Mets expected to name Alderson new GM

Written by Nikki DeMaio | 28 October 2010

It's been awhile since anything interesting happened to the Mets.  Reports last night indicate that the Mets have agreed in principle to hire Sandy Alderson as the new GM, with the announcement expected to come tomorrow.  I'll be honest, I wasn't all that wrapped up in the interview process.  Obviously, I want the Mets to hire someone with a coherent plan and the ability to properly set the tone of the team this off season... but at the same time, I couldn't get worked up over the candidates.  And I won't be getting worked up over the possible managers either.  Assuming the announcement with Alderson goes through without incident, (and we know there is always the potential for incidents with the Mets) I'm going to go out on a limb and say he already knows who he wants to hire.  No amount of screaming into the blogosphere will change that.  When the GM and manager are in place and I've actually heard some kind of mission statement come out of the front office, then I'll get excited.

By the way, has anyone noticed how much money the Mets have locked up for the 2011 season?  I'm not really sure what kind of room the new GM is going to have to make the changes we so desperately need.  Then again, it could be a repeat of Omar Minaya's first year or so as GM, where the payroll skyrocketed in order to give him a chance and see what he could do.  Whoever comes into the front office will certainly have his work cut out for him, including but not limited to dealing with:  finding a new manager, the contracts of Castillo and Perez, Carlos Beltran's contract year, and a piecemeal starting rotation.  It's exhausting for me and I don't really even have to deal with it if I don't want to (I'm not sure what the fact that I *choose* to deal with it says about me).  Anyway, I'm ready for this new regime to start and to bring some good news and interesting updates with it because I haven't had inspiration for about 3 months now.

Last point for today - the Bizarro World Series got started last night with the Giants taking Game 1 in a surprise 11-7 victory.  I've been dead wrong about nearly everything this post season.  I got lucky with some things, such as willing the Giants to take out the Braves in the NLDS.  But then I went on record with my friends saying that Philadelphia would win the NLCS because their line up on a bad day was still better than the Giants' line up on a good day.  I severely underestimated San Francisco's starting pitching, Buster Posey, and Cody Ross (well, maybe not Cody Ross.  No one saw him breaking out in the post season).  I thought the Rays were going to dismantle the Rangers - that obviously did not happen - and then I thought the magic was going to wear off when the Yankees faced off with Texas.  But I'm pretty sure that one is just my classically conditioned response to watching the Yankees in the post season.  And then in the Bizarro World Series, we watched Cliff Lee get shelled.  And not in the "well, he gave up some runs which we're not used to" way.  In the legitimate, Mike Pelfrey-pacing-around-talking-to-himself way.  It was shocking to say the least.  Maybe these Giants have more magic than we gave them credit for... after all, they do kind of remind me of the '69 Mets.