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9/21/19

Tom Brennan - Hansel Robles - Mets Malpractice



We all have, in one way or another, asked ourselves this two part question:

How did Edwin Diaz become Hansel Robles circa 2018, and Hansel Robles become Edwin Diaz circa 2018?


The first part of the question has been debated loudly for the past few months of this year, due to the fairly frequent spectacularly bad outings of Edwin Diaz for the Mets this year after being arguably the best reliever in baseball in 2018.

But...how did Hansel Robles become Edwin Diaz circa 2018?

On June 22 of last year, 2018, the New York Mets designated RHP Hansel Robles for assignment.  He had allowed 7 homers in 16 Mets outings in 2018 spanning 19.2 innings, with a 5.03 ERA (which, in point of reference, almost exactly what the 2018 Mets' pen ERA for the year turned out to be).

And despite his very live arm and 19-15 career record as a Met, he was jettisoned and off he went to the LA Angels.

This, at a time, when the Mets' bullpen was truly stinking things up in 2018 and the Mets decided to keep in their pen a bunch of stinkers wil not-so-lively arms.

The Mets could have stuck Robles in the back of the pen hoping he would come around, showing prudence and patience, while dispatching one of the other strugglers.

But they must have figured that despite his 19-15 record and live arm, he could not handle NY?  Beats me.  So he had to go, pronto.

The bullpen of 2018 at the time was a disaster that was sinking the Mets' 2018 fortunes.

In the days that followed, for instance, Robert Gsellman surrendered a grand slam to the the Dodgers.

The next day, two retained pitchers of far lower ceiling than Robles (Chris Beck - career 5.88 ERA - and Chris Flexen - career 8.07 ERA) surrendered runs in another loss.

The next loss, Tyler Bashlor (career 0-6, 5.54) surrendered 2 runs in an inning in a close loss to the Pirates.  A few days later, Corey Oswalt (6.43 career Mets ERA) surrendered 6 runs in a loss to the Marlins.  

The next day, after deGrom was pulled trailing 3-2 after 6, Gsellman surrendered 2 runs the next inning, nailing down the loss.  A few days later, Gsellman allowed 2 inherited runners to score, and he and Tim Peterson (5.91 career ERA) in 1.1 innings allowed 3 runs of their own in another bullpen debacle.

In a 9-0 loss a few days later, Flexen, Beck, and Paul Sewald (0-14, 5.22 ERA) allowed all 9 runs.

You get the point, I hope - not that I am trashing the 6 pitchers named here, but that the Mets chose to jettison live-armed Robles rather than one of these guys.

I don't really even want to go there, but the six guys are white, and the one let go was Hispanic?  Did that enter the Robles summary ejection-from-the-Mets equation?  I don't think so, and I sure as heck hope not, but I mention it nonetheless in the search for clues.  

Odd, too, that Venezuelan Wilmer Font was sent packing this year for cash considerations - the live-armed Font in 36 innings since has a 2.65 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and 44 Ks vs. 8 walks with his new team.  While with the Mets, he was 1-2, 4.94, certainly not the worst performer in the pen - but the one they dumped.

Anyway, back to Robles - what has Robles done since joining the Angels in June 2018?  

5-1, 2.55 ERA in 105 games.  

And 24 of 28 saves. 

This year, 5-0, 2.33 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP.

His last 4 months, 1.21 ERA.  

All year, just 5 HRs allowed in 68 games in the year of the juiced baseball.

Spectacular, wouldn't you say?

What changed?  

Was it just a change of scenery?  

Couldn't handle NY?   

Well, perhaps the viciousness of fans had a little something to do with his failure.  

The fans can be vicious, and merciless.

We all need a scapegoat, right, and Edwin Diaz seemingly is the current one.

But I saw an article on Hansel Robles in the LA Times recently that was very enlightening.

When I read it, I concluded:

Dave Eiland, former Mets pitching coach, screwed him up.  And the Angels un-screwed him up.  Simple enough.

