Howie Rose Talks Pete Alosno Contract, MVP Race, & Remembering 9/11

legendary voice of the Mets I myself grew up watching him on Sports channel with Fran Healey I've told how this before I I loved you grew up I actually wrote him a letter BT I want to yeah yeah so all that stuff how knows don't need to go into that but howy Rose joined us welcome aboard Howe hey guys nice to be with you how about those Mets I mean it's been a fun run this year out of nowhere uh 17 games to go how you feeling about the playoff chances this year based on everything you've seen up close and in person it's crazy any one of these teams in the Mi can get in and any one of the teams that get in can win it all I mean I think there's that much parody I look around Major League Baseball I don't see a superpower and so the Mantra just get in I think is stronger now than it's ever been what do you think the key is here Hoy for this team it's been the thing that I love about it it's been a different player or different aspect of the team every single night throughout the course of the Year 17 to go we know where they stand they get the Phillies they get the Braves there as well before going on into the postseason what do you think the biggest key is for this team to get in what has to happen for the Mets to get in the playoff spot well I certainly think for any team the key is health because we know who and what they are right now so I think with the Mets the one thing you want to hopefully be able to maintain and last night would be considered the exception as to the recent rule is the length that they've gotten from their starting pitchers again Peterson last night being kind of the outlier among the recent performances he and manah who goes today and seino had consistently been giving them six seven Innings and taking the strain off of a bullpen that clearly had been overworked over the first third of the season and there had been so much flu Flex you know flux is the right word in the bullpen too that um what I think has been encouraging is how the roles have stabilized out there and nobody's being asked other than on again this gets back to the starting pitching the occasional BAS to having to perform too much of a workload so for example if you throw B even one inning you've got to give him the next day off but between stanic and mton you've got guys who can go back to back and give you credible performances so I think they've established some depth and reasonable reliability out there and that is such a big factor when you get towards the postseason now how I didn't write your letter but but I've always been a fan and an Admire I think you do an awesome job on the radio looking forward to hopefully yeah I I mean that I think you're as good as it gets so I appreciate that I it's all good we're wrapped up in the now understandably with the penet race here can you take us back though I want to get a sense of of what not even if you if you didn't fully project this on the air inwardly Mets are 11 games under 500 and anytime you know me doing St John's I'm like all right they could be this this year or they could be that like you kind of have a sense of what they might do when the Mets were just languishing and they just looked looked almost unprofessional did you think that this was even remotely possible not to this extent I had penciled them in going into the season as an 80 to 84 is Win team and I'd always said based on the last couple of years that if you hover around 500 you're in the conversation so when we were say around the 1st of June I don't think any of us projected and this doesn't um only include the Mets and we're talking about teams like Arizona and San Diego who I think had been underachieving to an extent remember the Diamondbacks had won the pennant last year but I don't think anybody expected that it might have taken 90 wins to get the third wild card we might be looking at that number right now I thought it would be more along the lines of 86 to 88 somewhere in there yeah and that didn't seem quite plausible for the Mets as late as the end of May but I think a couple of things happened and one of the most significant and it it certainly wasn't understated because of the OMG and everything else but you know when J glacius came up and you'll remember that they broke camp with Zack short and Joey Wendell as utility infielders and it wasn't long before they determined that wasn't enough and so the questions they had about a glacius is range and ability to defend at the major league level uh were basically Shrugged off they brought them up here and I'll never forget the first I think it might have been his his debut and maybe he had been in one game prior to that but anyway late May they're trailing I believe 10 to3 against Arizona at City Field two out in the ninth inning and he beats out a routine ground ball to short stuff I mean the game's over right anybody else is probably out at first base by half a step at at the least he beats that thing out and that's a bit of a wakeup call now they go on to score a couple of more runs they lose the game but he gave them a jolt of energy that anybody had a right to expect and obviously you know he went on to hit at a level that none of us saw happening when they move Francisco Lindor to the leadoff spot he took off and that was certainly a catalytic agent in moving them