TODAY, 2:22pm: The Mets have officially announced that Alderson has been extended through 2017. The club also announced that Collins will return next year.
YESTERDAY, 2:32pm: Alderson’s new contract will cover the 2015-17 seasons, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (Twitter links). The extension will technically be for two years, as the club will exercise his option and two more years to the deal.
2:05pm: Adam Rubin of ESPN New York reports that the Mets will announce an extension for Alderson after the season, and he adds that there will also be an announcement that manager Terry Collins has been retained (Twitter links).
1:38pm: Alderson’s contract extension will be for “about three years,” reports Andy Martino of the New York Daily News (on Twitter). However, the deal is not yet complete, and there are still details to be worked out, he hears.
1:25pm: The Mets will exercise their 2015 option on general manager Sandy Alderson and the two side are working toward a contract extension, sources tell Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter link).
Alderson, 66, was hired as the Mets’ GM following the 2010 season and signed to a four-year contract which contained the aforementioned option for the 2015 season. While the Mets have yet to have a winning season under his watch, Alderson has assisted the Mets in bolstering a farm system and stockpiling an enviable crop of young talent. Alderson acquired Zack Wheeler from the Giants in exchange for a two-month rental of Carlos Beltran, and he chose to trade R.A. Dickey rather than extend him following the knuckleballer’s Cy Young season in 2012. That move netted the Amazins top prospect Noah Syndergaard as well as current catcher Travis d’Arnaud. Last summer, after striking gold on a minor league pickup of Marlon Byrd, the Mets packaged Byrd and John Buck (also acquired in the Dickey trade) to land Dilson Herrera and Vic Black from the Pirates. Additionally, he appears to have made the correct choice in retaining Lucas Duda, rather than Ike Davis, as the team’s first baseman going forward.
Of course, not all of Alderson’s moves have panned out quite so well. The signing of Chris B. Young to a one-year, $7.25MM contract this offseason proved to be a failure, and while Bartolo Colon has pitched well enough to justify the first season of his two-year, $20MM deal, his $11MM salary for 2015 made him too difficult to trade this summer. Curtis Granderson‘s four-year, $60MM contract has the potential to be a negative, though Granderson is in the midst of a torrid finish, perhaps giving hope that he can be more productive in 2015 than he was in an up-and-down 2014.
Alderson’s largest move to date has been the eight-year, $138MM extension signed by David Wright. While “Captain America” looked well worth the money even in an injury-shortened 2013 — he batted .307/.390/.514 with 18 homers and 17 steals — Wright’s power vanished in 2014, which eventually proved to be his second straight injury-shortened season. The 31-year-old batted .269/.324/.374 with just eight homers this season as he battled shoulder and neck problems that finally caused his season to conclude on Sept. 8.
Good. He has them moving in the right direction, even under the financial constraints the Wilpons are imposing upon him. I’m legitimately excited for 2015 and beyond.
It is a dark day in the history of the Mets…
Why? He’s doing a good job. Remember, he doesn’t have a lot of money to work with because the ownership had to pay off their part of the Madoff scandal. Even so, he’s improving the team every year, and that’s all you can ask.
On the contrary—they are in better shape than Philly and Miami….if the Braves do not fix their problems, they should be in contention next year for at least the second wild card, given that the cream of the crop in the division right now is Washington. If the Mets can increase their payroll to somewhere near $100M to $110M, that would help acquire a necessary piece.
Better shape than the phillies is something to brag about. I’m not sure they are really in a better position than the marlins
Did they get a coupon for a 3 year deal? Seems like the only reason to reward mediocrity.
What would you like him to do differently? The owners won’t let him spend.
Colon should have been moved. He’s going to have a tough time with next year’s roster since no player is going to take a lesser deal to play for the Mets.
Moving Colon doesn’t change too much, though, right? I mean, I guess it’d be nice to have his salary gone if money is a concern, but I don’t have full faith that the Wilpons would reinvest that money, anyway. Perhaps he plays well next year? Plus, the Mets would probably have had to eat salary on that, so what’s the net return? Saving $5-8MM doesn’t do much, and Colon’s not bringing back anything decent in the form of prospects.
