Mets Pick Up Jose Reyes Option

New York Mets SS - José Reyes
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One of Sandy Alderson’s first moves was a no-brainer today. He picked up the option year on Jose Reyes contract for $11 million. The Mets don’t have a better option at shortstop and $11 million isn’t bad for Reyes. He would get a lot more than that on the open market.

Reyes is still my favorite everyday player to watch on the Mets despite the last few seasons having been less than what he’s capable of. I think most Mets fans still want to see Reyes with the Mets long-term. But putting a price on Reyes’ talent is difficult. There aren’t many players that have hit free agency recently with similar skills. Waiting one more year for Carl Crawford to get a free agent deal will give a good starting point for Reyes. They’re not exactly the same type of player, especially considering Reyes plays short, but it will be a good guage of what a player with a good mix of power and speed can get on the open market.

Check out Reyes’ career stats and it’s obvious that committing $11 million to Reyes is unquestionably the right thing to do.

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Report from Baseball-Reference.com.

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Mets Hire J.P. Ricciardi

Ricciardi
Image by phillenium1979 via Flickr

Sandy Alderson is getting the band back together again. I like it! Hopefully, he’ll be able to pry Paul DePodesta away from the Padres too. I think it’s a great hire bringing in Ricciardi with eight years of experience as the Blue Jays GM. It’s a great move and I’m really starting to get excited about the wealth of experience the Mets are assembling in the front office.

Here’s the press release from the Mets:

FLUSHING, N.Y., November 2, 2010 – The New York Mets today announced that J.P. (John Paul) Ricciardi has been named Special Assistant to General Manager Sandy Alderson. From November 14, 2001 through 2009, he was the Senior Vice President, Baseball Operations and General Manager for the Toronto Blue Jays. Ricciardi spent last season as a baseball analyst for ESPN.

“J.P. brings a wealth of knowledge and a breadth of experience to the organization,” said Alderson. “I worked with him for over a decade in Oakland and I know first hand he’s a superb talent evaluator. He’ll be a tremendous resource in a variety of areas.”

In his new role, Ricciardi will assist Alderson in all aspects of the baseball department.

The 51-year-old worked for the Oakland Athletics for 16 years (1986-2001), including 12 years (1986-1997) when Alderson was the team’s General Manager.

“I couldn’t be more excited about being reunited with Sandy,” said Ricciardi. “We enjoyed tremendous success together in Oakland and it’s my goal to help duplicate that here with the Mets. As a former Met farm hand, it’s a double homecoming for me.”

Ricciardi played two seasons in the Mets minor league system after signing as a non-drafted free agent. In 1980, he was a teammate of current Oakland GM Billy Beane in the New York-Penn League with Little Falls and in 1981 he played for Shelby (A) of the South Atlantic League.

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Video: Rosenthal on Mets’ Sandy Alderson

Fox Sports (USA)
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Here’s a video of Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports on the Mets hiring of Sandy Alderson as General Manager. He’s very positive about the move and talks about how Alderson’s presence will allow Jeff Wilpon to take a less active role in baseball operations. I know that’s something that we’re all looking forward to.

Check out the video below from Rosenthal and comment with your thoughts on the Sandy Alderson hiring.

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Audio: Mets’ Alderson on WFAN

NEW YORK - OCTOBER 29: Sandy Alderson poses f...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Here’s the audio from Sandy Alderson’s first appearance with Mike Francesa. It’s a long audio clip, about 42 minutes. But Francesa does a good job of getting to the relevant points that you’d want to hear about.

Francesa, of course, talks to Alderson about the current roster and the medical situation. But he also gets into his Oakland days and gets a denial from Alderson that he knew about steroids on those teams.

I take from the audio that Alderson is an intelligent, well spoken guy and that inspires confidence that he’s got the brains to do a good job. You never know how things will work out but I’m hopeful.

You should definitely check out the audio here.

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Video: Mets GM Sandy Alderson Introduced

NEW YORK - OCTOBER 29: Sandy Alderson answers...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Here’s a brief video from ESPN of Dave Howard introducing Sandy Alderson to the media as the Mets new general manager today. He said all of the right things but so did Omar Minaya when he was hired. His deeds will mean more than his words.

I think one thing that we can expect is that he won’t have the kind of public meltdown that Minaya had last season when Tony Bernazard got fired.

Here’s the video:

http://espn.go.com/videohub/player/embed.swf

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Mets Hire Sandy Alderson as GM

The Mets will announce the hiring of Sandy Alderson at a press conference today at 2pm. He beat out Josh Byrnes for the job and I think you could call Alderson the “safe” choice. The Mets have little room for error with this hire and the reports are that Alderson is getting a 4-year contract. It’s a long term commitment to Alderson and the Mets really need to get this right.

The last two seasons have seen the Mets fall to a second league team with little for fans to get excited about. It’s Alderson’s job to change that. I don’t think it’ll be easy.

There’s some good information written about the direction that Alderson could be headed with the team:

  • MLBTradeRumors – Their usual excellent work of summarizing news articles on Alderson
  • ESPN– Ron Darling’s thoughts on Alderson after playing for him with the A’s
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Nolan Ryan and Saber-Metrics Go To The World Series

Texas Rangers owner Nolan Ryan holds up the ALCS trophy as the Rangers beat the New York Yankees 6-1 to take game six of the ALCS at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas on October 22, 2010. It will be the Rangers first trip to the World Series. UPI/Ian Halperin Photo via Newscom

http://view.picapp.com//JavaScripts/OTIjs.jsWhat happens when you take a bankrupt baseball franchise, a part owner who was arguably the most successful pitcher of the 60’s and 70’s and team him up with the youngest General Manager in history who is a self proclaimed Saber-metrics Geek?

You get a team with a $50 million payroll heading to the World Series.

You have to admire the fusion of ideas from the 60’s, 70’s and today. Nolan Ryan, arguably one of the best pitchers ever to play the game, current part owner and president of the Texas Rangers, brings a belief that pitchers should not be subject to pitch counts and should pitch deep into games as in decades past.

Jon Daniels, youngest GM in the majors, brings the saber-metrics revolution to the Texas Rangers. Sabermetrics, the statistical analysis of a players future potential, enables many small market teams to identify potential low cost talent and explains why small markets teams who implement saber-metrics are able to compete with teams in larger markets.

It’s an interesting combination and although Nolan Ryan has taken some credit for turning the Texas Rangers around due to the emphasis on pitchers going deeper in games, Jon Daniels, super sabermetrics geek, is now a hot commodity and a highly sought after GM.

Teams that are able to blend the traditional game of baseball with a true understanding of saber-metrics will be the most successful teams in the game. Hence, why the search for the Mets next GM is so important.

I’m still dabbling in the world of Saber-Metrics myself but wonder if a GM with a true understanding of Saber-Metrics would have signed the likes of Gary Sheffield, Oliver Perez, John Maine, Pedro Martinez, Luis Castillo, J.J. Putz, and the many other players who didn’t pan out as planned.

In a day and age where you can easily calculate a player’s “VORP” or “Value Over Replacement Player” the decision to sign or drop a player should be a lot easier for any GM to make and, thankfully, the Mets have narrowed down the field of potential GM’s to two people who both understand sabermetrics. Sandy Alderson and Josh Byrnes.

But in the end, it still feels like it’s down to only one person, Sandy Alderson, and that decision felt like it had been made three weeks ago. Sandy Alderson is the only candidate who brings that blend of old school & new school baseball mentalities that has catapulted the Texas Rangers to the World Series. So the question remains and seems an easy one to answer…

Will the Mets follow the Texas Rangers game plan?

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