One of the things I enjoy the most about following sports is the team-building aspect of the game. Perhaps this is due to my playing experience not stretching far beyond age 12, or maybe it's because I'm a nerd, but I find trades, free agency, and the amateur draft to be nearly as interesting as watching the teams play the game. Now, obviously members of baseball front offices have a much tougher job than anyone gives them credit for. They work long hours and make very important decisions under greater stress levels than I could imagine. But if that made them free from criticism, well, this blog wouldn't exist.
One of the most frustrating things and one of my biggest pet peeves when following the moves a team makes is when they have a superstar player but can't build a competent team around him to win a championship. The best example of this is Brian Sabean's San Francisco Giants, who from 2000 to 2004 had Barry Bonds giving them a 10 to 13-win head start each year (and before 2000, about 6-7 wins above average), but only made four postseasons in 11 years, and only advanced beyond the first round once. That is borderline criminal. Fielding an average team around Barry Bonds should win you 90 games. Fielding a REPLACEMENT-LEVEL team (replacement level being what a generic AAAA player could provide for the league minimum) with 2003 Barry Bonds should win you 55 games. If Sabean could find just, say, two or three other guys who verged on all-star level, and made sure the team had no major holes, they should dominate. While he had Jeff Kent, and guys like Rich Aurilia turned in some good years offensively, Sabean managed to fill in the team with a lot of stiffs like Calvin Murray (214 games with an 81 OPS+ in '01-'02), Edgardo Alfonzo's corpse (88 OPS+ from '03-'05), and some dreadful starting pitching to stop the team from being truly competitive.
Anyway, I digress. This post is about the Mets. Where's the link? After acquiring Johan Santana, the Mets were lucky enough to have four of the 20 best players in baseball in Santana, Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Carlos Beltran. That's quite the head start. Surround them with decent talent and you're a surefire playoff team, right? Well, not exactly.
In 2007, the Mets' problem was their starting rotation. Everyone knew it. Omar Minaya didn't get any help for it during the season, even though the Mets have lots of resources, and they missed the playoffs by one game. The next off-season, they acquired Johan, and looked to be in good shape. But a funny thing happened as Billy Wagner got hurt and they were never really able to replace him, even though the pen behind Wagner had been a weakness the whole year. Minaya did nothing, the bullpen was awful down the stretch, and they once again missed the playoffs by one game.
So before last year, the club went out and signed Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz. But did it help? Well, everyone got hurt, including Putz. And I mean everyone. So I guess it's tough to pin last year on Minaya, or anyone. This year they've added Jason Bay, which is a questionable signing long-term, but who should be good for a couple years. They added Gary Mathews, but he is rather terrible. And they've added some bullpen help in Japanese reliever Ryota Igarashi. But if the Mets don't rebound this year and compete in a year where they again have three of the top 20 players in baseball (Beltran's lingering issues take him out of the top 20), then you have to really start taking a look at Minaya and the bad farm system he's built, the poor free agent signings he's made, and the lack of action during seasons in which a move here or there would have meant a playoff berth. You have to wonder if that all adds up to a firing.
*photo courtesy of Tom Thai via Creative Commons License
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