Either way, it’s tough to blame Alderson for ‘mediocrity’ when stuff like this is even a point of contention.
From the reports, he was asking for legitimate prospects. That was a mistake. He should have moved him for pure salary relief.
It’s not all that tough to blame Alderson for mediocrity, especially when he did spend a fair bit of money this offseason. He has less wiggle room than many other GMs. That’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t exonerate him from criticism either.
I think it’s possible for the Mets to make the playoffs next year, but I don’t think it’s terribly likely. Sandy needs to kill it with what he’s got available in FA because young pitching is hardly a surefire bet.
They have more than young pitching now. They have a legit young 2B, C, and OF (Herrera, Plawecki, Nimmo) all within a year of being ready to go along with all of that young pitching.
They don’t have more than young pitching “now,” they might later. And then what? Ready to finally compete when Wright is well past him prime and Granderson has completely fallen apart? What sort of timeline do you think is realistic?
The timeline is they’re going to get good. Quickly. They have tons of trade chips and assuming health from Harvey that rotation is going to be nasty. deGrom is for real, a three game series of Harvey, deGrom, and Wheeler is going to be no fun and I bet Syndergaard is going to move forward next year.
Having trade chips would require Alderson to actually use them. He’s good at baiting desperate teams to overpay for his stars, but we having seen what he can do with his own prospects.
They’re not going to get good quickly. Maybe in 2016.
We will agree to disagree. If Harvey looks good next spring there’s no way that rotation doesn’t put them in play for at least a WC. I am beyond impressed with deGrom, he looks like the goods, there is nothing flukey about what he’s doing. Pinpoint command of a 95 mph heater, solid off speed stuff, unflappable on the mound. He looks really, really good I cannot wait to see him again next year. All they need is a decent SS and for Wright to at least halfway reboot and they are good to go. A lot of players in that sweet spot of being already talented major league players but still with some upside. (d’Arnaud, Lagares, Duda). I’ll take those already solid 25-28 year old players showing gradual improvement over a bunch of expensive FA signings 8 days a week.
A .500 record puts them in play for a WC.
They have some talent pieces on the ML roster and a lot of promising young guys. But expecting that young talent to come together next year is rather wishful thinking. Very few teams get to the postseason with multiple rookies doing the heavy lifting.
They’re already an 80 win team without one of the best pitchers on the planet (Harvey,granted he needs to come back healthy but he should) and almost nothing from their best, most consistent player. (Wright).
The early part of the Mets season was slow going, they still had Mejia in the rotation, a bunch of scrubs in the pen who have since been jettisoned in favor of some tremendous young arms, d’Arnaud was sent down for more seasoning, Duda won the “Ike vs. Duda Bowl”, (thankfully) deGrom was called up from the minors and bought along slowly, Chris Young was still playing lol, etc. Once they got their act together and their current roster in order they have been pretty darn good. 40-32 since 4th of July.
Fair points. A WC berth is certainly possible. I just don’t think Sandy will be given enough financial leeway to do what he needs to do. Having Colon off the books would’ve gone a long way toward getting some supplementary pieces together.
Sadly, he’ll get none. He’s going to have to do this with no money which is their biggest drawback. They have no wiggle room to add pieces. Their owners are just criminals, they should not be allowed to own even a fantasy team
Travis d’Arnaud and Lucas Duda are the trade chips to go with Daniel Murphy. Why would the Mets want to trade young talent for ball players who are 1 or 1 1/2 year rentals? I see the Mets trading those guys before they trade prospects for other team’s stars
I’d say trade Murphy, but not d’Arnaud or Duda. They won’t get a king’s ransom for any of them and d’Arnaud and Duda are worth more to the team than what they’d get back. Maybe trading one of them with Murphy might get a really good return, but I’m not really seeing what might be on the table.