Here are excerpts of what it said:

"Robles, 29, opened the Angels' eyes last September. The bargain-bin pickup a few months removed from being claimed off off waivers lit up the radar gun at Angel Stadium with a 100 mph fastball during the final series of the 2018 season."

Wait, I must ask in the search for clues, maybe he was lazy as a Met?  Not at all, after reading this:

"Robles' voracious work ethic--he is often found running stadium stairs early in the afternoon or treating his right arm with a portable massage gun before day games--has helped him become one of the most dominant relievers in the league."

So, what might it be, then?

"He regressed in 2018, the same year the Mets introduced Dave Eiland as their pitching coach. Eiland discouraged Robles from throwing a changeup at all. He directed him to focus on his fastball and slider and to make a slight alteration in his mound setup.  "I didn't know how to pitch like that, " Robles said in Spanish."

Here's what he is doing right now with that change-up that Eiland discarded:
"The rediscovery of a high-80s changeup has been key. Batters have barely touched the offspeed pitch...Robles (is) relying on it as a putaway pitch only slightly less than (his) electric fastball. "It's kind of a split-change that's been really great for him, " Angels pitching coach Doug White said. "The movement he gets on it, the shape that he gets on it, his ability to locate it pretty consistently--guys have to be ready for 98 and then the changeup comes and it's really hard to hit." "
So - this Robles release by the Mets was one huge - and, as I see it, extremely avoidable - mistake.
A guy who had win-loss success as a Met; with a very live arm; a great work ethic; and completely mishandled by the Mets' pitching coach at the time, the one that the pitching guru manager had in 2018 and well into 2019 before he was finally canned.
Released when several guys performing well below major league average with far less remarkable stuff were retained.
I see it as:
Anatomy of a complete screw up - triply painful considering what a Robles of 2019 could have meant to a Mets very wobbly Mets bullpen in 2019.
We should just write it off - hindsight is 20-20, right?  That's what I keep hearing fans say.  Can't handle NY.
Well, he saved a game against the Yanks the other day.
So, the hindsight and can't handle NY crew?
Wrong.
This was a huge, easily avoidable mistake.

We sure could have used Robles in the pen this year.
And darn it - someone in the front office needs to learn something (or some things) from his being dropped from the team last year, only to become GREAT this year.

20 comments:

  1. I can not look back.

    He was cutable back then but it came back to bite us.

    Every team has at least 5 of these.

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  2. All you can hope is they learn from their mistakes.

    Cutting Wilmer Font for a bit of cash at midseason before dumping one of the other bullpen non-performers seems to have been a mistake, too.

    Just one K'd batter last night, but Edwin Diaz showed what 100 MPH can do against the NL's # 2 HR hitter. Dump him at your own risk.

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  3. I don't remember too many "oooh-nooo's" on this site when Robles was released, so this is another of those 20/20 hindsight (Cecchini v. Seager) laments. My knee-jerk answer was: "Well, there are odd-year RP's & even-year RP's aren't there?"

    But you've touched upon anther facet of fandom that intrigues me. We all think we could manage: our lineups are superior and we watch the game as arm-chair managers, predicting, approving or face-palming PH's or pitching changes. But we don't--can't--2nd guess the instructions of pitching or batting coaches. We just don't know enough. Yet that might explain a lot.

    I watch Diaz come in and in 10 pitches throw 8 supper-nasty FB, cutters, sliders--whatever--and 2 gopher balls, at least one on the same 99mph low inside FB he struck the previous batter out on. My reaction is "bleeping Diaz"--maybe it shouldn't be.

    I'm hoping it's an odd-year/even year phenomenon.

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  4. The Wilmer Font/Hansel Robles mistakes are more telling than any in game decision a manager may make. Getting players to perform at their peak performance is the key. Clearly the bullpen setup is broken. It got better after Phil Regan came onboard but it has a ways to go.

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  5. Hobie, good points about hindsight. My brother said the same thing, he said Robles looked lost. He also thought the racist thing did not make sense. But Robles had had real success as a Met, and a really live arm, amidst a lot of crappy pen arms in 2018. Yes, he was struggling, but it was a BAD decision for a high 90s guy, when you were keeping 90-92 guys.

    John, Wilmer Font is another puzzler - he wasn't lights out with the Mets, true - but he wasn't terrible, when the rest of pen as a whole sure was, and compared to other guys, was a harder thrower. So....why get rid of him and not one of them?

    I'd sure like to know that - why THOSE TWO GUYS, rather than the many other AAAA guys who were kept around? What were they thinking? Maybe Eiland had trouble communicating with these two, a language barrier, and got frustrated...I am just speculating.

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  6. Dumping power arms who don't have control issues is a puzzler as a strategy. Of course, they once dumped a power arm with control issues - Nolan Ryan.

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  7. For every Nolan Ryan there are 500 Josh Smokers.

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  8. Mets are smoking something bad today - down 3-2 in 9th

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  9. And Leathersiches. And tons of others.

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  10. Nice article Tom. Definitely a shame. I'm surprised it was the Angels that scooped him up and not one of the power teams who seem to be able to identify all of the underperforming players.

    I look forward to your article apologizing to DeGrom. I think since you took shots at him in your Seaver post he has given up one run in 21 innings and completely dominated and has clarified his position as front runner in the Cy Young race. I apologize for saying I would take Verlander over him.

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  11. Tom,
    It is not just pitchers that the Mets have not handled well in the past two years but position players too. Did you see today’s article in the NY Daily News? Adeiny Hechavarria thanks God the Mets cut him. Adeiny is doing well for the Braves because they are using him correctly. With the Mets he sat on the bench for periods at a time then was expected to play. This is not an easy thing to do at the big league level. The Mets are doing the same now to Luis Guillorme and Tomas Nido. Theses players hit in the minors when they had regular playing time. They need regular playing time in MLB to be able to produce here.

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  12. I can't agree with you on this one, John. If we were eliminated from contention earlier, or just continued to play as we did in the first half, maybe we need to play these guys.

    But we are still alive, and we need to play to WIN, not to audition. With a regular IF of Alonso, Cano, Amed and Frazier, and JDD and McNeil backing up, who should sit so we can give "opportunities" to Hech and Guillorme?

    As for Nido, yes he hit in the minors, but Buffalo has hit as well as just about any ML catcher, and Rivera outhit Nido in the minors.

    All those you mention are good players, but have not hit well enough in the majors to earn more playing time.

    Maybe in ST they can audition, but the situation is more challenging for them with (hopefully) healthy Smith and Lowrie.

    Sometimes "no room at the inn" is a GOOD thing, even if it hurts some who can't get in.

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  13. I'm with you Bill. Hechavarria is a dime a dozen .200 something career hitter. The Mets had no place for him, can't sit the young stars to play him and he isnt going to play over Cano. I mean, I hardly think the Mets season is hinging on the few games we played Panik over Hech. People like to make stories out of non-stories. The big stars we gave up were Turner and Murphy, there have been some useful pieces that have gone elsewhere and Robles is one of them.

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    Replies
    1. BIIIIIG difference between Turner and Murph. Justin, making barely above ML Min, was just cut, with no interest in signing him.
      Murph was a FA, looking for a fat 3+ year deal, which the Mets didn't want to give him.

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  14. Dallas, thank you for your "stories out of non-stories" comment. Shows (not much) deep thought on your part.

    If you want a story out of a story, try writing one yourself.

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  15. First off Tom I was referencing Hechavarria and actually gave you kudos on your story so if you want to be upset with me then it should be regarding something else.

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  16. Literally 3 comments earlier "Nice article Tom. Definitely a shame."(about Robles)

    People will find any reason to shit on any Mets move and call everything dysfunctional and blame the Wilpons for any possible thing to go wrong. Hechavarria story is one of those stories. Cutting him to save a million was completely the right decision not some front office blunder. Why that gets your goat I don't know.

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  17. Dallas, mistook your comment. My bad.

    Bill, my brother, right or wrong, thought Turner had a partying problem. If so, it sure did not hurt him in LA.

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  18. Dallas, Jake has been great. But Seaver is the complete game king - he didn't leave it up to the pen many times.

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