Reese Kaplan -- By Comparison, the Mets are the Little Orange Machine

Watching the Mets struggle to score runs calls to mind my teen years watching the Cincinnati Reds and their legendary Big Red Machine.  During that era it seemed that with the exception of strong gloveman Cesar Geronimo out in center field, the Red were starting an All Star at nearly every position.  

Think back to the roster and your eyes nearly pop out of your head when you see what kind of offense Sparky Anderson was putting on the field every day and night.  You had Tony Perez at first, Joe Morgan at second, Dave Concepcion at shortstop and Pete Rose at 3rd.  Does an infield get any more stellar than that?  Oh yeah...there was a catcher behind the plate by the name of Johnny Bench!

The outfield was where the team was strong but not quite at the same level.  Ken Griffey (Junior’s dad) was a career .296 hitter with good base running speed who was three times an NL All Star for the Reds.  Cesar Geronimo won four straight Gold Gloves for the Big Red Machine while hitting an average of .278 over that period.  For his career he wasn’t much without power or speed, finishing a 15 year career as a .258 hitter.  (For a point of reference, the much maligned Albert Almora wields a .266 career mark.)

Yes, they enjoyed George Foster’s best years, including a stretch from 1976 to 1978 when he AVERAGED 43 HRs, 136 RBIs and hit .303 per 162 games.  That is almost unbelievable.  He was never near those numbers by the time he came to the Mets at age 33 where his best season was a mere .269/24/86.  Those are decent numbers but not the kind the Mets had hoped to net when they obtained the five-time All Star.  

About the only good news here is that Greg Harris, Jim Kern and Alex Trevino didn’t amount to much after leaving the Mets in that trade.  Kern had one decent setup year for the Reds but was pretty much done after that despite lingering around for small bits of another five years.  Alex Trevino finished his career as a .249 hitter with fewer home runs across 13 seasons than Foster provided in one.  

If you want to criticize the Mets it’s not what they gave up but their decision to extend Foster for another five years for $10 million when he was clearly not what he once was.  Over his Mets career Foster was a .251 hitter with an average of 25 HRs and 89 RBIs during each 162 games.  Those numbers are respectable but not All Star worthy.

The Big Red Machine was indeed remarkable for what they could do with their bats and it propelled them to two World Series titles during the decade of the 1970s.  The reason they weren’t more dominant was pitching.  Yes, they had a very strong pen and Anderson was actually the first to try the “opener” strategy deploying a reliever in the first inning as a starter.  However, the front office moves to sign over-the-hill pitchers and to stand by with oft-injured starters made Don Gullett nearly a one-man show when it came to starting pitching. 

 

From 1970 to his final Reds season in 1976 Gullet went 91-44 with a 3.03 ERA.  Those numbers were certainly impressive and helped fuel those World Series victories in 1975 and 1976.  After that success the team started to change with Tony Perez, Don Gullett and others started plying their baseball trade for other teams.  That was when the strong run ended.  

During the period of the 1970s leading up to those World Series victories GM Bob Howsam made some highly questionable pitching deals that included the likes of Gary Nolan who had some great early years while just a kid but then injuries derailed his career.  Jim McGlothlin came over in a deal with the Angels and his arm injury hit almost immediately.  Wayne Simpson was the best pitcher in the 1970 campaign and landing on the All Star game as a rookie, but he never exceeded 8 wins again due to arm issues.  He dealt away co-Rookie of the Year Pat Zachry as part of the infamous Tom Seaver deal.  He traded Milt Wilcox.  He traded Joaquin Andujar.  He obtained a great number of injured pitchers well past 30 and those maneuvers made winning games very difficult despite the 8 players who provided offense and defense.

Now the Mets are almost in the reverse situation with some awesome pitching when healthy, but batters scraping the bottom of the barrel.  Guess what?  They’re discovering that stellar arms are not enough to ensure winning when even a 1-0 lead by the opposition sometimes seems insurmountable.