Mack - Another Open Letter to Steve Cohen

 Good morning, Steve. 

I was always told that you can’t address someone by their first name unless you have met them. I haven’t had that pleasure with you, but since we have “talked” privately online, I thing that counts, in these times for meeting that criteria. 

I’m first going to address what I am NOT going to do in this letter. There are enough armchair General Managers out there chanting for you to bring up these two bat studs that are dominating at the AAA level, but my guess is you and your GM (see… no first name used here) are giving the grownups on your current 26-man roster the month of May to get their game in shape before you sit down and decide who will represent this team at the plate come June. 

I’ve been in the Mets clubhouses and have witnessed first hand bad chemistry between the players. This always bleeds out to the field. You don’t have that right now. You have a group of grown men that like and respect the persons on both sides of their locker. Disrupting that with quick changes can create a cancer in the clubhouse that will be hard to either remove or control for the remainder of the season. 

So, I’m going to leave the bats to you and your GM. I’m also sure that the fans will see both Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio at some point in this season. I am also sure this will be done in a timely manner and will be done in a way

that even their closest friend on the team will understand why those players had to either be returned, released, or designated. 

I AM going to address what I have always said in the past is the key to success for a team that wants to play playoff baseball. 

Sure, power bats, decent amounts of runs per game produced, and team defense (especially from the “middle fielders”) means a bunch, but, as best as I have observed since the Mets have come into existence, if you prevent your opponent from scoring more runs than you have, you… well, you get the picture. 

You do this in three ways…. starters, middle relievers, and back-end relievers. 

You assembled one of the top five rotations for opening day. Then the fan was hit with multiple injuries, while others had unforeseen control problems. You win enough games to get to the playoff if starters give up only 2.5 runs per every six innings they pitch. That, and first inning runs still need to be addressed, but I see that self correcting now… Verlander is Verlander. Max seems to have corrected himself after tumultuous beginning that included both a suspension and neck spasms. Senga is adjusting to the new ball. Cookie comes back this week. And Megill is a fully capably SP5. 

Not discussing the spilled wine named Diaz. Even after that disaster, you and the people around you  have produced one of the top back-end relievers in baseball. Drew Smith, Adam Ottovino, and David Robertson have done everything you and your pitching coach have asked them to. They have held leads, Period. 

But this leaves the one area that has dragged this team down in this early season. Middle relief. They don’t hold leads and they have increased deficits. THIS is the problem you can immediately address internally, as well as begin to target certain relievers that will become available during the upcoming trade period, that can be obtained without losing your top prospects. 

If you don’t do this… in my opinion… your team will not make the playoffs this season. 

Steve, I’ve taken up enough of time today. Please consider what I have outlined here and say hola to the Mrs. 

Mack