Speaking for myself, I was extremely skeptical of the organizational depth coming into this season.

I also think a lot of folks shared my view.

However, the Buffalo Bisons are dramatically better than they have been previously since affiliating with the Mets.

And, more important, they have sent a steady stream of fill-in players to the Mets and a remarkable number of them have contributed at the major league level.

Guys like Mike Baxter, Rob Johnson, Omar Quintanilla, Vinny Rotinio, and Jeremy Hefner. Not exactly prospects. But they've been so much more than what we've come to expect when the Mets had to replace front-line players.

The success comes for a lot of reasons, I think. There's probably some luck.

But it's been too common an occurrence for it to be all luck or coincidence.

First, the front office was able to identify guys that would produce, even though they looked like typical AAAA players on the surface.

Second, Wally Backman deserves credit for preparing them to come up and contribute.
Third, the whole atmosphere on the big club, where TC treats them all like major leaguers and gets them in games and expects them to produce and play like big leaguers.

A lot of people deserve praise for what's happening here.

Im not sure how Sandy gets credit here. Can you be a little more specific. The guys you mentioned, are they players Sandy acquired? Im asking because Im not really sure if the current players who have been major contributors to this ball club were Sandys doing or Omars.

yeah a lot are omar too

The guys he mentioned-Mike Baxter, Rob Johnson, Omar Quintanilla, Vinny Rottnio, and Jeremy Hefner- were all acquired by Sandy.

It's nearly impossible to assign credit for the teams success. Being 100% honest the majority of the credit in my eyes goes to Omar (and I'm anything but an Omar fan) but

-Brought in Collins
-Re-signed Wright to extension to keep him here
-Signed Tejada
-Drafted Murphy
-Drafted Thole
-Drafted Parnell
-Drafted Duda
-Drafted Gee
-Traded for Johan
-Drafted Niese
-Signed Dickey


That's not to say the new front office hasn't helped but I begrudgingly have to say this is far more Omar's creation then Sandy's. That said.... odds are when this team challenges for the WS Sandy guys like Wheeler/Fulmer will be massive keys to that.

I was always pretty supportive of Omar and I think he deserves credit for a lot of the guys who are helping this team. A lot of the core are guys he signed or acquired.

But that wasn't my point, really.

When I looked at the fringe guys I mentioned, I saw guys I didn't expect would do all that much for Buffalo, let alone the Mets.

I mean, who knew the difference between Omar Quintanilla and Joaquin Arias? Or Mike Baxter and anyone number of no-hit marginal outfielders we've seen come up in recent years.

Now, Quintanilla's only been here a few days, so he could be badly exposed down the road. But he's also about the third tier of players they've gone through as a middle infielder and we're just over two months into the season. And he's contributing.

These guys know how to play and you see a guy like Baxter put his body on the line for a team that used to have guys making millions who wouldn't always get their uniforms dirty.

To me, there's some good scouting and good preparation going on.

In his 1st few years Omar did an excellent job with his under the radar moves ... Guys like Endy, Pornstache, dirty, Maine, nady which turned into Ollie, Shrek, el duque, Bradford etc etc etc ... All them contributed mightily to the early success of that regime.

I think Sandy has done a decent job with some of these under the radar moves ...I love Baxter (great catch ... But such a shame that he got hurt) ... But overall his moves to improve the MLB roster has been pretty underwhelming ... I guess we can give Sandy credit for his patience and faith in a roster that is mostly from the previous regime.

Sandy...credit where credit is due....Byrdak, Hairston and Baxter have been fantastic...but really, the Rottinos, Hefners, Quintinillas, Johnsons have had small degrees of success in limited time. Others might have a longer impact...Young, Ramirez, Torres, Rauch, Francisco....

Wally...not sure why gets any credit for those guys, and the ML guys only had small impacts from him (Ike, Duda, Thole, Tejada, who were ahead of Wally's managing, etc...)

This is largely Omar's team...successes and failures alike...Tejada, Johan, Dickey, Niese, Gee, Duda, Murphy, Ike, Kirk, Parnell, Nickeas, then on the other side...Bay.

Sandy has done a great job in my opinion up to this point. However, when do we acknowledge the Torres for Pagan trade for the awful exchange it was? Still too early for that one?

he got a bullpen arm too in that deal and saved money

and Pagan does have a higher BA but OBP is almost the same and Torres is a better fielder

I was thinking about this yesterday, and I've decided that I would make that trade 100 times out of 100 after the season Pagan had last year and his track record as being an injuryfest. You also have to ask yourself how Pagan's health would have impacted the development of Kirk. Pagan clearly outplaying Torres and Ramirez has been meh, but would the Mets be better off with Pagan playing well and Kirk in AAA? Torres being hurt and not-so-good has actually been pretty helpful.

You also look a lot better stepping in for Andres Torres and Ruben Tejada than you do stepping in for Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes.