Meet your New York Lumberjacks.

Parnell kept his beard in part because his grandmother told him she liked it. Gee tried the massive goatee and then ditched it for a traditional beard, he said, because "I get bored with things." Turner grew out his beard as a way to keep warm while visiting his girlfriend in Indiana during the winter, and stuck with it after receiving some compliments. He plans to keep it at least through the Mets' first road trip, which includes stops in cold-weather cities Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Denver.

"You have to make it fun," Parnell said. "We've got a long season. You're with the same guys all the time. You want to change it up and have a different look."

No player took that mantra to heart this off-season more than pitcher Daniel Herrera. He came to spring training last season with shoulder-length hair and never cut it as he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery.

His mess of black hair eventually extended to around his chest. This winter, he shaved nearly all of it off—nearly a foot of hair—and donated it to Locks of Love, a charity that produces wigs for sick children.

When he returned to Florida, most of the Mets players didn't recognize him. Herrera said he "had to literally get two feet from their faces for them to know it was me." Nieuwenhuis said he did "a couple of double-takes." Gee said it took him "five looks" to figure out who Herrera was. "People were giving him weird looks, like, 'Who are you?'" Gee said.

THIS TEAM IS REALLY A FUCK****ING JOKE. GET A FEW REAL PLAYERS ALDERSON. THE WILPONS ARE DOUCHES.

Well that escalated quickly.

cj,  it would seem apparent that your physician has put you on a medication with an adverse reaction.  It oviously causes yelling similar to mudbone and ag and has also impacted your sense of stability similar to those often seen in TEB and  ozzie.  It was in 1886, 100 years before the Mets last Championship, that Robert Louis Stevenson penned Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Before your situation reachs the extremes of that tale, I implore you to contact your Doctor and return to us as the semi-stable Mets fan of olde.  Love yogi

cjd...Alderson has done a good job here.............consider where this orginazation was?  What Alderson has done is not dissimilar to what  Donnie Walsh did for the Knicks, you have to start somewhere.  The Mets now have a future, not this year but next year and years after that.  They have an infield, they have a catcher and they have good young starting pitching.  Only pieces missing now are one or two bonafide major league outfielders and a closer and every MLB team is looking for a closer.  Patience...........Alderson has done a nicejob of cleaning things up and putting this franchise on solid footing moving forward.  

TFC...I would not exactly call it a good job just yet as they have not improved in the W-L column and that is the objective...
I would give him a "C" right now and I would raise it to a "B-" if Wheeler and D'Arnaud are the real deal in 2013...
I go to a "B" if the Mets somehow...with a ton of luck, get to .500 this year...BUT...I doubt that seriously...

It is not possible to evaluate Alderson after two years.  None of the players from his drafts have reached the majors and the only players he traded for that have; Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez failed.  His signings have been mixed with Hairston have a career year.  But two years of Chris Young and Frank Francisco have produced little.  The trade of Angel Pagan is a fail.  The Beltran and R.A. Dickey trades are tied to Wheeler, Travis d'Arnaud and Noah Syndergaaud and will remain Inc. for a long time.  The only plus on his resume is the trade of Francisco Rodriguez which may be credited to a greedy Scott Boras more than a savvy Sandy Alderson.

The Pagan trade was tied to the Beltran trade. It was basically Pagan delayed arrival +Beltran in a walk year for Wheeler.

Pagan  was dealt for Torres and Ramirez.

Both players the Mets got underperformed significantly.

Meanwhile Pagan was a hot player for SF not the same "attitude problem" player he was with the mets.

The connection b etween Pagan/Beltran was that the new mets GM was cleaning house. 

The Carlos Beltran trade was a repeat of Brian Sabean trying to find enough hitting to carry the Giants to a second WS.  Sabean had successfully added bats in 2010.  I think that Sabean saw Wheeler as a "can't miss" turning into a "could miss"  which made him expendable.  I agree that Alderson only knew an Angel Pagan that missed time, played a poor defense, and was reluctant to lead off and be compared to Reyes.  What ever was the cause of Pagan's problems in 2011 I can only guess but he had a solid year offensively and defensively in 2010. 

