New York Mets: Three bitter mistakes from this past winter

The New York Mets are heading into the 2020 season with a positive attitude, but this winter did have its share of bitter moments.

It was a blizzard of a drama for the New York Mets during the winter months. Their chills even spread to sunny Florida. A blinding hire, a freezing facility decision, and a deal breakdown echoed over the ice.

There will always be a shivering of teeth when thinking back to October-February break for the squad. Boil the water for the tea, put on a blanket, and send some heat to the Mets. They are in need of all of the warmth they can get this baseball season.

Everyone makes mistakes, but for the Mets it seems like icy comic book villains were puppeteers of the off-season. The Mets have opportunities to bring manners back to baseball before Opening Day. They can start by correcting these three rude errors.

Mets hire a manager who cheated at baseball

Carlos Beltran was going to be the man in charge of multi-million dollar players. Not researching a fresh out-of-the-dugout skipper and not going through loyal steps of promoting an internal candidate was the first winter ice slip for the Mets. It exposed complaisant workers.

Not hiring internally made the Mets hierarchy look like moths caught up in a celebrity’s limelight rather than bosses in the beam of bold business. It was forgotten that manager selection affects many lives. Hiring externally without getting boots on the ground reports about the kind of character Beltran played- was lazy. This trigger hire showed a cavernous wound in the Mets company structure.

Reflecting on this mistake identifies a blind spot, a missing sector, and an essential need in the Mets system. A team employee should have the task to vet and flag well-researched selections.

If the Mets hired veteran teachers then the club would minimize cheating, bullying, and dirty noses. Teachers can detect lies like a bat detects bugs. Elementary teachers are highly skilled for the mission since some players tend to revert to that age group.

The gossipers in the school halls would say employing Beltran was like hiring Sponge Bob Square Pants to make celebrity crabby patties at your restaurant, but then finding out he is stealing security footage from Burger King- using their recipe!

He doesn’t even know how to cook a burger! That is what this was!

Beltran didn’t even know how to play baseball correctly because he cheated, which is Rule Number One on what you should not do in professional sports. Someone from the Mets should have tasted the sand in the meat.

Minor leaguers are banned from the Clover Park clubhouse

This is not understandable at Clover Park. A clubhouse privilege is earned when a person joins a company. Saying the employees need to earn access to rooms that the company didn’t even pay for, is discriminatory. Shouldn’t the Port Saint Lucie taxpayers or at least city leaders have a say on how the facilities are utilized?

Imagine if a school renovates the teacher’s lounge using taxpayer’s money, however, the substitute teachers, studying to become professional teachers, were not allowed in it. The sub cannot be comfortable all season long, can’t eat like the big pros or even in their cafeteria, even though the pros only come to pontificate 1/9 of the year.

This issue echoes history with a bloody yell. You can’t use this water foundation, you can’t use this bathroom, you can’t sit here you gotta sit there, where do you sit on the bus? This pool isn’t for you.

Instead of race, social-economic status discrimination reeks within this decision. Wouldn’t it make sense to spoil your minor leaguers, at their home stadium, so that they would desire the royal treatment when they tour as professional ballplayers?

Sometimes minor leaguers have more humility, class, and manners than participants at the pro level. Are the Mets owners nervous about wear and tear? The cleaning fees? We are just talking about a leather couch here and a fancy mural. The owners are in the active process of selling the team. They could set cool standards and leave it to someone else to be the bully.

The owners need to offer up all of the kindness they can. Selling the team is not going to resolve the resentment, contempt, or disgust from the past Mets’ culture, humble actions while still owning the team will. Use the awesome facilities, have the saplings from the farm taste the sweetest, and be generous.