I know none of them will bring in a haul but at the same time I see TDA being traded after 2016 when he is due to earn money thru arbitration and Kevin will be ready . Duda is more about do you think he finally has realize his potential because of the opportunity/not worrying about learning playing OF or do you think it is a fluke? The Mets will keep him unless they get some great offer until Dominic Smith is ready 2 or 3 years from now. Murphy I believe they will play it out for Dilson Herrera’s sake.You can see his skill but he needs one more year of seasoning before he is ready. I say Murphy has the best chance like you said but followed by Duda and TDA in that order
wait John Buck and Marlon Byrd are stars WOW
wait Granderson is going to be worse?
He’s hardly Jason Bay bad yet. Though, I hope that doesn’t happen to him.
It’s Sandy’s fault they can’t hire a legit manager like Joe Maddon instead of TERRY who doesn’t know how to manage nor speak in interviews.He spent what? The payroll dropped from 13 to 14 and to top it off he wanted Curtis at 3 years but it was Wilpon who okay 4 years. You act as if moving Colon was going to bring in this top FA this year. This team should go for bullpen help and a legit lead off hitter. They will do neither and say they tried. They brought in Kevin Long who if you think Hitting coaches matter made the Yanks look like chumps the last few years. Kevin Long was a Curtis Granderson move but don’t worry he is excited about it. I hope Flores reaches the potential I think he is as a RBI guy cause if not this team will have to wait a while
They’d let him TRADE, but every trade deadline we either dump salary or do nothing. Ol’ Stand Pat Alderson will now be free to …..stand pat for three years.
Not easy to fix Minaya’s work
At the same time Harvey, deGrom, Lagares, Duda, Mejia, and Familia were all brought in by Minaya. Alderson has done a good job, but Minaya did leave him some pieces.
Agreed. I’m definitely glad that he’s gone because he wouldn’t have been able to handle not being able to spend. But a strength of his was drafting/finding/signing young talent.
Wish we had Omar for the talent evaluation and Sandy for the contract side of it.Omar knew talent but he didn’t know how to pay it.
Alderson has made some well documented duds, but he’s also made some excellent moves that outweigh those duds in my view. This team would not have even been close to .500 without the performances of Travis d’Arnaud, Zack Wheeler, Vic Black, and Lucas Duda (who wasn’t an Alderson draft choice, but would not have gotten an opportunity to prove himself this season without Alderson opening up the spot for him).
You forgot Jacob deGrom…who I did not think would be this good.
deGrom’s a Minaya guy, along with a significant portion of the rest of the team.
I still cannot understand how people think Sandy is doing a bad job. With what he has been given, he has been able to turnout 3 meaningful trades towards a winning team (at the time, for the future), and the future is now. I’m also upset with people say, “Well, he better start spending NOW!!” The money they have now needs to be spent a little more wisely than some of the Omar Minaya contracts. Yes, patience is wearing thin for them to win, but almost everything is pointed in the right direction for them to win sooner rather than later.
It is how he has allocated the limited resources that some oppose. CY, Francisco, Rauch, Lannan, etc…and the fact that the current offseason has the same holes as last year.
I still am on the fence about Alderson. He has made some pretty sound trades, but I really am not a fan of his FA moves. I get that he is limited financially so I am in no way one of the people who gets angry that he doesn’t “go out and get people.”
I don’t like how he has approached the offense. Granderson is a nice player, but I don’t like him in this offense, especially in this ballpark. The only guy who can make consistent contact for the Mets is Murphy. I don’t understand why Alderson went out and got 2 high strikeout (Granderson and CY) power bats when he didn’t have anyone to get on base in front of them. The fact is, you are going to pay the same price tag, but see lesser results when you bring a power bat to Citi Field. A guy like Granderson is not a good fit for a team that already has a strikeout problem, and likely won’t see much power regardless.
I don’t like how he handled Tejada. I am not saying that Tejada would have fixed all of his problems, but he was a good major leaguer before Alderson decided to make it a hostile work environment for him. It’s hard to turn things around when it seems like you can’t do anything right in the eyes of your superiors.
