Labor Day Stuff

I'm on my way up to Rockland County to celebrate the last day of summer - hopefully you all are doing something to enjoy the long weekend. Just a couple of quick hits from articles I read this morning, with comment:

Dugout Central posted a speculative look at which numbers MLB teams are going to retire next. I was unimpressed with the Mets' list. From the blog:

• Dwight Gooden (16)

Both “Doc” and Darryl Strawberry are very tough calls. Both were gifted players who would have been better except for their self-destructive behavior. If either gets honored, I’d go with Gooden first.

I'm still beating the "retire Mike Piazza's number" drum, but I am on the fence about Gooden. He spent over a decade with the Mets, but injuries and drug use tarnished his career. No pitcher was more electric in 1984 and 1985, but something changed in 1986. I've read that then-pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre changed Gooden's approach to focus more on contact and less on strikeouts. His K/9 rate never dropped as significantly as people tend to believe, but Gooden's aura of dominance was never the same. There was an ERA spike in the 1990 season that never came back to 1980's levels and he nearly washed out after the 1994 season, when his ongoing drug use caused baseball to ban Gooden for the 1995 season.

All that said, I have to admit that every time a Met is given #16, my first thought is, "that's Dr. K's number." If he cleans himself up and increases his profile over the next few years, I could see the justification for retiring the number.

Meanwhile, Cody Ross refuses to shut up and act like a man, still whining about getting plunked by Mike Pelfrey on Saturday. Ross made a fool of himself by throwing a temper tantrum between home and first and causing both benches to empty - sound and fury signifying nothing. Pelfrey was mostly amused by the incident and said as much after the game, which is only making little Cody angrier. From the article:

Pelfrey said he did Ross a favor by hitting him with a 2-2 pitch. He also accused him of fake charging the mound Aug. 10, when he hit Ross between the shoulder blades with a fastball after giving up a two-run double in the fifth for a 6-1 deficit.

"I didn't fake charge," Ross said. "He hit me, on purpose, and I jumped up and ran to first. I didn't take any steps toward the mound. I jumped up and ran to first. I never looked at him.

"Apparently he can't control his sinker. He has no idea where it's going. If he wants to pop off, I'll let him pop off. I figure you would do that if you were 3-0 against a team and not 0-3, but it is what it is."

Cody Ross = tough guy! Look, batters sometimes get hit by pitches in baseball. Pelfrey has hit Ross twice this season and both times the game situation made it clear that it was unintentional. He acted like a fool on Saturday night and still hasn't shown enough grace and common sense to shut up and let the whole silly episode blow over. I know Ross used to pal around with rodeo clowns, but the time for being a clown is over. You're a baseball player now, Cody - try to act like one.

Now We're Worrying About Innings Pitched Caps?

I saw Ken Davidoff's column on Mike Pelfrey's complete game today, and he asks the same question that I asked The Franchise while we were eating dinner at Sandro's last night - why is Pelfrey still pitching in a game that the Mets salted away in the bottom of the seventh inning?

Mind you, I wasn't necessarily saying Pelfrey needed to be removed. He was well under 100 pitches as the eighth inning began (he finished the game with 108), so the Pitch Counters couldn't have been too concerned. You know that I like complete games and I'm not a big believer in the theory that the 100-pitch "limit" is a one-size-fits-all approach to managing pitcher fatigue.

Davidoff's focus was on something I mentioned last night - that Pelfrey was on pace to blow past the 183 inning cap that some people believe is necessary for a young pitcher's development. From the article:

Pelfrey, who did dominate the Astros, has now pitched 163 innings this season, after totaling 152 2/3 last year in the minors and majors. Most teams now adhere to the notion that a young pitcher shouldn't exceed his previous year's innings total by more than 30. With 30 games left, Pelfrey's turn is set to come up six more times, which means he's on pace to blow by the recommended 182 2/3 innings. And that's even before we count the postseason. To this, the Mets are essentially saying, "Fuhgeddaboutit."

Ken, you said it yourself - teams adhere to a "notion" that a young pitcher shouldn't exceed his innings pitched total by more than 30 from the previous year. There is absolutely no evidence that this notion is actually effective in preventing pitcher injuries - or even reducing the likelihood than an injury might take place. In an age where we monitor pitch counts and now we monitor innings pitched from the year before, pitchers still seem to find a way to blow out their arms. Perhaps these "notions" should be sent back to the trash bin and new theories for preventing pitcher injuries should be explored.