to where they are right now I think those are the two big things that I look at that we couldn't have necessarily foreseen at the end of May that are big reasons for where they are where they are right now BT and S we're talking about hoe Rose pleasure to be joined by Howie every Wednesday 11: a.m. throughout the course of the rest of the season here you mentioned Lindor how he where does he rank you've seen it all as far as the Mets go where does Lindor rank as far as the greatest Mets position players that you've seen in terms of this regular season or as an overall oh that's a great Point actually there were two parts to it I was thinking more overall like when all said and done it's hard for me to believe this now but after the year he's had lindor's likely going to have his number retired and he's going to be a Hall of Famer which is crazy so so overall as opposed to just this individual season you know what I I we may be getting a little ahead of ourselves with that you know he's 30 let's see how the rest of the career progresses and it's it's been it's anything but a linear path to this point as a met um but I think where he's come from where he was his first year in 2020 is remarkable clearly he's a sensitive kid that by his own admission was trying too hard to justify the contract and was affected by the booing that he heard that first year certainly the first month or six weeks of that first year in particular he's grown from that he's grown into the experience of not only playing in New York but being a leader in New York and an important part of a contending team and so I think you know if you look at the quote Pantheon of best position players in Mets history um yeah maybe he's top 10 uh and I wouldn't want to sit here and start counting 1 to 10 right now because I'm the spur of the moment you either forget people or overstate things but I I I'm I'm still going to pull back on that a little bit until we see a little more I think that's the prudent move there Howe I would agree my partners get a little giddy you push this thing a little f i do overreact I have a tendency to overreact that's why I want to ask Howie he would know I I respect how's opinion on it all good all good you know what that's amazing talking about you know top 10 or Pantheon the Mets and and I know there's obviously examples to the contrary here hoe and S but you usually met position prospects are are hyped they come up and they flounder the Enos is kind of the opposite like you look at the the four players that were getting all the all the all the attention for a while and he was kind of generally L vento's fourth with doesn't really have a position he's a DH at age 22 like he's had an amazing season and the way he hits his intelligence his anticipation his ability to adjust this is not a charade I think that Vientos is going to be a middle of the order stud for a while what are you seeing well first off what encourages me the most about that possibility is that he has been largely slump proof over a long period of time and very often a young hitter like that starts to be recognized around the league and inevitably the pitchers make adjustments and then it's on the hitter to counter adjust and to whatever extent that's happened he's avoided any kind of a a big pitfall that's encouraging in and of itself but I think you have to take it a few years back when Vientos was on his way through the system from what I've heard from people within the system at the time he wasn't considered the hardest worker necessarily he'd always had offensive ability and I think he always felt that his Bat would play regardless of where his defense wound up but when Brett Dy was called up a couple of years ago for the first time or Vientos that was a wakeup call Tim tuffle was in the Mets organiz gation then as a roving infield instructor and when B was called up Vientos got on the phone he called Tim tuffle and said hey can can you meet me for some extra work tomorrow next week whatever it was and that was a wakeup call I think from Mark that batty got the call and I think the word circulating through the med system was that ventos a needed to work harder and needed to improve defensively and those things went hand in hand so there was a little bit of a a growth period just right there because he saw batty recalled and between that and the amount that he's worked this year whether with Mike sarbar or even with Lindor and on his own knowing that he had the opportunity to do what he's done to this point you know I think is the simple maturation of a player who may have actually already overshot the expectations from within the system because I go back couple of years I'm trying to remember now I guess it would have been the 2021 season when they were hovering around contention and you guys might remember that there was some thought that the Mets were going to pursue David Robertson uh to help out on the bullpen he was with the Cubs then and I had heard however true or untrue this might be these are things you start to hear I'd heard that however interested the Mets were in Robertson the Cubs wanted Vientos and the med said no we're holding on to him we think he's got a future here even if he wasn't heralded among you know the the bigger prospects in the organization certainly not a a camp Miss Prospect so they and again it's a different Administration