THEY CAME AND GOT THE METS

July 8, 2019

By DINO COSTA

Right before the Mets introduced Brodie Van Wagenen as their new general manager back in late October of last year, this is what I wrote in another

column that then appeared on my website when the Mets general manager list appeared to come down to 3 individuals. Chaim Bloom (who should have been

hired), Doug Melvin…and a former player agent.

Here is what I wrote:

“Brodie Van Wagenen? Come on, the fact that this agent has actually made it to the final round should be a sign that this franchise is in many ways

still too stupid to comprehend what is and what is not in their better interests.”

Then, while many in the Mets fan base, mostly the ignorant ones, all hailed this as a bold masterstroke, a cutting edge hire that was well outside the box, I maintained that the Mets had goofed yet one more time in their

feeble attempts at putting a consistent winning product on the field at The Ballpark In Queens (I refuse to call it by its corporate name).

Despite my feelings that this move was a colossal mistake, I found myself fascinated with how this guy, Van Wagenen, would come off in his initial

press conference before the New York media.

I wasn’t disappointed.

“The Bro Show” got underway at the BIQ (Ballpark In Queens) with the Mets very own “Spaulding” (Caddyshack 1980), Jeff Wilpon, telling the assembled

throng attending, that this was a hire that Spaulding’s dad (Fred Wilpon) was absolutely thrilled with. Of course, he was.

Next, we watched as Van Wagenen came to the podium carrying with him cue cards, with notes that I guess he had written down in advance, and with

every flip of the next card, Van Wagenen was on to a new point he wanted to make. I found this…interesting?

Van Wagenen said a number of things at his introductory presser, and one of them was that the Mets would; “win now, and win in the future.” Now since

I cannot tell the future (who can?) I can’t really speak to that, but so far as the “now” part of Van Wagenen’s declaration is concerned, well, as

the Mets just hit the All-Star break, old Brodie’s troops limp into what used to be the mid-summer classic with the worst record in the National

League.

You say; “but Dino, you got that one wrong. Actually, the Mets have the second-worst record in the National League, the Miami Marlins are the worst

team by a few games.” Right. So as I said, the Mets are the NL’s worst team record wise. The Marlins can be excused for their record, but what

about the Mets?

I didn’t like the hire to begin with and I deplore it even more so now, with the Mets sitting at 40-50, and 13.5 games behind the division-leading

Braves in what is turning out to be just the latest lost summer in this team’s inglorious history.

Then again, full disclosure, I was willing to give Van Wagenen a shot at impressing me, which if he did would have been followed by a mea culpa, and

would have made Spaulding and the rest of the Mets brain trust (?) looking prescient with this outside the box and high-risk gamble they were so

willing to take.

Sometimes you roll a seven. Other times you come up with craps, and it is in the crapper where the Mets sit right now, with an individual now in

charge, who I guess used to be a pretty good player agent, but obviously

has turned out to be a guy who watched Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane in the movie Moneyball (2011) one too many times – and is so far in over his

head that I cringe whenever he speaks, and when he does speak, he doesn’t sound so much like a real person, but rather, a windup doll, an Autobot,

who has been pre-scripted with every word and every line that comes out of his mouth.

As the season drew nearer, Van Wagenen was willing to make a few predictions. Van Wagenen made a disastrous and unnecessary trade with Seattle that imported both Robinson Cano and relief pitcher Edwin Diaz, a

trade that will not only hamstring the Mets for years to come – but also make roster management – given Cano’s massive salary and declining play,

all the more problematic when assembling future Mets teams and when factoring in payroll.

But back to Brodie and his blue and orange crystal ball.

Van Wagenen appeared on Mike Francesa’s WFAN radio program, and full of swagger as a never before baseball executive he said a few things that I’m

sure others around the game took note of.

Las Vegas bookmakers had the Mets under/over at 84.5 before a pitch was thrown this season. When Francesa inquired with the Mets wizard GM and

asked him what he thought of that number, Van Wagenen told Francesa that he thought the number was; “a little light.” Then, with Van Wagenen dripping

with intellectual superiority, he told Francesa that he felt his team was the one to beat in the NL East – and that if any other clubs took

exception with his brazen – if not arrogant proclamation – that they should be prepared to; “come and get us.”

At 40 and 50 on the season after the first 90-games, I think it’s fair to say that the rest of baseball has come and gotten Brodie’s National League

East favorites, eh?

Van Wagenen not only brought Cano and his ball and ankle chain of a contract to the Mets, but he also banked on Edwin Diaz, who had one brilliant season, turning into the next Mariano Rivera, and as we’ve all seen, Diaz appears to be a shell of the pitcher this season for the Mets

that he was in 2018 for Seattle. Those who make contact against Diaz and put the ball in play are batting at a .545 clip against the reliever that

Van Wagenen simply had to have.

