Saturday Seasons: In 2002, It Went from Hype to Hope to Ho-Hum

The 2002 Mets were yet another example of the maxim that winning the offseason does not translate into winning the pennant.

               Determined to avoid a repeat of the 2001 debacle, when the Mets limped to a 77-84 fifth place finish, general manager Steve Phillips worked feverishly to overhaul the roster, jettisoning some longtime Mets and bringing in some well-known replacements. And most media members and baseball insiders commented at the time that Phillips absolutely crushed it, starting just before the winter meetings, when he traded pitcher Kevin Appier to the Angels for first baseman Mo Vaughn.

               Never mind that Vaughn had missed the entire 2001 season recovering from left bicep surgery; if you looked at the back of his baseball card you would see a power hitter and accomplished fielder who would soon make people forget the much-criticized and soon-to-be-traded Todd Zeile.

               Then, at the winter meetings, Phillips surprised the rest of baseball with a trade that the cognoscenti effused vaulted the Mets into the ranks of the contenders, sending Alex Escobar, Matt Lawton and Jerrod Riggan to Cleveland (then known as the Indians) for sure first-ballot Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar.

               “This is one of the great baseball steals,” Daily News columnist Mike Lupica penned in his newspaper, whose news story carried the headline” “Mets’ Alomar Deal is Second to None.”

Wrote Newsday baseball columnist Jon Heyman: “The Mets jumped into the game in a big way early yesterday with the announcement that Roberto Alomar was theirs. Before yesterday, the Mets really weren’t even in the game. This was a true coup….The Mets got great offense, superb defense and maybe the best baserunner in the game wrapped into one iceberg-smooth 170-pound package.”

Manager Bobby Valentine chimed in: “This is exactly the type of ballplayer I’ve always wanted.”

On paper, the Mets were getting a 12-time all-star, 10-time Gold Glove winner who had hit .336 the previous season, with a .415 on-base percentage and 113 runs scored. Over the previous decade, Alomar had 1,892 hits, the most in baseball.  And moving Edgardo Alfonso to third base to make room for Alomar seemed like a small concession, even though Fonzie was less than enthused.

Two days later, Phillips signed David Weathers to be a reliable setup man to closer Armando Benitez, and three days after that, he sent Desi Relaford and Tsuyoshi Shinjo to the Giants for starter Shawn Estes and cleared room in the budget by trading for and then trading outfielder David Justice (shedding Robin Ventura in the process).

The feeling was that Phillips was looking to add one more big bat to create protection in the lineup for catcher Mike Piazza. Perhaps he would trade for the Tigers’ Bobby Higginson, people speculated at the time, or sign free agent Juan Gonzalez.

But no, the big bat, who arrived via a three-team January trade, was former Met Jeromy Burnitz – a trade that saw Zeile, Benny Agbayani, Alex Ochoa, Lenny Harris and Glendon Rusch say goodbye to Shea Stadium. Coming to New York were injury-prone starter Jeff D’Amico and outfielder Mark Sweeney, who wouldn’t make it to the end of spring training. Phillips also brought back outfielder Roger Cedeno, a free agent.

Again, on paper, reqcquiring Burnitz seemed to fit the Mets’ needs. He had hit 35 home runs and batted in 100 runs in 2001, and had hit at least 30 home runs and 98 RBIs in each of the previous four seasons.

Leave it to Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden to be the canary in the coal mine. While the news stories were portraying the Mets as a team with a formidable lineup. Madden wrote of Phillips: “He has turned over more than 40 percent of the 25-man roster since October. Unfortunately, all we can be sure of at the moment is that the new talent is going to cost a whole more than what it replaced…In spite of all these high-profile, high-salaried players they’ve brought in, so much could go wrong and turn the Mets into the baseball version of the [then-struggling] Knicks.”

Too bad Madden didn’t use his crystal ball instead to pick the winning Powerball numbers. He could have retired rich.

For while the season started with great optimism – “I can’t wait. It’s going to be an adventure,” Vaughn was quoted in a Daily News story previewing the season opener, while Alomar added, “Ever since I arrived for spring training, I’ve been looking forward to Opening Day…I can’t wait to start the season the right was and win lots of games” – the team as a whole never got untracked.

It took a long time for Vaughn to work out the rust, both at the bat and in the field. Writers were commenting that the soft hands baseball people had marveled about were not the only soft part of his body, thanks to his weight ballooning to 268 pounds during his layoff year. (He would end up hitting 26 home runs, including his 300^th career dinger on April 3 and a 505-foot shot at Shea on June 16.)

It would not have been unfair for people to wonder if an imposter was masquerading as Alomar. His average would drop 70 points, to .266 and his on-base percentage 84 points, to .33. It was a plunge so severe it made people yearn for a previous Cleveland-to-New York second baseman, Carlos Baerga. Burnitz’ home run production dropped to 19, and his RBI total to 52, while hitting only .215.

The Mets limped through the first few months of the season but, amazingly, on June 1, their record was 29-25 and they were only a half game behind the division-leading Atlanta Braves. It was all downhill from there. A month later—halfway through the season -- they were 10 ½ games back, and by the all-star break 10 days after that, writers were wondering whether the Mets would be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline, with ace starter Al Leiter and his expiring contract as a large trade chip.

“There is no easy explanation for what has happened to the Mets,” Newsday’s David Lennon wrote, “and no one associated with them, from the front office to the players, has come up with a solution…But the Mets, with a $102 million payroll, are the most expensive flop in baseball.”

Phillips wasn’t willing to give up on the season, however. He made two trades to shore up the pitching staff, obtaining starter John Thomson from the Colorado Rockies and reliever Steve Reed from the San Diego Padres, shedding in the process outfielder Jay Payton, another longtime Met. While Reed pitched credibly, Thomson was a disappointment, going 2-6 with a 4.31 ERA.

And instead of being invigorated by the deals, the Mets went into a tailspin, the type of August that has almost become a signature for the team (Its .466 winning percentage in August over its lifetime is the worst month for the team, although June, at .468, is close).

In the midst of what would become a 12-game losing streak, general manager Phillips and manger Valentine both finally lost it. In pregame news conference before what would become the 11^th loss, Phillips said of the players: “It feels like they don’t think they can win when they go out there.” Two days later, Valentine allowed as how the losses were “eating at his soul,” and lamented at the “lack of disciples” in the clubhouse, practically begging for owner Fred Wilpon to put him out of his misery. (Some days earlier, Wilpon had addressed the team. While not getting into specifics, Wilpon said, “It was short, but it wasn’t sweet.”)

Some columnists were also pointing to rifts between the manager and the general manager that produced a team, and half a coaching staff, not of the manager’s liking.

When it was all over, it certainly wasn’t sweet: a 75-86 record, two games worse than the year before. “It’s all about attitude, and I didn’t get the right attitude instilled. That’s what they said, not me. We’ll see what happens next year,” Valentine was quoted as saying in Newsday.

Valentine would not be around to see it. Days after the season ended, Wilpon fired him. And Valentine, the winningest manager in Mets history, did not go quietly, taking a parting shot at Phillips. He told the Westchester-Rockland papers: "Nobody in this organization has done more for the community than I have. Steve Phillips has done nothing in the community. I went to his church for a father-son night, his church, and he was late."