Cautious Optimist - There's No Success in Failure and a Failure is no Success at all (Part 1)

 

The Mets have fallen into total disarray and if you believe otherwise, I'd love to know what you see that I am missing.  Or better yet, to paraphrase a line from When Harry Met Sally, I'd love to have whatever you're having.

I do not support change for its own sake. I agree with posts and comments published on our site recently pointing out that the only thing worse than chaos is adding more chaos. 

If I disagree with those comments at all, it is because I don't view the current Mets situation as chaotic.   Chaotic processes are essentially unpredictable.  If anything, our Mets are quite predictable, and rather than being all over the map, too often land in the very same place. 

We are, I fear, witnessing a pervese, but nevertheless reliably functioning machine in action.  The problem is that our well oiled machine is an Edsel, not a Ferrari. Don't confuse minor variations at the margins with chaos.  The names change on the mound and on the line-up card, but the results don't.   We lose often, and in much the same way (almost all the time).  

Chaos is marked by unpredictable and extensive variance.

This isn't chaos.

It's a catastrophe.

This past off-season, I was foolish enough to believe that I understood what the front office was up to. I devoted energy to interpreting, explaining and defending it.  In retrospect, all I  was really doing was praising my own version of what I took them to be doing.  In effect, I was praising myself, and my interpretive acumen.  

Misplaced chutzpah; nothing more, I fear.

Ok. it's time for a bit of Bayesian updating.  New information has come to light that calls for reassessing our short and long term goals.  Ever the (cautious) optimist, I've revised how we might look at this season and enjoy what remains of it. With that in mind, I've taken to reconceptualizing the goals for this year.

1. Make the Mets an interesting watch, sufficiently so to keep the fan base engaged -- if not quite excited.

2. Begin the process of building -- on the field and not just on paper -- the team and the pipeline necessary to compete for championships regularly.  

Both goals involve time lines for the remainder of the season.  I have divided the season into four time slices.

1. The remainder of May.

2. June 1 to the ASB

3. ASB to Trade Deadline

4. Trade Deadline to Season End

The goal is to figure out what we can do and roughly when to do it so that we know much better than we do now what we have and what we lack, while building a foundation that will anchor the club going forward. Once that build is sufficiently, even if incompletely,aaaad                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    realized, we can then move on to build the complementary components required for sustained success.

The path from pathetic to palatable

The first step the organization needs to take is to admit and own mistakes, both in planning and in execution.  The second is to minimize the damage the mistakes continue to cause.  This stage requires honesty, accountability and will be financially costly -- but how costly depends on how one does one's accounting.

It isn't a matter of stopping the bleeding.  The patient is dying from the inside out: stop the cause, don't satisfy yourself with treating the symptons.

It will be costly to cut ties with past mistakes, but failing to do so, just allows the seeds of destruction to grow and will only make it more difficult and expensive to break from the past.  Proper accounting implores us not to throw good money after bad; or as the great baseball savant from Hibbing, Minnesota has put it: 

'there's no success in failure, and a failure is no success at all.'

The Anchor   

Every team needs an anchor, something that is rock solid and steady that it builds around and which remains its key focus, and puts the greatest emphasis on securing.  In spite of the fact that nowadays starting pitchers rarely throw complete games or 200 plus innings over the course of a season, pitching remains the key, and for me, the anchor of the Mets' future success.

Why? Because pitching failures or shortcomings have the greatest overall downstream negative effects on a team's performance.  Get it wrong, and you go nowhere.  Get it right, and you have a chance. Luckily for the Mets, and looking honestly at where they are, they have the makings of a solid pitching staff not just for the remainder of the season, but over the longer haul.

In my view, when putting together a pitching staff, the two most important components are the starters and the back end of the bullpen.

Let's begin with the starting rotation.

The Mets starting rotation has been surprisingly good for over a month now: good enough to have formed a foundation of a team playing .600 ball during that period.  Of course the Mets have played nowhere near .600 ball over that period.  So the bulk of the blame for their poor performance lays elsewhere.

However, there are two problems with the starting rotation that would have made playing .600 ball unsustainable over the long run. If the team is going to be interesting for the remainder of the year, and if pitching is to anchor the team going forward, both issues need to be addressed-- the sooner the bette

        1.    As a group the starting pitchers barely go beyond 5.2 innings/game.  Part of the problem is the manager's itchy trigger finger.  The first batter on base after the 5th inning inevitably results in a call to the bullpen.  

It's one thing to be running on empty; another to be running scared.  Our manager is running scared, looking to avoid collapse.  Protect a lead even if it flies in the face of what learning theorists know about achieving excellence.  Excellence is developed only in the face of confronting failure; and confronting failure requires extending to the boundaries of one's capacities. In playing a risk averse strategy, the manager also too often wastes an excellent performance by the starter, while overworking a fragile and poorly constructed bullpen. 

Same as last year.  The only difference is that last year's bullpen was going to hell in support of a 'winning team'.  The team is employing the same bullpen destructive strategy in service of a losing team headed for complete disaster.  It's never a good strategy to double down on a bad strategy.  Proximity to the Casino may be dangerous for managerial staff.   