now right because the whole front office changed but apparently there was a decision made a few years ago that Vientos had a future here if he'd work on the things that I just mentioned and that's all worked out beautifully and Mark is such a good kid he's humble he's proud he he's not taking anything for granted here and just continues to get better and I love seeing that from a young player he's been a treat to watch that that that's awesome and that's why we have Yan how Rose B sou a few other things we want to jump into real quick though let's whether it's two three four years whenever he fully matures as a hitter personally you think do you think he's in the two spot three four five where do you see him ultimately the anos yep I think some of that depends on what the makeup of the roster is beyond this year there's a lot of flux here um I think that there are people here who are going to be at a bit of a Crossroads going into next year we don't even know for example if Pete Alonzo is going to be here uh we know that Brandon nmo will be but where does he factor in he's hit obviously in the leadoff spot but had settled into a two roll he said clean up on a handful of occasions I don't see that happening I think that two hitter roll is in somewhat of a flux but but Marx responded well and um the way that position the two-hole is looked at now as opposed to 10 15 20 years ago he might be a little bit more of the modern prototype two hitter than the old hit it the other way and move the runner over model you know yeah so so I I could certainly see him settling into that but I think a lot of that depends on what the roster looks like next year and Beyond yeah and also where stto wants to hit once say this for months Howe soos come to Queens that's what he says mentioned Pete Alonzo I'd be curious to get your thoughts on not only Alonzo's season the word I would use to describe it was not impactful I know he's got 31 homers but you just missing that impact be curious your thoughts on not only Alonzo's season but what you would do with him moving forward well I think we all expected more to this point and I think Pete expected more and only he can answer whether he's been pressing under the strain of knowing that he's in his walk year and how many millions and millions of dollars are potentially on the table he's the only guy that can really respond to that but you look at it and and you say well it's an easy statement to make but yeah maybe it's gotten to him a little bit and you keep hoping going back weeks and weeks well we got two months left we got six weeks left we got a month left but we're down to two and a half weeks and he's still capable of going on the kind of tear that most power hitters do that could carry a team right to where they need to go but it is getting kind of late and so what he's also got to do is impress upon this Administration who did not draft him who did not sign him that he's worthy of the kind of deal that he's going to seek my feeling personally is that I I think that when you take everything into consideration as front office's Duke he's going to be 30 years old when his next contract begins they have all of this analytic information now biomechanical and whatnot that inform you what a player based on his body type his injury history his batting stance his propensity for either chasing laying officer how he responds to everything they've got all of the data necessary to project and inform what this player is going to look like in year two year four year five year six of a longe country of a multi-year contract I'm not sure at age 30 that that's where this organization wants to go that's a question that obviously will be answered in the off season my guess if you're pinning me to the wall for one is that they might make him say a three-year offer for whatever the money it could be exorbitant and probably would have to be again having hired Scott Boris as his agent and looking for the big hit I mean he's going to be 30 right this is just one real opportunity to make the big hit I'm not sure that would be enough but I'm not sure what would be on the table elsewhere too it's kind of fascinating when you consider how the fan base has has loved Pete for these six years now and how if he's back he'll probably break Daryl strawberry's Club record for home runs next year I would like to see that happen I just don't know if the numbers are going to work yeah I mean Howe I've been saying this and and they you I would they want to stoned me in public Met fans and howy Rose says that they're probably how's right but say the same thing no offense BT but it is Howe Rose is how we Rose it is for sure how I do want to you got remember something this is opinion I don't know anything right I mean they could they could very easily come back and and make him the kind of offer that keeps him here Beyond say the three years that I hypothesize but that's just that's just my feel for situation and I think that your feel is going to be spot on I if if it even gets that far it could be a little less than that depending upon how things finish up this year but see what I think is really complicated his value is yeah he's had a down year this year based on his standards we all know that but I think it's compounded and this would worry me more long term is that it's not an anomaly now with two down