NY Mets front office deserves blame if the season slips away

After having a modest lead in the National League East just three weeks ago, the New York Mets had a disaster of a week – losing a series against the Cincinnati Reds, dropped three of four against the Miami Marlins, and getting swept by the Philadelphia Phillies – pushing them back to third place in the division behind the Phillies and Atlanta Braves.

Even as the Mets maintained a modest lead, the cracks in the foundation were beginning to show. Injuries depleted their depth in the upper minors, New York had to go and acquire Rich Hill and Trevor Williams for potential starts, and the bats, supposedly the highlight of the team heading into the season, had numerous instances of going cold. All baseball teams have ebbs and flow throughout the season, but the New York Mets felt like a team teetering on the edge.

In the end, the Mets made a trade at the deadline, acquiring Javy Baez and Williams from Chicago, but that’s about it. A bullpen clamoring for another arm or two received nothing, a rotation that could use a difference-maker, someone like Jose Berrios, got their low-level adds, and a team that could’ve used two bats, one to start and maybe one to come off the bench for some life, got a good one, but not a great one.

With Jacob deGrom out an additional two weeks, Noah Syndergaard moving into the bullpen when he returns, the continuous slugging bats, and no real help on the way from the farm system, the Mets look on the verge of missing the playoffs. To make things worse, it’s not like the Phillies or Braves are world beaters, either, just teams who’ve done just enough at the deadline – Philadelphia adding Kyle Gibson from Texas, Atlanta adding a litany of good enough players – to leapfrog New York.

The place you have to point to is the front office. There’s blame for everyone really, Luis Rojas has struggled in his first full season as manager of the Mets, the players have all experienced poor seasons, especially on the hitting side. However, when you look at where the Mets were last season and where they are today, a proper offseason would’ve allowed the Mets to not only sustain when injuries hit but preserve and even strengthen their lead in the National League East.

I think it’s time to relitigate New York’s 2020 offseason and where it went wrong for the New York Mets.

The strengthening of the Mets front office

When Mets owner Steve Cohen purchased the Mets, the thought process was that New York would evolve into a “Dodgers East,” a team that just won the World Series weeks prior. While the Dodgers are lauded for the recent decade of dominance, one of their biggest strengths is their ability to leverage their finances and success into numerous talented front office members, who do their time and wistfully leave for bigger opportunities.

The Mets bought back Sandy Alderson in a President of Baseball Operations spot, Jared Porter was hired as the general manager and Zack Scott was the assistant GM. Instead of building the front office, the Mets focused on remodeling their pitching development philosophy, but the Mets kept their front office moves largely small.

Porter was fired amid sexual misconduct (we’ll come back to this later), and Scott was moving into an “acting general manager” role.

The bigger mistake was not strengthening the office even more. In retrospect, the Mets probably should’ve looked for Kim Ng, currently the general manager of the Miami Marlins, over Porter. On top of that, the Mets should’ve been more proactive with hiring more baseball people. Before leaving, Billy Eppler, let go by the Los Angeles Angeles, was a prominent figure in the New York Yankees’ farm system. Michael Hill, now working for Major League Baseball, would’ve assisted in this effort.

And it’s also fair to point out that building a “Dodgers East” just isn’t realistic. With the ability to leverage the draft, the ability to be ahead of the curve in the international draft, the Dodgers are miles ahead and the philosophy and strategy are too broad for the Mets to follow. It would take a few years to get the proper people in place, let alone begin to see the proper benefits on the major league roster.

Instead, the Mets front office is wide open and the philosophy seems murky. Are the Mets a team that wants to continue the focus of starting pitching, specifically, players who have the upside of a top-of-the-rotation arm? Or does New York begin to focus on a more hitter-orientated approach, using assets and allocate resources towards finding premium hitting?

The best front offices are the ones who can do both, but it’s not always possible. The Chicago Cubs, when they won the World Series in 2016, built a strong stable of hitters and traded for their top pitchers. Same for the Astros, who have now begun to develop decent middle-of-the-rotation starters (Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, Framber Vasquez) in recent years.

Teams constantly shuffle their process, but you have a starting point. The Mets don’t really have one at the moment.

With Alderson now 73 years old and Scott still working with the “acting general manager” tag, the Mets look to enter next offseason with the daunting task of doing it all over again, looking for high-level people among baseball to take over and build the next great Mets team, which could mean going through another offseason taking calls and interviews on prominent front office members and changing the philosophy instead of stabilizing the roster and focusing on other matters.

The Present and The Future: Where the Mets Go From Here

Because of the failures of this past offseason, the Mets are going to be behind the eight-ball once again. This upcoming free agency class will offer New York a chance to not only remodel their roster but push it above teams like the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves in the division. The Mets should come away with several big names and could fill plenty of holes this upcoming offseason.

And it starts from the top down. The Mets have to find a new President of Baseball Operations, a new general manager, and the proper people below them.

Zack Scott has done well, but not enough to earn the official general manager title. Sandy Alderson, an architect of New York’s most recent World Series team, has seen the game past him by and would better serve as an honorary front office member who doesn’t make baseball decisions. New York, and more importantly, Steve Cohen has no choice but to upgrade the front office staff this season in order to regain ground in the National League.

And more importantly, the Mets need to move on from Sandy Alderson. Not only is his product a failure, but the Mets have failed to make the Mets organization one that’s safe for women. Not only was he instrumental in the hiring of Porter, but he was also in the room for the hiring of former Mets, now vagabond Mickey Callaway, who was fired from the Los Angeles Angels for sexual misconduct.

How many times is Alderson going to mess up the vetting process? Callaway was the first, Porter was the second, and the culture surrounding the New York Mets was already placed under the spotlight in a separate article in the Athletic here. At some point, we have to not only question the people being hired, but the people doing the hiring and after apologizing twice for a poor “vetting process” and placing a downright poor product on the field, Alderson has to go.

As the New York Mets close out the final eight weeks of the season, New York is fighting upward to make it a race in the National League East and hopefully make it to the postseason. However, if the Mets fail to make the postseason, they would’ve done with while holding on to a lead of four-and-a-half games for the majority of the season. None of the contending teams in the division are good enough to make up that ground.

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The Mets front office not only failed the previous offseason, but they also failed the trade deadline and are the lead contributors in the most disappointing season in recent memory.