With the dreadful 2010 season now firmly in the past and blocked from our memories, we welcome you to a new year of Mets Kool-Aid. The upcoming season far from promises to bring a World Series trophy back to Flushing, but the regime overhaul and accompanying attitude change gave us hope that the Mets are finally heading back in the right direction.
For all forgettable marketing slogans and mantras the Mets have used in recent years – "We Believe in Comebacks", "Our Team, Our Time", and my personal favorite, "Prevention and Recovery", the choice for 2011 should be easy: "Restoring Credibility".
2011 is a chance for the Mets to restore credibility to an organization that badly needs it. Of course, racking up wins is the best way to do this, but since those may be somewhat hard to come by this year the Mets need to use 2011 as a step towards legitimacy up and down the organization. That means no more accusations of journalists aiming to steal anyone’s job, no more 3AM managerial firings, and certainly no more removing shirts and threatening to fight minor leaguers.
Those are the most extreme and bizarre examples of front office blunders over the past few years, but they contributed to a larger team culture that, from the outside looking in, appeared to be unprofessional. I know that players, not managers or executives, win baseball games, but witnessing their bosses make fools of themselves could not have had a positive effect on the Mets players.
So far, the Mets seem to be on the right path towards remedying this situation, and it all starts at the top. From what I have read, new GM Sandy Alderson comes across as a no-nonsense leader who handles himself in the media very well. His hiring of two valued assistants, J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta, show that Alderson is committed to not only making the organization smarter but also more respected in the eyes of the baseball world.
We all know that wins solve all problems, and whether or not this organizational attitude makeover leads to more Mets wins remains to be seen. After all, essentially the same group of players that finished fourth last season will be back this year. But restoring credibility to the team can only help, and hopefully will trickle down in some way to the players. Hopefully by 2012 , if not sooner, the Mets slogan will Credible AND Amazin' Again.
