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R.A. Dickey: The Trade, Fans and Media

By Mike Silva ~ December 18th, 2012. Filed under: New York Mets.

Now that R.A. Dickey is official going north of the border to Toronto, it’s appropriate to talk about the trade and assess the situation.

As I said during Sunday night’s “NY Baseball Talk” podcast, the Dickey scenario takes on three interesting storylines: the actual trade, the fan reaction and how the media elected to paint him with a harsh brush on the way out.

From a baseball point of view it’s hard to argue with the deal and its return. Ideally, Sandy Alderson would have the capital to invest in this group and attempt to compete for a playoff spot. With two Wild Cards positions in play, it’s not inconceivable that another $20-$30 million dollars invested in the short term can turn this 74-win team to into one that wins somewhere in the vicinity of 85 games and has a shot to do something in September, if all things break right. It’s a strategy that a New York team should be able to digest even during transitional periods. If you look back at the 2011 Mets Opening Day roster, it’s a team that was underrated and easily could have competed if ownership had the capital to invest in it. They could have had their cake and eat it too: rebuild and compete at the same time. Alas, we know the truth (even though the Wilpons think you don’t); as this ownership group’s number one priority is saving themselves from the massive debt they have incurred post-Madoff. That prevents them from fielding complete rosters and competing. It may be the case for the remainder of their ownership; however long that lasts.

Knowing that, it made total sense for Alderson to deal R.A. Dickey. In just 18 months he’s been able to take two late-prime players (Beltran and Dickey) and turn them into three top 100 prospects. Not easy to do even in the best of circumstances. To be fair, he was extremely lucky thanks to desperation by Giants’ GM Brian Sabean, who saw a window to repeat but had an anemic offensive club, as well as Toronto doing an about- face and putting their chips to the center of the table for the first time since the early 90s. Hopefully, ownership will either be gone or able to spend come 2014 when these prospects could potentially give the Mets an interesting core of players. Maybe the only criticism here is that Jose Reyes and David Wright might have netted Alderson an even more impressive haul of young players. Why they didn’t do a full fire sale, knowing how severe ownerships financial situation is, might remain the million dollar mystery.

The fans are the losers here in the short-term. Maybe in three years this all won’t matter if Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard are key components to a winning ballclub. Did anyone cry over the Lee Mazzilli trade when Ron Darling was winning 15 games? Mazzilli even was able to come back and enjoy the good times; perhaps Dickey will do the same. The shame of it all is that every player the fans have tried to embrace in recent years has been sent out the door, with Wright the only exception. I always preach how fans need to remove sentimentality when it comes to players in the modern game. Teams view the athletes as assets – think of your stock portfolio- and if they can trade that asset for better ones with higher upside, they must do it. It’s the cold and calculated way of the modern game. When millions of dollars are at stack there is no other way to behave.

With that said, sports teams are in the business of marketing themselves. Fans will always flock to a winner, but if you want a sustainable patronage, you need to give your customers something they can connect with. The Mets of the 80s will forever be in the fans hearts because of their success, but also because they had a pretty stable roster over a 7-year period. Dickey was a cult hero due to the fact he wasn’t all that different from you and I. He was a family man, liked Star War, enjoyed literature and was conversational. He was authentic and held himself accountable, which is in rare supply for most of the sports teams in this town. Just when the fans fell in love with this story, they were abruptly divorced from it. It leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths even though the logic behind it is sound. Remember, marketing and synergy doesn’t always follow “if-then” logic. That is why sabermetricians will never be embraced by the mainstream fan. That is why this trade would get a negative approval rating if you did a scientific poll across all segments of the Mets’ fan base.

The final of this puzzle is the media. The same people that made Dickey a star with their platitudes have turned on him on the way out. Well, not all of them, but the NY Post certainly has. In just the last two weeks the newspaper has painted Dickey as a self-promoter, bad teammate and an injury-risk. Apparently answering questions honestly at the team’s holiday party also traumatized young children. Ironically, this information only came out after Dickey told Alderson that he wouldn’t do the organization the same favor his teammate, David Wright, did just a couple of weeks early: play for a below market value contract. That’s when Dickey became the enemy and his exodus out of town a main priority.

The trio of Joel Sherman, Ken Davidoff and Mike Puma all teamed up to paint Dickey various shades of gray. Davidoff even felt compelled to defend his Dickey stance after fans reached out angrily to him on Twitter. Meanwhile, Andy Martino of the NY Post gave a balanced view of Dickey as he acknowledged there were individuals who had issues with Dickey’s embrace of celebrity, but it wasn’t anyone that we would give credibility to. The News has been kind to the Mets and the Wilpons (see their relationship with SNY), so this surprised me as I figured the paper would be right in the muck kicking Dickey out the door since he turned down an appearance at the request of Fred. Why is the NY Post the only outlet with this harsh position? Are they angry that Wayne Coffee of the News wrote Dickey’s book? Did Dickey pass up interviews with any of the Post trio? You have to be cynical when it comes to the media today since there is fierce competition thanks to the oversupply of news. There are agendas in every corner, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

If the Rays didn’t acquire top prospect Wil Myers from Kansas City, would Toronto be so willing to overpay for Dickey? Hard to tell absolutely, but I suspect the answer is no. Would Alderson have been forced to accept riskier prospects (i.e. the Rangers’ Mike Olt) just to get Dickey out of town? Maybe, and knowing the history of this ownership group it’s probably a safe assumptions to lean towards the yes column. In the end the Mets made a great trade for themselves based on their current position on the development cycle. The fans lost a cult figure they so badly needed during these challenging times on the field. The media, well, they didn’t disappoint as they proved to us again that you need to be very analytical about how and why they report certain things.

The R.A. Dickey story was fascinating since that first start in Washington in May of 2010. Its New York chapter ended with all three aforementioned stakeholders adding interesting intrigue to the new phase of his baseball life.

Makes for a good book sequel, don’t you think?

Mike Silva is a freelance media professional. He discusses sports and media with a New York slant at his personal blog "The Sports Media Watchdog." He hosts the NY Baseball Talk and Sports Media Watchdog podcasts, and a monthly radio show on 1240 AM WGBB. Contact him professionally at mikesilvamedia.com

Mike Silva

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Tags: Andy Martino, Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon, Joel Sherman, Ken Davidoff, Mike Puma, New York Mets, Noah Syndergaard, NY Daily News, NY Post, R.A. Dickey, Sandy Alderson, Toronto Blue Jays, Travis d'Arnaud

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R.A. Dickey: The Trade, Fans and Media

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