Reese Kaplan -- It's Long Past Time for Major Changes



How difficult is it to watch the Mets these days?

Well, it seems that there are days when the hitting seems to be working but the pitchers revert to their Little League nightmare days when throwing strikes became as difficult as settling a centuries old territorial dispute.  

Then there are other days when the pitchers are dominating against the best hitters they face, making them guess wrong on location, velocity and spin.  It’s on these days that the hitters also channel their inner pee wee baseball days when getting hit by a pitch was a desirable strategy to getting on base since swinging and missing came far too naturally.

Fielding has also had its days in the shade when professional ballplayers seem to forget how to catch, how to throw, how to circle under a pop fly and how to choose which base to receive the attempted yet errant throw.  

Through it all everyone keeps wondering why certain players are in the lineup when they fail repeatedly and what kind of blackmail do they have against the youngsters in Syracuse who are hammering the ball yet not getting a chance to see if minor league success can replicate in the majors.

About the only thing the club is doing well this year is stealing bases led by the efforts of still struggling Starling Marte.  They say that speed never goes into a slump.  The same can’t be said for batting averages, for home runs, for Gold Glove fielding and for intelligent play on the field.

On the pitching side control is often the Achilles heal for guys on the mound who can’t seem to spot the ball in a location that is either a strike or appears to be one which induces the opposing hitters to take full swings at it without making solid contact.  Sometimes only one of the pitches is working and just as soon as the pitcher realizes it so too do the hitters.  We’ve all seen way too many free passes issued to guys at the plate just as we have seen fat, unmoving pitches right down the middle ripe for plastering.  

Yes, in a below .500 season it’s very difficult to get enthusiastic about the team when so many things are going wrong.  The issue now (and perhaps more than ever) is what the front office going to do to change the narrative of the misbegotten season.  

More and more baseball copy is being written about the best approach for Billy Eppler to take to steer the club into a new and positive direction.  I won’t reiterate the buy vs. sell arguments any more than I will revive the “promote the kids” mantra.  No one is buying tickets to see more of Daniel Vogelbach.  

There are only about two weeks left for the club to either throw its oars in the water, throw its excess baggage overboard or determine if everyone over 30 who isn’t at the top of his game must make way for an unrealistic magic fountain of youth from Syracuse.  All we know is if the team isn’t going to win then at least make a concerted effort to make the team interesting once again.