Cobleskill, NY–I consider myself something of a Mets Twitter “Troll.” I don’t think this necessarily defines me as a human being. I’ve been called way worse things in the course of my self hating, neurotic, wandering jew life of mine, so “troll” it is. Plus the Mets hate Twitter-they view it as a platform for criticism and clearly you can see above that they’ve yet to get the hang of it. I bring this 21st century moniker up because in the course of my intentional baiting of fellow Mets Tweeters I am often confronted by many under 3oish nouveau fans. Under 30ish soccer loving, part time Met fans who probably live in Cobble Hill and who have it all figured out because their “fan-dom” dates all the way back to 2010. I’m certain that they arrived in Brooklyn after being raised in places like Cape Girardeau, Missouri (not to be confused with Gerard Depardieu, the fat guy who played the father of newcomer Katherine Heigl in her first film) Further I’m sure fair trade coffee and antibiotic free beef and Kale are staples of their entitled diets. I love my burgers with a splash of Erythromycin, thank you very much.
When last week’s Major League Baseball trading deadline came and went and Surprise!…Sandy Alderson and the Mets had done nothing-again, I immediately asked for Sandy’s head on a platter. Being the wandering jew to which I referred earlier, this platter was quite a spread-pickled herring, some novie, a little whitefish. After all, this was the season-2014, when the Mets would arrive as contenders-justifying the last 7 years of rebuilding and losing seasons. Finally, the Mets had compiled a few pretty good chips. The “alleged” stockpile of big young arms was currency to be used in exchange for a couple of bonafide big league hitters. From surplus, you deal to fill other holes. That however-occurs only in the real baseball world. In bizarro SandyWorld, you add more and more 18 year old kids-only to bury them in the low minors without any plan to play or trade them.
But all of these under 30 Mets Tweeters were convinced that the Mets were champs already! Jim Jones never sweetened the Kool-Aid like this. The Mets-even as they head inexorably toward their 6th consecutive losing season-have the 5th best farm system in the MLB!! Hey-did you see the record our Savannah Sand Gnats had put together? The Binghamton Mets are awesome! And Kingsport? OMG! Kingsport just proves that the Mets have the finest 17 year old talent in the baseball world! Actual on field results for the parent team? Importing better players, rather than just looking at spreadsheets? That’s not how they do things in Flushing.
Apparently having a strong farm system is the end game for these folks, and disturbingly-for Sandy Alderson and his cadre of 3 as well. Alderson “runs” the Mets along with his two hench men-Paul DePodesta and JP Ricciardi. Each member of this cadre of 3 earns in excess of $2M annually, or amounts that would place them as the 5th, 6th, and 7th highest paid players on the team. For this cadre of 3, it is all about ideology. All about proving that they are the smartest guys in the room. They would rather win this ideological war on traditional baseball than win actual games. As an organization, you really don’t want to have more than 1 or 2 seasons in which your farm system is rated in the “top 5.” After two seasons of such a designation, something is clearly wrong. The players aren’t being promoted or developed properly. And/Or they’re not being used in trades to acquire badly needed reinforcements for holes that need filling. Sandy and his cadre are buoyed by the stupidity and blind, ignorant faith of the likes of fair trade coffee sluping sabr nerds in Greenpoint. They believe the Mets are already on top. The 5th best farm system! Wow-we’ve arrived! What else is there for this team to do?. As Bush 43 once famously declared…”mission accomplished.” Only in SandyWorld.