Slip Sliding Away

Three hours until the trade deadline. I stil don't think anything is going to happen. Two brief comments on Mets-related content from Jon Heyman's deadline blog today:

10:58am: Competing GMs say the Mets' Omar Minaya is "itching'' to do a deal. And it's no wonder with the Yankees stealing the show across town and the competing Marlins close to possibly adding superstar Manny Ramirez. However, a lot of Mets people want to hold onto their top prospects, including outfielder Fernando Martinez, and pitchers Jon Niese, Eddie Kunz and Robert Parnell. Seattle requested "two premium prospects'' for outfielder Raul Ibanez, and Mets people don't like that idea. Minaya is spending more time on the relief situation, which is looking iffy lately, especially with Duaner Sanchez's radar gun readings down.

This will make Angst/Joey Walnuts happy, but it makes me nervous. Minaya strikes me as the type of general manager who will make a trade just for the sake of doing so, which almost never works out well. Oh, and Seattle is crazy if they think anyone is trading two premium prospects for Raul Ibanez. If the Mariners wanted to trade Ibanez for Eddie Kunz and Bobby Parnell, I would be fine with that, since I have no faith whatsoever in those guys. They aren't premium rospects and the idea that Kunz and Parnell are anything other than cannon fodder at the major league level is pie in the sky dreaming.

9 am: One bullpen option the Mets have kicked around is to try to pry disappointing starter Ian Snell from Pittsburgh with the idea of employing him as a reliever for the remainder of the year. Snell could then be used in the rotation next year when the Mets may need starters. Pedro Martinez likely won't be back and Oliver Perez could leave as a free agent. The Mets are continuing to make left-hander Jon Niese unavailable because they'd like to see him make the rotation next year.

I like that idea a lot. Ian Snell has talent and is a tough customer who hates losing. He could be rejuvenated playing for a franchise that actually gives a damn about winning. If the Pirates were dumb enough to take a C prospect for Snell - and God knows the last 15 years have proven that they are - the Mets would have to jump all over that.

UPDATE: 1:49 pm: The Mets are talking to the Nationals about a deal for reliever Luis Ayala, SI.com has learned. Mets GM Omar Minaya badly wants a reliever and wouldn't mind making a deal. This could be it.

Minaya has a good working relationship with Jim Bowden, so this wouldn't be surprising. Luis Ayala isn't very good; even when he's going well he gives up more than a hit per inning and has a low strikeout rate. He is strictly bullpen filler, so hopefully Minaya won't offer anything more than a marginal prospect for his services.

UPDATE: No deals done. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mets continue to pursue Ayala; I don't imagine he'll have much trouble passing through waivers.

No Twin Killing Here

I was reading Mets Fever on Tuesday, where Ed Ryan was musing about the possibility of adding Michael Cuddyer to address the Mets' corner outfield needs. I'm not a big fan of Cuddyer; he's having a terrible season in 2008 and only recently migrated to right field on a full-time basis. Cuddyer strikes me as more of a potential platoon partner for Ryan Church, although he has not hit lefties as hard this season as he has throughout the course of his career. He's also in the first year of a 3-year, $24 million contract with a club option in 2011. Verdict: Pass!

What was so amazing to me is that Ed was speculating about Cuddyer based on a Charley Waters column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press this week:

It will be interesting whether the Twins try to package Michael Cuddyer and Livan Hernandez in a trade for a slugging third baseman before the July 31 deadline, saving $20 million in guaranteed money to Cuddyer and $2.5 million to Hernandez ... One problem, though: finding a team willing to take on the salaries. The Twins say they haven't had room for (Francisco) Liriano in the starting rotation.

I guess it would be interesting in the sense to see how quickly a general manager who gave up a slugging third baseman for that package would be fired. Cuddyer is a better player than his 2008 numbers indicate, but his poor start means that the Twins are destined to get a poor return if they trade him while his value is low. Hernandez, meanwhile, is simply the worst starting pitcher in baseball.

He actually got off to a fast start in 2008, winning his first three starts and giving the Twins seven good innings each time out. But in 20 starts overall, Hernandez has a 5.44 ERA - nearly a run and a half higher than the league average - and a 1.624 WHIP. Those numbers rise to a 6.05 ERA and a 1.747 WHIP in the 17 starts made after April 11, which are frighteningly bad numbers.

