Category: mets

Yesterday Dan, after some inspiration from Bob Klapisch, tossed around the idea of trading Santana.  I was surprised Dan wasn’t booed out of town, a few readers even supported the idea, but the very thought terrifies me.

Let’s look at two big trades in Mets history to see what Santana might be able to return in a trade.

Seaver Model:  the Mets could in theory get back a 25 year old left handed pitcher coming off a 14 win season, a 24 year old starting outfielder and a 24 year old starting second baseman.   On paper that looks promising, three ready to go players all young an inexpensive.  However, I’ve lived through that and it’s awful.  None of the prospects panned out.   The Yankees went about their business of going to the World Series in 1977, 78, 80 and 81.   The Mets drew 788,000 fans in 1979.  You can’t roll your eyes and say that was a different time because they drew 2.6 million in 1970.

Santana Model:  using a more modern example, here’s the kinds of players you can get for Santana.  Carlos Gomez, Phil Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra.  Anyone pumped yet?

Now let’s play it out.

Suddenly on Twitter the beat reporters start mentioning Santana has been traded.   WFAN annnounces a press conference at 1pm.  The fans go bananas.

The press conference:  a reporter asks if the Mets are in financial trouble.  They say no.  Nobody believes them.   Omar starts to explain how we’re gonna love “this kid Henderson” and tells us “Zachry won 14 last year, Santana only won 13.”  Some talk about how young the team is and how the Mets are built for the loing haul.  Can anyone imagine Omar coming out of that press conference looking good?

Now the Mets are heading into the season with Murphy, “Doug Flynn”, Reyes & Wright…someone catching, “Steve Henderson”, Beltran and Francoeur.   Marketing tries (once again) to sell a young hustling team.   The ticket office calls you to ask if you would change your mind about your 15 game plan.  You renewing?

Opening Day.  The Yankees hang a pennant, the Mets send their ace…who?…to the mound.   Pelfrey?  Marquis?  “Zachry?”  

Unlike 1977 there’s now a 24/7 news cycle.  WFAN, online newspapers, twitter, blogs.   Plenty of ways for fans to get down on the team.   Another class of 7 year olds decides they are Yankees fans.

Killing the Mets for sport would be fun for the media for a while.  It was fun during Buddy Harrelson, fun during Torborg, and even fun last summer when the injuries got beyond ridiculous.   Them May 15th rolls around and there’s not much to talk about in Flushing.  No buzz on the team, no excitement and no ace.  The Yankees can cover the back pages all summer long until November, and then the football teams carry the winter.   There’s plenty to talk about in this town other than a 78 win team.

Let’s go back to Seaver.  What got the franchise out of the funk?   Was it Keith Hernandez?  Nope.  Nobody really cared about Hernandez in 1983.  Sure we thought it was a steal, but it would be like adding Michael Jordan to the 2009 Nets.

What revitalized the franchise in 1984 was that another ace came along.   Everything started with Gooden.  Every 5th day you knew the team would win, and it allowed another young stud named Darling to quietly be his Koosman.

Trading Santana would send this franchise into a bad bad spiral.   All it would do is make us sit tight waiting for the next Seaver or Gooden to roll along.   Mathematically we’re due for one…it has been 25 years since the last one (wow, that just hit me as I typed it).   I’m not going to hold my breath.

You’ve got an ace.  An ace is rare.  Keep him.

Now if you think you could get a lot for Beltran or Reyes….

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For the 5 questions today we’ll have a blogger mutual admiration society since I also dig On The Black…  Here’s Kerel

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Yesterday, we answered that Yes, Virginia there is an obstructed view and had some fun with the words of Dave Howard.

Here’s a look from that same area, and Ceetar suggests imagine sitting two seats to the left.

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Didn’t see this when it came out on Thursday, but Bob Klapisch has a suggestion that is brutal, honest, and makes a whole lotta sense.

Wilpon should trade Santana.

I don’t want to steal his thunder – you can read the full article here – but essentially what Klapisch suggests is that the Mets should be honest and go into a real, honest rebuilding mode.

I love the idea. Streamline back to a bunch of young kids and mid level cheap players while actually building a farm system. It would take a few years and those would really be LEAN years. But would it be worse than what we have now?

Think of the glory years of the Mets – the late 60’s/early 70’s, and the mid-to-late 80’s. Two different periods in baseball yes, but what was similar? A core nucleus of home grown talent – either brought up all the way through the system or guys plucked from other team’s farm systems in exchange for some of our stars. (Remember we got Darling and Walt Terrel – who turned into HoJo – for Mazzilli)

Could it work? I think it could. But the Mets would have to be totally committed to the process. In addition, the way to win over this town – or at least the fans they have lost – would be to be more fan friendly. Roll back some prices. Re-introduce some of the old-time traditions like Banner Day, Family Day, and the Old Timers Game. Sure the quality of play on the field might suck for two to three years (again, worse than now?), but knowing that the team was taking its time and doing something with a sense of commitment – you’d win a lot of patience that way.

What do you think? If the Mets traded Santana and maybe 1 or 2 others, and stated they were committed to building from teh ground up, would you support them? Would it work?

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As we all prepare for the snowpocalypse, it’s time to start our new Share Your Shots series.   I thought it would be fun to check out each other’s Mets photos.  Send yours to [email protected]

First up is Laura who says that this is from 9/25/08 and that the players came over to take batting practice on the dirt.  Very cool.

Send over anything you’d like to share.

Coming up at 10 I see Dan has written an article….I’m distancing myself from this one.   I don’t agree, but I’m not going to muzzle.

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