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Wait, What? Sandy Alderson Best GM in Baseball?!

From New York Magazine (via Mets Blog) comes this gem: “Sandy Alderson is the best GM in baseball.” Come again?

In the magazine’s annual “Reasons to Love New York” feature, number 26 is Will Leitch’s entry about Alderson, with the bold claim in the headline. He writes:

If you’re a passenger in a defective plane, the best you can hope for is the best pilot possible. Say what you will about the state of the New York Mets, they still have a winner in charge. You think it’s bad? If Sandy Alderson hadn’t been steering, we’d be at the bottom of the Hudson right now.

True, the Mets have not been at the “bottom of the Hudson,” fifth place in NL East lingo, only because the Marlins have been there. But three straight losing seasons under Alderson is pretty much near the bottom of the river.

Leitch admits “the Mets are still a mess, but Alderson is the last person to blame for that.” There is some merit to that statement because Alderson took over a terrible franchise, but there still should have been some growth at the major league level and there has not been any at all. Alderson’s teams have gotten worse, not better.

I have written before that while rebuilding the organization, there still needs to be improvement, even slight improvement, at the top, and that is where Alderson has failed. He has finally made some moves this off-season. Hopefully they will pay off, but that remains to be seem.

Perhaps the most egregious line in the article is this:

Almost every move Alderson has made since taking over in 2010 has been golden.

Like many writers, Leitch is judging Sandy Alderson based on two trades — the Carlos Beltran and R.A. Dickey deals. Both of them were very good, yes, but two trades do not make you “the best GM in baseball.”

What about the non-golden moves of Frank Francisco, D.J. Carrasco, Shaun Marcum, Angel Pagan for Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez? Need I go on? There were many, many more tarnished moves than golden ones.

Perhaps all the suffering Sandy Alderson has put us through over the past three years will work and the Mets will be world champions in a couple of years. Then maybe we can call him the best GM in baseball. Now? Not even close.

2 thoughts on “Wait, What? Sandy Alderson Best GM in Baseball?!

  • the only thing i disagree about in this article is sean green. he came over under minaya’s watch in the 2008 trade for putz.

    Otherwise, sandy’s done a pretty nice job with the lower levels, but that should start to be translating to the major league team by now. it seems that the mets need better scouts or coaches b/c they never seem to bring anyone of value through their system (or at least not nearly enough prospects)

  • Mark Berman

    Thanks Tom, you’re right. I misread something. I removed Green from Alderson’s considerably list of failures.

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