The Mets 2020 season is off the rails even before the season begins. And the 26 players in the clubhouse are now bit players in an ever-unfolding drama…
For Mets veterans like Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard, the events of the past week are just another day at the office. Their front office leads the league in errors, and there is little they can do to put a halt to the dysfunction.
They get paid to pitch, and that’s what they’ll do. deGrom will do what he does best, which is to block out everything except the hitter he is facing while ensuring every pitch he throws is with purpose and executed to the best of his ability.
If only Brodie Van Wagenen and Jeff Wilpon could say the same.
Mets Were “Totally Surprised” – Huh?
The Mets front office has no plan. Van Wagenen claims he was “totally surprised” when Carlos Beltran was named in the nine-page report as a cheater when he was with the Astros.
Really? This, in the face of widely published reports that surfaced a week before Commissioner Manfred went public to certify that Beltran was indeed complicit in the cheating scandal.
Surely, if Van Wagenen had picked up the phone to ask Manfred a general question like, “Mr. Commissioner, is there anything I should be worried about your investigation,” Manfred would have given him a straight-up one-word answer – “Yes.”
And from there, even BVW would have added one plus one to get two before it dawned on him that Beltran had to be “the one.”
Hang ‘Em Out To Dry
But the Mets weren’t finished with embarrassing themselves. Van Wagenen and Jeff Wilpon fumbled around for three days, letting a media and public frenzy take over a situation regarding Beltran’s status before finally pulling the plug Thursday morning.
Astros owner Jim Crane fired AJ Hinch and his GM in a matter of hours when the report was issued. The Red Sox didn’t even wait to hear what a separate investigation was going to conclude about their organization, opting instead to fire Alex Cora now.
It gives you the feeling that as an organization, the Mets are sloppy, incompetent, and always in a reactive instead of a proactive mode.
Now, we have the rush to name a new manager, the Mets fourth manager in two-and-a-half years.
You mean the Mets are telling us they didn’t have a back-up for Beltran? They have a back-up catcher (well, sort of) and a back-up shortstop, but nothing for their manager.
What if Betran (just making a point here) came down with a sudden debilitating illness or was involved in a car accident preventing him from doing his job in the dugout?
What are the Mets looking for? They should at least know that much.
Are they going to jump on the media bandwagon that insists the team needs to go for the experienced candidate, even if it means sacrificing the 21st Century gold-standard of having to be an excellent “communicator”?
And, of course, that person can only be Dusty Baker…
Mets: Put A Hold On That, Please
The Mets players? Well, from conversations with Carlos Beltran, by now, someone like Dominic Smith would probably have a good idea of what his role is going to be this year. No more, it’s back to square one and the days’ tick by.
What about Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha, one of whom is going to start the season in the bullpen.
Don’t they have a right (for the good of the team) to know the Mets current thinking so each can prepare himself mentally and physically during Spring
Training for the task that lays ahead?
Everything is on hold in Van Wagenen’s office as well. The on-again-off-again trade talks with the Pirates are supposedly on again, but who is working on that for the Mets?
“Totally surprised” was Brodie Van Wagenen. Funny thing though, I wasn’t surprised, and I bet you weren’t either.
Mets Players To The Rescue
Mets fans can only hope that when the core players arrive for Spring Training in three weeks, and by Opening Day, Jacob deGrom, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, and Noah Syndergaard can blanket out all the noise, leading others to do the same.
Nothing has changed for the Mets personnel-wise. They are an excellent and reliable team that will be heard from in 2020 – if only they can ignore the idiots in their front office.
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
