23
2011
Your Best? Losers Always Whine About Their Best.
An article by Tie Dyed
In the Jerry Bruckheimer film, ‘The Rock,’ John Patrick Mason turned to Stanley Goodspeed and uttered a classic movie line: “Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and get a World Series ring.” No…wait, that wasn’t it. But this website is suitable for all ages. (I pause now so we can all do our own personal Sean Connery impression.)
As another Mets season comes to an August close yet again, the excuses are already beginning.
Fellow MMO bloggers Craig Lerner and Joe D. wrote excellent pieces on the effect that Citi Field has on our offensive stats as well as on the psyche of this team. And they are both right. The Mets have allowed the dimensions of Citi Field to get into their heads. It is obvious that this team has no home field advantage. We play 81 games on the road and 81 in what seems to be a neutral stadium.
However, the dimensions of Citi Field are just the latest in a long list of excuses. Albeit well-deserved. But still, excuses nonetheless.
Remember Aaron Heilman? He was the Anti-Christ in a Mets hat. After surrendering the HR to Yadier Molina that shockingly ended our 2006 quest for a championship, Heilman was ridiculed by the media and booed by Mets fans for the following season. In 2007, Heilman posted a 3.03 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP. By comparison, our current closer (and I use the word “closer” lightly) Jason Isringhausen has posted a 4.32 ERA with a 1.33 WHIP. He has blown more then half the saves he earned. But surely, it was Heilman who was the root of all evil and once we get rid of him, things will drastically improve. Heilman was sent packing, but not a thing changed.
After the discarding of Heilman showed no improvement, it was now Willie Randolph’s turn to face the guillotine. Although he posted a 544 winning percentage over 3+ seasons, 2nd highest in team history, Randolph was fired in the middle of the night. Replacing him was Jerry Manuel. At first the Mets responded positively and played well for a couple of weeks. Fans were already considering him to be the reincarnation of Gil Hodges.
But Manuel quickly wore out his welcome. His laid back approach was clearly the cause of the Mets continued decline. Manuel was fired after posting a 489 winning percentage, more then 50 points lower then his predecessor.
And in came the straight shooting no nonsense Terry Collins. In my opinion, Collins has done a hell of a great job considering the hand he’s been dealt. But still, as of now, his winning percentage is lower then both Randolph and Manuel. How long until we start blaming him?
And of course, the same goes for Oliver Perez. His attitude sucked. He didn’t care about the team and clearly he was the cause of the Mets woes. But yet, he was sent away…and nothing changed. The same can be said of Luis Castillo. And Francisco Rodriguez. And Omar Minaya.
People keep leaving…and things keep getting worse.
Every season we put the blame on someone new. Every year there is someone who is the one and only root cause of everything wrong with this club. Even Carlos Beltran, who put up some incredible numbers while he was here, was constantly under scrutiny.
Now it’s not even the fault of a person anymore but rather the fault of a structure, a building.
True, Citi Field is 24th in HR’s allowed and no Met has yet to reach 30. But if, in fact, Citi Field is heavily favored towards pitching then why are no pitchers frothing at the mouth to play here? Lee, Halladay, Oswalt, Sabathia. None of them had any interest. Why not?
In 2010, Jason Bay had the worst offensive season of his career. This year, Bay is hitting 50 pts higher at home. Of his 9 HR’s, 5 have come in Flushing. The same can be said for recently departed Carlos Beltran. He, too, was hitting 50 points higher at home and 60% of his HR’s this year came at home.
If Citi Field is so heavily geared towards pitching, then why are some of our hitters more productive at home? And why is Alderson’s phone not ringing off the hook with agents who want their clients to pitch here?
And why do the Mets have the 4th worst ERA in the league but yet 2nd highest team BA?
Since 2000, 13 teams now have a new stadium. Some have prospered. Others have not. But I don’t see other teams blaming their misfortunes on a stadium. Our own Terry Collins recently stated, “Our struggles at home are not because of the size of the ballpark. I still think if you use the field for what it is, you can still put up some decent numbers here.”
There is talk of management bringing in the fences as well as lowering the height of the wall. I am sure that will have a huge effect…just like how drastically things improved when Heilman left, when Randolph was fired, when Minaya was run out of town and so on.
Sometimes we must face facts. It’s not the fault of any one player, one GM or one stadium. Sometimes one must admit the simple fact that while we love our Mets, they are simply not a good team.
I’m just growing tired of the excuses. Or, as Sean Connery would say, the whining.
About the Author: Rob Silverman
It was 1973 when my dad introduced this 7 year old kid to Baseball and the Mets. It's been a love and passion that has lasted for 40 years, much longer than my first marriage. Since I was little, there've been 2 things I've always dreamed of: 1) Being a successful author and 2) playing right field for the Mets after Rusty Staub retired. Although 4 decades have passed and based on the current condition of the Mets, I have not given up on either dream
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 25 | 18 | .581 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 21 | .523 | 2.5 |
| Phillies | 21 | 23 | .477 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 17 | 24 | .415 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 12 | 32 | .273 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/19/2013
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A—MEN!
