There's a new market inefficiency waiting to be exploited by astute major league general managers - non-tender candidates.
Non-tendering is a term used when an arbitration-eligible player is not offered a contract for the upcoming season. That player, in effect, becomes a free agent and can sign with any club. This offseason may see an explosion in non-tendered players, which would flood the free agent market with young veterans who may still have something to offer.
Three such players switched teams last week - the Royals sent Mark Teahen to the White Sox, the Marlins sent Jeremy Hermida to the Red Sox and the Brewers sent JJ Hardy to the Twins. The White Sox may have slightly overpaid for Teahen, but Boston and Minnesota have filled holes while giving up relatively little in the process.
Teahen, Hermida and Hardy were all considered solid young prospects just a few years ago, but each have failed to live up to expectations so far. Hardy has had the best career so far - he hit 50 home runs as a shortstop in 2007 and 2008 combined and developed a reputation as a sure-handed fielder. Unfortunately for Hardy, he struggled mightily in 2009 and was even sent to the minors in August (a move that some saw as an attempt by Milwaukee to delay his ability to become a free agent).
Teahen and Hermida have not been as successful as Hardy, but are intriguing players nevertheless. A natural third baseman, Kansas City has jerked Teahen all over the diamond in the last few years and his offensive production has suffered as a result. Hermida has failed to build on on a promising 2007 season in which he hit 18 home runs and put up a .296/.369/.501 line at the age of 23.
Once the season ended, all three men were at risk of being released by their former team if they weren't traded first. Why would these clubs want to give up on young, moderately-priced talent so quickly? The answer lies in the arbitration process.
A quick explanation: baseball players are bound to their original team for up to six major league seasons before they can become free agents. The club can unilaterally set the player's salary for the first three seasons he is in the majors. For the next three seasons, the player and club can attempt to negotiate a deal that is considered fair by both sides. If no agreement can be reached, the club retains the player's rights but the salary is set by an independent arbitrator.
Each side submits a salary recommendation and the arbitrator decides to accept the player's proposal or the club's proposal. In general, the previous year's salary and the salary of players with similar skill sets are strongly considered when it comes time for the arbitrator to make his decision.
Suddenly, the rumblings about the arbitration process have gotten louder and clubs appear less willing to pay $4 or $5 million a year to players whose production may be easily replaced with cheaper talent. In one sense, that suggests an increased business acumen - I also suspect that it's more a matter of mid-market and small-market teams trying to control payroll.
As a result, players like Teahen, Hermida and Hardy - who in the past never would've been non-tendered - are suddenly in danger of losing their jobs. General managers are taking a harder look at arbitration-eligible players and wondering if they are headaches better passed on to another club, even if the players gotten in return pale in comparison.
In any event, a new undervalued commodity has developed. Big-market clubs - like the New York Mets - should be looking to snap up arbitration-eligible players who may not always be good enough to start, but are still young enough to salvage a respectable career. Why not take a chance on former prospects who haven't quite panned out yet, especially when the commitment is minimal and the price is still reasonable?
Hardy is a natural shortstop, so obviously he would not have made sense for a team still committed to Jose Reyes at that position. However, Teahen and Hermida would've made for terrific reserve options on a team that simply must stop stocking their bench with over-the-hill free agents.
Teahen could've challenged for the first base job in the spring and served as a competent alternative to David Wright on those rare occasions when the workhorse needed a day off. Hermida can play either corner outfield position and could've challenged Jeff Francouer in right field. Both are left-handed and both are better pinch-hitting options than Alex Cora, who the Mets might re-sign this winter.
Was Omar Minaya ever in talks with Kansas City and Florida for Teahen or Hermida? If not, he missed out on an opportunity to strengthen his bench with two young, versatile players who still have time to make something of themselves. On a team with so many holes to fill, Minaya can't afford to miss out on too many of these opportunities.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Building the 2010 New York Mets
I still plan on doing an in-depth analysis of the Mets' 40-man roster, but I want to set that up with a more general look at the five main components of the big club - starting pitching, relief pitching, catching, infield and outfield. The Mets need help in all five of these areas before Opening Day, but it's highly unlikely that they will be able to address everything this winter.
The truth is, building the 2010 Mets is really about laying the foundation for the 2011 Mets. Right now, it appears that the Mets need one or two starters, one or two relievers, a catcher, a first baseman and at least one corner outfielder to seriously challenge the Phillies in 2010. Omar Minaya isn't going to find seven free agents to fill those holes, and the Mets simply don't have the chips to make more than one good trade to improve the on-field product.