In case you aren't convinced of Hernandez's awfulness, here's one more stat to consider - opponents are batting .342/.368/.506 against Hernandez in 2008. That's like turning every hitter you face into the 1971 version of this Hall of Famer.

It makes all the sense in the world for the Twins to want to trade Cuddyer and Hernandez, but I can't imagine there's another team in baseball who would want both of them. Certainly not the Mets, who would then be stuck with Cuddyer for two more years and might even make the grave mistake of trying to find room for Hernandez in their rotation. I wouldn't give up Jimmie Feldman for that package of players.

MSM Musings: Reliever Roles

One of Jerry Manuel's "campaign promises" when he took over as manager last week was to define bullpen roles, so that the seven relievers in the Mets' bullpen could have a reasonable expectation of the situations they would be called upon to pitch. The preview for today's season finale against the Rockies (which we are live-blogging at 3 pm!) includes quotes from Manuel about the roles he has begun to carve out for his relievers.

From the article: Interim manager Jerry Manuel said Saturday that he's in the process of defining roles for all his pitchers, and that they won't stray far from those posts. (Billy) Wagner is the closer. (Duaner) Sanchez is the setup man. (Joe) Smith and (Pedro) Feliciano are the right-handed and left-handed specialists, respectively.

"I would rather those guys stay as short as possible," Manuel said.

Oh man, is he serious? Did Jerry Manuel also miss the memo that Scott Schoeneweis can only function as a lefty specialist and still gets tattooed against right-handers? Yes, I know his superficially pretty numbers this season (a 2.40 ERA and a 1.033 WHIP) are a distraction, but as usual there is a obvious difference in his effectiveness between lefties (.135/.220/.192) and righties (.280/.373/.480). The more righties Schoeneweis faces, the less effective he is going to be.

Meanwhile Feliciano, after a terrible start to the season, has pitched very well since mid-May. He has a .270 ERA and a 1.138 WHIP in his last 20 appearances, and batters are hitting just .193 against Feliciano in that time frame. Their season lines are very similar against righties (.281/.369/.439 for Feliciano), but historically Pedro has been far more effective against opposite-handed batters that Schoeneweis. He should be getting longer outings and more at-bats against righties, because he is far more likely to get them out that Schoeneweis is.

Jerry, your bullpen hierarchy should look something like this:

Closer: Billy Wagner
Righty Set-Up Man: Duaner Sanchez
Lefty Set-Up Man: Pedro Feliciano
Righty Specialist: Joe Smith
Lefty Specialist: Scott Schoeneweis
Mop-Up Man: Aaron Heilman
Long Reliever: Claudio Vargas

Personally, I'm not a big fan of overly defining individual bullpen roles anyway. I'm of the belief that the best relievers should get the most work and the most appearances on high leverage situations, regardless of their role. Of course, I'm also one of those heretics that doesn't believe in the current concept of the closer, so I know that I'm never going to find a modern-day manager who shares my viewpoints.

I always thought one of the few things that Willie Randolph did well was refusing to define bullpen roles. Randolph simply went with the guy he thought was the most likely to get the outs he needed. The problem was that Randolph had a terrible feel for who was the most likely to actually get the out and often went against the percentages when choosing a reliever. (Think Schoeneweis against a righty or Jorge Sosa against a lefty.) More often than not, this led to disastrous results.

MSM Musings: Stolen Base Efficiency

For my money, the New York Sun has the best baseball coverage of any New York daily. No disrespect to my friend Jim, but as a whole the Sun's baseball writers are an innovative lot with great ideas, whose daily efforts are more insightful and more useful to baseball fans than the predictable offerings you get from the print columnists in the established dailies.

You would never see a piece like Caleb Peiffer's excellent offering about stolen bases in one of these papers, because the old-school mentality of sports writing and reporting is too deeply ingrained in the editors there. (It should be noted that Peiffer is not a regular writer for the Sun, but a contributor from Baseball Prospectus.) Pieffer's column today, however, is far more illuminating about a topic that's always good for a discussion among baseball fans - the efficacy of the stolen base and the effect that speed has on the game.

For my money, the stolen base is one of the most exciting plays in baseball. When a good base stealer gets on, everyone sits up and takes notice. The pitcher alters his natural motion to pitch out of the stretch and to decrease the time it takes for the ball to leave his hands and land in the catcher's mitt. The catcher has to consider calling more fastballs and fewer breaking balls to give himself a better chance if the runner takes off. The first baseman moves out of position to hold the runner on. The middle infielders exchange signs about who will cover second if the runner decides to try his luck. What other play in baseball changes the roles of five out of the nine players on the field?

