We need to talk about Steve

[Frayed Knot]

I’ve been mulling over this topic for a while now and I think it’s time for a thread.
Not that we’ll be rendering final judgements or anything this early in the game, but maybe something more akin to a first year/first semester report card.

On Field Assessment:
The initial spending spree certainly signaled that things had changed and it was nice to see particularly as it was coming on the heels of the under-spending during the previous administration’s post-Madoff years. But, sort of like a new President signing a bunch of Executive Orders 20 minutes after taking the oath, that kind of thing only gets you so far. Then you have to sit down and do the real work and I think the verdict on that work can be described as maybe a C+ at best.

OK, the new guy wanted to make a splash by grabbing headlines and hopefully getting the team into the upper part of the standings in a hurry. Fine, I get it, and, in the short term, it worked. Good for him, good for us. That they didn't go further in that year's post-season shouldn't be seen as a reflection on that roster or the process that got them there. But the leftover problem is that ‘Watch me spend!’ isn’t a strategy, it’s more like a conceit really, and when many of those short term fixes that worked in ’22 either had to duplicate their results in ’23 or left and had to replaced by new short term fixes, the success rate wasn't nearly as good. So what that left was a pitching staff that hasn’t merely been augmented by short term fixes from aging vets but one that has been expected to be anchored by those guys. That all resulted in the likes of Stroman for two seasons, Taijuan Walker for two, Carlos Carrasco for two, Chris Bassitt for one and, most notably, Scherzer for 42 starts and Verlander for 16. This leaves only Senga and Quintana as holdovers going forward from the second wave of FA/trades and we're already into our third. There was a bit more (mostly inherited) youth and stability on the offensive side but still, 2022 import successes Canha and Marte were gone and barely there in ’23 leaving the team’s run scoring prowess in an even worse state than the run preventing.

So is there ‘A Plan!!!’ ? Too soon to tell I think, but certainly not a consistent one as of yet.
The early ‘Win Now!’ phase saw the likes of Pete Crow-Armstrong dealt for two months of exciting-tho-flawed Javy Baez, plus the disaster that was Darrin Ruf obtained for JD Davis plus three minor leaguers. I mean, even before Ruf bombed beyond all expectations one could look at that equation and say, ‘Are you kidding me’? It reeks of someone that wanted to make a deal so as to show he made a deal without regard to the cost. ‘Oh, it’s going to take Scott Kazmir to get Victor Zambrano? … OK, Sure!’
Then he pulled a 180 last July but denied it was any kind of rebuild. So are they still in ‘Win Now’ mode? A rebuilding mode? A hybrid of some sorts? Or is he going to lurch from one strategy to the other like the Wilpons who found themselves forever chasing the Last fashionable trend just as smarter teams had moved on to something newer?
The one encouraging sign is that, during the sell-off of last July, Steve realized the folly of clinging to sunk costs and put his financial clout to use by eating the majority of the outgoing contracts in order to secure a higher caliber of prospects in return. It remains to be seen whether this signals a newly found patience and realization that remaking the team each year by throwing money around on the open market is both a limited and high risk tactic. And, finally, we’ll have to see how the new POBO affects things. Is Sterns going to have [Minaya]full autonomy[/Minaya] or is Steve going to periodically go over his head whenever this year’s shiny new bauble catches his eye a la early GMS III or a baseball version of Jerry Jones? There was another fresh owner who came into his sport touting himself as a longtime super fan of the team he just bought and proceeded to chase stars and spend beyond the cap all while talking about tradition etc. So how did that Daniel Snyder guy eventually work out anyway? Not a perfect analogy I realize, but perhaps a cautionary tale.


Off Field:
To some extent, there’s stuff to like: mainly that he was and is a fan and that he recognizes that the team has a history prior to him taking majority ownership, something the previous administration seemed to miss. On the other hand, I’m not sure if he knows when (or even if) to stop.
- the Mondo Scoreboard: OK, fine. But it’s really just another reflection of ‘Watch me Spend’. Showy, but not an improvement on the field which means it can be seen as a distraction from the lack of improvement on the field.
- The spree of number retirements. You don’t need to hear from me again how I think it’s already gone way too far but the real problem is that I don’t see any sign that it’s going to stop anytime soon. Again, it’s like he’s doing it in order to show that he can.
- And now apparently we’re going to have dancing girls [on the dugouts? in the on-deck circles? with the grounds crew?]. I don’t even know where to start.

[metirish]

Wow , great write up. The proof is in the pudding I suppose, the luster has faded and the Uncle Steve moniker is looking like a joke

I think the next two seasons will tell a lot , hiring Stearns was his thing , now let him lead the org.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I like this thread.

I do think Steve came in and thought he could buy a ring or at least buy his way into the playoffs, and that failed spectacularly. He also listened to the fans a lot. Rookie mistakes and he seems to have learned.

