Deeply flawed Mets' management and owners

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

No, I'm not ranting about the Wilpons again.

I'm talking about the former management and owners, and how easy it is for most of us, from our current perspective, to disparage and dismiss their competence--I'm sure most of you do not feel warmly about M. Donald Grant, or George M. Weiss (after hearing Widey Dickshot's scathing analysis of his essentially fiduciary role on the Mets), or the de Roulets girls or Wes Westrum or Joe Frazier or any of the other less-than-stellar owners, GMs, managers the Mets have had. They're fair game now for (accurate) appraisals of the incompetence, no? When we talk about them (and we will talk about them) it will be largely to disparage their abilities and principles of leadership.

I promise you, most of you will be looking back at the leadership of the early 2000s and mocking the Mets' current leadership in terms that will make my assessment look positively benign. This is NOT a proud period the Mets have just gone through from 2001-2005 and the further you get from it, the more easily the words "slimy incompetent weasels out to separate the fans from their money" will slide off your tongues.

Someone will take the hit for the Mets' poor performance over the past half-decade, and I don't think it will be the players, but those who have acquired, promoted, and employed the players. Historically, who among those I've named (or haven't named) above, would you nominate for the Mets' most deeply flawed manager, GM, Owner, etc, and whey? Maybe we can learn what principles in hiring or assessing them we want to avoid in the future.

Remember--this is intended as a historical thread, so no swiping at current management, please.

[MFS62]

One example of incompetence I recall (I googled it and didn't find anything) was something I read involving Mookie Wilson and Frank Howard.
Mookie never had the strongest arm when he came up, and one year he suffered an injury to his throwing arm. Next year in ST, Howard told Mookie something like- "the only way it will get better is by stretching it out". But instead of easing Mookie into a regimen prescribed by team trainers, Howard took Mookie into the outfield and started him out by having him make long tosses (the number 250 feet sticks in my mind). Not only did that not help him get it back to its original strength, but Mookie's arm was never the same after that.

Is that the kind of stuff you were looking for?

Later

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I hadn't heard that story. A lot of careers were ruined by primitive beliefs in training, so I believe it.

I'm not looking for anything in particular, just interesting stories like yours.

[Guest KC]

>>>the words "slimy incompetent weasels out to separate the fans from their money" will slide off your tongues.<<<

That'll slide off my tongue if and when I actually feel cheated by a baseball
team which I don't think is ever going to happen.

[Elster88]

MFS62 wrote: One example of incompetence I recall (I googled it and didn't find anything) was something I read involving Mookie Wilson and Frank Howard. Mookie never had the strongest arm when he came up, and one year he suffered an injury to his throwing arm. Next year in ST, Howard told Mookie something like- "the only way it will get better is by stretching it out". But instead of easing Mookie into a regimen prescribed by team trainers, Howard took Mookie into the outfield and started him out by having him make long tosses (the number 250 feet sticks in my mind). Not only did that not help him get it back to its original strength, but Mookie's arm was never the same after that. Is that the kind of stuff you were looking for? Later

I read something like this in The Bad Guys Won. Frank put rain-soaked balls in a dryer, and had Mookie throw those. The extra weight helped mess up Mookie's arm.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

This is a fine subject, but would you please back off the Ms. Met "everyone is against me" bullshit and pay us us some f'ing respect already.

You're talking to an intelligent group of fans who I'd say for the most part have been paying more attention to what's been happening than you. Few are unaware -- now or then -- that questionable decisions were made, and that the whole 'go-for-it-every-year' mindset was not executed properly in recent years.

We also know that firing Valentine was a mistake, there was a crisis of leadership at the end of the Phillips era, that Art Howe was a weird decision, that Glavine was unnecessary given the Mets' position at the time, that it's a shame Guererro went by in a soft market and we didn't pounce, probably because leadership decided that $$ was better spent buying out an outdated cable contract, and that they paid too high a price for Zambrano, and probably Nady, and probably LoDuca, and so on. Yours is not so unique a position.

The only difference is that now that you're playing fallen angel and divorced yourself from emotional investment in it you find people who know all this but still hope it all works out are morons. We're not. I'd appreciate you backing off the accusatory tone.