Speed has such an underrated effect on the game, mainly because it is not easy to conclusively prove the effect it has. You can measure stolen base efficiency, and plug it into a run expectancy matrix to see if the attempts had a positive or negative effect on the overall number of potential runs scored. Doing so has led to the conclusion that stolen base attempts need to be successful 75 percent of the time to have a positive effect on run scoring. Since most base stealers are rarely so successful over the course of the season, a new school of thought has emerged that stolen bases are not only overrated, but they are also generally harmful to a team's chances of winning.

Disruption, however, is very hard to quantify. If a fast runner causes a pitcher to alter his motion and his pitch selection when facing the next batter, does that have a positive effect on the offensive team's chances to score? With one fielder always out of position and a second ready to be at a moment's notice, do more groundballs find their way into the outfield with a fast runner on first? What about the pitcher's overall mental state? If the pitcher has a lapse in concentration because he's focusing too much on the runner, couldn't that lead to more runs?

The act of stealing a base can be quantified and objectively determined to be positive or negative on the team's chances of scoring. If Jose Reyes ends up swiping 80 bases this year, he can only be caught 26 times before his successful attempts are outweighed by the unsuccessful ones. However, there is no way to determine how the threat of Jose Reyes stealing a base affects the Mets' chances of scoring. I am willing to guess that the threat alone makes a positive impact, which is where the true value of speed lies.

That does not mean, of course, that fast baserunners should simply threaten to steal a base but never actually attempt to do so. Peiffer's column notes that teams in general have become much more efficient when attempting to steal, a compelling sign that sabermetric thought is having a positive effect on the game and strategic planning.

An efficient base stealer, then, may be one of the most dangerous weapons in the game, even if his stolen base totals do not immediately reflect that.

EDIT: One more thought: I've been playing Strat-o-Matic baseball for many years, and Strat actually quantifies the effect that a fast baserunner has on the game.

In the league I'm in now, we play a hybrid of advanced and super advanced rules. Say the aforementioned Reyes singles to lead off the game. The manager of the team in the field has to decide if he's holding Reyes on first, taking Jose's running rating, the pitcher's hold and the catcher's throwing arm into effect. This creates a series of probabilities. The first two are Reyes's chances of stealing second base if he "gets a good lead" or if he does not.

The more interesting probability, as it relates to this post, is the batter's chances of getting a hit. In our league, the probability of the batter getting a hit with a runner held on base increases about 3 percent. Put another way, a .250 hitter becomes a .280 hitter and a .300 hitter becomes a .330 hitter. It's easier to believe in the power of disruption when I play a game that quantifies it for me.

MSM Musings: Clueless!

Richard Justice lays the hammer to the Mets in the Sporting News online today. By day he's a Houston Astros beat writer, but by night he apparently beats on franchises that seem to lack direction, especially from ownership.

Although the column jumps back and forth between his points and struggles to achieve any continuity, Justice takes a number of shots at Fred Wilpon for letting this sad drama drag on. From the article: "The Mets have become a joke, and that joke begins with the people who are evaluating Willie Randolph. When the Mets beat the Rangers on Friday, Randolph's job was spared for at least a day. No manager should be evaluated in this day-to-day, move-to-move way. But it's clear to anyone in the free world that the Mets already have their minds set on firing Willie Randolph. To allow him to continue to work under impossible circumstances is both cruel and dumb. But that's the Mets. This organization has a history of infighting, and the leadership of the franchise is too weak to stop it. Everything that's wrong with the Mets begins with the boss, Fred Wilpon. He should have -- and could have -- taken care of the in-house tension a long time ago."

Hard to argue with that. One day the Mets are firing Randolph, the next day they aren't. Then they're firing coaches instead, then it's Randolph and the coaches, then it's different coaches. The latest buzz is that it's pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto facing the ax. It doesn't make a ton of sense for either man to be fired - Peterson was here before Randolph and has done good work with the Mets' pitching staff, while Nieto is a first-base coach who has little to no influence on the team. If the Mets were going to fire anybody, it should be Sandy Alomar, Jr., who has had an abysmal year as the third base coach.

Justice's support for Randolph is too strong; anyone who doesn't think Willie is a poor game manager is either lying to you or not paying attention. He also gets himself into a huff about the suggestion that Keith Hernandez should be the next Mets' manager, as if it's not a well-known fact that Mex has no intention of leaving the broadcast booth for a job that demanding. But Justice knows one thing - the problems with this organization do not end with the manager. The problems go all the way to the top.

