Here is the scenario of why and how he was hired. Fred, Jeff and the “braintrust” woke up one day and realized the the proverbial s#*t had hit the fan. They were in financial turmoil and possibly looking at it getting worse because of the scandal .The team had bad contracts like Ollie and Luis, they had soon to be free agents that despite being thoroughbred athletes were BIG TIME INJURY RISKS!

The ace of the staff had an injury that no one has ever completely recovered from. Finally, the face of the franchise David Wright had slumped badly since moving to the new ballpark and finally Jason Bay had struggled greatly in his first year and then suffered a serious concussion.

NOT MUCH ELSE COULD GO WRONG, RIGHT….NO…. WRONG YES.

The 2011 season starts off and the team is playing pretty well behind Jose and Carlos who just happen to be playing for new contracts. BUT THEN Ike Davis gets hurt, and then Daniel Murphy and our own part time head case of a starter Mike Pelfrey staggers through the season. It was a miracle that the team won as many games as they did and you can thank Sandy for hiring Terry Collins who did a great job.

From day one Sandy was made privy to exactly what the financial situation was. He was given the reins to evaluate the whole situation and get payroll down while ownerships reboots the system.

It was obvious that we could never resign Jose, that shortening the fences was necessary to hopefully re-invent David’s swing and to get Jason Bay rolling a bit. What still remains is the holes we have at catcher, and who is going to play second base.

It was further obvious that the bullpen had to be totally revamped and that is what Sandy did.

You need to accept that 2012 is going to be tough but that continued moves will be made by Sandy who was hired to save a sinking ship.

Anyone would have been a HUGE ASSET in the crappy Bullpen Sandy rebuilt LAST offseason!

His best find (Bucholz 3.12 ERA) didn’t make it past May.
His biggest name (Carrasco) had an ERA of 6.02
Blaine Boyer had an ERA of 10.8
Parnell was better than just about EVERY reliever Sandy brought in…What does that tell you about these SMART MOVES you guys think he is making?

Clint Hurdle:“You hear about OPS and OBP,’’ Hurdle said. “I’m a big fan of G.U.T.S. It’s the best lineup I’ve ever written down, so we’ll see how far that takes us.”

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs/2008/07/14/booing-mr-met-clint-hurdle-razzes-sabermetricians-and-other-assorted-all-star-notes/

Tony LaRussa: “It’s one of the most dangerous concepts of the last seven or eight years, because it forces some executives, coaches and players to think it’s all about getting on base by drawing walks. The fact is that the guys with best on-base percentage are really dangerous hitters whenever they get a pitch in the strike zone.

“You watch your productive hitters and when they get a chance to drive in runs, they look for the first good strike. … That’s the kind of danger that creates counts. It’s not sitting up there taking strike one, strike two so you can work the count.”

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2011/10/tony_larussa_isnt_all_thumbs_u.html

Mike Scioscia “They’ve had us losing 90 games for the last [seven] years, and we managed to win 90 [five times],” Scioscia said. “I think it’s a young science … I don’t know.”

“I couldn’t tell you if Derek Jeter is a plus player because I don’t know where their spray charts tell him to play,” Scioscia said. “We understand it when Aybar doesn’t get to a slow roller up the middle because he was shaded so far toward third base. No shortstop would get to that ball, but if you’re grading it, it’s a minus.”

I don’t know if there’s anything I’ve looked at on the defensive end that paints a very accurate picture of a guy’s ability,” Scioscia said. “There’s nothing I’ve looked at that has knocked me out.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/24/sports/la-sp-baseball-stats-20110225

Dusty Baker: “I’m big on driving in runs and scoring runs,” Baker said. “Guys in the middle should score about close to equal to what they drive in. On-base percentage, that’s fine and dandy. But a lot of times guys get so much into on-base percentage that they cease to swing. It’s becoming a little bit out of control.

“What you do is run the pitcher’s count up, that helps,” Baker said. “You put him in the stretch, that helps. But your job in the middle is to either score them or drive them in. The name of the game is scoring runs. Sometimes, you get so caught up in on-base percentage that you’re clogging up the bases.”

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080223&content_id=2385630&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=cin

“Sabermetrics has picked us to finish like fourth or fifth three years in a row. So you figure their numbers out,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “Numbers are good bases to go off things and try to figure things out, but for every number you throw out there that’s not supposed to work, the human element’s always coming. Bad pitch, guy gets a hit. But he’s not supposed to, still rips a pitch in the gap. Those are all great things and, over the course of time probably prove out pretty good. But I like the human element and I like the heart way better than I like their numbers. And that’s what I’ll always stay with.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/3040/twins-thrive-without-sabermetrics

Obviously, I was wrong. But as you guys over at TRDM know, I was also wrong about the Ollie signing.

In basketball I use all kinds of stats as part of the package…. do I rely on them solely? Of course not. However, do I think that gives me an edge over other coaches? In my mind it does and I can’t argue with my success.

anyway i’d love to go back n forth s’more but i gots to go.

The single most unsubstantiated comment I keep seeing over and over.

So to millions and millions of baseball fans out there – who have never played the game – they couldn’t possibly understand it fully just b/c they’ve never played? What counts as ‘playing time’ anyway? Sandlot? Little League? Semi pro? What level would have had to have played to be included in the ‘Core’?

I think too many of you saw Moneyball, saw the character Depo was playing and said ‘Ah HA. THIS is what’s wrong with the Mets’….

This logic just defies well…logic.

I wonder what the team’s record was, and since this is HS they are not gonna be successful without a dominant pitcher anyway.

Hell, I live near a single A team and spoke to their manager and we were laughing about how much it is being used on the single A level in scouting reports etc…. Talked about how it was a mandate from above that either figure them out or get out. Again Bay the game is changing.

I teach at a high school and the coach has a guy that charts hitter tendencies, line drive percentages….

And I’ll answer that for you: Because you just cannot help yourself.
This isn’t about boredom. It’s about a complete disdain for what the game has evolved to today. You actually believe at some point all these advance stats will be abandoned and they’ll go back to the 1950s era of just utilizing ‘the eyes’.

And no one really cares if that’s your opinion. Many would find it enjoyable to debate you on that subject. The reason you get the type of responses you do is b/c you just cannot keep the personal insults out of it. You just are that angry. You just cannot help yourself.

You get the best players you need to win REGARDLESS OF THEIR APPROACH! If it’s a fit for your team than you do it. And GOOD FOR HIM! The Mets, of all teams and you should realize this if you weren’t so drunk with saber, could have used Frenchy last year to drive in all those runs that were just standing on the bases raising their OBP.

Mets could have used 20 HRs, 85 RBIs, .285 AVG oh..and one of the best RFers in the game with arguably the best arm. When you have an arm like that you tend to save runs because runners will hold up on you..but will run on a RFer with a lousy arm who got a contract signed because of his stupid OBP.

Eyes and stats are BOTH tools…. get over the fact. Those stats are here to stay nothing you can do about it. GM’s all over baseball are using ALL of them to try to gain any advantage out there. Davey and Bobby were both famous for using whatever stat they could get a hold of. 50 years from now the next generation will be fighting tooth and nail against the next age of stats yet it still will not slow progress.

So just because you do not like them does not make them any less a valuable tool.