Off-Season Scandals, Post-Season Glory

[Edgy MD]

I'd like to take this moment to salute the 2014-2015 offseason. It was the offseason that launched a league champion, despite being more densely packed with utterly stupid fake scandals than any offseason I can recall.

[list:2n37lrgt]1. They�re moving the fences again?! Do they think we�re stupid?! The other team uses the same fences, you know!

2. Charging players for offseason workouts?! Disgraceful?! No other team would ever!!

3. The new scoreboard was announced the same day the Nationals signed whatshisname! Or the day after! Or something!

4. Sandy Alderson is filling out the lineup card! Or making Terry take it to him for approval! Or just discussing it with Terry! I think Terry is an idiot but this is somehow WORSE! My God, I think Jeffy is filling out the lineup card!

5. The new commissioner did not express an intention to seize the team from Fred and Jeff! They must be butt buddies!!

6. Speaking of butt buddies, Murphy hates gay people!

7. Holding Harvey until game three?! Starting the worst pitcher on your staff on Opening Day?! Debuting Harvey at home in the second game?! What gives?! This is about your filthy love of money, isn�t it?!

8. The Yankees got Didi Gregorius! He was all we wanted and needed and hoped for and we let him get to the YANKEES?!!

9. We could have gotten Ian Desmond for Noah Syndergaard and we just SAT THERE?!

10. Fred Wilpon has been appointed chair of the Finance Committee?! Just watch my head explode! JUST WATCH IT!![/list:u:2n37lrgt]

All this fake drama (and more, certainly) turned out to be mere prologue to the true drama to come. Mets, I salute.

[Elster88]

Wright and Niese threw out Syndegaard's lunch because he wasn't watching an intra-squad scrimmage. I missed this one.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: 5. The new commissioner did not express an intention to seize the team from Fred and Jeff! They must be butt buddies!!

Well ..... yeah!

[Edgy MD]

Elster88 wrote: Wright and Niese threw out Syndegaard's lunch because he wasn't watching an intra-squad scrimmage. I missed this one.

It was Wright and Parnell. It wasn't exactly as full blown a fake scandal as all that, because nobody likes to throw Wright under the bus, but yeah.

[MFS62]

And all those problems were washed away by Wilmer Flores' tears.

Later

[Centerfield]

The offseason that launched a league champion didn't take place in the offseason. Last winter produced another mediocre, flawed Mets team.

The flurry of moves made at the trade deadline created a league champion.

On the morning of Saturday, July 25, the Mets were 49-48, having just lost three in a row to the Nationals and Dodgers. Two nights before, the fan base waited anxiously hoping that the Mets would get a hit off Kershaw. Not beat Kershaw, not score off Kershaw, but just get a hit. When that hit finally came it was a sigh of relief. They had the worst offense in baseball. The season was going nowhere.

Then came Uribe and Johnson. Conforto was called up. They traded for Clippard and Cespedes. d'Arnaud came back. Wright came back. They added Addison Reed. And suddenly this new version of the Mets went 40-19, culminating in a champagne celebration.

In 1986 we got to enjoy that team all year long. We are just getting to know this 2015 team. It seems wrong that we have to stop playing baseball soon.

Sure, you can't make the moves you made in July without having set up for that in the winter. I realize it's not black and white. But last winter sucked. The only thing they did right was not waste their bullets. The end of July was awesome. August was better. October is out of this world.

[Edgy MD]

I obviously disagree that last winter produced another mediocre, flawed Mets team. It certainly produced an embarrassing whine-fest over tempests in teapots. At least, I was sort of hoping they would be seen as such with the benefit of perspective from this lofty perch. I mean, crying over the scoreboard press release?

[MFS62]

What has happened here is that we're getting the band back together.
Screen names we haven't seen for a while have been showing up in recent posts.
And that is a good thing.
Welcome back, folks.
We've missed you.

Later

Edited October 22, 2015 by Guest

[RealityChuck]

Not preseason, but it was a mid-season scandal when the Mets were no-hit in June and the reaction was:


(My feeling at the time was, "They're still a half-game in first.")

