Paul Articulates – Patience is a virtue

Steve Cohen becomes the owner of the Mets and immediately begins building a team for success.  Mets fans everywhere who have suffered through almost two decades of Wilpon ownership are giddy with delight.  Less than a year and a half later, just like the kid in the back seat at the beginning of a long vacation car ride, you can already hear, “Are we winning yet?”

We all know (in an academic sense) that it takes a while to build a winning program.  It doesn’t happen overnight.   Yet somehow, the emotional little kid in our head can’t wait that long.  We want to win right now.  It takes patience; a lot of patience.  Baseball is a patient game, even with a pitch clock.  There are 20 or so games in spring training, 162 in the regular season, and hopefully more in the playoffs.

The Mets are showing all the signs of building a winner – strong front office hires, investments in analytics and training facilities, a proven manager, and some big talent acquisitions.  It takes a while for all this to gel.  Player development takes years, even with some good guys in the pipeline (except J.T. Ginn, who got away) and good coaches in place.

Yet we hear folks on a daily basis bemoaning everything that doesn’t go just right.  Francisco Lindor heard more criticism in 2021 than he had in his entire career as he stumbled with a team on his shoulders.   Pete Alonso didn’t hit 53 home runs last year – we want Freeman!  Jeff McNeil didn’t hit .300 last year – trade him!  Enough!

Before going on, I have to admit that I am also guilty of impatience.  I’m watching spring training games and already cringing when someone doesn’t get to a ball in the hole, or doesn’t advance a runner with less than two outs.  I have to remind myself that it is only spring training, and these guys are working on fine tuning their reaction time and their muscle memory.

So here is some patient advice for myself and all those reading:

• Buck Showalter is going to make some incorrect decisions early in the year.  Don’t sweat it – he is the best guy for the job, but he has to learn the team first.  Even when he does, there will be good decisions that don’t yield the expected result.  Even the best hitters make an out 70% of the time.  Give Buck your full support all year, and then evaluate how it went.
• The whole saga of Lindor’s big contract, the fans over-reacting to his slow start, and the thumbs-down controversy showed the human side of baseball.  Extremely talented people that make extreme amounts of money are still human beings.  It affects your head when tens of thousands of people are booing your lack of success even though you are trying very (too) hard.  Home teams have an advantage over visitors because the roar of the crowd pumps up the players – so don’t turn an advantage into a disadvantage by getting on players for lack of success.  Save the boos for lack of effort.
• Streaks are common in baseball.  When a player is riding a hot streak, boost it with your cheers.  When a player is languishing in a slump, let Buck figure out how to manage it – don’t publicly call for a trade.
• Sometimes luck trumps skill.  We’re good, but we’re going to lose some games.  Don’t expect a 22-0 record by the end of April; be happy if we have won more than 11.  The team is built to contend over the long haul, and should get better over time as they learn to play together.  Mid-season trade deadline acquisitions can eliminate weaknesses.

Next week it begins.  I know I have been advocating patience in this article, but I can’t wait.  Let’s play ball, and Let’s Go Mets!