22
2011
Mets Should Consider This Season A Success
An article by Craig Lerner
According to David Lennon of Newsday, the Mets have to consider this season a success with regards to achieving the Moneyball approach which is what the goal has been since Alderson and Co. took over the reins of the organization last Fall. He writes:
Is the ”Moneyball” approach paying off for the Mets?
In some respects, the answer to that question is yes, as they have climbed to the top of the National League in targeted offensive categories such as walks and on-base percentage.
For that, Terry Collins and hitting coach Dave Hudgens have to consider this season a success. They began spring training with a mission statement of turning the Mets into a Moneyball-type operation (excuse the $143-million payroll) and accomplished that feat in the batter’s box if not the balance sheet.
Lennon is right.
Some of you may be baffled by such a claim, but if you consider how much this team has accomplished just in the way the offense has improved their approach at the plate and have become more disciplined hitters while striking out less, this season is a great success.
Back in March, I wrote about my expectations for this team in 2011 and one of the things I wanted to see was a team that could become smarter at the plate. I was concerned with the number of strikeouts and the few walks we were drawing in 2010. I was tired of seeing batters swinging at balls in the dirt or chasing pitches out of the strike zone. I wanted to see an end to the Franceour-esque approach to hitting.
I never expected the turnaround to happen this fast and for it to be this dramatic. The Mets .335 on-base percentage is second only to the St. Louis Cardinals (.338) in the NL and ranks sixth in the majors. According to Lennon, the other five teams are playoff-bound.
So why are the Mets stranded in 4th place and 25 games behind the division leading Phillies?
Basically it comes down to three things:
1. Timely Hitting - The Mets lead the majors with 1,204 left on base for the season.
2. Inconsistent Starting Pitching – Too many uneven performances from a rotation comprised of mid-to-bottom of the rotation starters. The Mets need good and reliable starters to anchor the first two spots in the rotation. All eyes will be on Johan Santana next Spring, but if he’s not the same what’s Plan B?
3. Disastrous Bullpen – The Mets need to completely rebuild the bullpen this offseason. I’m not thrilled that the only two relievers assured of being back next season and are under contract are Carrasco and Byrdak. Thankfully, Iggy will be gone, but this bullpen had too many holes and questions about their makeup.
I’m not worried about the hitting anymore, and I agree a great deal with what one of our readers said in this FanPost regarding what our offseason goal should be:
- Pitching
- More Pitching
- Even More Pitching
- While you’re at it better get Pitching
- Then look for Pitching
I’m not worried about our offense like I was last year at this time. I believe we found a keeper in Lucas Duda and look forward to seeing him paired with Ike Davis as our lefty power-hitting duo next season.
Bringing the fences in will help, but only if we get those upgrades in the rotation and in the bullpen.
But to get back to the point of this post and Lennon’s article, yes, the Mets should consider this season a success.
Let’s build on this.
About the Author: Craig Lerner
I'm a data analyst and researcher for a leading news agency who loves life and is hooked on the Mets. I love following the Amateur Draft and have a particular fondness for the Mets Minor Leagues who I follow each day. Give me a cold beer, a summer day, and a Mets game, and I'm good to go.
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Yeah a real BIG success. Do you realize what rubbish you just wrote? This is like a kid coming home with all F’s on the report card but the next quarter comes home with all F’s and one D. Please give me a break. You don’t even have a 500 team here and you’re talking about success. Sure am glad Steve Jobs didn’t use this rationale at Apple.
I think you’re missing my point. I’m not calling a losing season a success. The success is that we had a solid transition year and one that we can build on without all the peaks and valleys of seasons passed. We’ve learned how to constrain ourselves financially. We’ve added some good prospects to the system and didn’t trade prospects for overvalued aging parts. But most importantly is that we now have a hitting philosophy that is a proven success and while we may not see the results in the standings this season, it will pay great dividends next season and all the seasons after that.
I appreciate your response and thank you for not being vitriolic, however, with all due resrect, I respectively disagree. thank you.
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO @ Steve Jobs reference. This is AWESOME! Talk about spin. We wind up with a WORSE record than last year’s team and it’s a “success”..ROFL! Talk about agendas….
Ya, a guy who got run out of his own company is a great symbol of success. A guy who basically markets form over function so it looks like he is being succes…hey, no wonder you like him.
This is certainly gonna tick off the anti-Sandy crowd!
But, this goes back to the big picture (mission statement) for Sandy (IMO, what he was brought in to do). Build a strong organization, with a clear philosophy (approach, player development style, etc.) from top to bottom. Consider it the Braves way.
Hey, there is a reason the Braves seemed to pump out good players one after another for 2 decades. Good scouting, and excellent player development, all working under a clearly defined set of goals from the FO
I don’t even think that qualifies as “moneyball” (which in your context is being misapplied). OBP was not what moneyball was about. it was using sabermetrics (among other things) to identify undervalued skills. OBP is not at this point undervalued in MLB.
good response.
The Braves win 1 ring in the last 30 years and they’re the blueprint for success? Seriously?
Talk about trash lol
Did you miss the 15 straight division titles? The 4 WS appearances?
you want to erect a bronze statue of Minaya in Cooperstown because the Mets won a single playoff series and crashed and burned every year after, but disparage the Braves? Really?
so, in that context, “success” can be measured by having put in place a better foundation to build on. And sometimes you do have to tear down to grow stronger.
OR success can merely be measured by which direction the team is going.
It has been sliding for the last three years on an offensive level and the slide was stopped and in some metrics REVERSED!
Success is really all about the goal your sspeaking of…
Is it a success if the goal is to win a WS? No just a good first start.
But if we are talking about fixing the offensive slide we have been in then YES it was a successful year!
Doesn’t mean the job is done nor does it mean it can’t take another good step forward!
Is the team BETTER than it was a year ago? I would say YES but the record and standings won’t show that because the Phillies also got better and enough to offset any gains we may have made!
They did it through better pitching which is something that we have NOT succeeded in improving this year. Again success is defined on the element and goals for that aspect your judging!
The only successes of this season that I’ve seen are the progress of Duda, Tejada, Murph, Gee and Turner. Other than that, this year was a bomb.
playoffs or championship wise, sure.
But what the hell, at the end of the season, if you didn’t win it all or at least go deep in the playoffs, the season is a “failure”. Whether you won 72 or 88 games, you still go home in Octoboer, and start next April 0-0. So in that context, the development pieces are important!
sos wait, when john lennon uses the terms moneyball then is ok, if i use it then i am a hater???!??? i’ve said this ALL ALONG, he came here with this moneyball mentality and will use his sabermetrics way in the mets, yet i was hating the man… WTF!!!!?????
I don’t think you were quite using it the same way. Or maybe it was because it sometiems is used as almost a slur, vs. something that is good?
personally, the definition of “moneyball” I liked best went something along the lines of “it is the title of a book loosely based on a real story”.
My take is that you use it in a derogatory sense to mean cheap/low budget/won’t spend money.
he was using it in relation to looking at OBP and plate discipline as a positive attribute to have.
so we fixed the hitting and damage the pitching?? we were 6th in the league in overall ERA last year, and this year we just flapped. bullpen. from 4th in the MAJORS back in july12th, to DEAD LAST AS OF TODAY…
“personally, the definition of “moneyball” I liked best went something along the lines of “it is the title of a book loosely based on a real story”.
Any, I agree with that 100%, and it makes me wary of the movie, which was based loosely on the book. Which was based loosely on real events. People are going to see it and think that’s actually what happened in the A’s war room. I saw an interview with Jonah Hill and he said the movie was about an underdog and overcoming adversity, and baseball was only the backdrop for it.
“when john lennon uses the terms moneyball then is ok”
All that we’re saying is give FIP a chance
For the record, DAVID Lennon, the writer for Newsday, did indeed misuse the term “Moneyball” and it is annoying me a smidge.
“f i use it then i am a hater”
It’s the way you (mis)use it.
TRADE DAVID WRIGHT TODAY! HE STRIKES OUT TOO MUCH. Basic flaw…..
Trade Wright for a quality pitcher or catcher.
I agree with you about the offense. They have made great strides under Dave Hudgens. Now, they need to address the pitching. Specifically with a new pitching coach for starters. Collins has defended Warthen, but honestly, which pitcher can you point to who has really improved under his tutelage. Parnell? Pelfrey? Beato? How about DJ Carrasco, how’s he done? Niese, maybe but he can be better. Gee, well, he started out on fire, lately the league has figured him out and he hasn’t appeared able to make adjustments.
The Mets need a pitching coach who can help young pitchers develop. Warthen hasn’t shown that he can do anything for the Mets pitchers. They just seem to get worse under him.
The Mets success(if that’s what you want to call it)this year has nothing to do with “moneyball”. The Mets OBP is up because the Mets young players are getting more experienced, and are better players than they were last year, like Duda, Murphy, Tejada, Turner, ike, and even Nick Evans. It also has to do with Beltran playing great for the time he was here, and Reyes having his best season of his career – It has nothing to do with moneyball, and all of those players were already here before Alderson was even hired.
Thanks for the Props!
I don’t really see the Moneyball influence though. Moneyball is a system for aquisition and while I agree it was used somewhat in our aquisitions this year those aquisitions had very little to do with what we would consider the GOOD STEPS taken in this season.
None of our aquisitions have been the reason for the numbers you would look for if you were building using moneyball as a system.
In fact most of our Moneyball aquisitions have been in that same pitching department that we all agree is not what we would want to keep!
But I do agree we were successful this year in one respect, The team fights till the end. This is a product of the managing and coaching more than the GMing.
And that is the key CHANGE we have improved upon this season. If we want to see why they responded to the manager and coaches it’s quite apparent. Just look at where they were in relation to the performers this year?
Collins – Minor league Field coordinator Was key in working with Beltran during rehab in 2010 and all the MLB guys who got hurt last year. Did a lot of work and was known to all the kids who came up and did well this year.
Oberkfell – Was the manager of AAA Buffalo where most of the successful call ups this year came from. As bench coach he knew which kids could do what and therefore already had insight into their strength and weakness.
We all claimed before these guys got hired that you need to have a manager that the players will run through walls for well for all intents and purposes the kids who did well were all what you would call “THEIR GUYS!”
Hudgens has done a reasonably well job replacing HoJo (the coach not the writer. no replacing the writer! LOL) but his approach is anything but geared toward moneyball statistical improvement.
His hitting philosophy is as OLD SCHOOL basic as it can be!
When you see the pitch you like to hit, HIT IT! Regardless of the count!
It’s patience in one respect as you might take a pitch you can’t hit (ball OR strike) but it is also aggressive in the respet that regardless of the count when you get your pitch you must go after it because your not going to get your pitch all that often!
His approach is less about the anticipation and prediction used in batting and more focused on the REACTION to what is presented. And I agree with this approach as it does not require guessing correctly to succeed. All it requires is concentration of putting the bat on the ball when it is pitched to a place that you like.
Yes this will result in more walks AND more hits but it will also lead to more called third strikes and swings and misses if you get fooled by the pitch. This is the norm for an AGGRESSIVE approach. But in the end the fact that you are looking for pitches to HIT as opposed to waiting for mistakes or trying to draw more walks means you probably won’t strike out on balls you could not hit if you wanted to (ie High Heat) because it’s not your pitch to hit and therefore more often than not you will succeed in putting the ball in play where anything can happen!
I credit this approach with much of the success we have seen in the offensive numbers this year.
The Kids have gotten with the program, Jason Bay and David Wright are the two big bats who you have to say have not totally bought into the system yet. It is a part of the reason Reyes is in the running for the batting title though and why Murphy was right there with him until he got hurt.
Now that said is what they did reflective of Moneyball or merely GOOD BASEBALL?
You see the numbers fit with just about ANY philosophy for building you can think of. Because ALL Philosophies have one singular thing in common and that is to get the BEST PRODUCTION out of the 25 players you have on a daily basis!
Good Numbers are conducive to ALL systems you might use because GOOD NUMBERS is the goal of all!
Good is GOOD under any system you might be using. What we did was no more moneyball than it was Little Ball, Speed Ball, Herzog Ball!
The approach at the plate Hudgens implemented works for ANY system you are using. If your playing Long Ball the same exact priciples of batting apply! Wait for your pitch and crush it! Where doesn’t really matter! Don’t try for a HR try to:
1 – REACT instead of ANTICIPATE
2 – Wait for the pitch you can hit (even if it means taking a strike when the count allows!)
3 – HIT IT HARD when it comes and don’t worry about where it goes
4 – If you can’t hit it don’t try!
5 – Remember, A single scores a RISP as easily as a double does
6 – Protect the plate with 2 Strikes
Good rules for batting no matter if your playing moneyball, small ball or long ball!
between the good approach at the plate and the good attitude instilled by the manager we scored as many runs and on about the same pace as the Phillies.
The good approach at the plate helped them to execute, the Attitude gave them focus and fight that helped them to make up all those deficits the pitching staff put them in.
And THAT not moneyball is the major seas change I have seen this year that was for the better.
It’s not moneyball it’s just good solid baseball principles that have been missing here for a good long time.
Can it be maintained or does the honeymoon end after this season?
That is the real question we face right now. And while I don’t deny we might use some Moneyball metrics to build with and improve, what will be key to our success is the maintaining of this attitude and batting DISCIPLINE that resulted in the run scoring capability we need to keep up with and overtake our two main rivals in the division.
OBP is up because we have more .300 hitters this year than we had in the last 4 years combined!
We picked the right manager and coaches and I have said it before and will say it again the one coach we did not change is Warthen who has not improved a single pitcher under his guidance in fact everyone he has gotten his hands on has digressed with the exception of Dickey who does not need a Pitching coach as it’s all about the Knuckleball!
I know they like him and I’m sure he is a great coach for guys who know what they are doing. But I have seen nothing but digression in our pitching staff since he has come here and I think while we are working on the Pitching it might be time for looking for a good pitching coach as well!
you should know longer be able to call yourself a fan writing this complete trash. the goal is to win, not see how much money you can save and send the organization back to when nobody cared or watched. in no way at all has this season been successful and for u to write anything besides that is laughable and just shows the lack of knowledge mmo writers have in what the goals of a baseball team are. You remind me of jessep with garbage.
You should know which no to use.
WILL, you by know should know, the CORE salutes you…
There really are no in house candidates for our 3 weakest areas. Rotation (Schwinden), bullpen (Stinson), and catcher (Nickeas) That’s really more like AAA depth, not an upgrade.
Cohoon and Owen could get off to a good start and improve that depth in the rotation, Holt, De La Torre, Cruz and at some point Mejia could do the same for the pen but uneven performances are what you normally get from your rookie pitchers.
More and more, high end free agency is becoming a total crapshoot filled with players determined to “test the market” or those whose teams are ambivalent about resigning them. The best value in terms of performance and price are players who get extended before they get to free agency. Those are the players who’s teams want them back. We never get a shot at those guys because they don’t make it to free agency.
In the last few years you’ve had guys like GMJ, Mesch, Zito, Soriano, Rowand, Lackey, Marquis, Lowe, Hudson, Crawford, Werth, Figgins, Dunn and our own Perez, Castillo and Bay. Not only do you get worse with these guys, you also get worse later by forking over an early round draft pick. In addition you clog up your roster with a useless player and prevent your self from improving elsewhere because of the investment tied up in the under performer.
More and more players are getting their first. second or even third free agent year bought out before they get to “test the market.” That means their already older than in days gone by. On the other end, with performance enhancers being clamped down on they have a shorter period of peak performance. Only a very few make it to free agency before 31 or so. A very select few. The NYY have picked up a few good performing free agents but Cashman has made a multitude of mistakes in free agency especially in the pitching department. Pavano, Wright and Burnett in recent years to name a few.
Plan B type free agents are spotty too but there are gems to be found here even if it’s just for a year or two at a time and they don’t cost you 1st or 2nd round draft choices but pitchers who wind up as type B’s are frequently injury rehab candidates. Their looking to re establish themselves and willing to take a one year deal in order to do so. Your not going to find too many front line aces in plan B. The best value here is in the everyday bookmark type player who can competently hold down a spot for you for a year or two or a bullpen arm who can do the same, not someone who can give you 200 IP with a sub .400 ERA.
When you look to free agency to solve a different need every year it’s a total crapshoot and the more you spend is no guarantee of performance certainty. The age old excuse AFTER THE FACT of “who could have expected ________ to fall off a cliff right after we signed him” doesn’t make up for yet another lost season and having to live with the guy for two more years.
Sure there are opportunities to bring in the best of the best but invariably those players want to play for a winner. A team that’s going to be in the thick of things for the next five years. That means having a competent starting eight, reasonable rotation, decent pen and a farm capable of adding quality to the Major League roster, either on it’s own or through trades. Only players looking to cash in or without better options are interested in signing with a mediocre team. Rarely are they the best of the best.
