More Thoughtful Comments From Mets Fans And Readers

New York Mets Fans - The Faithful Photo Credit: The Daily Stache

Not surprisingly, fans of the Mets, as opposed to the Mets organization itself, have some thoughtful and creative thoughts about how to improve the team. Following are some of those ideas as culled from various Mets Facebook Groups.

The reader comments that follow are drawn from reaction to yesterday’s column in which I attempted to lay out a blueprint for how the Mets can reorganize their franchise in a timely manner. All of these are unedited and appear as written, except when links are added to players names. In case you missed the article, it’s reprinted here:

A Blueprint To Bring The Mets Back To Respectability

From a Mets Facebook group called, True New York Mets Fans, we get this comprehensive and thought-provoking comment from Bill Snipes:

Bill Snipes “An EXCELLENT blueprint during a shockingly bad season. Even if the Mets rebound in the second half, which I doubt, they need to restructure (Not rebuild). After a slow start, their starters are generally good. With run support they’d be very good. They could afford to be aggressive, knowing one pitch, one run won’t cost them the game. … Their catchers are terrible. Mesoraco is the only complete ballplayer, but doesn’t look like he’ll be able to return to All Star form.

If no one behind Nido is a year away, a FA is needed. Commit to a platoon of Flores and Smith at 1B, at least for 2018. … Trade Cabrera while he has value, as you suggest. Ditto Frazier. …May be stuck w/Cespedes, given his contract. … Determine the extent of Bruce’s injury; he hurts the Team in RF and batting, and he’s not the longer term answer at 1B. … Sandy’s vision of a team built on homers hasn’t panned out. That’s unfortunate, but reality. He needs to retire in favor of new blood and fresh eyes. But STOP bashing him. He did creative things on an often tight budget that got us to consecutive postseasons recently. …

I agree with going with the young core, INCLUDING most of our starters. (Am not as down on Wheeler because of the lack of run support.) … In the BP a lefty specialist who can no longer get lefties out, and has lost confidence in his best pitch, is useless. The backend is good, especially if Ramos is effective when he returns, although he nibbles and walks guys too much. Familia is still young, and Swarzak is experienced. Sewald and Robles get lit up and should go. Again, give Sandy credit for bringing in a LOT of arms, but many just haven’t worked out. Re-signing Conlon isn’t part of the solution. … So, why not get started (by releasing Reyes if he won’t retire) and use the rest of the season as a foundation for 2019 and beyond?”

New York Mets Fans Photo Credit: New York Daily News

Scott Gomelko reacted to the piece in Mets Country by accenting a common thought among readers…what to do about the Wilpons?

Scott Gomelko Great article, however getting around the Wilpons is going to be difficult because they, especially Jeff Wilpon, like to micromanage but if you think they could get around them, I’m all for it.

New York Mets Baseball Past And Present offered two comments, the first of which does not spare the rod, while the second leaves me wondering if I’ve been complimented or tossed to the ground.

Dave Helfrich The Mets have shit in every level of their minor league system. And I’ve said this many times It comes down to getting better scouting and better talent evaluators. It starts there first. I think the talent evaluators in the Mets organization suck as bad as the team itself. Start there.

Edward Cricchio The dangers of the internet. Steve Contursi is a fan with an opinion. He makes a fancy looking blog and then writes his opinions. We do that on Facebook with our group and we just aren’t as fancy.

Realistic Mets Fans offered two inciteful comments:

Anthony Campos We’re paying for Bernie madoff and it’s not fair people say they have money well it’s time to put up or kick rocks

Christopher Timmermans What sucks is no one we have has any real value except Thor and Degrom as far as trade. They may have to make a painful move if some team gives up the king’s ransom for one of them.

I like the general idea of just getting rid of as many guys as possible who make any kind of money and not producing. But enough already with the third rate players they have to take that money and spend it lol.

Jimmy James Filippone The Mets problems are equal parts misappropriation of funds to players and misappropriation of players to philosophy. If you’ve even just seen the film Moneyball then you have a working understanding of how Metrics were being used to anticipate player performance and the emphasis of high OB% players and taking pitches.

Realistic Mets Fans Photo Credit: Mets Merized Online

Here’s the thing, that worked when only a few others were employing or even aware of these principles. With the amount of information available now to everyone you cannot simply adopt such practices and philosophies and expect such low cost high reward results. Then there’s the other side of the coin, taking players like Lagares or Rosario or Murphy who are not the “pitch taking” type players this philosophy requires, they played their entire lives a specific way and obviously had enough success in their aggressive approach to make it to the highest level on the planet… and now change all that!

Obviously pitch recognition and swinging at good pitches are fundamentally important but so is hitting good pitches in hitters counts, capitalizing on pitchers mistakes and not taking those pitches based on a philosophy that works fine for a Joey Votto type or even Brandon Nimmo. These players have an innate ability to take close pitches and work the count. Last night we FINALLY WON! Notice we saw first ball fastball swinging from Conforto and others and subsequently first ball junk not swung at when the pitcher was forced instead adjust in following ABs.

So point being is it’s not simply the names on the jersey that need to be adjusted, the approach at the plate has to be contingent on putting that specific hitter in his own best situation to succeed, not simply forcing them to take pitches based on organizational philosophy.

Recapping And Summarizing

Once again, if nothing else this proves New York knows its baseball. And for a reader to sit down and take the time to write comprehensively, this also demonstrates the passion Mets fans still have for their team, despite the troubles of this season.

If only there was a way for some of these readers to sit down with Sandy Alderson for fifteen minutes, sharing their thoughts and ideas…

To all, with comments or not, thanks for the read and let’s keep the discussion going. Sooner or later, someone may notice…

Steve Contursi, Catskill, New York