I also think there is "a plan" and the best road map for the plan is just to keep an eye on the payroll for '25 and beyond --> https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/new-york-mets/payroll/2025/

Yamamoto proved he'll still spend big but the cash will be splashed more judiciously. They paid big payroll taxes and obviously Steve can afford to keep doing that, but it's just not money, the teams gets penalized in the draft, too. By my estimations, "the plan" is to:

-keep stocking the farm and hold onto (don't trade) those assets
-"get by" in '24
-dip the threshold ($241MM) ahead of '25 and "reset" for CBT-purposes
-promote farm assets so you can have a lot of pre-arb, inexpensive talent
-buy "younger" free agents (ex. - Yamamoto or my new crush, Sasaki)
-trade younger assets for stars you can extend, if needed
-repeat

I think every(?) acquisition this offseason has confirmed the "bridge" strategy to get the books trimmed ahead of '25, while still being competitive in '24. I think it makes sense.

[whippoorwill]

I’m not even sure it’s just dancing girls.

That I could stomach.

But Rerun-ish guys breaking it down for my Mets?

Yuk

[Lefty Specialist]

Yeah, this one's been eating at me for a while, too.

Money really isn't everything, as we've learned to our sorrow. The quick jump to 101 wins in 2022 followed by the drastic pivot at the trade deadline in 2023 left a lot of heads spinning. This offseason has been confusing, too- a willingness to pay $300 mill+ for Yamamoto, and yet lots of dumpster diving by Stearns. It's hard to know what the plan is here, at least short-term.

I guess it's as Seo said, 'get by' in '24. But I'm not sure there's enough to get back to contention in '25. Waiting on the kids to develop may not exactly work by then. Jury is still out on pretty much everyone except Alvarez. Baty and Vientos have been underwhelming, Mauricio's hurt, Parada is a great prospect who's position-blocked, there's no sure-fire pitching prospect on the near horizon and it's too early to tell on the deadline pickups from last year.

I know they'll never admit it, but it sure looks like this is a rebuilding year. Just not sure what they're rebuilding TO.

[Edgy MD]

I don't think he has necessarily show to have put the "Listen to the fans" impulse behind him.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I’m not even sure it’s just dancing girls.

That I could stomach.

But Rerun-ish guys breaking it down for my Mets?

Yuk

I started wondering if Steve got in trouble with dancing girls and then remembered the thread about the Mets hip-hop hype squad. RIP Re-Run!!

[Gwreck]

Interesting thread. It seems very early to know what to make of Cohen, given that he’s only owned the team for 3 years. In terms of a “plan,” it seems quite clear that Stearns has been/is the plan, and thus it’s way too soon to know how that will turn out.

I’m quite pleased that the Mets were able to sign Lindor, Nimmo, and Diaz without also foregoing the wherewithal to add additional pieces.

Some other corrections/observations:
The expanded number retirements is a Wilpon initiative. The Koosman retirement, as well as the plan to “catch-up”
on other numbers was announced by the Wilpons in 2019. Steve certainly couldn’t have rescinded Koosman’s honor. Maybe he could have cut it off thereafter…but that’s only partially his fault.

the Mondo Scoreboard: OK, fine. But it’s really just another reflection of ‘Watch me Spend’. Showy, but not an improvement on the field which means it can be seen as a distraction from the lack of improvement on the field.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been distracted by from the team’s performance by a scoreboard.

That said, have you been to Citi Field since it’s been put in? I’m a regular attendee there and can confidently state it’s the single best improvement to the facilities since the building opened.

And now apparently we’re going to have dancing girls [on the dugouts? in the on-deck circles? with the grounds crew?]

Wtf? This is a joke, right?

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

whoever started the retiring numbers game, it was a slippery slope. The fans want to see it but the truth is the Mets don't have enough number-retirement worthy guys to meet the demand.

The giant scoreboard, and hi-def ribbon screens, is as much a business thing as a fan-friendly thing. Better ad real estate = $$

I'm not at all up in arms over the dance squad; they've had the Pepsi Party Patrol for 20 years and nobody died; the Nickelodeon outfield came and went. It's all about developing new audiences which they need to do.

In a matter of taste, I don't think they needed to add fireworks to the home run apple. That's on Steve!

[kcmets]

And now apparently we’re going to have dancing girls [on the dugouts? in the on-deck circles? with the grounds crew?]

Wtf? This is a joke, right?

To be fair, I'm sure it won't just be 'girls' but the rest sounds plausible.

[MFS62]

the retiring numbers game, it was a slippery slope. The fans want to see it but the truth is the Mets don't have enough number-retirement worthy guys to meet the demand.

Sad, but true.
Later

[Centerfield]

Great post and thread idea.

