You gotta have somethin if you wanna be with me.
So, so long, Omar Quintanilla, and thanks for being the first No. Zero in 14 years. Your frequent and repeated DFAs have made you a kind of Nelson Figueroa of Met position players, and I fully expect we’ll see you again, especially if and/or when this whole Wilmer Flores-to-shortstop experiment ends in a failure or injury.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m glad the Mets are trying this. Flores has a nice record as a minor league hitter, and he’s still very young, and the Mets need young position players who can hit. And Ruben Tejada just isn’t getting it done offensively, the Mets aren’t good enough hitters otherwise to carry a bat like that, as though the last batch of games hadn’t illustrated that.
That this move will also likely test the limits of what we can accept defensively from a major league shortstop will be interesting in and of itself. Flores last time wore No. 4 and we’d expect to see that again tonight.
Elsewhere, I’m troubled to see the spate of recent articles and fan sentiment hovering around this absurd notion that the nascent organizational turnaround under Sandy Alderson is some kind of setback from the Omar Minaya Era, in which the Mets appeared to possess no ovearching philosophy other than to create the illusion they were headed in the right direction by paying full retail for other team’s players.
Joel Sherman, whom I usually like, today is trying to sell the idea that Alderson has failed because Omar-acquired ballplayers remain at the heart of his club, conveniently leaving out the idea that the even bigger disasters of Alderson’s years until now were even more influenced by Minaya, and that any administration’s third year will still include rubble from the prior occupant’s closet (he may as well have argued Minaya’s ineffectiveness given the benefits he derived from Steve Phillips’ charges like Wright and Reyes). In reality though, several Minaya legacies have failed Alderson badly (Ike Davis, Ruben Tejada) and/or were foolishly traded (Carlos Gomez, Joe Smith) and/or handicapped him with lardy contracts (Johan Santana, Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez) and/or aren’t around to help when he could use them (Bobby Parnell, Matt Harvey). I’m not trying to bury Omar Minaya, whom I believe did his best despite being frequently overmatched at the trading and negotiating tables and too easily interfered with by the Wilpons and the press, but painting him as even a comparative success vs. the current administration is, um, bullshit.
In the meantime, what was basically a gut-renovation of the system by Alderson is turning around opinions and results on the minor league level already, and other than it turning out to be an inviting target for lazy critics and columnists, there ought to be nothing wrong with acting in a manner of a club that’s going to win 90 games if that is indeed the goal. If it were easy to rebuild a club while slashing payroll by 35% in an inflationary market, everyone would be doing it.
All pumped up again over the Mets who badly beat a hilariously old and ineffectual Yankee squad last night as word came the club was on the verge of the first wave of player promotions that hopefully improve the performance and outlook of the team. Wednesday’s starter will be Rafael Montero, whom we saw this spring wearing No. 50.
Similarly, Jacob deGrom wore No. 48 in spring, which has also remained available. Not certain on the corresponding moves yet, although Gonzalez Germen is hitting the disabled list to make room for deGrom. Just guessing now but would be great to cut loose Kyle Farnsworth while we’re still ahead. Unlike many Mets fans I never had a strong opinion of the whole Mejia thing but he looks like he’s having fun here so let’s keep it going.
