Up and Down with Sandy Alderson
Last time he came to Queens, Sandy Alderson turned the Mets into a winner. But his record still has flaws that are worth remembering.
Look: I’m glad to see Sandy Alderson running the Mets again. Alderson is a smart guy, adaptive and flexible, who knows how to build a winning team. Especially with an increased budget and a strong core, he’ll have every opportunity to turn the Mets into something special. Alderson, frankly, is especially refreshing after two years of Brodie Van Wagenen, whose philosophy as a general manager seemed, basically, to be “do what a character on Mad Men would do.”
Alderson is undoubtedly an improvement. One thing he’s not, however, is infallible. Alderson’s record as Mets GM was pretty good — he led the team to a World Series appearance, after all. But it wasn’t perfect, and more than once, he made moves that left observers scratching their heads.
We’ll start with Alderson’s successful moves, of which there are quite a few. For one, he drafted well. Under Alderson, Mets draft picks included Brandon Nimmo, Dom Smith, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Seth Lugo, and Michael Conforto, as well as Anthony Kay and Justin Dunn, both of whom have been traded but look like quality pitchers. Alderson also drafted David Peterson, who just finished putting together an excellent rookie season, and Luis Guillorme, who looks like an excellent player even if he hasn’t quite gotten regular playing time yet.
There have been some draft busts, of course — Gavin Cecchini, anyone? — but those happen on every team. No one drafts perfectly, and Sandy Alderson’s administration drafted better than most.
The problem isn’t in the draft picks. The problems have come in other places: specifically, trades and free agency. Alderson’s record in these areas isn’t bad, but it is mixed. He’s made good trades and signings — but he’s also made bad ones.
In 2015, Sandy Alderson propelled the Mets toward a division championship when he added Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe, then swung a blockbuster for Yoenis Cespedes. But Justin Turner, who batted .294/.370/.491 for the Dodgers that season, could have been a Met, if only Alderson hadn’t let him go for nothing after the 2013 season.
The 2015 Mets should have had Zack Wheeler; his absence due to Tommy John surgery wasn’t Sandy’s fault. Wheeler was one of Alderson’s best pickups: for half a season of Carlos Beltrán, he nabbed the Giants’ best pitching prospect. But why, as he sent Beltrán to the Giants, did he hold onto Jose Reyes? The 2011 Mets were going nowhere fast, and subsequent reports indicated that the Mets never even made Reyes an offer. Surely Sandy could have known that the Mets wouldn’t be able to retain him? On July 31st, the day of the trading deadline, Reyes was batting .341/.382/.510. In the prime of his career at age 28, he likely would have fetched even more than Beltrán. Instead, he played out the season with the 77-85 Mets, and then signed with the Marlins.
There’s one other, more obscure Alderson move that nags at me whenever I think about it. Why did Sandy, before the 2012 season, trade Angel Pagan to the Giants for Ramón Ramírez and Andrés Torres? Pagan was a solid player; from 2008 to 2010, he batted .294/.344/.441, and in 2010 stole 37 bases. Then he had a down year in 2011, and Alderson pawned him off to the Giants. In return, he brought in a 34-year-old outfielder who put up a .664 OPS, and a reliever who pitched to a 4.24 E.R.A. Pagan, meanwhile, batted leadoff for the Giants in 2012, hit 15 triples, stole 29 bases, posted a .778 OPS, and led his team to a World Series title. He even earned an MVP vote.
And finally, there’s a more abstract one: Alderson, instead of going all-out on Shin-Soo Choo in 2014, stuck with a starting outfield that included Eric Young Jr. Choo’s seven-year deal with the Rangers just ended after 2020; over the wildly successful life of the contract, he put up a .363 OBP, and had four separate seasons with at least 20 home runs. In 2015, instead of Choo in the outfield, Sandy signed Michael Cuddyer, who put up a .699 OPS and then retired.
Of course, all GM’s have mistakes in their records. “How could Sandy have anticipated Justin Turner becoming a star?” one might fairly ask. But that’s exactly my point. Sandy Alderson didn’t see what Turner would become, or Pagan, or Cuddyer, or what Reyes could have landed in a trade. He’s not some sort of omniscient baseball mind. Sandy Alderson is a smart guy, and I’m glad he’ll be running the Mets. But he’s not perfect. He’s made mistakes in the past, and will make more in the future. He’s a smart guy, but he’s still human. After Brodie, he’s a breath of fresh air. But his record still has flaws that are worth remembering.