Mets fans who can’t seem to cope with anything that doesn’t go their way.
I think many are of younger generations growing up without checks and balances and appropriate boundaries – i.e., when is enough, enough and what it means to be gracious in defeat and deal with it without threats and temper-tandrums. This is the ugly downside of what instant communication technology has created – instant reinforcement of our lower selves via support of similar others.
As for Metsblog.com, it’s the most widely read and I think has more to do with its early start and connections to those in the know, than anything. That Matt built it to where it is, impresses me, but other than that, I don’t find it well written or insightful. I find many, if not most of Matt’s posts to be twice as long as needed to say what could be expressed in half the space and reader time. Too often he appears to be kissing butt on all sides while committing to none, lest he alienate either, both of whom he needs for continued success. Matt says he hasn’t changed as a blogger since partnering with SNY – but I think he gradually has and the evidence is in his posts. I really prefer reading Michael Baron who’s more concise and sure of his own stance.
LongTimeFan I cant speak for Matt’s evolution, but I know personally I keep evolving. I used to have a slug line the site “calling the Mets on the carpet for the stupid things they do” – at some point I took it off. Nobody asked me to, I just wanted to be less of a street fighter and more interested in the discussion.
As I was re-doing my turkeys post I took some names off the previous list – one was Bobby V because I don’t feel like arguing the point (I feel his teams were underprepared whereas many think he did much with little talent) and I also took off Dave Howard because I thought the tone of the previous post was out of sync with where I am now.
Do I think Dave is dead wrong about obstructed views? Hell yeah. I hope we can go visit some together.
I’ve had lunch with Matt 3 or 4 times. I don’t know him well. We are friendly but not friends in the sense of me inviting him to a birthday party. Nothing makes me think he is anyones pocket, and I think he creates change for good with the access he has.