        2.    Last year's starters (until June 12 anyway) were well defined group, even if it was not populated with household names. Some performed better than expected; some a bit worse.  But they all showed up for duty and performed admirably when their names were called.  Here we are in the middle of May one year later, and we don't even know who the starters are yet.  Worse, while managed to start the season with six or seven starters among our pitching staff of thirteen, we are down to four at most, one of whom did not even figure among the seven with which we began

Peralta, McLean, Holmes and Scott.  

Peralta and Holmes cannot be counted on for more than 5.2 innings.  Not quite what one would be looking for in starters who will anchor a staff.  But Peralta and Holmes are both durable and that counts for something.

Scott is a newcomer to the current staff, and being treated with kid gloves for now, and correctly so, given his having lost last year to surgery and recovery.  He's performed admirably so far, after a forgettable first appearance, but do not forget that, as we go to press, he has yet to secure a win in the major league level.  Ace-in- waiting/training, McLean has also run into trouble after the 5th.  He has shown glimpses of someone capable of making it to and through the 7th inning from time to time if the manager would only let him give it a try.  

What do we do this year to make the staff interesting and build for the future?

Remember the days when Senga was part of the rotation and the question was whether we needed a 6th starter so that he could be given the extra day off he so desperately needed to pitch his best? 

Forget 6 starters, we need a 5th just to keep up with other teams fighting to stay out of the cellar that we so comfortably occupy at the moment.  Before we think of adding a 5th starter, we need to deal with making additional subtractions.

There are four potential subtractions to consider.  The FO needs to figure out what to do with the not so fabulous threesome of Peterson, Manaea and Senga. Manaea is a poster child for addition by subtraction.  Senga is the poster child for concierge medicine.  Like his cohort, Mr. Megill, Peterson is a tease.  A reliever who everyone mistakenly wants to believe is a starter. 

And while they are at it, the FO needs to figure out what to do with Peralta. The Mets should not and will not sign Peralta as a free agent.  He has lost juice on his fastball.  Though durable, he is not an ace.  Indeed, he is a potential drain on the bullpen rarely capable of going more than 6 innings . It makes no sense to put money into signing him, certainly not the sort of money others will ante up, let alone to do so for the number of years he will command.

Job # 1:  Trade Peralta now. You are likely to get more in return the earlier you trade someone in their walk year.  Apparently, the Cubs and A's are interested.  

The A's are unlikely to meet Peralta's free agency money demands so they will only offer the Mets what they think is fair for a rental. The Cubs are putting together a very good team, but one that is short elite pitching.  Peralta is relatively elite for five innings every game. Their manager knows Peralta and apparently welcomes being reunited with him.  Peralta knows the division.  The Cubs are the most likely trade partner, and one who can afford signing him and give the Mets something valuable in return.

They should feel that they owe us one since we gifted them Crow-Armstrong, the best defensive center fielder in baseball.  Not sure they will see it that way, but Chicago can nevertheless provide a top 100 prospect and someone with a high ceiling further down in their system.

Job #2.  See if you can get anything now for Senga or Manaea.  Likely very little.  See if they will accept a minor league assignment.  See if either or both qualify for 60 day IL.  I would make the case for Manaea based on how he mishandled the arm slot change and the entirely predictable injury to his obliques. I'm betting he can be moved to the IL for as long as it takes. But we don't want him there indefinitely.  He has to be healthy enough to trade even if we have to pay the bulk of the salary to get back a prospect. 

At this point, everyone knows Senga is capable of pitching well between  injuries, and that he cannot pitch through them. His trade value is modest, and even then requires that he return healthy from his most recent stint on the IL.  We will have to pay the bulk of his salary and player option to get a decent prospect or a B level first baseman catcher or DH.  

Cohen will have to eat almost all of Manaea's salary as the rest of the league sees that at this point he is a DFA in waiting.  The Mets bought a call option when they should have bought a put.  I can't predict when Manaea and Senga leave the IL, but the former is likely to be DFA'd or otherwise given away the day he does, and the other should spend a bit of time rehabbing and building modest trade value at AAA in anticipation of a trade that will bring little back in return or solace.

Job #3.  Keep Peterson in the bullpen for now.  He does well there.  Down the road, some other team may want him at the trade deadline as either a reliever or potential starter.  If he keeps his ERA as a reliever under 3 that's a plus. In the meantime he is insurance if Minter doesn't return to form and a capable reliever in his own right.  

Enough subtractions: how about an addition or two

On any version of how things play out with Peralta, Manaea, Senga and Peterson, the FO will have opportunities to add, not just to his year but for the future.

Step #1 Bring up Wenninger immediately and plug him in as the #5 starter, a role currently taken by an opener -- Brazoban -- and a half opener who follows closely behind -- Warren.