MSM Musings: Roster Construction

This is a little on the lazy side, but if I link articles that someone else wrote and add a paragraph or two, it's like I created an entire post. More content = more readers!

SNY's Ted Berg hits the nail on the head today. The Nunez decision is so inexplicably stupid that it's the first time I've ever given more than a passing thought to the "Omar only likes Latinos" theory. I still think it's baloney, but what logical explanation exists for putting Abraham Nunez on a major league roster with only three healthy outfielders?

The whole organization needs an overhaul. The manager is overly conservative and does everything by the book, while still struggling to understand basic baseball strategy. The general manager's biggest skills seems to be giving richer contracts to players than anyone else will and always asking for a pitcher when he makes a trade. The ownership won't take risks of any kind - no managers who think outside the box, no general managers who know how to get good players without overpaying for them, no players who might make waves or play the game with too much heart, lest they turn into the second coming of the wild mid-80s Mets.

EDIT: Was it Berg's scathing expose that cost Nunez his job a few days later? Or was it T-Bone's inability to detect sarcasm?

Missing the Boat

The sharks are in the water and everyone is looking for their pound of flesh.

As the Mets continue to flounder in 2008 (sorry, but two straight wins against the last-place team in the American League East doesn't mean they're suddenly ready to begin dominating the rest of the league), the mainstream media has decided that Willie Randolph's head is on the chopping block. The predictable avalanche of columns and reports have followed, nearly all of them focusing on the perception of Willie's lack of control over the Mets' clubhouse and the placid demeanor he and his team continue to show.

Willie fired back last night, taking the media to task for their characterization of him and suggesting that there may even be a racial component to the criticism he's facing. Racism in baseball - and in American society - still exists, of course. But that's not the problem here. Willie doesn't yell and scream and kick dirt and throw stuff on the field when his team isn't showing enough "spark," whatever the hell that means. But that's not the problem either.

The problem is plain and simple - Willie Randolph is a poor tactical manager, who is not rising above the poorly constructed roster being handed to him by his general manager.

There's a reason why Willie Randolph was passed over by more than 10 teams with managerial openings in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It had a little bit to do with the color of his skin (because it would be naive to say that race played no factor at all), but it had a lot to do with the fact that he had no previous managerial experience. Randolph simply refused to manage in the minor leagues to prove himself and instead remained a coach on Joe Torre's staff for several years that he could've been honing the craft at lower levels of organized baseball.

Torre wasn't some type of managerial savant when he ran the ship for the Mets, the Braves or the Cardinals. He only became St. Joe of the Diamonds when he took over a team with the highest payroll in baseball and the greatest, most automatic reliever in baseball history. It didn't hurt that he managed in the American League, where you write nine names on the lineup card and see what happens, or that the enormous payroll more often than not allowed him to write nine names better than anyone else's lineup.

The notion that an apprenticeship under Joe Torre was enough to build one's self into a great manager - a notion that Randolph seemingly buys into - is simply ridiculous. There are very few people in baseball good enough to run a baseball team without spending a few seasons in the minor leagues getting his feet wet. To say that Willie Randolph isn't one of them is not an insult to Willie Randolph; it is simply recognition that Randolph is like nearly every other baseball man on the planet who needed some practice before he became perfect.

Now, we are nearly 3 1/2 years into the Willie Randolph Era and two things are becoming very clear. The first is that Randolph is a conservative, by the book manager whose unimaginative nature does not distinguish him from the rest of the pack. The second is that Randolph still struggles to grasp elementary game tactics, as well as tactics regarding lineup construction and bullpen usage. The result is a skipper who is an active detriment to his team's overall success.

In Willie's World, starters rarely go more than 100 pitches, regardless of circumstance, and multiple relievers pitch every day, rarely more than an inning at a time. The result is an overtaxed bullpen that has observers rightly questioning if they will be able to sustain such an enormous workload for an entire season. In Willie's World, the second place hitter in the lineup is a slap hitter who bunts and moves the runners over, not someone who can actually hit. The result is the continued misuse of Luis Castillo, whose diminished power numbers make him unusable anywhere other than the #8 spot in the lineup.

Willie still doesn't know when to double-switch and still overuses relievers regardless of performance. Who leads the Mets in relief innings pitched so far in 2008? Aaron Heilman and Jorge Sosa - the two most ineffective relievers in the bullpen this season. Marlon Anderson has been used as a pinch hitter in 29 of the Mets' 41 games this season - he is 5 for 25 with just two extra-base hits. Willie complains about "length" from his starting pitchers, but no one has thrown more than 117 pitches in a game this season, despite a rotation with four starters under the age of 30.

The blame can't all be laid at Willie's feet. He didn't decide to entrust the fourth and fifth spots in the rotation to walking injury risks Pedro Martinez and El Duque Hernandez. He didn't give a lefty specialist a three-year guaranteed contract. He didn't trade for Carlos Delgado's decline years, which just happened to also be his most expensive years. He didn't give a four-year contract to a Punch and Judy hitter with bad knees like Castillo. He didn't decide to build a bench mostly featuring aging second basemen, one of whom has morphed into the re-incarnation of Manny Mota.

This is a $137 million team with no depth and that's Omar Minaya's fault, no matter how you slice it. The farm system - no great shakes to begin with after several years of slot drafting and bad decisions - was laid bare to get Santana, so help most assuredly is not on the way.

So forget about Randolph's demeanor on the bench. Forget about the locker room of quiet players who aren't screaming or fighting or doing whatever the WFAN yahoos think they need to do to "show some guts." That's not the problem here. Willie Randolph is costing the Mets wins not for his behavior in the clubhouse, but for his decisions in the dugout. Everything else just complicates what should be an elementary issue.

MSM Musings: Six-Man Rotation?

I promised you guys a while back that I would write a story about the 4 and 1/2 man rotation, but I am a liar. Eventually I'll get around to it. In the meantime, I enjoyed Howard Megdal's column in The Observer postulating that the Mets should go to a six-man rotation when Pedro Martinez returns to action. He's wrong, of course, but Megdal and Tim Marchman are my two favorite mainstream media Mets writers, so we'll cut him some slack.

I would actually go for this plan under a specific set of circumstances, none of which are likely to happen in this scenario. If you're telling me that:

* The seventh reliever in the bullpen is going to become the sixth starter (or more appropriately, that Joe Smith or Jorge Sosa will be sent to AAA to make room for Pedro), and
* The fifth and sixth starters (presumably Mike Pelfrey and Nelson Figueroa) will be used as relievers between starts, and
* Santana, Maine and Perez will skip the sixth starter whenever they would have more than five days' rest (because of a scheduled off-day between starts), and
* Resting an extra day means the manager can re-think pitch counts and let each starter go deeper into games (10 pitches? 20 pitches?)

then you may have something intriguing.

But a six-man rotation would presumably still come with a seven-man bullpen. That leaves just four bench players on the roster - and the Mets have a paper-thin bench as it is. This six-man rotation would take appearances away from the three best starters (Santana, Maine and Perez) and give them to inferior pitchers. I don't care if some starters are slightly more effective on five days' rest as oposed to four - there are enough scheduled off-days during the season that it's going to happen from time to time anyway. Finally, there's no reason to believe that extra rest will make any Met starter more efficient, so even with extra rest Willie is still going to pull a guy after 5 2/3 innings and 98 pitches anyway.

It gets bantered about from time to time, but I wonder if bringing back the old "Sunday starter" concept would benefit Pedro. It would only be useful if the Mets employed a six-man regular bullpen while deploying Pelfrey or Figueroa as the occasional long man and if it didn't negatively affect the number of starts from the front three in the rotation. I'll try to expand upon this more later in the week.

MSM Musings: Early Rumblings of Discontent

Two articles in the MSM today - one from the inestimable Tim Marchman and the other from the unknown Joshua Robinson - take on the hostility Mets fans have been showing the home team so far this season. Marchman takes more of a definitive stance, using the word "boorishness" to describe the behavior of Mets fans past and present who have made something a sport of booing their own. Robinson's take is more genteel, lacking any particular conviction and makes the mistake of including a "Joe Fan" perspective at the end of the article.

The "Joe Fan" perspective, of course, is the sports equivalent of the "Man on the Street" perspective in news stories, where the hapless reporter is forced to walk among the unwashed masses and ask them about their reaction to the current hot story on the presses. It's the worst cliche in print journalism and the least useful perspective a newspaper could possibly provide its readers. In a world full of experts, learned scholars and paid-by-the-opinion consultants, what the hell do I care about what some mook on the street thinks about the news of the day?

