An open letter to Mets owners Jeff Wilpon and Fred Wilpon:
Dear Jeff and Fred:
School’s out this week in the tri-state area as students start their summer vacation and teachers take time off after a long school year. Others start using vacation time from work in July and August to unwind. The Mets are playing out the season for the third straight season before school is out.
Anytime your team’s baseball season unofficially ends before school’s out, it’s not a good thing in a sport that features parity. It speaks of so many problems that lies in the organization when this happens.
Not only is your team horrible on the field, but they are not better off the field, either. All of this reflects poorly on you.
Monday night turned out to be another snoozefest by the Mets in their 13-7 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. I couldn’t get into it whatsoever. In fact, I decided to take a nap in the sixth inning. Watching your team becomes a chore when your pitching staff serves up home runs after home runs and giving up a crooked inning. It’s never enjoyable when Mets fans expect the bullpen to blow it since your relievers are terrible.
I only watched this game since I have to provide commentary about your sorry team for this fine site I work for. Not that you care what I think or what Mets fans think or what the local media thinks.
Outside of Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil, there’s no one on this team that should get a fan to pay to watch at Citi Field, and that even includes Jacob deGrom since he pitched mediocre this season. In fact, watching this team on television is a waste of time. Talking about how bad your team is on Twitter and sports radio turns out be free publicity despite bad advertising.
The Mets lineup features hitters that rely too much on hitting home runs rather than hitting the other way. Too many guys are automatic outs such as Robinson Cano, who should be on the injured list since he has no idea what he is doing at the plate as he swings at every pitch and strikes out.
The starting rotation is overrated. Quite frankly, the Mets’ Starting Five never lived up to its promise. Matt Harvey flamed out after going through injuries in his career. Zack Wheeler and Steven Matz turned out to be mediocre than great. Noah Syndergaard can’t put one great season together, and he performs great and awful during the season. At least, deGrom panned out to be a star.
The bullpen stinks. Outside of Seth Lugo, it’s hard to trust anyone. Your prized free agent signing Jeurys Familia stunk this season, and your prized acquisition Edwin Diaz brings memories of Armando Benitez, which every save opportunity is an adventure.
There’s no depth on the roster when it comes to the bullpen. When your roster features obscure names such as Brooks Pounders, Drew Gagnon, Chris Flexen, Daniel Zamora, Stephen Nogosek and Wilmer Font, you are just not good.
When the Mets and Phillies game appeared to be a slugfest in the fifth inning with the Phillies holding on to a 7-6 lead, we knew it would not end well because the Mets bullpen is awful. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy. The Phillies lit up Pounders by having him give up five runs and six hits, and the game was over.
When the starters don’t give you a chance to win and when the bullpen is out there, it’s a bad situation for the Mets.
Pounders should be released. He stinks. He has no business pitching in the Major Leagues, let alone pitching in the Independent League. Same can be said about your obscure relievers.
Your management team strikes everyone as incompetent.
Your general manager is so lost at his job in Brodie Van Wagenen. His offseason turned out to be a failure, and he made an ill-advised trade of giving up a prized prospect Jarred Kelenic for a washed-up Cano and Diaz. You never give up prospects for a closer when your team is not even close to be a World Series contender, but your general manager wanted to make an impression on you and the Mets fans that he was in it to win it, which was foolish.
Face it. You hired Van Wagenen because he was willing to be a company man that takes your orders. It had nothing to do with going outside the box, and you know it, too. You are not fooling anyone. No executive would let an owner get involved in building a team, which is why you decided not to hire Doug Melvin or Rays executive Chaim Bloom.
Your manager Mickey Callaway should have been fired months ago, and quite frankly, he should have never been hired in the first place. He has zero feel with his players, which he has no idea when to take his relievers or starters out, and he puts the wrong guy in the wrong spot too often. He has no idea how to run a pitching staff, which is remarkable since he was the Indians pitching coach. He fails to master the art of handling the media by not being truthful or coherent with his answers. He does not get it that when he speaks to the media, he is supposed to be the spokesman of the organization. He is not a leader of men.
After your manager’s post-game press conference in the Mets’ 5-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Sunday at Chicago, he lost it when he yelled obscenities at Newsday’s Tim Healey after the Mets beat writer said he will see him tomorrow. This came after Yahoo’s Matt Ehalt struck a nerve at the Mets manager for asking if he was told by management not to use Diaz for a five-out save after Lugo exhausted himself. Your starter Jason Vargas threatened the Newsday writer, too.
Your manager came up lame in an apology to Healey in Philadelphia prior to the Mets’ game against the Phillies. His apology sounded like he was sorry but not sorry by citing an example of Billy Martin fighting with a reporter once in a way of saying these things happen. He had to do it twice since he mangled it at the first time, and he still did not get it right. Vargas offered no apology.
Your general manager did not offer much when he spoke to the media.
Then during the game on Monday night, New York Post’s Mike Puma tweeted out his story about your general manager telling your manager what to do in the dugout at the comfort of his own home. This was in reference to Callaway taking deGrom out in a start against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix.
So much mess. So much dysfunction. So much tension. So much losing.
It’s easy to blame Van Wagenen and Callaway, and they deserve blame for what’s going on and off the field, but this happened under so many previous administrations while the constant is you, Jeff and Fred. You hired these people that could never get it done.
The buck stops with you when your team will have 12 losing seasons in the past two decades.
Sadly, Mets fans know better to think nothing will change since you will hire company men to take your orders rather than not being involved and let your baseball executives do their job that you pay them to do. Firing Callaway will do nothing just like firing Mets pitching coach Dave Eiland and Mets bullpen coach Chuck Hernandez the other day.
All that’s left now is the Mets to lose a generation of fans to the Yankees. That will be your lasting legacy in the end.
Meanwhile, enjoy those empty seats at Citi Field starting in July.
