Time waits for no man, except for Sandy Alderson.
We're almost a week away from Thanksgiving and teams are well into the process of planning for the 2011 season. Trades are being made, free agents are starting to sign with new clubs yet we still don't know who the next manager of the New York Mets is going to be.
All signs point to either Terry Collins or Bob Melvin, which makes it pretty clear that the Mets have no intention of trying to drum up interest in their team by hiring a manager who might entice people to buy tickets. We'll have to wait and see if their choice winds up with a winning record, but we can't argue with avoiding the flashy hire in favor of a choice that better meshes with Alderson's world view.
Still, we get the fact that some people might find the slow pace of the Mets offseason a bit frustrating. But we'd ask those people if it is more or less frustrating than watching their team chase after every shiny thing that fluttered across their line of sight with nothing to show for it but pain and suffering.
When you don't have an actual plan it is very easy to make moves because they don't have to fit as part of a larger puzzle, but Alderson is trying things a different way. It's the same way thoughful people approach rebuilding a house that's got problems from the foundation up. It doesn't make much sense to redo the roof or paint the outside when the wiring is faulty because the underlying problems won't get solved. The same is true when it comes to fixing a baseball team.
Keep that in mind the next time you read something about Carlos Beltran being willing to accept a trade or a note about interest from other teams in Jose Reyes. Trading these players could make the Mets a better team in the long run, but not if they are dealt at the bottom of their value for returns that might even include picking up a chunk of their salary.
The Mets don't lose a single thing by waiting to pull the trigger on a trade until the season is underway because both men will have a chance to regain their value and/or help the team to a better record. They have nothing to lose by rolling the dice on Oliver Perez in Spring Training instead of releasing him now and eating his money. This team isn't going to go out and spend a ton of money this offseason and they aren't going to radically overhaul the roster just because some people are desperate to see something happen.
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The culture needs to change in Queens, but part of that change has to be that decisions are made because they make sense instead of just because there's a move to be made. Impatience helped create this mess, so it makes more than a little sense to exercise some patience on the way out.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