More and more the business of baseball requires providing your own solution, BEFORE you need it, and plenty of them because not every prospect makes it. Being able to call up a Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado or Mike Minor to start games in a pennant race for you doesn’t just happen, it takes planning. Scouting. Developing. Foresight. Time. The sorts of things that aren’t required when bringing in a Brian Lawrence, Aaron Sele, Chan Ho Park, Brandon Knight or Claudio Vargas.
Being able to add a high octane arm to the pen like an Aroyds Vizcaino when your pen is on fumes takes the same planning, scouting, developing, foresight and time. The Braves traded a good bullpen arm in Boone Logan and Javier Vazquez (after reestablishing him) for Michael Dunn, Melky Cabrera and Vizcaino. An exchange of LOOGY’s, a sell high on Vazquez for a bookmark in CF and a high octane arm in Vizcaino. Something for now, something for later and made possible by the emergence of Tommy Hanson to take Vazquez’ place in the rotation. This planning ahead of time returns far better results than bringing in a Luis Ayala, Claudio Vargas, Jorge Sosa, Carlos Muniz or rushing up a not ready for prime time Bobby Parnell or Eddie Kunz but it’s takes planning BEFORE THE FACT.
Back to the rotation. The Braves were able to trade Edgar Renteria because they had Yuniel Escobar killing it in AAA and in a year in which they were just on the periphery of the Wild Card race were able to SUBTRACT from the Major League roster and pick up Jair Jurjens for Renteria.
Basically the difference between the Mets and Braves is that the Mets look around every year to see who’s available, usually in free agency or occasionally in a trade. The Braves look EVERYWHERE. ALL Major Leaguers, ALL minor leaguers and then decide who THEY want and because they have the goods in the farm, not only to fill up their 25 man roster but to fill in where they need help, no one is off limits. Meanwhile Escobar himself was traded after 2 1/2 good years for a SS for now (Gonzalez) and a SS for later (Pasternicky) as well as another minor league starting pitcher and so the cycle continues.
The Braves add who their scouts identify as the best choice from a huge pool of options and we go after whoever is “available” from a very limited pool of options. There lies the difference in games won every year.
Planning, scouting, developing foresight and time.
this thumb deal needs to go. Who the hell could dislike this?
well, when a guy comes into a METS BLOG and gush about the BRAVES is most likely he’ll get a dislike, who cares about the braves and their “prospect” or how they run a franchiSe that has won 1 CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Braves have rebuilt their team faster than the Mets did. Its not a bad idea to take a look at how other teams (even hated rivals) rebuilt their team and take some notes.
ohhh STFU!!!!!!!!!!!!! AGAIN, what exactly have they done, won or doing for you to say “oh my god, we should be like the braves??”
is it any different than saying the Mets should spend more money on payroll, because the Yankees do and that is what allows them to win?
It makes a hell of a lot of sense to look at other franchises that have been able to maintain a sustained level of success (with only bried pit stops to reload) to see what they are doing better than the Mets!
And yeah, the braves only won 1 WS, but they made the PS about 16 straight years, so hell yeah they were very successful.
even the Stanks only won 1 WS in the last decade. Are they a failure franchise too?
..and besides this is a long incoherent rant that has nothing to do with the original post. And add to that for the umpteenth time we have to read about this guy FRONT RUNNING and climbing aboard the Braves band wagon AGAIN because they’re ahead of us in the standings.
The guy is a back stabbing, front running rambling second guesser who is full of excuses for the Mets lack of success over the last few year..which have occurred in the form of memorable heart breaking defeats on the field. All this guy does is lay in wait and ramble on a few years later second guessing.
I personally think he’s a nut case.
The Braves have been to the playoffs 15 times in the last 20 years. We’ve been to the playoffs 4 times in the last 30 years and your asking what have they won? 14 division titles, 1 wild card, 4 NL Pennants and a World Series.
One thing the Braves won’t be doing this off season is debating whether to offer Mike Pelfrey, Chris Capuano or Angel Pagan a contract for 2012, who their closer or set up men are going to be or who’s going to be useful AAA depth in case Hudson, Lowe, Jurjens, Hanson or Beachy go down. Should they trade Alex Gonzalez and give the everyday SS job to Tyler Pastornicky.
They’ll be discussing whether Teheran, Delgado, Minor or Vizcaino will the first call up, not Schwinden or Dylan Owens.
We all understand that some fans prefer the off season “who can we get” intrigue but that’s better left to fantasy baseball afficianado’s. Not Major league GM’s.
Of course the Mets history of heart breaking defeats doesn’t account for anything.
Go back under your rock you second guessing band wagon fan. Using Tommy Agee’s name as your monicker is a complete disgrace.
Your are the WORST kind of second guessing bum there is.
Has you ever entertained the thought that maybe the Mets were maybe just not good enough? That those “heartbreaking” losses” happened because they just weren’t quite good enough to punch it in on 4th and goal?
yep the HR giving up to Sciosisa by Gooden in 88, the Hr given up to Pendleton in 87 by McDowell, John Franco blowing a huge save vs. Pitts in 90 or 91.
The ball that hit the top of the fence of the bat of Zeile and Timo Perez being thrown out for not hustling, that blown save by Benitez vs. the Yanks in game 1.
That Hr by Yadier Molina, that called 3rd strike by Beltran, Murphy still standing on 3B, Jose Reyes disappearing in 2007
Heck let’s go back to 1973 and Yogi should have started a well rested George Stone in game 7 instead of a tired Tom Seaver.
Yep, you’re right. All that could have been corrected.
Why don’t you and t agee go on Second Guessing cruise together and take it all the way to Atlanta.
I’m just saying, it sounds like a lot of excuse making. And losers make excuses. You don’t think Timo not hustling could have been corrected? Why was he out there if he wasn’t hustiling? You don’t think Yadier hit the home run because the fate of the Mets rested on the shoulders of Aaron frickin Heilman? You’re saying you had all the confidence in the world in Armando Benitez? Maybe Beltran struck out because Wainwright is a terrific pitcher and good pitching always beats good hitting?
Maybe it WAS all bad luck, who knows. But someone once told me you make your own luck, and if the Mets were trotting out the likes of Heilman and Benitez to lock down games, and playing guys who don’t hustle, it sounds like they needed a lot more than luck.
Obviously you’re missing the point AGAIN and YOU’RE the one sounding like a loser making excuses.
My point is they LOST with good, honest competition.
YOU are the one making excuses and sounding like a loser.
I brought out the fact that they lost these big games ON THE FIELD.
Because they weren’t good enough to win games ON THE FIELD. I don’t go back to 1973 and complain about which pitcher started. You’re a complete loser with second guessing that’s tops around here. “Well, we could have won if 83 things went differently.” If you need that many things to go differently, it’s not luck. You’re just not that good.
Your always ranting about Alderson not spending any money and yet here is an Organization that wins consistently ON THE FIELD with a payroll 40 M less than ours.
You constantly criticize the 3rd basemen every chance you get and yet having an inferior bench, catcher, LFer, bullpen and rotation hardly merits even a thought from you in how or why teams we compete against can go from Javier Lopez to Brian McCann, both with complimentary defensively sound back ups while we go from Piazza to La Duca to Schneider to Thole without defensively sound backups.
Never a thought about how our AAA depth is Schwinden, Batista and Cohoon while one of our competitiors has their pick of Delgado, Teheran or Minor.
Our bullpen is Izzy, Beato, Acosta, Igarashi, Carrasco, Parnell. Theirs is Kimbrell, Venters, Moylan, O’Flaherty, Linebrink, Sherrill and now they have Vizcaino to add to it.
Their not spending 10 M on their pen and considering how often they’ve all been called upon have done a fantastic job. We’re all wondering who’s going to be closing and setting up for us next year. No doubt you’ll be railing about those moves when they occur.
We haven’t brought up a guy who was good on both sides of the ball in years in his first go around. We lose games because we’re playing rookie 3B as starting LFers because we can’t even develop one of those.
We lost two pennant races on the last day but over the last six years we averaged over 10 players on our 25 man roster that never played Major league baseball again.
They didn’t all retire in the prime of their careers to take up professional hang gliding.
Bringing up a Julio Teheran for five or six starts is a little different matter than bringing up Brian Lawrence to the same especially when it all comes down to the last day, and one game. ON THE FIELD.
The Marlins came into play in 1993. Most of that time they’ve been pretty mediocre. Only twice have they ever won more than 90 games, once 91 once 92. Incredibly both times winning the World Series, but against this pretty mediocre team who frequently has flat out sold off their players we’re only .500 against them on the road. I know it’s a long season and Miami’s Miami but still, we can’t win more often than we lose against a mediocre team with 1/4 of our payroll on the road over a nineteen year period? What does that tell you? That we have the best players? We have the best team?
We had some pretty good luck getting into the playoffs one year not too long ago either. Cinncinnati lost 3 of their last four while we beat Pittsburgh on a walk off wild pitch on the last day to clinch a tie for the Wild Card so don’t go crying that it was all bad luck. Some times it was good luck.
One of our two World Championships had a bit of good fortune attached to it as well.
Keep on crying about “heartbreaking defeats” while teams with better players routinely go the playoffs for a decade or more at a time, regroup and then go on to do the same and I’ll keep bringing up the reason why.
It’s bad luck. Duaner whiffs Yadier in that same spot.
And if Buckner fielders that roller cleanly…
See, it works both ways.
Luck is no mystical force or deity. It is the convergence of opportunity and preparation. Well prepared teams take advantage of the good breaks and minimize the damage on the bad ones.
Poorly prepared teams get buried by the bad breaks and don’t even notice the good ones.
I think what Bayonne and Omar fans’s point is that things happen on the field that is out of the GM’s control. You guys have it as if the success or failure of a team is 100% on the GM….and that’s not true.
You can’t blame everthing on the GM. espcially since were talking about seasons that were decided by one series and one game. The Gm isn’t out there with a bat, so to blame him for everything that happens on the field is ridiculous.
Say if the Braves wind up losing the wild card, and heyward, Mccan, Freeman, and Uggla all hit under .200 from here on out, is that GM’s fault why the lost? Would you blame Frank Wren, or would you blame the teams best hitters for playing like crap?
This is where I’m coming from on the issue. When you lose a Division by one game, on the last day of the season, and you’ve called upon Jorge Sosa, Brian Lawrence, Jason Vargas, Phillip Humber, Chan Ho Park and David Williams for 25 starts Even though two of your starting pitchers are over 40 years old and your ace may or may not be back at any point in the season, where do you place the blame?
Clearly Minaya was doing his best and it wasn’t his fault there was no one in the system. He’s only here for three years at that point but here’s the thing. If the team was that vulnerable, does that indicate to you that we should have spent so many 1st, 2nd and even 3rd round picks on other areas?
What processes were put in place to provide that starter 3-4 years from then so the same damn thing didn’t happen? None.
The off season before 2007 Minaya spent a #1 pick on Moises Alou, signing him before SF had to decide to offer arbitration. If he waits just one week he could have signed Alou and almost certainly kept that pick. If he’s concerned about age on the roster, which he should be, does he even consider giving away the pick?