years with a batting average like if last year what was it 217 or whatever he finished at last year if last year was more in the 260 neighborhood which or 265 which it was for a couple of years you can maybe justify and say well maybe the pressure he internalized it it was it was a problem it's not really the real Pete Alonzo two years in a row down batting average that's kind of becoming the real Pete Alonzo I don't think that's unfair I know that b average is discounted the you know from what it was when we were cutting our teeth as Baseball fans I'm not sure I agree with that anyway I think there this overabundance of uh statistical forces that sometimes make you scratch your head and go oh wait a minute you know there's still nothing wrong with a 300 hitter um but he's never been a 300 hitter that's not who he is that's in all likelihood something he won't be but they've just got a measure as I said before based on a number of different Criterion whether it's going to be worth the contract that he is potentially going to seek and also you know when you look at the comps he's not Freddy Freeman um you know gmid got a great deal back in the day he has not aged well I mean he's really getting near the end now obviously he's you know quite a few years older than Pete in fact GMI was sort of Pete's Idol and prototype for what Pete's wanted come as a first baseman and and and you know what and I give Pete a lot of credit because you know all through the system we heard he was going to be a terrible liability defensively and I remember the first year Terry Collins was um just basically roving and doing a little scouting for the Mets after um he stopped managing I remember Terry coming back after watching Alonzo and going he's not that bad I mean he's not what they've kind of led us to believe he was and he's worked hard to make himself even better than that he is serviceable defensively gold Glover no but again that's just one facet of what they will consider when they look at what projects as the longterm Pete Alonzo and as I mentioned you know Freeman got his goldi got his they are supposedly deemphasizing big contracts for first baseman um I'm not quite sure why but they I say they the generic they think that's not going to help Pete's cause very much we'll see but I kind of stand where I've already stated that I think the Mets offer will probably be more for Big Money short term than a real long-term deal and it will be fascinating to see how that plays out we appreciate your time how I do want to get to a couple things though before we let you go it was a sad week of course with the passing of Ed cran poool what did Ed cran poool mean to you and just overall Met fans who grew up watching him being a lifelong met just as Ron SWOT said you know he was Mr met and I I I think back to the very first pennant race game the Mets ever played in 1969 it wasn't in September it was in July of 69 and they had made their breakthrough they had an 11 game winning streak late May into June and for the first time since being born in 1962 they were at least at midseason contenders so you can only imagine what Shay stadium was like that afternoon when they faced the Cubs in the first of a three-game series five games behind first place Chicago in the standings well Ferguson Jenkins a future Hall of Famer has them no hit through the first four the game is scoreless who gets the first hit for the Mets Eddie a home run they're ahead one to nothing they ultimately fall behind three to one going to the ninth inning they tie the game and who gets the hit to win the game for the Mets against Jenkins but Ed crane poool I mean it was so poetically perfect that the guy who'd been there even though it was only a cameo and 1962 yeah would you know win the first big game they ever played and if you ever get a chance to to watch the the film or the tape of Eddie's home run in the 1969 World Series it was an add-on run they were on their way to winning the game five to nothing I think that made it five to nothing in fact but you could see him running the bases with this huge smile on his face all the way around the bases and he's told me that while he was running the bases he thought about who they were where they come from and and just what that meant to him and I think that encapsulates who he was he was as proud of met as there's ever been but more importantly he's a guy who had significant health and physical challenges through the latter years of his life you know about the kidney transplant uh which was five years ago he had diabetes which took a terrible toll on him having surgeries on on both feet that left him um in in a position where it became very difficult just to walk but yet there he was he'd be at the ballpark now and then whenever I'd see him whether it was socially or at the Ballpark smiling never complaining loved the talk baseball and and just you know embraced his life despite the challenges and he was just a wonderful wonderful man and this has just been one lousy year for the Mets having lost four members now of the 1969 world champions in relatively speaking a very short time yeah yeah and he's one of us you know like Lee missil from Brooklyn Ed's from here um yeah it does make it a little more special and Bittersweet for sure Howe last thing so and we'll work up to the Piaza home run call 9911 we try to get back