[Guest KC]

The tone is not only accusatory but is also subtly abusive in nature.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Nonsense. I'm not dismissive of your collective intelligence or discernment in the least, nor am I intent on abusing you. I'm looking to show how it's the case that past management is widely acknowledged to be incompetent or inept or foolish, since you seem not to want to discuss current management's flaws with me. Have I abused you in this thread?

Most of the points you've raised, it seems to me, have gone remarkably uncommented on, but now have emerged into the realm of "common knowledge." I find that curious indeed. Why do suppose that is? I'd say because it was too painful to actually acknowledge while it was happening. I don't think that's a good thing, from a historical perspective, to acknowledge truths only from the safe vantage point of years of removal. Besides, I'm not all that certain that everyone agrees with you, even now, as to some of your truths. That's what I'm looking to discuss here.

Besides, not everyone is against me. I find that you, JD, have for the most part been perfectly civil and accepting of me even at my most stupid and obnoxious.

[Guest KC]

The way you twist stuff around, I'm really surprised your head hasn't exploded
by now.

[Guest KC]

Ok, let me get this straight. Are you saying you want to talk about past
Mets management since we don't want to talk about current Mets management
and that we didn't acknowledge the problems of the past when they were current
because it was too painful and we stuck our heads in the sand and you don't condone
such behavior because it's a unhealthy way to look at things and your way is much
more healthy, smart, and truthful?.

[Zvon]

i dunno.
every team has their business end and every team can be critically appraised as to how they conduct their business.
This is something Im aware of, but I dont root or boo a front office ( well, if they step out onto the field and deserve it, imo, I would.)
I observe it. I form my opinions and beliefs.
I may have disliked more owners of the Mets than I have liked overall.
GM's....same deal.
I dont let this effect my love for the Mets and what the team has meant to me.
And some teams that have taken the field in their name have been absolutedismalically putrid.

All teams make rediculous and stupid moves from time to time, and yes, the Mets may be above average in that department.
I dunno, but i think if you ask a diehard fan of any team they will have a list of grievances worthy to match any Met fan.
See, even when I am being critical of ownership or managment, its all still above the solid foundation that makes me orange and blue thru and thru.

the Mets' (I wont say "most deeply flawed") most disappointing: (IMO)

manager : Dallas Green
GM : Joe McDonald
Owner : M.D.Grant / Lorinda de Roulet / Fred Wilpon, after Doubleday left, and his son was still all up in the pots and pans.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Okay, that's cool, Zvon. I'd like to examine what, in your opinion, was so awful about these particular people and their policies.

I'm interested in discussing this now for a variety of reasons, KC. Some of it is that it seems much safer than examining the same issues directly with the current ownership/management, since I can't seem to find a way to discuss that topic without very quickly getting into a discussion about the morals of our mothers and other hurtful topics.

But mainly my interest stems from two things that occured over the past weekend:

1) Widey's discussion of George Weiss's very foolish, short-sighted, money-grubbing attitude towards paying his players in the 1960s, which Bing Devine struggled to correct, leading directly to the single most satisfying event in my lifetime as a baseball fan

and

2) Frank Thomas's account, which we should be discussing sometime soon, which tells of his horrendous interactions with a wide variety of foolish, short-sighted money-grubbing GMs, whom he describes (accurately, IMO) as cheap, lying hypocrites. Not all of Thomas's GMs were Met GMs of course (he seemed to have a fair relationship with them, though he describes the Cubs' GM as the only one he had any personal respect for). But I got very angry reading Thomas's account of how he was mistreated: he was perhaps one of the dozen best sluggers in the known universe, and he had to struggle to be paid a living wage.

It seems to me Thomas's struggles with a series of rapacious owners and GMs are very easy to condemn from our enlightened vantage point. Slave-owners, whether of the 1850s or the 1950s, are easy targets for our anger, but at the time they had their defenders. If we examine closely what it is to our enlightened eyes that seems so blindingly obviously wrong about these people of the dim and distant past, maybe we can agree that we also might be need some enlightenment about our present situation. Maybe not. Maybe we are the first generation not to live with unenlightened owners and GMs, though I think their behavior may not be as justifiable as we perceive. But if we look at their past counterparts, in whom we may not feel so invested, maybe we'll see something that resonates for us.

