Wally Backman has signed on to stay in the Mets organization and will mange somewhere in the minor league system. In reality, Backman didn’t have much choice. Backman is still miffed that Sandy Alderson didn’t hire him for the top job in Flushing, and the one area where I agree with Backman is on his lack of major league experience as a manager. I think the fact that Backman played 14 seasons of Major League ball should  have  had a big advantage over Terry Collins not even having a cup of coffee in the bigs. If the managerial criteria is big league experience then hands down Backman should have gotten the job over Collins.

But I see Collins getting the post as a sign that this organization will become younger, much younger and therefore hungrier than what we’ve seen from past Mets teams. Let’s face fact, the last three seasons, most Mets fans have despised the team and why? Most of us felt they were just a bunch of highly paid veterans you were more worried about there financial situations than the on the field situations. Then there is the off the field stuff like Johan Santana (who if he was healthy I’m sure Alderson & Co would have put on not only the trading block but the trading platter with an apple in his mouth but with $97 mil owed over the next 4 years we are stuck with a once upon a time Ace who if we’re lucky will be a back of the rotation starter in the next four seasons) and of course Frankie Rodriguez and Charlie Samuels. Sandy Alderson was brought in here not just to find better players but to win back the respect of Mets fans and teams around the league as well.

That’s why you are seeing, little by little that Alderson would like to rid this team of. Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran. I’m a fan of both players but it seems to me the new front office looks at both these players as part of the losing and unprofessional culture of the team. I have never had a problem with Reyes’ antics, in fact the guy plays better when he’s dancing and hand shaking but the perception around baseball is he’s immature jerk. When the Cardinals won the 2006 NLCS they were signing the Jose-Jose-Jose chant in their clubhouse and of course Reyes’ teammates just sat in their clubhouse licking their wounds listening to the mocking chants and did nothing. When it comes to doing nothing, no team takes shit better than the Mets.  I mean the guy leading the mock chanting was Bradden Looper who sucked ass when he was here and laughed in his former teams face and why? He knew no one would do anything in the Mets clubhouse.

Now this is not to blame Reyes for that not at all but what Alderson is looking at is Reyes worth a long term investment? Probably not.

Reyes will turn 28 during the 2011 season and the last two seasons have been plagued by injury and illness and maybe he does have a big season in him and especially if the Mets hire a new physical training staff that would help Reyes but if Alderson can get some pieces the Mets need for this renovation (I know you folks hate the term rebuilding so I’ll use renovation sounds less severe) I have no question he’d send Reyes off to the highest bidder.

Carlos Beltran right can be had for fifty cents on the dollar. If any team were to approach the Mets with a deal in which that team would take at least half of Beltran’ salary he’ll be an ex-Met faster than you could say “at the end of the day”.

Now I’m sure there is a large segment who disagrees with me on this and that’s fine but you can start to read between the lines here with Alderson. He’s already told you that there will be no big ticket free agent spending this off season. The best he’ll do is look over the non-tender list and hope the market of free agents will be so ample that some players, will panic and sign for under value. See, the interesting part of this new management team is it’s a patient bunch and they are dealing with a “I want it yesterday” fan base. It’s going to be fun to watch.

Share this: