A New Era in Citi Field

I woke up this morning feeling like today was going to be very important. Maybe it's because there was a Communications Internship Fair at Hofstra, a big deal considering I still need to get an internship to graduate. But that wasn't it. About 15 miles away from my Hofstra University dormitory, something big was brewing in Citi Field. The Wilpons were introducing a new general manager for the New York Metropolitans, the dawning of a new era that will

Mets fans like myself have suffered through four of the most brutal years the franchise has ever endured. If you have closely followed the team, you realize it's not as simple as wins and losses. It's about the culture that has surrounded the team, a culture of failure and embarrassment. It's about overpaying players that have underperformed or our old General Manager, Omar Minaya, just giving money to players who flat out didn't deserve it (Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo). It's about the way the Mets have lost, going from the emotional peak of reaching Game 7 of the NLCS in 2006 to pulling off back-to-back collapses and... well, you know the rest. It's about the off-field issues, turning the Mets into a perennial punch line of jokes from SNL to Letterman. It seemed that the Mets couldn't do anything right for almost four years.

So it was no surprise that the Mets fired Omar Minaya, whose tenure as Mets General Manager will always be remembered as a time of great promise, centered around stars like Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Carlos Beltran, that never panned out like it could have. The Mets also let go of manager Jerry Manuel, ending a regime that began in embarrassing "Midnight Met-sacre in 2008 when Willie Randolph and Rick Peterson were unceremoniously fired.

Bringing Sandy Alderson aboard to be the GM of the Mets is more than just a hiring. It's a conscious effort by the organization to correct all the mistakes of the past regime, a task that will not be easy, nor will it be quick and painless. It represents a philosophical shift for this franchise. Sandy Alderson is a decorated individual. He is well known as the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics from 1983 to 1997, where he won four division titles, three pennants, and the World Series in 1989. But he is also famously known for shaping that franchise through youth, which unfortunately links him to the steroids era and his team, which included two of the biggest names to be linked to steroids: Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire.

Still, Alderson is a man who appears patient, with an incredible eye for young talent and a sound baseball mind. He left the A's for the commissioner's office during two different stints before joining the Mets (with some work within the Padres organization sprinkled in between). We need a man who has an eye for the bigger picture in Flushing, something Omar Minaya, in his best and worst times, never had. We can no longer employ a General Manager who will look for quick fix off-season solutions to appease a rabid fanbase, because simply put, the "win-now" mentality will not do us any good in the long run.

Sandy Alderson is a solid choice. I've heard many say they preferred somebody younger, an up-and-comer, and maybe Alderson won't be here much more than four or five years. That's alright. Sandy is essentially here to teach the Mets how to build a solid team. The Mets have proven they don't know how to do that. Five years is a long time, and if Alderson can implement a formula for building a strong, young team that the Mets can use in the future, his hiring will be a success. If the Mets cannot learn to make this formula work, than the hiring will be all for naught. The Mets, as it is, have never had a stretch of more than two consecutive playoff berths. That needs to change. With Alderson's help, the Mets may be on their way to building a team that can contend year after year.

The next step is a manager, and it will be an interesting search. Right now, who I think or anyone else thinks should be manager is a moot point. It's all on Sandy Alderson. He has been given the key to this organization by the Wilpons, assuming they are planning to do this right and give him the full autonomy they promised Omar Minaya but never quite trusted him with. From what I've read and heard about today's press conference, I am more than satisfied with the hiring and believe that Sandy Alderson knows exactly what he's doing and will make the most educated decisions for the growth of this franchise.

I'm excited. All Mets fans should be excited. 2011 may not produce anything more than a sub-.500 team, but it's not about next year. It's about 2012, 2013, the farm system, the new way of thinking in Flushing. In five years, we could look back and say October 29, 2010 was a day that changed the course of Mets history. I remember when Omar Minaya and Willie Randolph were the package GM/manager combo presented to us as the future, and for a couple of years it worked out very well. I expect more this time, and I truly believe that better days are ahead, hopefully in the not-so-distant future.

It's not often that a team signs a new GM and manager in the same off-season. There will be a lot "new" about the Mets next year. It will take time getting used to, but for the first time in a long time, the Mets are on their way to fixing everything they've messed up. Let's just hope they don't mess this up. There's only so much we can take.