For me, the most important criteria for an owner is whether the owner puts winning first. I think very few owners in MLB do this. Steve is one of the rare ones. So that alone is enough for me. If he did nothing else, I think I'd appreciate his efforts to understand the privilege he has of owning a team. He's going to make money in the long run from this franchise. Lots of it. Good on him to be willing to spend in the short term.

My other criteria for a good owner was: (a) hire smart people, and (b) stay out of the way.

It took him some time, some of it for reasons beyond his control, but he's got smart guys in place now. I don't think he'll ever stay out of the way, but hey, Meatloaf.

His plan was pretty obvious. Try to buy into contention while you rebuild the farm, scouting, player development etc. And we did get a 100 win season out of that, so still, not bad. Even during our "step back" season, we'll have the highest payroll in baseball.

I think he tries. He's smart enough to learn from his mistakes. I think his ownership of this team gives us a great shot to be competitive for a long time.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Cohen bought a team in utter shambles. And I'm not necessarily talking about the squad at the major league level. The minor leagues were in awful shape. There were under-investments in modern equipment. Its analytics department was relatively primitive compared to other teams, especially the best teams. Its scouting and development departments were also behind most other teams. I've no doubt that even at the lowest levels, like the secretaries and clerks that type out the season-ticket requests, morale was as low as can be, working for an organization in financial crisis and led by idiot tyrant Jeff Wilpon.

[stevejrogers]

whoever started the retiring numbers game, it was a slippery slope. The fans want to see it but the truth is the Mets don't have enough number-retirement worthy guys to meet the demand.

Granted so far I’ve seen just one person on a social media platform, but it wouldn’t shock me to see a groundswell of support to retire #3 as part of the Buddy memorial tribute on Opening Day, or have the ceremony later in the year. Yes, even though two are still planned for this summer.

Right now #3 is unassigned, and the official roster pages have yet to give numbers to the new manager and coaches. So that’s one less “hurdle” for Buddy fans to get over to get #3 retired this year!

[Benjamin Grimm]

No disrespect to Bud Harrelson, but no way. They might as well retire all of the numbers that have been issued so far, because everyone who wore them will one day be dead.

[batmagadanleadoff]

whoever started the retiring numbers game, it was a slippery slope. The fans want to see it but the truth is the Mets don't have enough number-retirement worthy guys to meet the demand.

Granted so far I’ve seen just one person on a social media platform, but it wouldn’t shock me to see a groundswell of support to retire #3 as part of the Buddy memorial tribute on Opening Day, or have the ceremony later in the year. Yes, even though two are still planned for this summer.

Right now #3 is unassigned, and the official roster pages have yet to give numbers to the new manager and coaches. So that’s one less “hurdle” for Buddy fans to get over to get #3 retired this year!

Harrelson's case to have his Mets number retired is like 500 times better than Gary Carter's and every time this topic comes up, I can't believe that Carter's number has been in mothballs for about 20 years now and that so many people think it deserves to be retired. I still can't get over it. It's the most bizarre Mets thing I ever heard.

But I tend to go with Lunchbucket. I'm happy for the retirement of Kooz and Keith's numbers but the standard now is much lower than the standard that existed when I was growing up.

[batmagadanleadoff]

No disrespect to Bud Harrelson, but no way. They might as well retire all of the numbers that have been issued so far, because everyone who wore them will one day be dead.

Yes!

[G-Fafif]

Tomás Nido, No. 3 since 2017, may be off the 40-man roster, but he’s still in the organization.

[Frayed Knot]

In a matter of taste, I don't think they needed to add fireworks to the home run apple. That's on Steve!

I could do without the smoke show as the players come out of the dugout ... but I'm old so no one cares what I think about such stuff.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

I think you guys might be a little hard on Steve.

I'm blessed that I get to see games in other parks, and I'm seeing that the huge scoreboards, spirit squads and such are pretty common. I'm an old-timer, and I could do without them. Heck, I don't need fancy restaurants and micro brews. I go to a game, stay in my seat, eat a hot dog and keep score. But I'm a dinosaur. Stadiums are creating a "ballpark experience" so people can pay $100+ for a ticket and feel like they are being entertained even if they don't really like baseball. I actually think the Mets are trying to play catch-up.

And it's not just baseball. I went to a Red Wings game recently and the team has a drumline entertaining people in the concourse. Louder than heck. But a lot of people stood and watched and cheered. They had the massive scoreboard and spirit squads. They projected things onto the ice before the game with an elaborate show to go with the players entering. Definitely not the kind of thing we used to see with the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum.

On the field, I can't complain about spending to get Scherzer because the idea was to pair him with the all-world ace deGrom and have a studly top of the rotation, or at least one ace when one or the other went down. The 2002 deadline deals sucked, but they didn't want to give up what little prospect capital they had. They still won 100 games -- and under the old rules would have tied for first place. They lost in the playoffs to a team that got hot at the right time and took out the Dodgers after they beat us.