Anyway, each writer taps into the vein of anger surrounding Mets fans and opine about what it means for the season at hand. There are a lot of potential explanations - a hangover from the 2007 collapse, apparent lackadisical play, perhaps even unrealisitc expectations from a fan base that sometimes wonders if a 162-0 record will be enough to win the National League East.

Marchman's take was typically brilliant: "Usually this sort of thing doesn't matter; the diligence and faith mentioned in baseball contracts extend to an expectation that players will do their best regardless of how fans at the home park behave, and they nearly always do. Members of baseball management, though, have no such clauses in their contracts, and those employed by the Mets in fact have a long history of overreaction to displays of fan apoplexy. (Note which jersey L-Millz is wearing tonight if you don't believe this is true.)"

For me, it's really more of a feeling of apathy than anger. Listen, we're still only 11 games into the 2008 campaign and I honestly had to check the standings to see what the Mets' record was going into tonight's game. I'm not worried about Reyes' slow start or Heilman's bullpen follies or El Duque's ongoing rehab problems. The apathy comes from a deep-seated conviction that this team will not, can not, win anything of substance while Willie Randolph is still the manager, no matter what shiny new toys Omar Minaya gives him.

There's always going to be that churning in the gut when Willie mismanages the bullpen, or forgets to double-switch, or publicly calls out his players for nonsensical reasons. Marchman, again: "Manager Willie Randolph, perhaps more importantly, has proved, if he has proved anything during his tenure in Queens, that the greater the pressure gets, the worse he runs a game." It doesn't just question my faith in this team's fortunes; it destroys it.

I wrote this toward the end of the 2007 season, with the Mets still clinging to that slim lead over the Phillies: "I will gladly trade an epic choke that would see the Mets miss the playoffs entirely this season if it came with a cast-iron guarantee that Willie would be fired the next day. He is that much of a detriment to this franchise's ability to win a World Series and I have no doubt that he lacks both the strategic acumen and the motivational tools necessary to win a championship.

"I have not felt this strongly about the necessity to fire a manager since Dallas Green, and even old Dallas knew how to light a fire under a guy's ass once in a while. Willie's players sleepwalk through defeat after late-season defeat and there is no sense of urgency around them, because there are no consequences to their failures."

There were no consequences to anyone's failures after last season. Tom Glavine, Paul Lo Duca and Shawn Green all left, but the Mets had no intention of retaining them even before The Collpase. Guillermo Mota was traded to the Brewers in the first step of a shell game that ended with the exile of Lastings Milledge. Otherwise, the Mets planned to break camp with four of the same five starters, five of the same seven relievers and six of the same eight starting position players - only injuries got in the way of that.

Worst of all, the same man remians in the manager's seat. It's like steering the Titanic into an iceberg and being given the same model boat by the White Star Line to try again with. This, perhaps more than anything, is the source of the fans' discontent. It certainly is the source of mine.

MSM Musings: Rosenthal Smacks the Mets

Interesting story by Ken Rosenthal today, subtly blaming Omar Minaya for banking too heavily on the health of Pedro Martinez. I say "interesting" because it's not actually a "good" column; Rosenthal meanders a bit throughout and is clearly wearing his 20-20 Hindsight glasses as he takes Minaya to task. Still, it's a good sign that mainstream media outside of the volatile New York market is beginning to take notice of some of Minaya's roster cosntruction blunders.

From the column: "Forget Scott Kazmir. Mets general manager Omar Minaya isn't the one who traded him for Victor Zambrano. But Brian Bannister, who shut out the mighty Tigers for seven innings on Wednesday? Minaya dealt him for reliever Ambiorix Burgos, who likely will miss the entire season while recovering from elbow-ligament transplant surgery. Kyle Lohse, who shut out the defending NL-champion Rockies for five innings on Tuesday night? The Mets passed as he lingered on the free-agent market, allowing the Cardinals to grab him for $4.25 million. Rich Harden, who has allowed one run in 11 innings in two starts against the defending World Series champion Red Sox? The A's would ask a high-prospect price for either him or Joe Blanton — starting with prized outfielder Fernando Martinez — and the Mets depleted their farm system when they acquired Johan Santana."