It's worth a try.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

The system that Frank Thomas and so many others toiled under was very unfair, as you say. I don't know if that means that George Weiss and his contemporaries were "short-sighted" though. They certainly weren't visionaries either. They just worked inside the box. Maybe that makes them short-sighted. I don't know. But I suspect that most of them would have been fired by their money-grubbing bosses if they suddenly became more generous than they needed to be.

If you're looking for a blanket statement about current GM's, here's one that I'll toss out there: Too few of them have the confidence and/or the job security, to take the long view. (This is probably more of an issue in Flushing than it is in Pittsburgh or Kansas City.) While I agree with Norrin (or Vic) that given their resources the Mets should always be in win-now mode, they shouldn't do it at the expense of the future. I think it's possible to hang on to and nurture your best young players while also keeping veteran players on the roster. The trick is in keeping the proper balance. I'm okay with dealing Petit and Jacobs for Delgado. If Omar follows that up by trading Lastings Milledge for yet another veteran, (as I suspect he will if he gets the chance) then he's leaning too far in the "now" direction. Why should he worry about the 2011 Mets if he'll be fired if they don't win in 2006 or 2007?

[Zvon]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: Okay, that's cool, Zvon. I'd like to examine what, in your opinion, was so awful about these particular people and their policies.

I think thats kool. Didnt know their policies. Just what they did or didnt do for the Mets.
Or what they could have done and didnt. Or, in the case of Green, what Id hoped they could do. As people, I dont know if I could even label Grant as awful. I wouldnt argue it tho.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I'm interested in discussing this now for a variety of reasons, KC. Some of it is that it seems much safer than examining the same issues directly with the current ownership/management, since I can't seem to find a way to discuss that topic without very quickly getting into a discussion about the morals of our mothers and other hurtful topics.

Im not adverse to talking of current situations. I just would rather not spend my time focusing on negative aspects with my slow typing abilities and limited time online. If I could dictate this stuff youd all get an earful.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: But mainly my interest stems from two things that occured over the past weekend: 1) Widey's discussion of George Weiss's very foolish, short-sighted, money-grubbing attitude towards paying his players in the 1960s, which Bing Devine struggled to correct, leading directly to the single most satisfying event in my lifetime as a baseball fan and 2) Frank Thomas's account, which we should be discussing sometime soon, which tells of his horrendous interactions with a wide variety of foolish, short-sighted money-grubbing GMs, whom he describes (accurately, IMO) as cheap, lying hypocrites. Not all of Thomas's GMs were Met GMs of course (he seemed to have a fair relationship with them, though he describes the Cubs' GM as the only one he had any personal respect for). But I got very angry reading Thomas's account of how he was mistreated: he was perhaps one of the dozen best sluggers in the known universe, and he had to struggle to be paid a living wage. It seems to me Thomas's struggles with a series of rapacious owners and GMs are very easy to condemn from our enlightened vantage point. Slave-owners, whether of the 1850s or the 1950s, are easy targets for our anger, but at the time they had their defenders. If we examine closely what it is to our enlightened eyes that seems so blindingly obviously wrong about these people of the dim and distant past, maybe we can agree that we also might be unenlightened abot our present situation. maybe not. Maybe we are the first generation not to live with unenlightened owners and GMs, though I think their behavior may not be as justifiable as we perceive. But if we look at their past counterparts, in whom we may not feel so invested, maybe we'll see something that resonates for us. It's worth a try.

I agree it is.
But going back to the age of the dinosaurs aint gonna help as far as making any reasonable analogy to how business is currently being conducted.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

For example, Mrs. Payson.

She has the reputation as the Mets' single biggest fan in the early 1960s, and she was reputed to be willing to spend mega-bux. (She tried to get the Giants to sell her the world's greatest player for a decade, presumably at something like Mays' true value, and only succeeded long after he'd given up the title). But don't you have to fault her for hiring a management team that threw around nickels like manhole covers? I mean, George Weiss had a reputation for tightfisted behavior that was well known in Vladivostok, for Chrissake. She must have understood on some level that he was acting to preserve her hard-earned money rather than build a winning team quickly.