I just don't think that this Mets team has it in them to be competitive next season. Minaya's job may depend on a successful 2010, and I fear that the players he pursues will reflect that, but the franchise would be better off if Minaya was patient and looked at roster reconstruction as a two-year process.
There is not one minor leaguer ready to be a league-average player next season, but intriguing bats like Josh Thole, Ike Davis and Fernando Martinez will benefit immensely from a full season in Triple-A. If Thole, Davis and Martinez pass the test at Buffalo, the Mets will have three promising, low-cost options in their starting lineup for 2011.
For that reason, the Mets need to be wary of committing to multi-year deals with a catcher and a first baseman, and simply cannot sign Jeff Francouer to a long-term extension. There are internal options at first base, and Minaya can offer one-year, incentive laden deals to a veteran catcher and left fielder that won’t block Thole and Martinez.
Daniel Murphy and Chris Carter can battle it out for the first base job in 2010; they will make less than $1 million combined and would allow Minaya to pursue a free agent starter or to take on a big contract elsewhere. If neither has a breakout season, both can be pushed aside for Davis (if he’s successful) or for an established star in 2011.
Francouer, meanwhile, hit just well enough that he’s worth another look in 2010 as the starting right fielder. He is incredibly overrated offensively by Mets fans and he will probably revert back to his uninspiring career norms next season, but Francouer is young enough and good enough defensively that he will do little to no harm batting seventh and playing on a one-year deal.
Will Minaya resist the temptation to indiscriminately spend all those Wilpon bucks that apparently weren’t lost in the Bernie Madoff scandal? I seriously doubt it. Met fans can only hope that Minaya doesn’t do any more damage to the franchise in his quest to save his job.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Organizational Philosophies
It’s easy to forget that the New York Yankees are world champions today in large part because they didn’t make the playoffs last season.
The Yankees finished third in the AL East in 2008, behind the upstart Tampa Bay Rays and their arch-rival Boston Red Sox. They weren’t a bad team – 89 wins in a division featuring the league champions and the wild card winner is nothing to be ashamed of. The 2008 team simply wasn’t good enough by the franchise’s lofty standards.
It was the first time since the doomed 1994 season that the Yankees stayed home in October – and they didn’t take it lightly.
The Yankees went out and bought the two best pitchers on the market – CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett – and paid them a combined $30.5 million to pitch for them in 2009. Sabathia is an ace in every sense of the world; durable, effective and he can pitch on three days’ rest without crawling into the fetal position in fright. Burnett is more inconsistent, but has an electric fastball/breaking ball combination that can dominate any lineup in baseball when his stuff is working.
Not content with shoring up their starting rotation, the Yankees also went out and bought the best position player on the market – first baseman Mark Teixeira. They also traded spare parts for outfielder Nick Swisher, who fell out of favor with the White Sox after a .219/.332/.410 line two seasons into a five-year, $26.75 million deal. Swisher was hurt by an absurdly low .249 BABIP, which suggested he was due to rebound in 2009. That’s exactly what happened; Swisher put up an .249/.371/.498 line with 29 home runs and has proven to be a good fit on the field and in the clubhouse.
Sabathia, Teixeira and Swisher all have something in common besides their hefty price tag – they are all under the age of 30, which suggests that each player in still the prime of his career. Burnett is 32 and a veteran of 11 major league seasons; he was the grand old man of the Yankees' free agent class. Only Swisher could be considered a “risk” coming off a bad season – the other three were stars in 2008 and there was no reason to believe they would regress any time soon.
This very long lead-in has a specific purpose – to compare how the Yankees responded to missing the playoffs in 2008 with the road the Mets chose to go down instead. The Yankees used their natural financial advantages to fill all of their holes and to create a championship-caliber ballclub. The Mets, on the other hand, superficially patched some of their holes and blatantly ignored others, choosing to rely on hopes and dreams instead of reality.
The starting rotation in 2008 remained unchanged, except for the addition of Livan Hernandez in the fifth spot. Hernandez was actually better than expected; he was merely medicore instead of being outright dreadful. Oliver Perez was re-signed to a three-year deal above the market rate and promptly tanked. Mike Pelfrey was penciled in for a breakout campaign over 2009, even though there was no clear reason to explain why he pitched more effectively in the second half of 2008. John Maine was brought back and it was assumed he would resemble the 2007 model more than the 2008 model. Both Pelfrey and Maine failed to live up to expectations.
The starting lineup remained virtually unchanged as well. The only difference was that Daniel Murphy was handed the left fielder’s job despite having played in only one game above Double-A to that point and having been an infielder for his entire minor-league career.
The graveyards of baseball history are littered with the bones of hot-shot young rookies who make a name for themselves on 200 at-bats only to fade into obscurity afterwards. The Mets chose to believe that Murphy would buck that trend, and passed on the opportunity to give players like Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu below-market deals so that Murphy could be a starter. Murphy ended the season as the Mets' starting first baseman, putting up Darin Erstad-like numbers at a position where one expects to have a competent hitter.
No, when the time came to build the 2009 Mets, Omar Minaya went the myopic route and declared that the bullpen was the only need to be addressed. The first step was signing Francisco Rodriguez to a multi-year deal to be their closer. This was the Mets' big free agent splash, despite several years of declining peripherals that suggested that K-Rod's best years may be behind him.
He responded in kind, putting up the highest ERA, WHIP and walk rate in his eight-year career. That wasn't all - Rodriguez also had the lowest K/9 rate he's ever had since making the major leagues. On top of it all, he is signed for another two years, with an easily-obtainable option based on games finished that would balloon his salary to $17.5 million in 2012. The idea of paying any closer not named Mariano Rivera that much money to finish games is absurd to the point of hysteria.
Minaya then traded two relievers, a utility outfielder and four minor-leaguers to bring back … two relievers and a utility outfielder. Sean Green and Joe Smith cancelled each other out, just as Jeremy Reed and Endy Chavez did. The deal, then, was essentially Aaron Heilman and four-minor leaguers for JJ Putz, a former closer coming off an arm injury and ineffectiveness the season before.
The temptation to compare the Putz deal to the Swisher deal is obvious, until you realize that the Yankees had a clear reason to expect Swisher to rebound – an unsustainable BABIP that would improve Swisher’s numbers if he simply regressed to the norm. The Mets had no objective reason to believe that Putz’s injuries and ineffectiveness in 2009 would simply cease to be a factor and that he would return to his previously dominant form.
As we know now, Putz was a $5 million bust, contributing just 29.3 innings with a 5.22 ERA and a 1.636 WHIP. He has an $8.6 million option for 2010; the Mets would have to be clinically insane to pick that option up. Meanwhile, here's a look at the minor leaguers they traded:
Mike Carp (23): a .315/.415/.463 line in a cup of coffee with the Seattle Mariners; a .271/.372/.446 line and 15 home runs with Triple-A Tacoma
Ezequiel Carrera (22): a .337/.441/.416 line and 27 stolen bases with Double-A West Tennessee
Jason Vargas (26): a 3-6 record with a 4.91 ERA and a 1.331 WHIP for the Mariners; a 4-3 record with a 3.14 ERA and a 1.219 WHIP for Triple-A Tacoma
Makiel Cleto (20): an 0-4 record with a 5.54 ERA and a 1.923 WHIP in the low minors
The pitchers haven't done much (although Cleto is young enough to bounce back), but the Mets certainly could use bats like Carp and Carrera in a minor-league system that is painfully thin at the upper levels.
The Yankees are world champions today because they didn’t make the playoffs in 2008 and reacted decisively. The Mets are also-rans because they didn’t make the playoffs in 2008 and refused to react decisively. Instead, the Mets acted as though they were merely a few tweaks away from being world champions.
On a day where it’s tough enough just to be a Mets fan, knowing that the difference between the two organizational philosophies led to such disparate results makes it that much more difficult to root for them.
The Yankees finished third in the AL East in 2008, behind the upstart Tampa Bay Rays and their arch-rival Boston Red Sox. They weren’t a bad team – 89 wins in a division featuring the league champions and the wild card winner is nothing to be ashamed of. The 2008 team simply wasn’t good enough by the franchise’s lofty standards.
It was the first time since the doomed 1994 season that the Yankees stayed home in October – and they didn’t take it lightly.
The Yankees went out and bought the two best pitchers on the market – CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett – and paid them a combined $30.5 million to pitch for them in 2009. Sabathia is an ace in every sense of the world; durable, effective and he can pitch on three days’ rest without crawling into the fetal position in fright. Burnett is more inconsistent, but has an electric fastball/breaking ball combination that can dominate any lineup in baseball when his stuff is working.
Not content with shoring up their starting rotation, the Yankees also went out and bought the best position player on the market – first baseman Mark Teixeira. They also traded spare parts for outfielder Nick Swisher, who fell out of favor with the White Sox after a .219/.332/.410 line two seasons into a five-year, $26.75 million deal. Swisher was hurt by an absurdly low .249 BABIP, which suggested he was due to rebound in 2009. That’s exactly what happened; Swisher put up an .249/.371/.498 line with 29 home runs and has proven to be a good fit on the field and in the clubhouse.
Sabathia, Teixeira and Swisher all have something in common besides their hefty price tag – they are all under the age of 30, which suggests that each player in still the prime of his career. Burnett is 32 and a veteran of 11 major league seasons; he was the grand old man of the Yankees' free agent class. Only Swisher could be considered a “risk” coming off a bad season – the other three were stars in 2008 and there was no reason to believe they would regress any time soon.
This very long lead-in has a specific purpose – to compare how the Yankees responded to missing the playoffs in 2008 with the road the Mets chose to go down instead. The Yankees used their natural financial advantages to fill all of their holes and to create a championship-caliber ballclub. The Mets, on the other hand, superficially patched some of their holes and blatantly ignored others, choosing to rely on hopes and dreams instead of reality.
The starting rotation in 2008 remained unchanged, except for the addition of Livan Hernandez in the fifth spot. Hernandez was actually better than expected; he was merely medicore instead of being outright dreadful. Oliver Perez was re-signed to a three-year deal above the market rate and promptly tanked. Mike Pelfrey was penciled in for a breakout campaign over 2009, even though there was no clear reason to explain why he pitched more effectively in the second half of 2008. John Maine was brought back and it was assumed he would resemble the 2007 model more than the 2008 model. Both Pelfrey and Maine failed to live up to expectations.
The starting lineup remained virtually unchanged as well. The only difference was that Daniel Murphy was handed the left fielder’s job despite having played in only one game above Double-A to that point and having been an infielder for his entire minor-league career.
The graveyards of baseball history are littered with the bones of hot-shot young rookies who make a name for themselves on 200 at-bats only to fade into obscurity afterwards. The Mets chose to believe that Murphy would buck that trend, and passed on the opportunity to give players like Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu below-market deals so that Murphy could be a starter. Murphy ended the season as the Mets' starting first baseman, putting up Darin Erstad-like numbers at a position where one expects to have a competent hitter.
No, when the time came to build the 2009 Mets, Omar Minaya went the myopic route and declared that the bullpen was the only need to be addressed. The first step was signing Francisco Rodriguez to a multi-year deal to be their closer. This was the Mets' big free agent splash, despite several years of declining peripherals that suggested that K-Rod's best years may be behind him.
He responded in kind, putting up the highest ERA, WHIP and walk rate in his eight-year career. That wasn't all - Rodriguez also had the lowest K/9 rate he's ever had since making the major leagues. On top of it all, he is signed for another two years, with an easily-obtainable option based on games finished that would balloon his salary to $17.5 million in 2012. The idea of paying any closer not named Mariano Rivera that much money to finish games is absurd to the point of hysteria.
Minaya then traded two relievers, a utility outfielder and four minor-leaguers to bring back … two relievers and a utility outfielder. Sean Green and Joe Smith cancelled each other out, just as Jeremy Reed and Endy Chavez did. The deal, then, was essentially Aaron Heilman and four-minor leaguers for JJ Putz, a former closer coming off an arm injury and ineffectiveness the season before.
The temptation to compare the Putz deal to the Swisher deal is obvious, until you realize that the Yankees had a clear reason to expect Swisher to rebound – an unsustainable BABIP that would improve Swisher’s numbers if he simply regressed to the norm. The Mets had no objective reason to believe that Putz’s injuries and ineffectiveness in 2009 would simply cease to be a factor and that he would return to his previously dominant form.
As we know now, Putz was a $5 million bust, contributing just 29.3 innings with a 5.22 ERA and a 1.636 WHIP. He has an $8.6 million option for 2010; the Mets would have to be clinically insane to pick that option up. Meanwhile, here's a look at the minor leaguers they traded:
Mike Carp (23): a .315/.415/.463 line in a cup of coffee with the Seattle Mariners; a .271/.372/.446 line and 15 home runs with Triple-A Tacoma
Ezequiel Carrera (22): a .337/.441/.416 line and 27 stolen bases with Double-A West Tennessee
Jason Vargas (26): a 3-6 record with a 4.91 ERA and a 1.331 WHIP for the Mariners; a 4-3 record with a 3.14 ERA and a 1.219 WHIP for Triple-A Tacoma
Makiel Cleto (20): an 0-4 record with a 5.54 ERA and a 1.923 WHIP in the low minors
The pitchers haven't done much (although Cleto is young enough to bounce back), but the Mets certainly could use bats like Carp and Carrera in a minor-league system that is painfully thin at the upper levels.
The Yankees are world champions today because they didn’t make the playoffs in 2008 and reacted decisively. The Mets are also-rans because they didn’t make the playoffs in 2008 and refused to react decisively. Instead, the Mets acted as though they were merely a few tweaks away from being world champions.
On a day where it’s tough enough just to be a Mets fan, knowing that the difference between the two organizational philosophies led to such disparate results makes it that much more difficult to root for them.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
No, Really ... Who Am I Rooting For?
DJ emailed me earlier today and and asked me that tried-and-true hypothetical question - gun to my head, who am I rooting for in this World Series? I answered her back eloquently (she even told me so!) and I meant to transcribe to the blog, but got caught up with other things.
As I was watching Game 1, Rockstar sent me a text with his thoughts:
Me? I go phillies.
1) You beat me out, ya better go take it.
2) National league ball.
3) Underdogs.
That's all I got
Great minds think alike. Here's what I told DJ hours before Rockstar's text.
As I was watching Game 1, Rockstar sent me a text with his thoughts:
Me? I go phillies.
1) You beat me out, ya better go take it.
2) National league ball.
3) Underdogs.
That's all I got
Great minds think alike. Here's what I told DJ hours before Rockstar's text.
Yes, its the worst match-up for a Mets fan and I'm not happy for either team. But maintaining a rooting interest in this World Series isn't going to be difficult at all. Who am I rooting for?
...
the Phillies.
No contest, really. I almost always root for the National League in the World Series because I am a National League guy. The Mets, as the product of the first expansion, don't have "historical rivals" like the original 16 franchises do. Therefore, the Phillies aren't exactly bitter rivals - you'd be hard pressed to find another five-year period in Met history where both teams didn't suck.
And what have the Phillies really done to the Mets anyway? Am I supposed to be mad that they won the NL East by playing like men down the stretch in 2007 and 2008 while the Mets played like little girls? Nope. That's all on the Mets.
So when I get home tonight after the gym - yes, I'm going to the gym first - I'm sitting down with a cold beer and putting on my Cliff Lee jersey. Go Phils!!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Who Am I Rooting For?
That's a question that I've been asked several times in the last few days. With the Yankees and the Phillies kicking off the World Series on Wednesday night, friends and family have been keen to find out how I will manage my emotions for the next week to 10 days.
Do I root for the Yankees, by virtue of the fact that they represent New York and that they will be trying to derail a bitter rival's quest for back-to-back championships? Do I root for the Phillies, who by winning the Series would shut the mouths of the legions of "diehard" Yankee fans that have suddenly re-appeared this year?
My answer so far has been that I will simply be rooting for a meteor to strike Yankee Stadium right before the first pitch of Game 1 is thrown. My real answer is a lot more complex.
In a perverse way, I am actually glad that the Yankees and Phillies are their respective league champions. It's a nightmare scenario for Mets fans, of course, but it is also a nightmare scenario for ownership and management. The Wilpons seem to react only to shame and embarrassment, and watching the Mets' crosstown rivals do battle with the three-time NL East champions allows those feelings to cut even more deeply.
Fred Wilpon is still more interested in enjoying his debilitating Jackie Robinson/Brooklyn Dodgers fetish than he is with satisfying his own franchise's fanbase. Jeff Wilpon is still too obsessed trying to convince himself that he isn't the product of blatant and outright nepotism to hire the best management people available and to let them work free from his interference.
The result? The fanbase is disgusted and demoralized, baseball operations are a mess from top to bottom and the Mets are a 70-win team that inexplicably thinks that it's just a few bad breaks away from being a 95-win team. Meanwhile, the Yankees and the Phillies - two organizations that are run better than the Mets in every single facet imaginable - are squaring off for a championship.
The Wilpons deserve this, even if Mets fans do not.
So I am rooting for a thrilling seven-game series, one that captivates the imagination of the nation and vaults both the Yankees and the Phillies into the national spotlight, cementing their status as the two iconic teams of their respective leagues. I don't even care who wins. I just want it to be crystal clear to every baseball fan, even two people as remarkably dense as Fred and Jeff Wilpon, just how irrelevant the Mets have become in comparison.
From there, I am rooting for change.
I am rooting for the 2009 World Series to mark the turning point in the historical timeline of the New York Mets. If the Mets first took the field as a member of the National League in 1962, let that season become known as 47 B.A. (before The Awakening). Let the year 2010 become 1 A.A. - the year in which this franchise began the rebuilding process in earnest and laid the foundation for becoming the most intelligently-run sports franchise in American sports history.
It can be done. The Mets have a beautiful new stadium that, with several important design tweaks, can become a monstrous revenue generator that the fanbase can actually be proud of. The Mets have a television station that can showcase their product on a daily basis and inspire a new generation of fans to declare their loyalty to the Orange and Blue.
The Mets have financial resources unmatched by anyone except the Yankees - and the potential revenues of both franchises are a lot closer than either the Wilpons or the Mets fans would like to admit. If it is true that the Mets have in fact made a small profit from the Madoff schemes, then money truly is no longer an object.
From that foundation, the structure can be built. Ownership can ask a simple question - "who are the New York Mets?" - and relentlessly go about the task of answering that question in a way that will make this franchise perennial championship contenders.
Older baseball fans remember "The Dodger Way" and "The Oriole Way." It was the blueprint of an organization that dictated how a professional ballplayer should look and act from the moment he signed a minor-league contract to the day he left the organization. It is time to create "The Met Way" - and for that to mean something other than being an injury-prone and overpaid underachiever who is as trained in the science of baseball fundamentals as he is in the science of quantum physics.
Mets fans, turn on your televisions on Wednesday night. Enjoy a terrific matchup between two great teams and two great starting pitchers (CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee). Do it again for Game 2 and Game 3 and for every game thereafter. Enjoy the game of baseball played at its highest level.
And then, when it is over, regardless of who wins and who loses, turn your eyes to Fred and Jeff Wilpon. Ask them, in whatever fashion you can, these very simple questions.
When are you going to stop tearing at the very fabric of this organization and trying to stitch it back together with temporary and insufficient patches? When are you going to put your gigantic egos aside and contribute more of the only thing that a baseball owner should ever contribute to the operation of a franchise - money? When are you going to realize that you are an active and ongoing detriment to the good fortune of this organization and that you are driving away an entire generation of Mets fans in the process?
When are you going to turn the New York Mets into winners - just like the Yankees and the Phillies are?
Do I root for the Yankees, by virtue of the fact that they represent New York and that they will be trying to derail a bitter rival's quest for back-to-back championships? Do I root for the Phillies, who by winning the Series would shut the mouths of the legions of "diehard" Yankee fans that have suddenly re-appeared this year?
My answer so far has been that I will simply be rooting for a meteor to strike Yankee Stadium right before the first pitch of Game 1 is thrown. My real answer is a lot more complex.
In a perverse way, I am actually glad that the Yankees and Phillies are their respective league champions. It's a nightmare scenario for Mets fans, of course, but it is also a nightmare scenario for ownership and management. The Wilpons seem to react only to shame and embarrassment, and watching the Mets' crosstown rivals do battle with the three-time NL East champions allows those feelings to cut even more deeply.
Fred Wilpon is still more interested in enjoying his debilitating Jackie Robinson/Brooklyn Dodgers fetish than he is with satisfying his own franchise's fanbase. Jeff Wilpon is still too obsessed trying to convince himself that he isn't the product of blatant and outright nepotism to hire the best management people available and to let them work free from his interference.
The result? The fanbase is disgusted and demoralized, baseball operations are a mess from top to bottom and the Mets are a 70-win team that inexplicably thinks that it's just a few bad breaks away from being a 95-win team. Meanwhile, the Yankees and the Phillies - two organizations that are run better than the Mets in every single facet imaginable - are squaring off for a championship.
The Wilpons deserve this, even if Mets fans do not.
So I am rooting for a thrilling seven-game series, one that captivates the imagination of the nation and vaults both the Yankees and the Phillies into the national spotlight, cementing their status as the two iconic teams of their respective leagues. I don't even care who wins. I just want it to be crystal clear to every baseball fan, even two people as remarkably dense as Fred and Jeff Wilpon, just how irrelevant the Mets have become in comparison.
From there, I am rooting for change.
I am rooting for the 2009 World Series to mark the turning point in the historical timeline of the New York Mets. If the Mets first took the field as a member of the National League in 1962, let that season become known as 47 B.A. (before The Awakening). Let the year 2010 become 1 A.A. - the year in which this franchise began the rebuilding process in earnest and laid the foundation for becoming the most intelligently-run sports franchise in American sports history.
It can be done. The Mets have a beautiful new stadium that, with several important design tweaks, can become a monstrous revenue generator that the fanbase can actually be proud of. The Mets have a television station that can showcase their product on a daily basis and inspire a new generation of fans to declare their loyalty to the Orange and Blue.
The Mets have financial resources unmatched by anyone except the Yankees - and the potential revenues of both franchises are a lot closer than either the Wilpons or the Mets fans would like to admit. If it is true that the Mets have in fact made a small profit from the Madoff schemes, then money truly is no longer an object.
From that foundation, the structure can be built. Ownership can ask a simple question - "who are the New York Mets?" - and relentlessly go about the task of answering that question in a way that will make this franchise perennial championship contenders.
Older baseball fans remember "The Dodger Way" and "The Oriole Way." It was the blueprint of an organization that dictated how a professional ballplayer should look and act from the moment he signed a minor-league contract to the day he left the organization. It is time to create "The Met Way" - and for that to mean something other than being an injury-prone and overpaid underachiever who is as trained in the science of baseball fundamentals as he is in the science of quantum physics.
Mets fans, turn on your televisions on Wednesday night. Enjoy a terrific matchup between two great teams and two great starting pitchers (CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee). Do it again for Game 2 and Game 3 and for every game thereafter. Enjoy the game of baseball played at its highest level.
And then, when it is over, regardless of who wins and who loses, turn your eyes to Fred and Jeff Wilpon. Ask them, in whatever fashion you can, these very simple questions.
When are you going to stop tearing at the very fabric of this organization and trying to stitch it back together with temporary and insufficient patches? When are you going to put your gigantic egos aside and contribute more of the only thing that a baseball owner should ever contribute to the operation of a franchise - money? When are you going to realize that you are an active and ongoing detriment to the good fortune of this organization and that you are driving away an entire generation of Mets fans in the process?
When are you going to turn the New York Mets into winners - just like the Yankees and the Phillies are?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Alfredo Aceves
I love the way that Yankees manager Joe Girardi has used reliever Alfredo Aceves this season. On a team with three great bullpen options already, Girardi showed a great deal of faith in Aceves and was rewarded handsomely for doing so.
Aceves made only 42 relief appearances in 2009, yet pitched over 80 innings in relief. In 15 of those appearances, Aceves recorded seven or more outs (pitching 2.1 innings or more). Such usage is practically unheard of in modern baseball, which stacks bullpens with specialists and role players who are rarely asked to earn more than three outs at a time.
Why is this a big deal? First and foremost, Aceves was effective. He won 10 games and finished with a 1.024 WHIP - a wildly successful year for a relief pitcher. What Aceves's usage suggests, however, may be far more important than the results during the 2009 regular season. It is a reminder that relievers can be effective in longer stints, given the proper rest between appearances.
Instead of handing the sixth, seventh and eighth innings of a game to three different pitchers with varying degrees of effectiveness, a reliever like Aceves can bridge the mythical gap to the closer all by himself. A team that features a traditional closer and multiple relievers with the ability to pitch two or three innings in a single appearance can concentrate the majority of relief innings pitched in its best options. This would reduce a manager's reliance not only on specialists, but also on the fifth and sixth-best options in the bullpen.
It's simple, really - the more you use your best relievers, the better your team will be.
There is another perspective to consider, of course. Why was the fourth-best reliever in the Yankees' bullpen used like the best relief aces from the 1970s, and each of the better options Girardi had were used in more traditional roles?
Mariano Rivera is unquestionably a better reliever than Aceves, although considering his age and the mileage on his arm, I understand why Girardi would be reluctant to use him over extended periods of time. Phil Coke is a lefthander whose splits suggest that he would be exposed over longer appearances. (He held southpaws to a .195/.218/.366 line, while righties posted a more successful .227/.346/.432 line.)
There's no excuse, however, for not using Philip Hughes in a similar fashion as Aceves. Hughes has been a starter for most of his professional career, so there's no reason to believe that he could not handle an extended workload in a single appearance. Instead of annointing Hughes the "set-up man," the Yankees would've been better served by using Aceves and Highes in the same fashion. Anytime from the sixth inning on in a close game, Girardi could've called on either man to pitch multiple innings in the hopes that Rivera could be used to shut the door.
For his part, Hughes could've made fewer appearances, but pitched more innings. The back of the bullpen - guys like David Robertson and Brian Bruney - could've made fewer appearances and pitched in less important situations.
The Yankees won 103 games this season, so there's not too much to quibble with, but the margin of error is much smaller in the playoffs. If the Angels win the ALCS because of successful at-bats against the likes of Robertson and Bruney, Girardi will have the entire off-season to wonder if traditional thinking did his team in.
Aceves made only 42 relief appearances in 2009, yet pitched over 80 innings in relief. In 15 of those appearances, Aceves recorded seven or more outs (pitching 2.1 innings or more). Such usage is practically unheard of in modern baseball, which stacks bullpens with specialists and role players who are rarely asked to earn more than three outs at a time.
Why is this a big deal? First and foremost, Aceves was effective. He won 10 games and finished with a 1.024 WHIP - a wildly successful year for a relief pitcher. What Aceves's usage suggests, however, may be far more important than the results during the 2009 regular season. It is a reminder that relievers can be effective in longer stints, given the proper rest between appearances.
Instead of handing the sixth, seventh and eighth innings of a game to three different pitchers with varying degrees of effectiveness, a reliever like Aceves can bridge the mythical gap to the closer all by himself. A team that features a traditional closer and multiple relievers with the ability to pitch two or three innings in a single appearance can concentrate the majority of relief innings pitched in its best options. This would reduce a manager's reliance not only on specialists, but also on the fifth and sixth-best options in the bullpen.
It's simple, really - the more you use your best relievers, the better your team will be.
There is another perspective to consider, of course. Why was the fourth-best reliever in the Yankees' bullpen used like the best relief aces from the 1970s, and each of the better options Girardi had were used in more traditional roles?
Mariano Rivera is unquestionably a better reliever than Aceves, although considering his age and the mileage on his arm, I understand why Girardi would be reluctant to use him over extended periods of time. Phil Coke is a lefthander whose splits suggest that he would be exposed over longer appearances. (He held southpaws to a .195/.218/.366 line, while righties posted a more successful .227/.346/.432 line.)
There's no excuse, however, for not using Philip Hughes in a similar fashion as Aceves. Hughes has been a starter for most of his professional career, so there's no reason to believe that he could not handle an extended workload in a single appearance. Instead of annointing Hughes the "set-up man," the Yankees would've been better served by using Aceves and Highes in the same fashion. Anytime from the sixth inning on in a close game, Girardi could've called on either man to pitch multiple innings in the hopes that Rivera could be used to shut the door.
For his part, Hughes could've made fewer appearances, but pitched more innings. The back of the bullpen - guys like David Robertson and Brian Bruney - could've made fewer appearances and pitched in less important situations.
The Yankees won 103 games this season, so there's not too much to quibble with, but the margin of error is much smaller in the playoffs. If the Angels win the ALCS because of successful at-bats against the likes of Robertson and Bruney, Girardi will have the entire off-season to wonder if traditional thinking did his team in.
God Save Us All
"Discipline is training which makes punishment unnecessary." - Carolina Military Institute
I lack the discipline required to manage a solid and consistently updated blog. This is an unfortunate truth that I have had difficulty admitting to myself. I spend too much time in front of a computer at my day job, which makes me reluctant to get back in front of a computer when I get home and focus enough to put together a well-written and coherent post on a regular or even a semi-regular basis.
Here are a couple of quick hits that I hope to expand upon at some point, but honestly do not know if I ever will:
* LCS picks - Angels in 6 and Dodgers in 7.
* If Peter Gammons is to be believed - and I have no reason to believe that he shouldn't be - Jeff Wilpon is the de facto general manager of the New York Mets. What a frightening concept.
I'm still going to try to do a more detailed preview of the two league championship series, which I think are both going to be wonderfully entertaining affairs. I'm also sticking to the script I laid out earlier in the month for the off-season. I just hope things slow down enough here that I can write a little more frequently.
I lack the discipline required to manage a solid and consistently updated blog. This is an unfortunate truth that I have had difficulty admitting to myself. I spend too much time in front of a computer at my day job, which makes me reluctant to get back in front of a computer when I get home and focus enough to put together a well-written and coherent post on a regular or even a semi-regular basis.
Here are a couple of quick hits that I hope to expand upon at some point, but honestly do not know if I ever will:
* LCS picks - Angels in 6 and Dodgers in 7.
* If Peter Gammons is to be believed - and I have no reason to believe that he shouldn't be - Jeff Wilpon is the de facto general manager of the New York Mets. What a frightening concept.
I'm still going to try to do a more detailed preview of the two league championship series, which I think are both going to be wonderfully entertaining affairs. I'm also sticking to the script I laid out earlier in the month for the off-season. I just hope things slow down enough here that I can write a little more frequently.
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