and we did get off the mat but it was it was hard how did you strike the balance of incorporating just the reality of what we were facing the human element and and then actually trying to do your job at the same time how tough was that oh you got a minute because it's kind of a convoluted story but before that game on September 21st of 2001 remember now it was not only the first baseball game in New York since the attacks but it was the first time that we were going to have a public gathering of anywhere between 40 and 50,000 so for a lot of us who were going to be at the Ballpark that night we were not lacking for some degree of trepidation I know on my way to the ballpark I was nervous I was not thrilled about going into a building with that many people when we were all shaken to the core as we've been 10 days earlier almost waiting for another shoe to drop I mean the the amount of nervousness and paranoia that engulfed us all is kind of hard to understand if you weren't of age 23 years ago so that was the backdrop to to the game and then when I got there I was doing TV that night with Fran Healey and I think Ralph was at the game too Ralph ker and the executives from the Madison Square Garden Network who oversaw the production of the game came into the booth and told us beforehand that this was going to be unlike any game we'd ever done before and that we could not and this was at their insistence we could not emote the way we normally would so you know if you feel the urge to get really excited over a great play or a big hit it might not reflect the mood of the people because everybody is still so scarred the wound is still fresh so you got to kind of keep everything muted and understated and whatever you do and this is funny because of how it played out later but they said whatever you do don't make any references to things that people will be sensitive to no mention of bombs explosions things that sometimes creep into the baseball vernacular not tonight we don't want any of that okay they left the booth and I'm thinking well this is going to be kind of challenging because I don't know how the crowd's going to react at any given moment right I mean it's still a spontaneous event so now you fast forward to the bottom of the eighth inning Patza hits the Home Run and I'm going this one has a chance when it was clearly on its way over the white stone bridge I mean off the off the that that thing was a home run yeah but I couldn't start yelling and screaming it's gone it's gone I kind of had to as for instructions keep it lowkey and muted as best I could and then the instincts of a broadcaster take over especially on television at that moment once that ball clears the wall you let the pictures do the talking but the corer to the whole thing is that Fran Healey who was on that call with me had a very contentious relationship for a lot of reasons that I won't get into with those Executives at MSG he loved tweaking them they loved going after him it was not a pleasant thing to be involved with even on the periphery so if you listen long enough behind however they generally clip that call after P gets back to the Dugout hey goes in defiance of what they had told us he goes this place has been waiting to explode and it just exploded oh that word as defiantly as you could and I'm just shaking my head grinning thinking this crazy so I mean with everything going on he's got to create you know just another layer of um potential animous between himself and the executives but he didn't care and they did and I was just trying to stay out of it that is a wow great story and well worth the time here how we we appreciate it so much I know we took a lot of your time up today we appreciate it look forward to on every Wednesday here throughout the course of the rest of the season thank you my pleasure guys be well I love how and and fr h on those games I always like FR what a me too I always loved you know what we should get it FR on cuz people like oh FR heal you like yes I did he got knocked around a lot I never understood it I always liked the guy here with the lone two like media members that love fre and hilly or at least you know onadi let's get him on talk some baseball at FR and hilly one of these days I have to do that come on I want to relive those moments how we just told a great story I'd like to get now FR side of it hey FR what was the bickering between think about how tough that would have been for hoe I mean because you know Frank could at least react as the color guy you're Howie you get these these these directives here which I understand from MSG at that point hey try to strike the proper tone somber versus compassion versus a little energy if something presents itself that I mean he must have been inside his head Howe that night to the point where right must have been paralyzed you try to call that game right you could relate right as a broadcaster hearing that is a play by well as a broadcaster though just hearing him say the boss has come in hey do do that keep it down and I never knew of this B has a chance but that to me I love that part of the call because it does you could hear it in his voice even though he didn't say it's out of here long time whatever he gave you the this ball has a chance with a great excitement and anticipation gives me goosebumps hearing him tell the story and even thinking