For some reason, he also signed the very competent Jed Lowrie to a 2-year deal, another player the Mets had absolutely no need for, and at this point

(Lowrie is apparently on the DISABLED LIST), with nobody having seen Lowrie since the end of spring training, some are wondering if he’s actually still

alive, or perhaps he’s gone into the government’s witness protection program.

There are so many issues and problematic themes for the Mets that it’s really hard where to start when discussing them. But let’s go with the

manager first.

Under Mickey Callaway’s watch, up to this point, he’s managed the Mets to a collective record of 117 wins and 135 losses. Included in that record are back to back months of June in which the Mets went 5-21 in 2018 while

following that up with a 2019 June record of 10-18. For those of you scoring at home – that’s a collective month of June record under Callaway’s

watch that comes in at 15-39.

“Come and get us.”

Moreover, Callaway, who seems to be a nice man otherwise, has shown that he’s nothing more than a gloried pitching coach who has been drastically

miscast as the manager of a major league club in baseball’s biggest market. I’ll take it for granted that you’re well aware of the many goofs and

boneheaded decisions that Callaway has made in his short time in Queens, so I won’t bore you all by naming them all one after the other.

The other night, after a loss to Philadelphia, Van Wagenen, frustrated with

the team that he put together, losing yet another game, waited for Callaway in his office and demanded the entire coaching staff to be

present, where he then proceeded to rip his into his manager and coaches, apparently throwing a chair against a wall (again, this guy watched

Moneyball one too many times) before telling his ill-equipped and out of his depth manager to; “go do your fucking press conference.”

The Mets are a team allegedly built on a starting rotation that is the envy of baseball. Good pitchers are made better with guys in the field that can

turn balls in play into outs. Yet this is a team that plays a first-baseman in left field, a right-fielder in center-field, and a second-baseman in right

field. Occasionally, they also play another infielder (JD Davis) in the outfield, they have a starting catcher (I’ll admit I was all for the Wilson

Ramos signing) who looks like he needs a cane to get behind home plate, a shortstop whose defense is atrociously bad, as well as being a middle infielder incapable of getting to balls hit to his left, a second-baseman who is one of the worst in all of baseball, and a third-baseman in Todd

Frazier, who while having a decent enough year, is yet another player who is in decline and doesn’t figure in the teams future.

Van Wagenen, who before the year started told everyone just how present and on the scene he was prepared to be this season, hasn’t been heard from

since mid-June.

One of the last times that Van Wagenen spoke with reporters covering the Mets, he gave Callaway the third vote of confidence since the season

started and also said that he believed his roster, which he constructed, still had a shot at getting back into contention. Said Brodie; “We have

talent and we have heart and we have a group of people who believe in one another and who will pick each other up.”

Then just a few days after saying that, Van Wagenen fired pitching coach Dave Eiland and bullpen coach Chuck Hernandez – who must not have answered

the bullpen phone quickly enough for Van Wagenen’s liking. Eiland and Hernandez must not have had enough talent and heart on their sides? Since

firing the two coaches the Mets have responded by going 5-11 to date.

The mosh pit of irrelevance that ensconces this franchise is almost too impossible for it to truly be reality – but it is.

Under the Wilpon watch the Mets have been reduced to not only a sad joke – but in addition – their total and complete inability to have this franchise win for any serious length of time, their inadequacy as the stewards of

this organization, has rendered New York City a one-team town completely. While the Yankees win year-after-year-after-year, the sad sack nature of

the team in Queens continues to push the Mets further into a sinkhole while making them the equivalent of some obscure off-Broadway play that is miles

and miles from relevancy in the city that they call home.

If I’m Hal Steinbrenner? If I’m Brian Cashman or any other Yankees official? Not only do I go to bed at night praying to God that the Mets

continue to forever be run by such discordant individuals, but I’d actually take it another step further. Seeing how the Mets are so prone to make one

disastrous and awful decision after another over all these years, and knowing that these negligent decisions play right into the Yankees hands to

not only take over New York – but to dominate the baseball scene in the city for what seems like forever now – because of the utter baseball

malfeasance which has been on display in Queens for years and years, at next year’s Old Timers game in the Bronx, I’d invite Pa Wilpon and his son Jeff out to Yankee Stadium, where a plaque of them would be placed in

Monument Park, paying homage to an ownership group which has aided the Yankee’s cause and ascent over the past 25-years. I’d even consider putting

the Wilpon duo on the Yankees payroll.

The best thing about this Mets season to date? Other than seeing Pete Alonso on his way to a possible rookie-of-the-year award (Brodie had

nothing to do with Alonso being in the Mets organization), and Jeff McNeil showing he’s one of the best players in the game (Brodie had nothing to do

with McNeil being in the Mets organization), it’s been the apparent very nice draft the Mets put together this past June.

