Alderson Says Stuff… I Say Stuff Too…

MetsBlog transcribed comments made by GM Sandy Alderson who appeared in the SNY broadcast booth during the fifth inning of last night’s game.

First lets read what he had to say, then some commentary.

“We’ve looked at pitches-per-plate appearance, from the first half and second half, and they’re down significantly in the second half. I think that sometimes has to do with a mix of personnel. If you go back and look at who we had in the lineup consistently over the last year and a half – because, really the buy-in (to our offensive approach) was over the last year and a half  – and when you don’t approach it that way, it can have an effect on the overall approach (of the team). That’s not an indictment of anybody, but there are certain players we’ve had playing over the last two or three months that don’t reflect our approach as well as others. … We didn’t hit with men in scoring position with two outs, and a lot of other things in the second half. But, it really underscored some of the things we need to do. For example, power-wise, if you look at the last four games we’ve won, we’ve out-homered the opposition in every one of those games. We cannot win consistently at the Major League level if we don’t have some measure of power. We haven’t had as much as we need.”

It looks like Alderson is blaming the poor results in the second half on not following through on his philosophy of taking pitches. If you’re looking at Pitches-Per-Plate-Appearance (PPPA) between the two halves to conclude what the problem is, I have to admit that scares me a little.

You see, the way I looked at it was that this team was long on luck and short on talent in the first half. All those two-out runs that carried this team in the first half were unsustainable and simply not a result of a slightly higher PPPA. It was random.

This is a bad offensive team. When Kirk Nieuwenhuis first came up and provided a nice jolt of enthusiasm and offense it was unexpected and very welcome. But as soon as the book was out on him the party was over and he was sent packing to Triple-A. Lucas Duda’s early performance also skewed the results and soon he ended up in Buffalo too. This is simply a bad offensive ballclub that is in need of some very productive major league players. You don’t need PPPA to tell you that.

Moving on… As for how Alderson plans to improve the roster, he said:

“Without naming names, we’re looking at defensive metrics, we’re looking at offensive metrics. What kind of offense we have to get from player A in order to justify playing time if the defensive metrics aren’t there? Is somebody more valuable to another team at another position than he is for us? What is coming through our system, and what is available in the free-agent market? What talent do we have at certain positions that we might be willing to trade, so to shore up at other positions? It’s a complicated process, but I think something every team goes through. We’re doing that currently, trying to assess exactly what we have and try to be in a position – not to move quickly – but be confident in the direction we take over the next six to eight weeks.”