I think last year was just one of those perfect storm years when everything just falls apart. Not resigning Bassitt was probably a mistake in hindsight.

I don't mind the retired numbers. How many years did we complain about not saluting our own history? After Doc and Straw, they'll probably retire No. 5 and that will be it until deGrom in a decade. Loved the Old-timer's Day and the Seaver statue.

I get the frustration. Last year sucked. I wanted more.

[Edgy MD]

Well, I know I never complained about retired numbers. I thought that was something the Mets historically did more or less right, and now I think they don't.

There are plenty of good ways to celebrate history — many that are yet to be tried. Allowing ourselves to get into a cold war race with other teams in inflating legacies seems so half thought out.

[Frayed Knot]

Well, I know I never complained about retired numbers. I thought that was something the Mets historically did more or less right, and now I think they don't.
There are plenty of good ways to celebrate history — many that are yet to be tried. Allowing ourselves to get into a cold war race with other teams in inflating
legacies seems so half thought out.

This!

On the field, I can't complain about spending to get Scherzer because the idea was to pair him with the all-world ace deGrom and have a studly top of the rotation, or at least one ace when one or the other went down. The [2002??] deadline deals sucked, but they didn't want to give up what little prospect capital they had.

I'm not complaining about Scherzer or any of the FA market deals specifically. The problem was that trying to remake the team all at once by signing older players and/or ones on the final year of their contracts led to a situation where yearly remakes were needed each winter--particularly so because there was such limited minor league capital--when those older and short-term players turned out to be old and short term. I understand why he did it but it was a high wire act which worked right up until the time when it didn't. I'm assuming you mean the 2022 deadline deals up there but those (and the 2021 deals) Did give up limited prospect capital and for very little in return all for a 'go-now' approach which was then abandoned by the time the next season was halfway done.
Having said all that, if you're going to reverse course I like that it was done decisively and that he used his bankroll to do it the best way moving forward rather than to simply dump payroll. You just hope now that, particularly with POBO Stearns in place, there's more of a coherent plan in place as opposed to having to remake things on the fly each winter, a plan that almost immediately goes awry when it turns out that other teams are going to be high bidders for that year's dream acquisition too [see: Yamamoto, Y.].

As I said starting off this thread, this isn't a final assessment but more of a first semester report card where there were some positives but some negatives as well. I think what this last year or so has mainly been is a bucketful of cold water on the heads of those Met fans who thought that a moneybags owner was going to instantly solve everything (I wasn't one of them). Look, the Wilpons were lousy owners. But it wasn't because they didn't want to win, or that they didn't care, or were secretly were rooting for the Dodgers, or even that they were cheap or underfunded (at least until Madoff). The problem was that they just didn't know how to be good ones. So in addition to the whole deal about acting as if the teams' history began the day they took ownership, the bigger problems being that they were reluctant to delegate any real power away from themselves and that they simply lacked the vision to see what might be possible beyond whatever circumstances existed in the present. In Bud Selig's (mostly forgettable) book, he relayed the story about how news of George Steinbrenner's then shocking $40-50 mil/yr cable deal with MSG Network was made public during an owner's meeting. Steinbrenner wasn't in the room but Fred's immediate reaction was to disbelieve the figures. He didn't think those kind of numbers were real because he never dreamed they were possible. He was quite happy at that time with the payouts from the long-term cable deal he had (not entirely his fault as it was the one Doubleday negotiated against advice from MLB for being too long) but Fred had no idea up to that moment that his kind of deal was already in the process of becoming a dinosaur. By the time that deal did come up, and the 'Pons paid dearly to slip out of its final year, they were then Johnny-come-latelys to the idea of their own network as well as to analytics and other more modern tools right up until the Madoff scandal led to the house of cards collapsing.

What we know now is that Steve has a lot more money and that certainly helps. But it also doesn't cure everything and it remains to be seen what direction this team takes under his watch and whether he can find a plan he likes and stick to it while letting the baseball pros do their job. Not waking up in the middle of the night and deciding to throw long-term money (presumably without the GM's knowledge) at the recently rejected (and fielding position already taken) Carlos Correa only to then slink out of it by re-hiring the doctor who had already rejected him in order to see if he'd approve him this time, for instance, would be a nice start.

[metirish]

[Edgy MD]

I get that he's being sarcastic, but I'm not sure what Steve's point is there.

[whippoorwill]

In a matter of taste, I don't think they needed to add fireworks to the home run apple. That's on Steve!

I could do without the smoke show as the players come out of the dugout ... but I'm old so no one cares what I think about such stuff.

Just saw this and me too!