Much as I hate to credit him, Steinbrenner (and maybe Charlie Finley) seems to have revolutionized baseball in a way that Mrs. Payson could have if her money was where her mouth was. Hire more scouts, hire better scouts, sign every Tom Seaver you possibly can. The downside is your fellow owners won't appreciate your jacking up the going rates? Fuck them, they're your competitors, not your therapy group. You've got the worst team in baseball, and no one is willing to sell you WIllie Mays? Why not hire the best scouts, and the finest minor league managers, the world has ever seen, and pay them much more than the going rate?

There's a real disconnect for me between Mrs. Payson's rep as a fan who would spend any amount of money to bring a winner to Flushing and the conservative, staid, tightfisted team she hired to run the Mets.

Does anyone disagree with any part of this?

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I get the feeling Weiss was hired more on his reputation for success than for keeping to budget: Rather, his success while keeping to a budget, so I suppose if you're Payson you don't have a huge issue hiring him in the first place: Lots of managers are valued for keeping employee costs down.

And, geez, don't make too much of my comments: I only noted that Weiss drove hard bargains and didn't have much of a stomach for gambling.

The Payson thing to me was that she and Grant sort of fancied themselves as sportsmen and not businessmen. This whole Met team thing was like a public park or museum they endowed, only they were surprised and little offended when the museum guards and gift-shop employees asked for raises.

[Zvon]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: The Payson thing to me was that she and Grant sort of fancied themselves as sportsmen and not businessmen. This whole Met team thing was like a public park or museum they endowed, only they were surprised and little offended when the museum guards and gift-shop employees asked for raises.

well put.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Lots of managers are valued for keeping employee costs down. And, geez, don't make too much of my comments: I only noted that Weiss drove hard bargains and didn't have much of a stomach for gambling.

Well, yes, but the disconnect part is where you're hiring someone to give you a winner, you're sick of the losing scores getting phoned in day after day to your yacht in the Aegean Sea, you're willing to buy the best player on earth, but you hire--George Weiss?

I'm going on much more than your comments about Weiss. Virtually every Yankee story from his tenure there has him lying, cheating, threatening, bullying the most successful players in the world in a manner that would be close to psychotic or sadistic behavior to most people.

[Guest KC]

>>>I'm interested in discussing this now for a variety of reasons, KC. Some of it is that it seems much safer than examining the same issues directly with the current ownership/management, since I can't seem to find a way to discuss that topic without very quickly getting into a discussion about the morals of our mothers and other hurtful topics.<<<

I'm sorry, but I just don't see things the way you do with regards to how you
are dealt with here. There's no reason for avoiding one era of Mets stuff and
focusing on another because it's "safer". Statements like this are just another
example of this everyone is against me crap you fall into from time to time.

*yawn*

I'm just as much of an assclown for continually coming back for more, and I'm
sure that everyone has tired of my contributions to these flare ups as they are of
some of the nonsense you bring from time to time. I will try to focus my energy
on other stuff from here on in.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

You really think I'm equally safe in discussing Omar's faults as GM as I am in discussing George Weiss's? You honestly don't think that one discussion is much more likely to get people all worked up? You dont think one is more provocative than the other?

[Elster88]

]You really think I'm equally safe in discussing Omar's faults as GM as I am in discussing George Weiss's?

Have you really not seen the backlash against Omar from these recent trades?

[Zvon]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: You really think I'm equally safe in discussing Omar's faults as GM as I am in discussing George Weiss's?

I should hope so.

Its a Met board, for cryin out loud.
Where else would u go to vent?

I wont cross swords with you at this point on that subject because Im not only willing to give Omar enuff rope, Ill toss it to him.

