When Brodie Van Wagenen got the nod to be the GM replacing
the Three Stooges who covered for Sandy Alderson during his medical leave, one
of the first questions facing him was what about the manager hired prior his
arrival, Mickey Callaway? For a club whose
in-house strength was perceived to be pitching and whose Achilles heel seemed
to be hitting, bringing in a pitching guru didn’t seem like the formula to take
the club to the next level.
As it played out in 2018, Callaway had his rookie managerial
growing pains, but you can’t argue with a Cy Young Award for Jacob deGrom, Zack
Wheeler matching him nearly pitch for pitch much of the year and Seth Lugo
harnessing potential to be an All-Star level setup guy. Of course, with the good comes the bad. You had more inconsistency from other
pitchers, a lost bullpen and it took until September when the games no longer
mattered for Jason Vargas to remember he wasn’t a batting practice pitcher.
That problem with the offense, if anything, got worse. The Mets were tied for last in the league
with a team batting average of just .234.
They were 12th in runs scored, 12th in OPS and 12th
in SLG. I guess you have to give them
points for consistency.
During his rookie year as GM it seemed that Brodie Van
Wagenen’s focus was much more on the offense than on the pitching (though the acquisition
of AL Saves leader Edwin Diaz was applauded).
He added bats he hoped would help in Robinson Cano (still a .300 hitter
post PEDs) and Jed Lowrie, and theoretically reinforced the bench with the
additions of J.D. Davis and Keon Broxton.
What these moves did do was force his best contact hitter – Jeff McNeil –
out of the lineup until out of desperation he was handed an outfielder’s glove,
and it created a logjam at 1st base with Todd Frazier scheduled to
move across the diamond, thus blocking both Dom Smith and some guy named Pete
Alonso. While it’s never lucky to have
players get injured, take your hats off to the latter two for seizing their
opportunities when neither Lowrie nor Frazier made it north when the team left
Port St. Lucie.
He also brought on somewhat embattled hitting coach Chili
Davis to try to light a fire into his frozen offense. Thus far the Chili Davis experiment has been
a great success even without Jed Lowrie, Yoenis Cespedes, and Brandon Nimmo available
to contribute. They are up to 7th
in batting average and 8th in all of the other leading offensive
categories.
The pitching, however, has clearly gone backwards and the
results made the first casualties the pitching and bullpen coaches. The pitching guru, Mickey Callaway, seems to
have lost his mojo and this past Sunday night also lost his cool (though many
are now questioning whether or not the whole thing was staged as an ill-fated
attempt to shake up a bad ballclub as it was so far out of character for the
seemingly affable skipper). He and Jason
Vargas went off on Newsday’s Tim Healy for no apparent reason. It will cost them some fine money, but hey, when you're earning $850,000 (or in Vargas' case almost 10 times that much) it's questionable what impact other than symbolic a fine will have.
The incident has prompted many to call for Callaway’s
termination, but you have to wonder what purpose it would serve? The Mets already squandered their opportunity
to set a righteous tone of professionalism (wait, I have to stop laughing)…by
firing Callaway the next day to send the message that none of their employees
will treat the beat writers with that kind of open hostility and threats of
violence. Well, that sinking ship has
sailed, but you’d have to think that while Mickey survived to mismanage some
more, he’s clearly navigating through iceberg-filled waters.
The problem is that in mid-season all you can generally do
is hand someone the mantle of “interim manager” which is like being the backup
quarterback. When you take over, no one
expects anything of you, and if you miraculously do manage to comport yourself
well, people are ready to build statues to you.
Basically an interim manager’s job is to try not to trip over his own
feet and to keep the team’s off-the-field behavior off the back pages. There are some flashy names theoretically
available to take over such as Dusty Baker, Buck Showalter and Joe Girardi, but
those types of deals would likely need to be negotiated after the current
debacle comes to a merciful end.
The in-house candidates for the job look more like outhouse
candidates when you examine their credentials.
Jim Riggleman has been a losing interim manager for the Padres, a losing
manager for the Cubs, a losing interim manager for the Mariners, an interim
manager (and then losing manager) for the Nationals, and a losing interim
manager of the Reds. By Mets standards,
he checks all the boxes.
A more radical idea would be to promote Chili Davis to
manager based upon his good work as hitting coach, but that would require guts
and could results in some ill will should they go after a manager in earnest
once the disastrous 2019 season is in the books.
One interesting twist they could try would be to promote AAA
manager Tony DeFrancesco as the interim manager. He brings with him two minor league manager
of the year trophies and has had some experience at the big league level having
served as interim manager for the Houston Astros back in 2012. They could simply return him to AAA for 2020
if he treaded water successfully in the role or, if he flourished, they could
reward him with an inexpensive contract with the big club. Nah, that would be too sensible.
They could reach even deeper into their system for Kevin
Boles, a 19 year minor league managerial veteran whose nearly .500 record would
represent a vast improvement over the other candidates. He’s never had any major league experience,
however, and given the sad state of the current regime, methinks they want
someone who at least knows the rules and how to fill out a lineup card.
Mack asked on Monday, is it time for Mickey to go? I ask today, if so, who should get the
nod?
10 comments:
Reese but wait wouldn't we actually have to pay Baker, Showalter or Girardi? The Wiponies will want to squeeze at least this year out of MC's 3 yr contract. Look we've been at the mercy of guaranteed contracts since free agency began and paid the price as its been a disaster for us poor fans but I'm not here to beat a dead horse the point is a new manager has to have credibility in the clubhouse as the 3 ex managers above have but will Fred, Jeffy and Saul pay the bill?
Gary has a good point - and I would rather have kept Callaway and given him Kimbrel - if one of the bullpen walking wounded - Avilan, Wilson, Familia - came back effective, the pen would be much better, and the Mets would be all right.
It was SO foolish to spend on Lowrie, having already acquired Cano, when adding another really strong pen arm would have made more sense. In 2018 and 2019, this team has conclusively proven that you can NEVER have too much pen pitching.
But you sure can have way too little.
Maybe it is the incredible increase in homers in baseball, but we've clearly seen that you can't throw amateur pen arms out there and hope for success - you need the real thing. All the amateurs do is destroy your season.
And you can't field a team with 6 infielders and hope they play great defense. Can't wait to move Rosario to Center!
Reese, I like your in house suggestions. I am not sold on DeFrancesco. Saturday night Blanco on first, two outs with the Pitcher up next, Tebow hits a double and DeFrancesco holds Blanco on third. Santana comes up and the S Mets don't score. Granted I was listening to the game on Radio but how was Blanco still on third on that play? S Mets lost that game 2-0.
Hey, can anyone be worse than the last two clowns who've held the lineup pencil? Besides, this is an interim role until a real manager can be interviewed in the off-season. (Note, I said interviewed, not hired...apparently the real managers sit in the front office).
True. And he has experience which puts him ahead of Mickey.
Speaking of Mickey's predecessor, he lost me when he played Rick Ankiel over Juan Lagares.
Reese -
Short term, don't care. Give the job to the bench coach to finish out the season
Then, in the off season, do it the right way. Make a search to match up someone with the resume to do it but also someone that wants to take on this miserable job.
I could write a book about the things he did but Wilmer Flores sat so he could play Ruben Tejada and Eric Campbell???
Reese, Did Terry make those decisions or did Sandy or Jeff?
I give credit/blame to the guy with the lineup pencil. If he doesn't have the cojones to do his job, then he should step aside.
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