Alderson is a good GM, he is just hamstrung by ownership wanting $$$. There’s a reason why the majority of his trades, which involved saving money, have been great while the majority of free agent signings, which involve spending money, have not. Ownership isn’t going to mess with the moves that save them money. But once they have to actually spend money, look out.
He has made some improvements in the farm, but I would have waited. Has made some questionable signings.
They have lost 85 games or more in his first 3 years. I would sure hope the farm would have improved under that.
It will be interesting if Manfred is not as friendly to the Wilpon’s as Selig has been. I think it was SI that had an article up today about that.
The Wilpons have to be looking for stability and a GM who is going along with the program. Alderson is good with prospects, and less good with FA signings, but he knows the drill and isn’t going to push back by asking for more resources. Hence, this is a logical move.
It’s not even the GM or even Terry (who I’m not a huge fan of), it all starts and ends with the Wilpons lack of funds, if they can’t raise payroll in 2015 to help the mets offensively and to support their solid starting pitching and bullpen than they have no business owning this team.. mets are so close yet seem so far away because of ownership.
Payroll isn’t an issue if there’s nobody out there to sign worth it. Payroll restrictions kept the Mets from signing Kendrys Morales, Stephen Drew, and Michael Bourn, just to name three guys.
They could have signed Jose Abreu, Nelson Cruz and Jhonny Peralta.
I’m fine with retaining Alderson and having him finish the complete rebuild of this team. However, I’m not fond of the Mets retaining Collins. The team needs a change of direction among the coaching staff.
Sandy is in a position where to put the Mets in contention next year he has to move a desirable arm for a bat that has a 100 RBI track record. It will be interesting to see what he does. A top of the rotation trio of Harvey, deGrom, and Wheeler has the potential to be akin to Maddox, Smoltz, and Glavine (I did say potential) but with offense at such a premium I wouldn’t be surprised if a solid bat would command Wheeler in a deal (look what happened to the A’s offense when they dealt Cespedes).
For the first time in a long while, the Mets appear to be finally set on the pitching front. They are in a better position long term than their cross-town rivals. Jacom deGrom has especially been a positive revelation.
Harvey, Wheeler, deGrom, Matz, Syndergaard. Once Syndergaard has the mental part of his game down (Backman’s words, not mine), that’s gonna be a very tough rotation to beat for years to come. Problem remains the offense and the lack of power in it. I wish they’d consider signing Tomas or trading for an OF impact bat.
This is a sad day for Met fans, as it shows a full commitment to mediocrity and a losing culture.
suppose we brought in a new GM(you) who would you sign outside of Michael Cuddyer since the Mets will pursue him in the offseason? I guess you dislike Zach Wheeler
Really? Getting top prospects that have already made impacts mean they’re committed towards failure?
I believe he’s referring to the return of Collins.
I am unsure really on how to feel about this. I do really like a lot of what Sandy is doing but the one MAJOR mistake is not really allowing his manager to run the team. Terry Collins is a very poor manager and should have been let go, or not even signed to an extension initially. This news would have been much easier to swallow had it come with the dismissal of TC.
Aside from that all i can hope for is Sandy makes some good decisions in the offseason and the Wilpons start spending some more money or are forced to sell the team.
Good luck to us and “Lets Go Mets!”
Did they have to keep Terry Collins?
Sandy has done great with managing talent on limited funds. Yeah Chris Young and Curtis he struck out on but I like what I see with him. He wanted to give Curtis only 3 years instead of 4 but Wilpon allowed the 4 year to happen to lock up Curtis. My only problem with Sandy is he doesn’t seem to be a risk taker and because of that the Mets will not sign a guy like Tomas. He also doesn’t seem to like managers who he can’t control like Wally Backman. I like what he has done for the Farm and his Beltran for Wheeler trade was his signature special for Met fans.The Byrd Buck trade for Vic Black and Dilson Herrera looks like a steal
I’m fine with this. I just wish he’d have more guts to spend some real money. Get me Hanley or something awesome that the mets can build around instead of moving fences in and relying on David wright. Fill the holes. Trade a starting pitcher for a SS or big bat. But in all honesty I would be like Anderson too and be conservative