Agreed!!! If the stadium is a disadvantage to the Mets, it should be the same for the opposing teams…Brewers came in and they smacked the ball all over the park on us…If Fielder played here, he would still hit 35+ homeruns. We have no pitchers or real sluggers on our team, except for maybe Ike Davis (jury is still out). If other don’t want to play for us is because the Mets stink and the only way out of it is if our promising young pitchers in the minor leagues actually live up to their promise and we all know that is a crap-shoot…
tee, you are totally right, but again, we also need free agents and good trades acquisitions to make this team competitive, is not everything about the kids coming up, you don’t want this team looking like the A’s do you? or the pirates??
I agree alex, as long as we don’t rely on free agents to get us out of this mess the way we did under Minaya…Also, we have no one to trade other than our very few minor league prospects…besides, very few quality pitchers are available in the open market and if they were, the Wilpons are not going to be able to or want to put up the money to compete against other suitors like the Yankees, Red Sox, or even the Phillies…
lol, good piece, is tough when you know you don’t have the vote of confident from the GM, ppl here talk about the lack of midseason trade from minaya, but forgot how all alderson did was conceive the season by giving away krod and trade beltran for a single A pitcher, meanwhile we could’ve move a little piece here and there to at least show the lockerroom hey, “i’m willing to help you guys” but instead after saving the wilpons cash and reload for the 2014 season he said “we’re done making trades”, i was left wondering, wait, trades, he basically had a giveaway month and just like that we were done, reyes got hurt unfortunately and all was lost, wright folded once again to show how little he can handle pressure, bay well, is bay, and everything fell apart, specially the bullpen, who was weaken by the GM to save cash for the broke owners of a NY franchiZe, is tough as a fan to watch what’s goin on, and things imo won’t get better anytime soon, there’s already talk of a possible JJ HARDY sight next year in flushing, as if we’re not seeing life w/o reyes already watching this team, no spark, no energy, or to quote jason bay, just LULL.. the worst offseason and season by a GM just continues, just bad, awful, i mean, just AWFUL first year for guys who main focus is save money, and maybe get lucky with one or 2 prospects, not concern at all about winning.. but hey, meanwhile in the HALL OF JUSTICE brandon nimmo and zack wheeler ……
Terrible article,
I don’t remember fans around here calling Jerry Manuel the 2nd coming of Gil Hodges at all. I was here at the time and I remember the sentiment among people here that the hiring of Manuel was more of the same and that we wanted somebody different or outside the organization so saying that fans here said it was the 2nd coming of Gil Hodges is a lie or i don’t know what the hell you’re talking about because nothing could be further than the truth.
You’re kind of right that this is not a very good team but you know why? It’s the same reason it has been since the 2nd month of the 2009 season – injuries. We have not been able to field a healthy starting lineup and pitching staff since then. Sure you can call it an excuse but it’s also the truth.
So the next time you want to call the Mets a “not a very good team” come see me when we’re playing poorly with ALL of our horses healthy including our pitching staff.
So what do we do given your counterfactual logic,
Bayonne?
Do we keep trotting out the same injury-prone underachievers,
Er, I mean superstars?
List of Mets players this year either DL’d or traded
David Wright(DL)
Ike Davis(DL)
Jose Reyes(DL)
Carlos Beltran (traded)
K-Rod (traded)
Angel Pagan(DL)
Daniel Murphy(DL)
Jason Bay(DL)
Chris Young(DL)
Johan Santana(DL)
Taylor Bucholz(DL)
Ronny Paulino(DL)
So we should just ignore the fact that we lost all of those guys? And It’s not like they are all injury prone players, and were on the team last year – 4 of the hitters on that list played 130+ games last year, and three of those guys were new addtions – So seven of the ten guys placed on the DL this year were either not on last years team, or were healthy last year.
So it’s not the same “injury-prone underachievers” every year. New additions and players who were healthy the year before got hurt this year.
Oh and for the people who say the injuries wouldn’t be a problem if we had better backups: if you lose a guy for like two weeks, you can overcome that. but when you lose KEY players for months at a time, your not going to do good – Like what happend with Ike and Wright. No team can win when you are forced to start your backups for an extened period of time.
Your backups are backups because they aren’t good enough to be starters! So how can you win when your playing with guys who aren’t good enough to start?
DWright–DL Last year
Reyes–DL last Year
Murphy–DL Last year
Pagan–DL frequently
Bay–DL last year–absolute bust, so what difference does it make if he’s here or gone.
Paulino? He sucks.
Davis and Santana are worth it (though we have no idea what his return will mean). Young might have been good, but the big gawk is an injury-prone player; everybody knew this. Yeah, you go ahead and sign him to a new contract.
The trades are moot and a reflection of our idiot ownership.
Sorry, dude, but this is not a bright post.
Keep living on that prayer!
