RIP Frank Cashen

Frank Cashen, the sportswriter turned baseball executive who built pennant-winning teams with the Baltimore Orioles and then transformed the Mets from perennial losers to the World Series champions of 1986, died on Monday at a hospital near his home in Easton, Md. He was 88. The Mets announced his death on their website.

In nearly a quarter-century as a baseball administrator, Mr. Cashen made shrewd trades, but he focused on building farm systems, even with the arrival in the mid-1970s of bidding wars for high-priced free agents. It was something of an old-fashioned strategy that fit perfectly with Mr. Cashen’s collection of bow ties from a bygone era in men’s fashion.

He joined the Mets in 1980, after they had finished last in the National League East for three straight seasons, and built a 1986 championship ball club featuring Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dykstra, Jesse Orosco, Wally Backman and Roger McDowell from the Mets’ farm system, together with Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Bobby Ojeda, Ray Knight and Howard Johnson, all obtained in trades.

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I don't think Cashen totally gets his due because the Mets only won the one title. Had the wild card been around back then, they would have been in the playoffs nearly eery year and might have won more than one.

Although he did start to lose his touch near the end with some bad deals because he didn't want players with a personality and made the mistake of annointing Gregg Jefferies as The Chosen One. Still, he took a franchise that was nearly dead and made them more popular than the Yankees for a while.

RIP