Saturday Seasons: In 2003, Howe Low Could They Go?

Fred and Jeff Wilpon tried mightily to erase the sting of the awful 2002 season by bringing in new personnel, but all they ended up with was a repeat in 2003: a team of high-paid underachievers led by a manager who, if you listened to the pundits at the time he was hired, was not up to the task, and a general manager who would finally pay the price for moves that did not work.

               The end result: another last-place finish, nine games worse than 2002.

               It all began with the three-week search for a manager to replace Bobby Valentine, whom Fred Wilpon fired the day after the 2002 season ended. Wilpon considered several options, including Buck Showalter, Chris Chambliss and Willie Randolph. He met with Texas Rangers coach Terry Francona and tried to pry Lou Piniella away from the Seattle Mariners. Word spread that Piniella was eager to come to Queens. But he was under contract with Seattle, and the Mariners demanded compensation, rejecting several Mets offers before taking the Tampa Bay Rays’ all-star outfielder Randy Winn.

''I think he would've appreciated that opportunity,'' Piniella’s agent, Alan Nero, told the New York Times about Piniella wanting to speak to the Mets. ''His whole motivation was to get home, and he accomplished that. I think he's just very disappointed in Seattle -- it's as simple as that -- for not giving him the right to talk to everybody. They could've worked out the compensation later.''

The Mets thought about waiting until the end of the playoffs to speak with Giants manager Dusty Baker, but concluded Baker would not be interested in coming to New York.

So general manager Steve Phillips traveled to Houston on October 12, 2002, and met secretly with Oakland A’s manager Art Howe, whom A’s general manager Billy Beane was willing to release from his contract without compensation (which should have been a tipoff). The laid-back Howe, by all accounts, was the anti-Valentine, with an impressive on-paper track record. And Howe aced the job interview, according to published accounts at the time.

               Why did Howe want to leave team he had taken to the playoffs three times? ''I was looking at it as a good opportunity, financially mostly,'' Howe told the Times. The Mets gave home a four-year, $9.4 million contract, $7.9 million more than he would have earned had he stayed with the A’s.

The newspaper columnists were unimpressed, wondering if the mild-mannered Howe would wilt under the pressure of New York. Newsday’s Jon Heyman wondered: “Like the day after a train wreck, thoughts turned to how this possibly could have happened. How could have things gone so very wrong so fast? How is it that the Mets locked up Art Howe, who everyone outside the organization knows is the wrong fit for this underwhelming team and overbearing city?”

               The Daily News’ John Harper recalled the similar scenario of a decade before, when the Mets pried Jeff Torborg from the White Sox. After speculating that Wilpon hadn’t considered two other candidates with Mets pedigrees – Wally Backman and Lee Mazzilli – Harper concluded, “Howe is a safer choice, which is what Wilpon wanted as a way of saving face on the Piniella affair.” And, noting that Torborg had also wowed the Mets’ owners a decade before in his interview, Harper wrote, “Mets fans better hope Wilpon asked better questions this time.”

               Phillips once again had a busy December, as he reshaped the roster at and around the winter meetings. He pried Tom Glavine away from the Braves with a three-year, $35 million contract, helped along by Fred Wilpon’s constant wooing. “Their owner was a huge part,” Braves manager Bobby Cox told Newsday. “He made a big impression, calling Tommy every two seconds. He swung it.”

               This time, the columnists were considerably less skeptical. “Wake me. I think I’m dreaming,” Heyman wrote. “The Mets roster suddenly contains promise. Their offseason already is a success. Even better, last season feels like a lifetime ago.”

               Even an unusual setback two weeks later was viewed as merely a blip because of a fast Phillips pivot. On December 19, the Mets announced they had signed Japanese third baseman Norihiro Nakamura – the same day the Yankees inked outfielder Hideki Matsui. Nakamura agreed to a two-year, $7 million deal, prompting the Mets to allow Edgardo Alfonzo to leave for the San Francisco Giants. But a day later, Nakamura changed his mind and said he was staying with the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, for reasons that are not entirely clear. One report said the Buffalos’ manager convinced him to stay and offered more money. Another report said he was upset that the news of his deal leaked out before he could tell the Buffaloes, saying "I cannot trust such a team which leaked this information at its own Web site."

               Phillips took the high road. "We respect his decision to change his mind and wish him nothing but the best of luck in the future.''

               Of course, Phillips could be magnanimous because he had other news: the Mets had reached agreement with slugging outfielder Cliff Floyd, filling a power void, even as he tried to trade disappointing outfielders Jeromy Burnitz and Roger Cedeno.

And so it went into the regular season. Mike Stanton signed to help anchor the back end of the bullpen. David Cone also agreed to return. The third base void would be filled by rookie Ty Wigginton. Rey Sanchez was acquired to man shortstop until promising phenom Jose Reyers was deemed ready for the major leagues.

               But whatever optimism might have carried into the regular season was quickly dashed on opening day, when the Mets laid a historic egg at Shea Stadium: a 15-2 drubbing by the Cubs, the worst opener in Mets history. Glavine couldn’t find the plate, and when he wasn’t walking batters, he was surrendering hits. He left after giving up four runs in three and a third innings. His replacements were even worse. Floyd dropped a ball in the first inning. Cedeno, in center field, didn’t fare any better.

               What did our namesake have to say about the game? “Oh, sure, I’ve seen some bad ones,” Ralph Kiner said. “We had a bad start in ’62 that lasted nine games. But I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one here worse than this.”

               Newsday columnist Johnette Howard summed it up this way: “This was as though last season never ended for the Mets. This was as though someone somehow found a way to knit the Mets’ 2002 and 2003 seasons together into one seamless nightmare.”

               Things never got much better. Glavine ended up on the disabled list with elbow soreness. First baseman Mo Vaughn suffered what proved to be a career-ending knee injury a month into the season. The most notable achievement of his replacement, Tony Clark, was agreeing to change his uniform number from 00 to 52 after schoolchildren asked him why he was wearing Mr. Met’s number.

 Mike Piazza severely strained his right groin and was on the DL for two months, an injury that prompted the Mets to have him take reps at first base, a position where he was as uncomfortable as the man he replaced as Mets catcher, Todd Hundley, was when the Mets moved Hundley to the outfield. (Piazza’s biggest problem? Let’s just say his footwork there did not serve as an audition for Dancing with the Stars).

The only silver lining to the injury cloud came when Sanchez went on the DL and the Mets were forced to call up Reyes from AAA.

               Reyes went 2-for-4 in his debut and took over as the starting shortstop – until he suffered a season-ending ankle sprain at the end of August.

               Reyes’ callup was Phillips’ last big move. Two days later, Wilpon fired him and replaced him with assistant GM Jim Duquette. The team was 29-35, 15 games behind the division-leading Braves.

               Duquette quickly began dismantling the roster. In quick succession, he traded Roberto Alomar, Armando Benitez and Jeromy Burnitz. And suddenly, what had been a veteran team was relying on rookies: Reyes Wigginton, Jason Phillips, Jae Wong Seo, Aaron Heilman.

               When it was over, the record was 66-95, last place, 34 ½ games behind the Braves.

               “Now we have a chance to start anew,” the always optimistic Howe said after the season’s final game. “We definitely had a lot of positives. Obviously we had our share of negatives, and that starts with the won-loss record. Sometimes you have to get kicked in the teeth to start in the right direction.”

               The Mets, or at least Glavine, would need a dentist in 2004. But that’s a story for another day.