If he hangs himself with it, we'll talk about it.

lol

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Zvon wrote: ="Bret Sabermetric"]You really think I'm equally safe in discussing Omar's faults as GM as I am in discussing George Weiss's? I should hope so. Its a Met board, for cryin out loud. Where else would u go to vent? I wont cross swords with you at this point on that subject because Im not only willing to give Omar enuff rope, Ill toss it to him. If he hangs himself with it, we'll talk about it. lol

Let's talk pre-Omar GMs and other such anyway.

I realize, of course, that making Mrs, Payson out to be a clueless cheapass owner runs contrary to the results in 1969--could any owner who turned a doormat into the World's Champion in eight seasons NOT be a brilliant visionary?

In her case, I'm willing to consider that she may have gotten lucky on a cosmic scale. One of the advantages of revisionist history is our current knowledge of trends and forces that were about to emerge at a given time, which the players of that time were completely unaware of. Mrs. Payson was unusually positioned to be such a visionary, though I don't think she had a visionary bone in her body:

She had plenty of money and was (supposedly) willing to spend it to improve her team. This might seem obvious, but it was far from true of every teams' owners, some of whom did not have money to spend, and some of whom saw their teams as more of a pure business than Mrs. Payson, who really loved the team, ever did. Bill Veeck, for example, reallly loved his White Sox but just didn't have the scratch to support them properly---he was always arranging for financing deals that Mrs. Payson never had to think about. She was also elderly, which motivates owners to spend more freely over the short haul.

The salary levels were absurdly low, and a true visionary might have foreseen that there was a great advantage to be gained by paying much higher salaries first, both to players (MLB and minor leaguers both) and to staff. Obviously, Mrs. Payson was in it for the long haul, and I think a visionary GM (which George Weiss was the antithesis of) could have sat her down and explained, "You're now spending 10% more than the average club on signing bonuses--I'd like you to consider spending 4000% more than the average club, at least for the next five years.You'll need a huge, well-staffed farm system to accomodate the hundreds of signees, and you'll need the hire the best scouts and plenty of them to tell you which ones you want to sign in the first place. This investment will seem like chicken feed in a few years, and everyone will be spending this kind of money, but we'll be years ahead of them. If this works out, you'll make more money from having a consistent winner than you'll lose from spending all this money."

I think on some level someone like Bing Devine did have this talk, although the degree was far more limited. He after all did sign Seaver to a 40,000+ contract, as Dickshot noted, but he shouldn't have been made to feel, as Dickshot also noted, so nervous about wasting his bosses' money. Given the Mets' position--in the standings, in the owners' vast resources, in the owners professed willingness to spend to get a winner, inn the owner's age, in the owner's intense fanship--it only made sense for them to go after every Tom Seaver chance they got, and go for it much harder than (again, according to Dickshot's well-researched account) they did. Reading Dickshot, you realize how frighteningly close the Mets came to losing Seaver (and Koosman) over a few thousand bucks. In my view, the Mets at that time needed to see every chance to sign a well-regarded prospect as an opportunity to be pursued. Given the Mets' situation, losing Seaver because some other team felt he was better than you did is perhaps unavoidable, but losing him because you were hoping to get a bargain price is contrary to the Mets' best interests.

Of course, this is all retrospective history, and you really can't argue with the actual results. And maybe Mrs. Payson just intended to hire George Weiss to get the team organized for a couple of years until she got her feet wet. But the early Mets had a serious chance to build a dominant ballclub that they didn't take, and I would argue that (like the rest of MLB) Mrs. Payson didn't see the advantages of paying her people far better than they were getting paid at the time.

[Guest KC]

>>>You really think I'm equally safe in discussing Omar's faults as GM as I am in discussing George Weiss's? You honestly don't think that one discussion is much more likely to get people all worked up?<<<

I don't think your safety is in jeopardy regardless of what you discuss. Omar's
been bashed plenty on this board this off-season - wake up and take your blinders
off.

Good day.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Why should he [Omar] worry about the 2011 Mets if he'll be fired if they don't win in 2006 or 2007?

This is the heart of the issue I have with most teams' policies. The Wilpons don't seem to understand that putting pressure on their GMs to produce NOW!!! comes at a long-term cost, and the Wilpons need for the Mets to be competitive in 2011, even if Omar doesn't. You're right, in that selling off prospects to get suspects and expensive patchwork fixes makes sense to someone looking at two or three years in which to show results. For an organization it's terribly destructive to focus only on the short term results but that's how they've structured Omar's deal, and it hurts them very badly.