Funny yogi, I was going to work a Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde reference in there also...

Anyhow yeah, you can't judge Alderson yet because his moves aren't based on W/L record for 2011-2013, they're for W/L record in 2014 and on.  Prospects are always just prospects, but he's gotten about a strong a top group as you could expect.  Now it'll take time to find out if they become more than prospects.

 

You are dead-on MrBMG, I gues my point is that there seems to be a foundation, a structure for improvement of W's vs L's, ie there is a plan in place and he is executing it.  How it turns out who knows, but right now it looks promising and yes it is still too early to give a FINAL grade but considering where the Wilpons were and what Alderson inherited his preliminary grade is better than a 'C'.

Can't blame Alderson for not bringing in 2 outfielders, I'm not even sure if he were given the money to spend this past winter would have been different. And as much as I would have loved to see guys like Hamilton and Bourn starting in the outfield this year, I think I'd have been sick if Bourn just becomes mediocre as he's been most of his career and Hamilton either has a relapse or gets injured, as he's shown himslef capable of doing in the past. The whole buying and over paying for players has turned me off, as those type of transactions rarely have worked out in the Mets favor in the past. Buying a savior for our franchise has never, ever worked.

So our choices are to suck it up and root for our team that will surprise most if they reach .500 this season. May be much of the same next season too, highly touted prospects and all. We're not the only franchise with good minor league arms, and we don't know if any of them will ever pan out.

But we all should be here cause we love our Mets, and not to bitch and moan like little girls who can't get our way. Alderson so far is doing what he can and should be doing, which is to rid us of bad contracts and players who have worn out their welcome. The only thing I had reservations about is the Dickey deal, but I understand there was nothing else of value we had to change this team, and Matt Harvey alone would not have been enough to believe this team was looking towards the future. 

Listen, if Eisenhower were in charge of the Nazi regime in January, 1945 the war would have been lost by Germany anyway, great General and all that he was. You can't build an army with just one soldier, and you can't sit back and wait for a victory to happen on its own. Alderson seems to have the makings of a great leader, we're just going to have to give him a chance to develop his army. What you have to ask yourself is, "are you willing to support him"?  

Yeah the truth is that's what it comes down to.  As Met fans we have to be invested in this strategy, and although there are never any guarantees at least the prospects we have in-house now are very solid.  It's a rare time in Mets history when there does seem to be a certain degree of patience among fans and understanding that building takes time.  

On the Bourn note, I still think he would've been a good fit but it is what it is...and he's definitely very far from a guarantee.  I do have faith in this front office to make the right decisions given the direction they're headed.  Personally I can't wait for the season to start just like any other year.  It doesn't look like it'll be a great year but there are stories every season and you just never know. 

When I read this : 

TFC " cjd...Alderson has done a good job here.............consider where this orginazation was? What Alderson has done is not dissimilar to what Donnie Walsh did for the Knicks, you have to start somewhere. The <span style="color: #0d3a80;">Mets now have a future, not this year but next year and years after that. They have an infield, they have a catcher and they have good young starting pitching. Only pieces missing now are one or two bonafide major league outfielders and a closer and every MLB team is looking for a closer. Patience...........Alderson has done a nicejob of cleaning things up and putting this franchise on solid footing moving forward. "


I NEARLY FELL OUT MY CHAIR !!!

The ONLY thing Sandy has done is SELL YOU EXACLY what the Wilpons WANTED YOU TO BUY  !!!

A CHEAP TEAM for a EXPENSIVE TICKET !!!


      

A CHEAP TEAM for a EXPENSIVE TICKET !!!

I'll agree with this part.  The fact that they are a lower tier payroll team with an upper tier ticket price is unacceptable.  If you're going to go into rebuilding mode - you better reflect that in your ticket prices or expect a lot of empty chairs (which will be the case).