It's a bit of a stretch to blame Minaya for not bringing Lohse or Harden into the fold. Lohse was adamant about wanting a multi-year deal well into spring training, at a price not nearly justified by his career record. With Santana, Maine and Perez firmly entrenched in the rotation, the Mets would've had to bank on both Pedro AND El Duque being injured at some point during the year and that their DL stints wouldn't overlap. Otherwise, the odd man out would've been Lohse - and you don't pay a guy $4.25 million (the price the Cardinals eventually paid for one year of his services) to form the best one-two punch in Pacific Coast League with Mike Pelfrey.

The Harden complaint is simply laughable. If Minaya was going to deplete his farm system for a starter, should he have chosen to do so for the consumnate best pitcher in the American League over the last five seasons, or a guy with incredible talent but has spent most of his career on the shelf? Oakland GM Billy Beane was asking a lot for Harden and rightfully so - if the kid ever stays healthy he might be replacing Santana as the best starter in the AL. Look, I was a big fan of Philip Humber, but that deal for Santana was a no-brainer. I'm not going to blame for Minaya for then not having enough prospects to go out and trade for Harden too.

Now Bannister is a different story. In the 2006 off-season, Minaya decided to shuffle young pitchers all over the league, ostensibly in the hopes that he would find a hidden gem. Instead, he gave away Bannister, Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom and Henry Owens in three separate trades and came away with absolutely nothing of substance in return. Ambiorix Burgos and Jason Vargas are out for the season with injuries, while Ben Johnson and Adam Bostick appear to be career minor leaguers. Imagine a Mets rotation with Bannister instead of Pelfrey (and now Pelfrey instead of Nelson Figueroa). Imagine a bullpen with Heath Bell and Matt Lindstrom instead of Joe Smith and Jorge Sosa. It changes your perspective on this team's future, does it not?

Rosenthal adds three reasons why he believes the Mets are in their current predicament:

"An over-reliance on Martinez: The Mets' signing of Martinez to a four-year, $53 million contract helped transform the team's culture, persuading free agents such as Carlos Beltran and Billy Wagner to follow suit. But Martinez has made only 60 starts in those four seasons, justifying the Red Sox's decision to let him depart after the 2004 season.

Ill-advised trades: The Santana deal was a winner, even if it cost the Mets their Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 7 prospects — three pitchers plus outfielder Carlos Gomez — in Baseball America's rankings. Bannister-for-Burgos, however, looks like a major mistake. And rather than acquire a pitcher for outfielder Lastings Milledge, the Mets settled for catcher Brian Schneider and outfielder Ryan Church.

Questionable draft strategy: The Mets spend heavily in the international market for amateurs, but curiously adhere to Major League Baseball's recommended signing bonuses in the draft. The Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers routinely flex their revenue muscles by exceeding "slot" and signing elite young talent — without fear of reprisal from MLB."

I have to believe that the Mets signed Pedro Martinez knowing full well the injury risks involved. There were whispers that Pedro was pitching with a partially torn labrum for years and my father can tell you that torn labrums don't just heal by themselves. It was a calculated risk, by a team that could not only afford the financial hit, but also needed the credibility boost by signing a pitcher still considered among the very best in baseball. You will never hear me argue against the decision to sign Pedro, no matter how the rest of his Mets career turns out.

That said, the mindset all along is that Pedro was still the titular ace of the staff, relegated only to the #2 spot in the rotation when Santana came along. That's just ridiculous. Here's what we know about shoulder injuries to pitchers - almost NONE of them return to anything resembling their previous form. Before Tommy John surgery was conceived in the 1970s, elbow injuries of that nature were considered career-enders. There is no "Tommy John surgery" for labrum and rotator cuff injuries - and thus are still considered career enders.

Rosenthal's point is correct, though - the Mets have never properly planned for the possibility that Pedro may never give them 30 starts in a season. The reality is that Pedro Martinez (regardless of his salary) was no more than the fourth starter on the Mets going into this season - but by luck, not by design. Minaya absolutely pilfered John Maine and Oliver Perez and in the process stole his true #2 and #3 starters from other hapless teams. I find it hard to believe he could've known both would turn out to be this good, but it is this happy accident that has prevented Pedro's injury from becoming disatrous.

I mentioned some of the ill-advised trades earlier, but suffice it to say I do not believe the Mets received true value for Lastings Milledge. As for the Mets' amateur draft strategy, I wholeheartedly agree with Rosenthal. The slotting system is a joke and any team that adheres to it is simply engaging in collusion for the sake of holding down salaries. Minaya has hinted that the Mets will no longer play along, starting as soon as the June 2008 draft. It remains to be seen if he will be true to his word, but it's an encouraging development.