But even the terrific play of Jeff McNeil comes with a little asterisk, doesn’t it? Why? Because if we go back to the careless trade that Van

Wagenen swung to acquire Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, the early reports had Van Wagenen dangling McNeil as a part of that transaction, before

apparently, fans flooded the Mets office with phone calls expressing outrage. Thus, that awful trade could have looked even worse potentially,

with McNeil leading the American League in hitting and going to the All-Star game as a Seattle Mariner.

“Come and get us.”

Back to irrelevance in their own city.

The path to a post-season spot has been made more opportunistic than ever since the advent of the wild-card and the split to a three-division format

in 1994, and then, an additional wild-card entry in each league which commenced for the 2012 season.

Had the season not been shut down during the 1994 campaign, the Yankees would have gone to the post-season that year, while of course, the Mets

would not have.

If we include the 1994 season and roll through the years right up until last year, that is 25-seasons worth of baseball where the Yankees have

qualified for the playoffs in TWENTY-ONE of those years, including World Championship seasons in FIVE YEARS (96-98-99-2000-09) while going to

additional World Series that they lost in the years 2001 and 2003.

This current 2019 season will make it 22 years in the last 26 that the Yankees will qualify for post-season baseball with an opportunity to get back to yet another World Series. This means that if your father started

taking you out to Yankees games, say, as a 7-year-old in 1994, you almost don’t know what it’s like not to be playing baseball well into October every year. If we include 1994, the Yankees qualified for the playoffs

FOURTEEN YEARS IN A ROW, before not being able to get there in 2008 breaking their streak.

The Mets over that same time?

This is truly stunning.

For starters, let’s mention that the most years the Mets have made consecutive post-season appearances is TWO. Two times. One, two. Period.

The Mets did this twice, under Bobby Valentine back in 1999 and 2000, and under Terry Collins in 2015-16 That’s it. Playing in America’s biggest

market and with all of the financial advantages that come with that, and since 2009, playing in what is thought to be one of baseball’s better

ballparks, through a host of GM’s and managers over the years, the Mets streak of reaching the playoffs consecutively, over what is now their 58th season in franchise history, is two times. This should be unfathomable to

any interested observer and a source of outrage and embarrassment to those who own this club. There is another word for this: Pitiful.

They won’t make the post-season this year (again), and while the Yankees have given their fans TWENTY-TWO YEARS worth of playoff baseball (after

they make it again this season) over the last 26 seasons, the Mets, by comparison, have given their fans a ticket to the playoff dance a mere FIVE TIMES over that same time. Also, included over that 26-year stretch for the

Mets are FIFTEEN under .500 losing campaigns. The Yankees under .500 years over the last 26-seasons? ZERO.

Aside from an occasional glimpse of good play that saw the Mets going to the post-season over the past 26 years, it’s been, for the most part, a

course on baseball ineptitude in the borough of Queens.

There have been two periods of time in their 58-year franchise history when the Mets owned New York for themselves and when it was the Yankees who

played second fiddle.

The first period of time occurred when the franchise was actually born in 1962. The Mets outdrew the Yankees most years, had the higher television

ratings most years, and won their first World Championship in 1969, becoming the darlings of New York baseball fans. Of course, helping the

Mets to distance themselves as the cool new kids on the block back then was the Yankees own failure at having good ownership when CBS ran the

organization into the ground.

From 1969 until 1975, New York was Mets Country. That all changed when Steinbrenner insisted the Yankees be the King of New York baseball, putting together teams from 1976 until 1981 that swung the pendulum back in the

Bronx’ favor.

The next time the Mets took over New York and called it their own was from the years 1984 through 1992. While the Yankees had some pretty good teams

during those years there’s no question that the heartbeat of New York baseball took place each night out at Shea Stadium.

But when Steinbrenner was suspended from the game for a second time and when Gene Michael and his crew took over, they painstakingly put together a

devastating array of young talent though prudent drafting over a 4 and 5 year period that culminated with the Yankees once again taking over as New York’s undisputed and most popular baseball team, a period of time which

has gone unbroken for the team in the Bronx for the last 26 years…and counting.

This season, while the Yankees dealt with a mounting list of injuries that would wreck most teams, they plugged in replacements that kept spitting out

wins night after night.

The Mets?

The cartoon-like organization in Queens keeps spinning its wheels with a general manager and manager, both who never should have been hired to begin

with, with the GM beating his chest before the season and telling teams to come and get him and his ballclub.

I think it’s fair to say that baseball came and got the Mets this year.

Then again, baseball has come and had their way with the Mets most years.