There's a new candidate for Mets general manager making the rounds right now. Howard Megdal, who writes both prose and poetry about the Mets, is running for the job on a platform of logic, transparency and passion. He's just released his first campaign video:
Some might say that Megdal's mission is misguided. The Mets general manager is not selected by the voters, of course. That is probably for the best in the long run, although the world would probably be a more amusing place if the public got to make such choices. The other reason why some might argue that Megdal is barking up the wrong tree is that the Mets are actually winning more often than they lose right now.
In this space and others, the return of winning has led to some complimentary words for the recent personnel moves made by Omar Minaya and the rest of the front office. The promotion of Ike Davis, turfing of Gary Matthews Jr. and wholescale reinvention of the starting rotation are the things cited most often and there's even been some kudos tossed in Minaya's direction for finally pulling the plug on Jennry Mejia's stint in the major leagues.
Megdal's commercial gets you thinking, though: Is it really commendable to correct mistakes that everyone but you knew were mistakes from the get-go? No one likes the guy who says they told you so, but there's a reason that guy is so smug. He was right on day one and he was right on every day leading up to the day when you finally admitted he was right.
Look at how bad Matthews, Mike Jacobs, Frank Catalanotto and the John Maine/Oliver Perez duo had to be before the Mets would admit that they had no place on a major league baseball team and then go back to thinking about whether anyone deserves a pat on the back for getting rid of them. Based on the Mejia move, it's certainly not clear that the Mets have figured out that it was foolish to have him in the big leagues in the first place. If he'd pitched halfway decent, he'd still be here just as Jacobs or Matthews would still be clogging the roster if they'd had a flukey week or two before getting chopped.
The bar is really low when we're willing to accept realizing that you've made a mistake -- not admitting it nor learning from it, simply realizing it -- as a sign of growth. The bar can't get much lower than that and hopefully a winning record starts its trip back to a more appropriate position.
Sports
Since it doesn't look like the Minaya era will be ending anytime soon, we'll get to find out if he actually learned something from all of this. If he has, that's worth a commendation but we'll hold off on any other blue ribbons until that happens.
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.