Wright played 157 games last year….he was never on the DL. Nobody could have expected him to miss as much time as he did ….and Davis too.
If you think about it the Mets would have had a very dangerous lineup with them because they would have two guys in the top five in hitting(reyes and Murph), and would have had three big power bats hitting behind them in Ike, Wright and Beltran – the would have scored a TON of runs with that.y
The Mets season would have been very different with Wright and Davis playing everyday….and at the start of the season nobody expected us to be playing most of our games without those guys – losing them was unexpected.
VB, you are correct on Wright. My bad. I confused 09 w/ 10. He certainly
Has great stats, but what a decline for him in 2011.
You can now add Niese and Hairston to that list – it’s unbelievable how many injuries this team has had over the last three years, it really is.
And you KNOW it MUST be all Sandy’s Fault he should have known that a guy like Hairston would never last a season….
I mean if Omar is to blame for all the injuries that he had under his watch I guess Sandy is just as bad!
Bayonne – You really gotta stop building excuses for this ballclub. If your entire season is destroyed by “injuries” when you’re doing something wrong in the minor leagues.
Furthermore, lets just assume Beltran was leaving after 2011 (which he way). How is this teams ONLY problem “injuries”? What about 2B, C, CF, LF, RF, 3 starting pitcher spots, 3-4 bullpen spots? They don’t measure up. Healthy or not. So please stop telling me injuries are the problem. A lot of teams can look good from April-mid July. The Pirates did, the Indians did, and now look at them.
Baseball is 162 games. You can’t build your team and your hopes on 80 something games. If your team can’t stay healthy for 162, then guess what? Time to get a new team.
yep, in 2014 we will have a new team, again, just like that exec said: if the team wins, alderson gets the praise and is all good, if they lose is minaya’s fault”.. shockingly isn’t that the firt to give up on the season was THE GM of the new york mets!!!!
by the way, we’ve had some holes to fill this season and he didn’t do nothing, let’s see how he fills MORE holes next season, as you left out we will need a closer aside from the holes you mention..
The anonymous scout, not the exec
i called that guy houdini, as everything he said, and i mean EVERYTHING became a reality.. he was dead on, here’s some other things i found were said about sandy back in february of 2011:
Before he took the Mets job, Sandy Alderson probably thought a Ponzi scheme was something that went down in a “Happy Days” episode he once saw on Nick At Nite.
But this is one GM who has been getting an education this winter in all kinds of stuff that doesn’t involve trolling for somebody who might hit more than six home runs a year in Citi Field. It sure isn’t the new GM’s fault that he had no money to spend and no hope of moving the Oliver Perezes and Luis Castillos who are cluttering up his roster.
But the bottom line is that the Mets had a laugh track of an offseason.
A two-year contract to D.J. Carrasco, after he got non-tendered? A major league deal for Ronny Paulino while he was still serving a PED suspension? A bargain bin full of Boof Bonsers and Willie Harrises and Taylor Tankersleys? A hunt for inning-eating starters that led to the signings of Chris Capuano and Chris Young, two guys who have spent a combined 720 days on the disabled list over the past three seasons?
YIKES!!
Silly me Alex. I thought the closer was a part of the bullpen when I said “3-4 bullpen spots”
You should’ve said a WHOLE makeover.. but, don’t worry, carrasco will be here next year right?
Bayonne-With all due respect, what team has ever played an entire season without injuries? The Phillies were without Lidge for a while. And Oswalt. And if I remember, Rollins started on the DL this season (Maybe I’m wrong.) Injuries are a part of the game.
Hell, look to the Bronx. The Yankees have been without ARod for a while and yet, taking his bat out of the lineup has not seem to have a negative effect.
Or look at the Giantswho have played most of this season w/o Rookie of the Year Buster Posey–and they are still in very good shape. If the Giants can lose Posey and still compete but yet, we lost Murphy and cant?
Every year it’s the same old story-high hopes and inflated egos in spring training, a lousy start to the season , one or two 5-6 game win streaks that food the Met faithful, disabled lists with questionable injuries that have us scratching our heads, players who don’t live up to their potential, excuses from the top brass with grandiose plans for the future,minor league players that will save us, trades that don’t work out, a diminishing fan base and recriminations all around. The New York Mets-Totally and Utterly DYSFUNCTIONAL from the owners on down. A disgrace to their fans and the great city=disgusting is the best woed to come to mind and last place is oue fate, BUT Terry Collins has donw a good job-CRAP!
What a great post!
I almost wish I had written that!
No sarcasm I truly mean that!
And I especially agree with the stuff about the stadium…
Didn’t seem to bother Fielder or Braun did it?
The problem isn’t the fences it is the concept of making HR hitters out of David Wright and Jason Bay when neither are TRUE HR hitters like Ike Davis, Fielder, Howard and Braun!
You want to see the mets hit more HRs don’t bring in the fences, Bring in the TRUE HR Hitters and those fences will melt away!
Thanks Metsie