The ONLY thing Sandy has done is SELL YOU EXACLY what the Wilpons WANTED YOU TO BUY  !!!

Can't back you here.  When Sandy took over, the farm was bare, there was 0 AAA talent waiting to come up and not much even below that.  The on field talent was aging and not producing.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and you can't expect Alderson to turn around the mess that was the Mets in a day either.

What we're looking at now is a team that has the foundation to build on.  Alderson's tenure should be judged on the next three years (whether its him at the helm, or not).  He has put the Mets in a position to succeed, which is more than can be said about their footin when he took over the job.

IF over that time, the Mets continue to hover around the 90-100 mil payroll and count only on the prospects coming up, he'll be known as a Wilpons stooge.

IF the Mets open the purse strings and fill in the holes surrounding these high level prospects with FAs over the next pair of years and become a contender, well then he'll be known as the savior.

But don't sit here and judge him by the product on the field after 2 seasons (3 offseasons) when all he's had the chance to do so far is take out the trash.

NYFAN beat me to it as I was starting to reply, but that's along the same lines as what I was writing.

Would it be great if this team could just keep reloading like our neighbors in the other borough?  Of course it would.  The last few years though have shown that's not the case.  So they've moved to a mode that New York teams rarely if ever enter.  There is an advantage at the moment because the Yankees are going through their own problems and the NL East is going through some changes so the fans have a little more patience than usual.

So they brought in Alderson to take the reins during this period.  So far it's hard to argue that he hasn't gotten top prospects for what has been given up.  Now we've got something to be excited about for the first time since 2008 really.  This year will probably be a losing year but it won't be filled with on-the-downside veterans and boring retreads.  There's a lot of young talent, and even the OF (which is the worst I can ever remember on a major league team) will have 4th and 5th OF possibilities in the long run so that's something to look for.

Just as NYFAN notes and a lot of realistic fans will agree, you can't judge Alderson and the rest of the front office for a few years.  When we see how the prospects work out and what happens next, that's when the real judgments can be made. 

There are only a handful of GMs that can consider themselves as the architecs of their teams success or failure.  Sabean, Cashman, Billy Beane, Frank Wren and Dave Dombrowski have the organizational time in service to be held acountable for the team.  Sandy Alderson still has David Wright in place, drafted by Steve Phillips.  Minaya is responsible for Niese, Davis, Murphy, Tejada, Gee, Parnell, Harvey and all of the Mets minor league players called up last year.  Take it a step further and it was a Minaya free agent that got Zack Wheeler and another free agent and draft pick, R.A. Dickey/Josh Thole, that landed d'Arnaud and Synderguaard.  Alderson is an incomplete and it will be many years before he can be clearly credited with a label.

Well yes that's true Yogi, any GM needs time to really be able to say he built the team according to a specific vision.  However, he can still be graded with who he's traded for, who's been drafted since he's been here, and then finally the W's and L's after those moves have been made.  For Alderson the W's and L's are probably after this year.  There's certain constraints, but you can't wait for 10 years to make at least some judgement.

 However, he can still be graded with who he's traded for, who's been drafted-thomasam

As SalPac might say, that's to small a sample.  The only trades we have results from are the Pagan/Torres-Ramirez trade.  The trades for Wheeler, d'Arnaud, and Synderguaad are up in the air as is the loss of R.A. Dickey.  The releases of Perez, Castillo, and Bay didn't benefit the Mets monetarily.  The trade of Francisco Rodriguez did benefit the Mets but I am more apt to credit Boras's greed in moving Rodriguez. 


How would most grade Omar Minaya?  He certainly would warrent good grades after taking over for Jim Duquette in 2005, making the playoffs in 2006 and even for fielding a winning and oh so close team in 2007-08.  Conversely, he would take the hit for 2009-10.  Is he a 'B' for 4 good years?  Does he average out as a 'C'?