If you honestly evaluate the Mets chances of playing in the post-season at 5-15% each of the last five years, which is about where I'd have placed it, it's very foolish to invest your resources towards that goal very heavily. But the Mets' GMs have looked at that 15% (maximum) chance and said, "OK, that's my only chance of keeping this job, so that's where my effort is going." Someone in the Wilpon organziation should be able to identify this as a serious instititutional probelm and correct it, but no one there seems to have the will to do so.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

KC wrote: >>>You really think I'm equally safe in discussing Omar's faults as GM as I am in discussing George Weiss's? You honestly don't think that one discussion is much more likely to get people all worked up?<<< I don't think your safety is in jeopardy regardless of what you discuss. Omar's been bashed plenty on this board this off-season - wake up and take your blinders off. Good day.

Well, I'm safe from getting my skull bashed with a brick, if that's what you're talking about. But you really can't have it both ways--you seem to want to tell me to shut up when I discuss current management and my views as to their will, their guts, their smarts, etc. AND to tell me that the current management is a pinata that everyone here is encouraged to swing freely at. If I talk about the Wilpons, it's "Shut up, Bret, with your stupid agenda--pssst, everyone else, let's talk trash about the WIlpons and Omar" and if I talk about the Paysons, it's "Shut up, Bret, you know you're free to discuss anything you like, so stop pretending it's less controversial for you talk about the Paysons rather than the Wilpons."


Good day to you, Dr. Brewster. I said "good day," sir!

[Guest KC]

Lol, thanks for helping solidfy my case.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

There's no doubt that Weiss was awesomely persnicketty. But I don't think they purposefully cut any corners on scouting -- they put together a large and pretty well regarded staff -- and I don't think they didn't realize they could use their financial might when they had to.

For example Weiss was one of the few GMs (w/ the Yanxx, Cardinals and Dodgers) who were opposed to the draft, precisely because it would artifically blunt whatever free-market advantages they had.

Weiss hated to part with money all the same. Rather than just paying guys outright, they used the carrot of quick ascension to the Majors and xtra income opportunities in New York. And he was also an animal about a return on invested capital -- some guys they signed who didn't work out just stayed in the org forever -- Rohr, Chilcott, etc. -- and nobody left without bringing something back.

I don;t want for a second to minimize the difficulties Weiss had building the team given the hole they started in. But perhaps they should have rolled the dice more: Hunt came very cheaply and had lots of value after 63 and 64. If he could have brought back 2 players, maybe you make that trade (at the risk of pissing off Stengel). It wasn't till Devine arrived that either Jackson or Hunt would go.

The Mets apparently outspent everyone for Dennis Musgraves, who never worked out, and for Ed Kranepool. The latter is weird though: While newspaper articles indicated Kranepool's bonus was between 75000 and 125000, he auctioned off his contract a few years back, if you remember that thread, and the figure mentioned was 35000. So with reporters being how they were, and Weiss being how he was, it's difficul to really tell what was what.

I sent my dad the speech by the way and he mentioned something I never knew -- they had neighbors, who moved away shortly after I was born, who was a Met front office lackey. Dad said this guy (who left to become a pro basketball GM) described Weiss as a "ballbreaker" to work for but said Devine was a nice man.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

="Bret Sabermetric"] Good day to you, Dr. Brewster. I said "good day," sir!

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: There's no doubt that Weiss was awesomely persnicketty. But I don't think they purposefully cut any corners on scouting -- they put together a large and pretty well regarded staff -- and I don't think they didn't realize they could use their financial might when they had to.

Every MLB team was clueless as to where signing bonuses were headed, but the Mets were more resource-advantaged than most and had a poorer talent base than virtually every team, so it would have made great sense (and taken great prescience) for the Mets to work their advantages. Weiss wasn't the guy to do that. It was fortunate that they got Devine's services even briefly. I'm not surprised to learn how they differed in treatment of of their underlings.