Great to hear Sandy Alderson looked healthy Thursday at a Manhattan news conference honoring new Hall of Famers Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey Jr. Although I suspected the feistily erudite Alderson’s energy to be at a high level when I read he dropped the word “populism” in a session with reporters.
“The idea we’re not investing in the team, I think, is really misplaced and sort of tied up in the populism involving [Yoenis] Cespedes,” the Mets general manager said.
That sentiment perfectly captures the Mets’ approach this offseason as they work to defend the National League crown. It ties into another term, a more modern one, which could be just as apt:
Trolling.
Brilliantly, inadvertently, the Mets have trolled a vocal segment of their fan base this offseason with their acquisitions of modest upgrades. Now, trolls are often correct. The imperative that the Mets wind up correct with their hot-stove approach is heightened by the reality that they are scoring few publicity points with their process.
The populism tied into Cespedes concerns more than just the skills of the free-agent outfielder himself. Cespedes, the face of Alderson’s late July 2015 makeover, predictably has become a litmus test for the Mets’ fiscal flexibility. Their World Series appearance notwithstanding, the Mets still face a considerable trust deficit with their fan base in the wake of everything that has transpired since Bernard Madoff’s December 2008 arrest.
So when Alderson pointed out Thursday that the Mets’ payroll stood at $85 million at the end of 2014 and could shoot up to the $115 million-to-$120 million range by Opening Day, that didn’t land smoothly in the hearts or brains of longtime fans who could counter that Alderson’s first Mets team, in 2011, carried a payroll surpassing $140 million. And these Mets, by virtue of the revenues generated by their deep postseason run, not to mention Michael Cuddyer’s retirement, should have been able to increase their expenditures significantly from the $110 million neighborhood where they concluded last year.
As The Post’s Joel Sherman noted recently, if the Mets had succeeded in their aggressive bid to sign free agent Ben Zobrist for four years and $60 million, a higher offer than the four-year, $56 million package Zobrist accepted from the Cubs, then at least some of the clamor would have vanished. Because the Mets didn’t target any other high-end free agents, however, they find themselves on the defensive once again.
You can see the logic behind the Mets’ thinking. They want to avoid fielding the sort of Quadruple-A lineups that became commonplace during the first four months of last season. If they won’t have anyone as dangerous as Cespedes, they at least want to put forward a respectable lineup each day. Hence the arrival of Neil Walker to replace Daniel Murphy, and Asdrubal Cabrera to relegate Wilmer Flores to a super-sub role, and Alejandro De Aza to complement Juan Lagares without making him a strict platoon player. Beloved veteran Bartolo Colon returned once Jon Niese departed to Pittsburgh as the price for Walker, and lefty reliever Jerry Blevins will attempt to avoid crazy mishaps and last past April this time.
All the moves make some sense … and none moves the needle, nor does any cost anything approaching Zobrist’s price tag. Most baseball fans love when their team captures the biggest fish. No matter that many of those big fish wind up rotting and stinking at the fishermen’s expense.
Not often do you see a club score quick points with both its offseason process and its in-season results. The Yankees pulled it off with their spending spree after the 2008 campaign and their 2009 championship. The Mets drummed up excitement with big pickups in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 winters and, as you might remember, fell just short of the 2006 World Series.
The Mets clearly do not deem Cespedes, or anyone else remaining on the market, worthy of a long-term commitment. They very well might be right. And their hot-stove strategy could work, especially in the still-weak National League East.
Nevertheless, for now, the Mets move forward without the populist vote — and with the appreciation of trolls everywhere.