Maybe he waits until the non tender list comes out. Picks up a bookmark without wasting the pick. Maybe that bookmark stays healthy the whole season. Werth did.
He couldn’t have thought that La Duca, Delgado, Valentin, Alou, Greene, Pedro, Glavine and El-Duque would get him to his IFA’s could he? Of course not and he knew damn well how barren his farm was, after all he had been here for four years while it was being shipped out and neglected.
SF had Bonds playing LF at the time. Alou was a part time RFer for them and they spent 72 M on Zito that off season which was their target. no way they offer arb and risk paying Alou, Bonds and Zito. Just wait a week. What’s the rush? Or do you want your entire season riding on Brian Lawrence every year?
With the age that we had at almost every position, coupled with the lack of depth we had everywhere, how can you justify not waiting a week to sign Alou and keeping your 1st round pick?
In that draft, after the pick we gave up for Alou there were numerous players taken that could have really helped, plus we had just given away four #1 picks and three #2 picks and two #3 picks in the last five years. No wonder we had no depth.
No wonder we couldn’t recover when guys went down. Among the players that were available with that pick were Jordan Zimmerman, Mike Stanton and Freddie Freeman in our Division alone. Tommy Hunter, Travis D’Anaurd, Zach Cozart, Austin Romine, Brett Cecil and Cory Luebek.
If you ever take a look at some of the names in the boxscores down the stretch in 2007 and 2008 you’ll realize immediately why we faded. We were playing many guys who never played another game in the Majors in key roles down the stretch. This team just wasn’t ready to win. Everyone was on their last legs.
It’s hard to blame injuries or bad luck when you back all that age with more age and guys that never made it back to the Majors.
That’s the fault of roster composition and while it doesn’t fall entirely on Minaya, it doesn’t excuse him for continuing the pattern of borrowing from the future.
I don’t get how you can say it’s not his fault that he didn’t depth in the minors, but then still blame him for starting Sosa, Lawrence, ect. Who else was he supposed to get for depth? You can’t expect him to build minor league depth when at that point he’s only had two drafts.
I don’t get how you can criticize him for that.
Buckner never beats Mookie to the bag.
Why the hell don’t you go become a Braves fan here:
http://www.talkingchop.com/
Or whoever the flavor of the day is for band wagon fans like you. You’re not telling anybody here anything new.
Why would trying to emulate a system that seems to work be a bad thing?
I think it has more to do with a division rival. Had T Agee been saying the Mets should emulate the Yankees I don’t think he would get as much criticism. Then again no matter who he said he would prob get criticized.
It’s not just that NJ, is that he’s UNFAIR when he does it. He lists their good young players, and ignores ours, and he lists our bad moves and ignores theirs.
It’s very unfair.
Understood. So you don’t so much disagree with what he says you just don’t like the fact that he is one sided in his approach.
And of course he makes it seem like we don’t have any good young players either. He doesn’t mention that we have guys like Davis, Duda, Murphy, Niese, Tejada, and Gee already playing in the major leagues.
He tells us the Braves have Tyler Pastornicky, but he won’t tell you that we have Tejada on our team, who is the same age pastornicky, and is already having success in the major leagues.
He says they have Theran, Delgado, Minor, and Vizcaino, but what he doesn’t tell you is that we have Harvey, Mejia, Familia, and now Wheeler.
Now the Braves DO have a better minor leagues than us, but it’s not as much better as T agee would have you to believe – He just makes it seem like the Mets have NOBODY in the minors at all, and that’s just so not true.
And another thing he does is that he makes the Braves seem like a perfect orginazation, which is false, they have made a ton of bad moves, they signed Derek Lowe to a huge contract(if the mets did that, we’d never hear the end of that from t agee), they made a terrible trade for Mcclouth, and they traded good young players away like Adam Wainwright, Feliz, Andrus, Harrison, Charlie Morton, and Salty – could you imagine what T agee would say if Omar traded away young players like that when he was here?
I didn’t bring up any of the Met recent graduates because I didn’t bring up any of the Braves one’s. Delgado, Teheran, Minor, Pastornicky and Vizcaino are up here during the Sept call up period and I have been complimentary about the young talent Omar acquired, just wish it had taken a priority over the 25 in the buildup to multiple World Series Championships.
The Braves have made some huge mistakes, lucky for us otherwise we’d really be hosed. Don’t forget giving up a #1 pick for a year of Glavine (how we got Ike) and another for a year of Wagner but also don’t equate the Braves giving up a lot of their young prospects who turn out great with us giving up comparable players because they have so many of them. For instance with TEN very credible starting pitchers where would you put Wainwright, Feliz, Harrison or Morton? Sure they’d find a spot for Wainwright or Feliz but could they afford to trade Wainwright or Feliz? Of course they can. Could we? No way anyone of the Braves top seven starting pitchers would instantly be our ace.
SS is a position where we routinely trump everyone else but how about this chain of talent drafted, signed or traded for by the Braves at that position? Furcal, Renteria, Escobar, Andrus, Gonzalez and Pastornicky. You do have to admit that’s a pretty impressive haul at just one position. Clearly the Braves weren’t going to be standing around wondering “who are we going to get to play SS this year.” They addressed the matter beforehand, multiple times and in many different ways and that’s my point. I’m not gushing about the Braves, I’m simply pointing out how they go about their business and how that’s a clearly superior way than the way we go about it and consequently provides significantly superior results.
Where would Salty play? In front of McCann? Instead of Ross? Thole would platoon with Salty and play behind McCann or Ross.
In fact the Braves almost always have a good defensively sound backup catcher on their 25 usually for years, not a different one every year. Remember Eddie Perez backing up Javy Lopez? From Lopez to McCann, that’s more talent at catcher than we’ve developed in fifty years. The Braves can afford to trade their excess because their not sitting around every year wondering “who are we going to get to play catcher this year.” And that’s the point. They plan ahead. Don’t get caught shorthanded and even with the vast amount of talent they’ve traded, have gotten some pretty good players back as well.
Thank God the Braves did make that disastrous Tex trade (and then got very little on the way back) We were lucky there. Imagine if Andrus was playing SS for them and Feliz was yet another arm in the pen. Thank God they made the Glavine, Lowe, Wagner free agent signings. With the kind of talent their scouts produce year after year in the draft the last thing we’d need is for them to have three more guys like those you mentioned climbing the ladder right now but even you have to admit that’s a pretty impressive amount of talent assembled by the Brave scouts and GM and I just don’t see how any one can deny a connection between that kind of scouting and developing and their being in the playoffs 14 out of 20 years.
The Braves don’t even routinely go over slot and they still manage to pull this sort of talent out of the draft. In addition they have very deep and well connected scouting all over Latin America and again, their not sitting around wondering who’s going to be a free agent every year to address 8-12 spots on the 25 or 40 man roster every off season. They’ve done that work, 5-10 years beforehand. Their working on developing the one’s they have, scouting ALL Major and minor leaguers to see who they’d like to trade for and scouting all over the US and Latin America for their 2016-2026 teams while we’re still wondering about 2012.
They’re scouting now for their 2016-2026 teams?
That’s as much as 15 years from now so they’re scouting 3 and 4 year olds?
And you have the nerve to say the Mets aren’t thinking past 2012?
You’re a nut case, man. You are a draft EXTREMIST if ever one existed.
Oh and the Glavine example is just a pure second guess.
Go become a Braves fan. Just make the plunge already, you make me sick with your love affair of the Braves as if they’re the only good team in MLB. You’re just riding their d*ck and jumping on their bandwagon because they’re ahead of us right now. God I hope St. Louis wins.
How many times have the Yankees been to the playoffs in the last 20 years?
How many have THEY won compared to the Braves?
Whose system have you railed against in almost every post and WHO most closely does what you propose but won fewer WS titles doing so?
There were only “memorable heartbreaking defeats” in at most, six seasons in the last twenty years. Three times in the playoffs and three times just missing out.
There are just no “memorable heartbreaking defeats” that you can point to in a season in which you lose more games than you win.
Six times we either made the playoffs or just missed at the end. ’98, ’99, ’00, ’06, ’07 and ’08. Six times in twenty years. With the largest payroll in the League. Six times in twenty years we lost 90 games. Eleven times we lost more than we won. Three times we were over .500 but eliminated early. Those just aren’t good results because EVERY team has “memorable heartbreaking defeats.” Even the NYY with the Alomar HR, Gonzalez bloop and Red Sox comeback but theirs came in the playoffs and 7th game of the World series. As often as not ours came on the last day of the season, plus they won a few World Series as well you know.
SF missed out on the playoffs three times winning 90+ games. Those weren’t “heartbreaking?” Milwaukee and Cinncinatti too. Those don’t count? Houston’s lost some truly heartbreaking playoff series and just as many World Series in the last twenty years as we have. Colorado too. Tampa Bay and Philly as well. Braves, Cubs, Oakland, Detroit, Seattle, Anaheim, Texas, Baltimore, Montreal, Cleveland, Minnesota. I mean who hasn’t suffered crushing “heartbreaking” playoff and world Series losses or had a pennant ruined by a strike? I’ll tell you who hasn’t. Pittsburgh, The Marlins, National’s, White Sox, Toronto. Basically teams that weren’t EVER in it or won it all the one or two times they were.
“Memorable heartbreaking defeats.” Give me a friggen break. If that isn’t the losingest loser’s lament I have ever heard I don’t know what is, but I know this. Three playoff appearances and three near misses every two decades isn’t even remotely getting it done and if all you’ve succeeded in is “memorable heartbreaking defeats” then it’s high time you change your approach.
ah, i get it now! Your rant and rave here everyday practically copying and pasting your manifestos here everyday because the Mets have not been a contender every single year of their existence! Got it.
And you posted your solution the other day here when you posted an all home-grown line up for 2013. Got it.
i guess if you’re going to keep complaining here every day that this isn’t Team Utopia and comparing us to whoever is the leader of the pack that week than we’re going to have to get used to your daily manifestos
is pathetic and embarrassing to come into a blog and gush about other team success, how come there weren’t post about the braves in 2007 or 2008 when they were absolute GARBAGE!??!?? yes they challenged a little bit in 2007 but they were non exist for god knows how long.. please, give me a break.. THERE’ SALWAYS A BRAVES BLOG to go about your gushing.. GTFO of MMO
A Mets fan would dislike it because he’s talking about how great one of our biggest rivals are, and about how terrible the Mets are. You really can’t see why a Mets fan would “dislike” that?
Maybe if he wrote that on a Braves blog he’d get a lot of “likes”
well, if you aren’t interested in a better way of operating, stop pissing and moaning about the owners, the GM, the way the organization operates, etc.
t agee is a typical front runner. And a nutty one at that. What normal person would respond to a blog and consistently go off topic about his own theory about the history of the organization – EVERY BLOG!
The way this guy is a front runner about any team having better success than the Mets and currently his girl is the ATL Braves is embarrassing. Tommy Agee would turn in his grave if he knew some lone nut was using his name to climb aboard the successes of other teams and RANT on his own team every single day. And his rants are nothing but second guesses too.
God I hope the Cardinals win. Not a word about the Cardinal by this guy? Why? Because they’re not currently the flavor of the day? Maybe in 2 or 3 days they will and he’ll be rambling on about the Cardinals then.
lol, right, in two days we’ll be hearing about how great the Cardinals are when the pass Atlanta in the standings.
You and Lennon are both misusing the term “Moneyball”. It’s a book written almost a decade ago that only tangentially applies here. The Mets are in a rebuilding process. the post-Haas era A’s were in a deconstructing phase. That’s like rebuilding without all the, you know building.
It’s a pretty safe bet that once the Mets have a solid foundation and get out of some bad deals, Alderson (or whomever is GM) will be allowed to make the Mets a top 3 or 5 payroll again. He and Beane didn’t had that luxury in Oakland after 1995.
Here, he won’t have to keep searching for market inefficiencies and such. He’ll be one of the guys setting the market prices (if things go well).
As for your concern about LOB: Well, they have one of the highest OBP and BA with RISP in the NL. Not to mention scoring the 5th most runs in the NL. Not really sure it’s a problem.
Who needs the post season! We create our own successes in our own minds! Woo Hoo!
IF we had these same exact results with Omar Minaya as GM there would be calls for his firing saying enough is enough.
The post proves this writer has not a DAMNED clue about what is important in baseball and if other teams blogs who are in the post season got wind of this it would make this site AND us the laughing stock of the blogosphere
no, they would not have called for Omars head either after 1 year, especially inheriting a team with a lot of issues and a huge mismatch of talent and payroll, and not having budget available to try expensive fixes.
F*** THE ATLANTA BRAVES AND THEIR GUSHING LOVING FRONT RUNNER FANS!!!!!!!!!!!
att: THE CORE
Kinda funny that Newsday is giving Alderson credit when it’s using players Omar Minaya acquired. Talk about complete and total hypocrisy..LOL
Talk about hypocrisy. Alderson is doing better with Minaya’s players than Minaya did. Only an agenda-riddled fool would think that Minaya had anything to do with this year’s team. All he did was go to the grocery store, and while he was there, spent filet mignon money on the chuck steak. Alderson’s cooking the five star meal.
Alderson is doing WORSE with Omar’s players, you FOOL! Alderson is the guy who broke the team down and made it WORSE, buffoon.
Some Met fans can’t get any more stupid if they tried…SMH
If you think this Mets team is worse than last season, you don’t watch the Mets. Maybe only highlights, like Bayonne. This team is not only better than last season, it’ poised to keep improving.
And yet you keep trying
giving credit to a GM who did NOTHING TO HELP THIS TEAM in terms of players acquire is absolute hypocresy, i mean, he gave us hu, eamus and a broken down chris young… also, apperances by thayer, boyer that absolutely KILLED this team at the beginning of the season, then, traded the only good player in the bullpen for nothing, and traded away carlos beltran who had an All star first half for us for a single A pitcher..
Right it’s a double standard. On one hand Alderson inherited a fairly significant amount of minor league depth with a few high ceiling talents mostly centered in A- and A+ and rookie league while Minaya inherited very little below the Major League roster and next to nothing below AAA but Minaya did have the landscape cleared for him ahead of time while Alderson did not. In addition Minaya had the availability of committing as much as $250,000,000 his first year alone (Beltran 118, Pedro 54, Delgado (75, regardless of the fact it was turned down he still had the ability to make the offer and infact took over the contract the following year as well as Wagner’s 44 M) Completely different scenarios.
Minaya also inherited some under team control high end, already producing young talents in Reyes and Wright. 3 starting pitchers, some credible everyday players in Cameron, Floyd and Piazza. Victor Diaz, Kaz Matsui and Jae Seo appeared to have some upside. Heilman was useful for a time. Looper he lived with for a year. Carlos Gomez, Milledge, Humber, Jacobs, Phillips, Petit, Psomes had some trade value, Trachsel was OK as a 5th man. There were some things to work with. Not even close to a full team or extrodinary talent but there were some things to help on the Major League roster or to help him make a few trades.
Cameron was decent when he came back from the collision. Piazza was WAY better than Thole. Floyd WAY better than Bay. Even Glavine, Zambranno, Benson and Seo were better than Pelfrey, Niese, Gee and Dickey. Even Capuano has been better than Minaya’s first pitching acquisition Kaz Ishi.
Basically Minaya signed Pedro, Beltran, Cairo, Roberto Hernandez and traded for Doug mntcavage. It wasn’t really until the off season after 2005 that Minaya really went to work to transform the team with Delgado, Wagner, Valentin, Greene, Sanchez, Bradford, Oliver, Nady and then mid season with Perez, Maine, El-Duque and the reacquisition of Hernandez that Minaya really put his stamp on the team.
It’s really pointless to compare first years for GM’s anyway as Alex himself pointed out with Arizona this year. A lot of what can be done in the first year is based on what was done in prior years, both good and bad. Some things Minaya was able to address right away but he had to live with plenty of them for a year at least before being able to upgrade.
Then there’s the matter of the quick fix vs the more sustained approach. Perhaps it made more sense with some of the Major league players Minaya inherited to go quicker rather than slower especially with the system so completely barren below AAA while maybe it makes more sense for Alderson to “hold the fort” while adding significantly to the minor league talent acquired by Minaya in A ball and the rookie leagues.
In any event it’s foolish to compare results when GM’s in their first years can really only influence so much of their first season’s roster.
Omar left the minor league system loaded with talent. If we bring the fences in, we might have a pair of 30 homer hitters from the farm via Omar’s draft. How many teams could claim that. Now, it’s very early to put Duda in the 30 homer class, but there’s a good chance Duda will develop into a solid hitter. If we move the fences in, is it out of this world to think Murph can hit 25 homers with 600 at bats?
Enjoy our draft picks, because our lovely pair of Ivy League GMs are not known for their draft expertise nor are they big players in the IFA yard. SMH