Then, when they were no-hit by Scherzer three months later, and the reaction was:

[Guest cooby]

MFS62 wrote: What has happened here is that we're getting the band back together. Screen names we haven't seen for a while have been showing up in recent posts. And that is a good thing. Welcome back, folks. We've missed you. Later

Exactly what I've been thinking
...Metirish, batty, willpie and others!

[Farmer Ted]

SELL THE TEAM...now?

[Centerfield]

I would love to meet Sell the Team NOW!!!!.

I mocked him in the late 90's/early 2000's. But these last few years have shown me this man was ahead of his time. I'd love to tell him that I agree with him and that I was wrong.

As to the original post:

1. Agreed that crying over anything on your list was silly. They were silly complaints.
2. Disagree that the winter produced a league champion. I think years of rebuilding, being able to unload veterans for prospects, and the maturation of Minaya era prospects put them in a position to go for it. I think last winter they failed to accomplish that task. The end result was a predictable .500 level team that could not score.
3. The difference maker happened in July. During that 10 day stretch Alderson changed course and made the necessary moves and they have paid off as well as we could have possibly hoped.

[Edgy MD]

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that that winter "produced" a league champion. Obviously, that would be silly. It's all part of a process, including what came before and what would follow. I only meant to say that it launched one. As in, that was the chapter immediately preceding into the season.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Not for nothing but the team they put on the field in April had probably the best spring training in memory then went out and won 11 straight games until injuries to 2 key players helped to derail them. They had a good team to start the year. Any other interpretation is bullshit.

And another thing, who's to say whether the "maturation process of Minaya prospects" even happens under Omar. His track record suggests we'd have traded at least half of them for some injured American League relief pitcher. Would any of us trusted that Omar doesn't fuck up the choice between Duda and Davis? That he accomplishes as much as hiring a competent field manager given how badly he whiffed on the first 2 tries? Jeez fucking Louise

Edited October 22, 2015 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

Good point. And not only did they lose Wright and d'Arnaud, they also lost Wheeler, Edgin, and Blevins. (And Mejia too, but that opened the door to Familia becoming the closer which, I think, would have happened anyway at some point during the season.)

[Edgy MD]

And Murphy and Cuddy and Dilson and Montero.

Heck, Matz too.

[Frayed Knot]

Centerfield wrote: I would love to meet Sell the Team NOW!!!!. I mocked him in the late 90's/early 2000's. But these last few years have shown me this man was ahead of his time. I'd love to tell him that I agree with him and that I was wrong.

He was an ass then and I bet he's still one now. Or should I say NOW!!!!

[Guest d'Kong76]

Part of me thinks/thought that SttN!!! posts here, but I could be wrong.
Some of these I forgot about and they're funny to look back at. Scoreboard-
gate and paid workouts were kinda funny. The vending-machines picture that
Fred was going to install in the clubhouse was classic.

[Guest themetfairy]

I'm thinking of a post someone made in August or September, reminiscing about the point in the season where Eric Campbell was hitting cleanup, and the poster opined that at the end of the season Terry would point to that lineup and say, "Didn't they see that was a call for help?"

[Frayed Knot]

d'Kong76 wrote: Part of me thinks/thought that SttN!!! posts here, but I could be wrong.

Nah, he was strictly a MOFO denizen.
And even there he was only an occasional presence as he'd only show up during losses and losing streaks to wallpaper the forum with his bitching about everything on the planet, then disappear when things were going well so he wouldn't have to answer for his doom and gloom prophecies and predictions.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Frayed Knot wrote: d'Kong76 wrote: Part of me thinks/thought that SttN!!! posts here, but I could be wrong. Nah, he was strictly a MOFO denizen. And even there he was only an occasional presence as he'd only show up during losses and losing streaks to wallpaper the forum with his bitching about everything on the planet, then disappear when things were going well so he wouldn't have to answer for his doom and gloom prophecies and predictions.

Most likely just one personality of a person who posted under several names as was common on the old Metsonline forum.

[stevejrogers]

Edgy MD wrote: 6. Speaking of butt buddies, Murphy hates gay people!

Though it obviously didn't linger for weeks/months the way I thought it would based on initial social network platforms outrage (in terms of LGBT community members protesting both outside and inside Citi Field, or other stadiums where Murphy and the Mets played) it still does have some play in terms of how fans feel about his historic October.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/gay-met-fan-not-rooting-daniel-murphy-article-1.2408894