John From Albany - Fundamental Manager Search

The Mets have announced that they are taking their time with the managerial search.  

Maybe it has only been three weeks but so far it seems like a long process. 

Is it due diligence?  Are the Mets taking their time to make sure they are doing it right? 

When was the last time they did something right?

Well I think they got a lot right this last June in the Draft and the signing of non-drafted free agents.  Only time will tell but just from following Brett Baty, Matt Allen, Jake Mangum, Luke Ritter, Joe Genord, Andrew Edwards, and Jake Ortega who they obtained in the draft and Frank Valentino, Jared Biddy and Matt Mullenbach that they signed as non-drafted free agents, I think they had a very successful June signing season.

They hired some new coaches to go along with Manager Edgardo Alfonzo in Brooklyn.  

Brooklyn became a great running team as Endy Chavez joined the team as bench coach and first base coach.  Hitters excelled at hitting against the shift and at productive outs to move runners over and get them in with Brooklyn hitting coach Delwyn Young.  New Brooklyn pitching coach, Josue Matos, did a great job helping Garrison Bryant to have a breakout year and showed the very difficult skill to get pitchers that were struggling to make in game adjustments to pitch effectively.

And Fonzie stressed fundamentals all year long for Brooklyn with daily drills in bunting and defense.  Brooklyn only led the league in one category, defense, and the old adage held true, defense wins championships.

Of course, the Mets had to nullify all that by firing Fonzie because he was not “Brodie’s guy”.

But, were the fundamentals and the emphasis all from Fonzie?  Or was it the first time since Gil Hodges died and Whitey Herzog left the organization, that the Mets as an organization decided to emphasize, as Keith would say, “good fundies”. 

Because if it was all Fonzie, then shame on you Brodie, Jeff, and Fred.  

Shame on you for seeing good fundamentals put into practice right in front of your face, seeing it result in Brooklyn’s only sole championship in their history, and not caring;  Not caring about Mets fan favorite Fonzie, Not caring about the fans, and maybe not caring about winning.

But baseball and baseball fans can be a forgiving lot.

Start by putting Fonzie in the Mets Hall of Fame.  He was the best all around infielder in their history, period.  He needs to be there. 

Second, in this managerial search, get someone that will stress fundamentals.  Remember those great Mets teams of the 80’s?  Remember how the less talented Cardinal teams would beat them?  They beat them by stressing defense and fundamentals.  Had the 80’s Mets teams did a little more of that than, they might have won more than one World Series. 

Right now, your best second baseman plays mostly right field, your right fielder plays mostly center field, a third basemen plays mostly left field and a 36-year-old who has leg problems plays up the middle at second.  This is a problem.

Finally, please stop the madness.  Let the manager be his own man.  If he fails, HE fails.  Yes, Baseball today is all about collaboration and working together.  Have pre-game meetings.  Work on a strategy together but let him do his job. 

Well, we will see what happens.  They say past performance does not predict future events.  Some of the performance from the Mets organization gives me hope, while others do not.  Let’s hope that the good performance from last year are the preview of things to come.