NEW YORK — There was a time when the Mets could be honest, when accountability reigned, when trying to dress up grim reality in the promise of a bright future would not do anyone any good.
“We did it to ourselves,” David Wright, the one constant between that time and the present, said back then. “It’s not like it blindsides us. We gradually let this thing slip away. In all honesty, we didn’t deserve to make the playoffs.”
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That was the end of the 2007 season, when the Mets had a seven-game lead on the Phillies with 17 to play, and blew it. Since then, the Mets have continued to gradually let this thing slip away. The thing is more than just one season. It is the essence of themselves, and their ability to really evaluate where they are and what they are doing.
The Mets fired Willie Randolph in the dead of night during the 2008 season, built another division lead, and collapsed again under Jerry Manuel, who somehow got to continue managing after that for two more years of misery. Then Alderson replaced Omar Minaya as general manager, and while he was honest that success would not come overnight, there has been just about no stop to the erosion of the relationship between the organization and its fans, who have become sick of hearing nonsense they know not to be true.
“What I want to emphasize is that it’s important for us to change the conversation,” Alderson said as the season began, talking about his challenge to the team to win 90 games. “This team is now about being successful. Being successful is not some nebulous concept about winning or being competitive or playing meaningful games later in the calendar. This is about concrete expectations about what we need to do.”
The Mets have played 52 games this season, a little less than one-third of the way through the season, and are on a 75-win pace that would mark a fifth straight season of being under .500 but not losing 90 games. The Mets have been, and continue to be, a below-average team with habitually shambolic decisions by ownership, a habit that Alderson's hiring broke, but only momentarily. Alderson might want to change the conversation, but the conversation will never change so long as the Mets keep living up to the worst parts of their reputation — including the parts that Alderson actually referenced when he pooh-poohed “meaningful games later in the calendar,” which owner Fred Wilpon infamously said he wanted back in 2004, before the Mets’ rise of 2006 and the fall of 2007 and beyond.
“Opening day is the idea that anything can happen,” read Sporting News’ column from Flushing when the Mets fell to 0-1 with a 9-7 loss to the Nationals in 10 innings in March. “But the universe of anythings is heavily populated by roller coasters that take the Mets on a loop-de-loop, only to have the safety harnesses fail at the apex and dump everyone into a splattered pile of mangled body parts, and then when a survivor crawls out, he gets flattened by the runaway rollercoaster cars.”
Bobby Parnell blew a save for the Mets that day. By the end of the first week of the season, he was heading for Tommy John surgery. The Mets installed Jose Valverde as their closer, after the former Diamondbacks and Tigers stopper had made the roster as the eighth-inning man out of spring training. After nailing down his first two save chances, Valverde blew one in Anaheim, then had two more ugly outings before he was replaced as closer by Kyle Farnsworth, another veteran reclamation project.
Farnsworth had already gotten a taste in spring training of how strange life can be as a Met — or as not a Met. To avoid paying him a $100,000 retention bonus, the Mets released Farnsworth late in spring training, with the intention of re-signing him. Farnsworth rode the bus with the team to a Grapefruit League game against the Nationals and was scheduled to pitch in that contest, but could not because he was not technically a Met at the time. Four weeks after that, he was the Mets’ closer. Four weeks after that, he was a Houston Astro. In his last appearance as a Met, Farnsworth recorded his third save of the season at Yankee Stadium — then he was outrighted to Triple-A, and elected to become a free agent rather than report to Las Vegas. Not coincidentally, Farnsworth’s demotion came on the last possible day for the Mets to cut ties with him and not be responsible for a full season’s salary.
In the two weeks since Farnsworth’s departure, the Mets have significantly upgraded themselves, going from a nickel-and-dime operation to having 50 Cent throw out the first pitch at Tuesday’s game to promote his June postgame concert. That pitch went about as well as Valverde’s post-closer tenure, which saw Papa Grande allow eight runs on 14 hits and seven walks over 12 1/3 innings before he was released on Monday.
In three months, New York had two pitchers go from non-roster invitee, to setup man, to closer, to out of the organization. Even for the Mets, that’s quite an accomplishment — and it’s just at one position, not to mention the shambolic handling of Ike Davis before he was traded to Pittsburgh, the puzzling questions about whether Juan Lagares — possibly the best player on the team — is really an everyday player, anything relating to Matt Harvey’s personal life, the years of so many medical troubles for so many players that it can’t just be bad luck (questions still linger about Parnell's treatment leading up to this season), the indecision over Jenrry Mejia’s role, the open letter to fans, managing to commit to neither Ruben Tejada nor Wilmer Flores at shortstop and hurting the development of both players, and on and on and on.
Valverde wasn’t even the headline move on Monday, either — that was the firing of hitting coach Dave Hudgens, who took a passive shot at ownership on his way out by not mentioning the Wilpons among those who supported him.
Hudgens’ dismissal, and his post-firing comments, led to a report of discord between Alderson and COO Jeff Wilpon on Tuesday. That led to Alderson on Wednesday issuing a denial of any flareup.
The only reason that the palace intrigue matters is that Alderson generally seems to know what he is doing, while ownership has demonstrated less reason to be confident in its competence. Forget about all the Bernie Madoff stuff — this is the same team that opened a new ballpark five years ago and had to scramble to adorn it with more Mets mementos because with an Ebbets Field-like facade, the main entrance being the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, and a place inside called the Ebbets Club (since renamed the Champions Club, then the Hyundai Club in the ongoing dash for more cash), with the old Shea Stadium home run apple installed in a barely accessible cave-like area, Mets fans felt like Fred Wilpon was more interested in recreating his boyhood team than he was in building a future for the Mets.
What is the future for the Mets? It’s hard to say. Alderson has stockpiled young arms, but most of the pitching talent has yet to reach the majors. The lineup is a mess for reasons well beyond Hudgens, with the worst slugging percentage in the National League, and at some point, the Mets will have to decide not whether to deal pitching for bats, but which pitchers must go. Also, what will the Mets’ budget be? That is where the ownership situation really matters.
In the meantime, the Mets play on. They don’t lose every day, because it’s baseball and nobody does, but even after wins, the big picture cannot be ignored.
“We came into the homestand and we were hoping to have a good homestand and get back to where we thought (we should be),” manager Terry Collins said after Tuesday night’s 4-2 victory over the Pirates. “We’ve played well. We just haven’t scored runs. We just haven’t driven in the big runs. So, to have a game like tonight where we get big hits out of some guys, I thought it was important.”
But even Tuesday’s game came with some agita. Holding a 2-0 lead in the sixth inning, Mets starter Jonathon Niese issued a leadoff walk to Josh Harrison, a one-out walk to Andrew McCutchen and a two-out walk to Russell Martin, then surrendered a game-tying single to Starling Marte. While he’s not quite Bartolo Colon, who does nothing but pound the strike zone (one walk over 7 1/3 innings in a 5-0 victory Wednesday), the three walks in the inning matched Niese’s previous season high for a game. He wound up issuing four free passes on the night.
“I’ve never seen that,” Collins said. “In my time with Jon Niese, I have not seen that. I don’t have an answer for you, because that’s one thing he does not do. He might give up some hits, and he might hang a cutter or a slider and give up a home run, but he doesn’t walk people. So, I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t.”