I would bring him up now ahead of Tong for several reasons.  He is the more accomplished pitcher, even if he has a lower ceiling.  He is relatively mature, has been very successful and his ceiling is roughly as 4/5 starter so he will settle in to where he is expected to perform.  He is not built to dazzle.  He is built to provide solid, stable, regular performance -- and he is one of our own.

Step #2 The day the ink on the Peralta trade is drying bring up Tong.  My views on Tong's movement pattern are well known.  It poses an ongoing risk of lower back injury and is not sustainable long term. On the other hand, he is built like Gumby and his body can handle the stress on his lumbar spine for some period of time  If he avoids injury he can be an A/A- level major league pitcher for five years.  His career path is likely to follow Lincecum's, but he will need a pitch with more horizontal movement if he is to reach his full potential.  He's working on it.  Good for him.  Lots of pitchers develop pitches when they are already in the majors.  He can refine his slider and cutter while pitching for the big league club.  

I expect a Peralta trade in the next two weeks or so which would mean that by mid June the Mets would have five right handed starters: McLean, Holmes, Scott, Wenninger and Tong. This group will draw interest from fans -- depending on what the rest of the team looks like.  Four of the five are home grown which is an added bonus, and inexpensive as well.  I don't think that all five will constitute the best pitching staff the Mets can put together going forward, but they sure as hell give fans a reason to be hopeful. And as many as four of them may become mainstays for years to come.

The curious case of Holmes, but not Sherlock

There is a case for moving Holmes at the trade deadline.  Would this a positive or a negative?  It depends on the pipeline and what we receive in return.  We lose the only real vet among the starters, and I don't take that lightly.  If he is not moved by the deadline, there is every reason to believe that he will be lost in free agency -- provided he continues to perform well and escapes injury.

If he continues apace, I'd try to extend him between the ASG and the trade deadline.  A deal that makes sense is three years plus a player's option at 15-17m/year.   

Maybe that would work.  He's a professional, shows up for work.  Wants the ball.  He's done more than enough to warrant trying to keep him. He's not young, but because he has spent most of his time in the bullpen, his arm may not have the mileage on it that would make one fearful of a precipitous decline in performance.

If he stays or if he goes

On the other hand, whether or not Holmes stays, the team lacks a left handed starter. 

If Holmes is traded or leaves in free agency, we are likely to see either Santucci or Thornton this year  If not, they will be competing for starting roles next year.

The absence of a lefty and a veteran presence means that Skubal should be a serious consideration in the offseason depending on how he responds to his surgery.

All of these moves make sense, would add interest, and likely form the basis of a strong starting rotation that could anchor the team over the next five years -- especially if aided by a left handed veteran ace.  

I don't view McLean or Tong as aces yet, but add a lefty equivalent of Max Fried or what Kershaw once was and you have 7 or 8 potential major league starters vying for positions in what should be an excellent and not particularly expensive starting rotation.

Turning to the back end of the bullpen

Right now our closer is Devin Williams who is very good and paid as if he were better than he is.  His style and approach is more like Trevor Hoffman than Mariano Rivera.  We have a couple of arms in the minors  --  Lambert and Ross -- who might supplant him and move him into being the highest paid 8th inning man on earth. 

Williams will do for now.  The rest of the outfit vying for time at the back end of the bullpen includes Minter, Weaver and Myers.  To my mind, Weaver is the equal of Brazoban and a plus version of Austen Warren.  

I don't know what to expect from Minter upon his return.  

Unless Minter returns to top form -- which would make him a credible candidate to set up Williams -, I would describe our current group as having  a number of 7th inning guys,  some of whom, if used carefully could work a reasonably clean 8th inning or extra inning on the road. from time to time.   

Thinking about building a top tier pitching staff, what our bullpen lacks is an 8th inning pitcher who could also close tight games if necessary. That's where Lambert and Ross enter the picture.  Neither is likely to toss clean innings on a regular basis at this stage in their respective careers.

On the other hand, each offers what only Brazoban offers now, which is HEAT.  If Williams is the closer, it would be nice to have him preceded by someone who throws pees. 

I see Kimbrell being released (on his way to Cooperstown) in favor of Minter.  If healthy, the combination of Warren, Raley, Minter, Warren, and Brazoban can make for a formidable bridge in virtually any mix and match situation from the 6th through the 8th.  Add Peterson and Myers, who would be the most versatile members of the bullpen and you have a damn good bullpen.  Add either Lambert or Ross to the mix as your primary 8th inning guy and the occasional closer, a role that Minter and Myers could also play from time to time and you really have quite a good bullpen.

Peterson will go - either by the trade deadline or through free agency -- and that would open up a spot for whichever of Lambert or Ross fails to make the team this year and perhaps someone else from a minor league affiliate club -- whether Severino or Pintaro.  

I see a path forward to an excellent pitching staff.  No delusions necessary.

Pitching can and should be the foundation of the teams' success by next year and for years to come thereafter.  

With pitching taken care of, is there any path available that would take this line-up from putrid to palatable, and beyond?

The question is whether the pitching staff will be anchoring a nuclear-sub or the Titanic -- or something in-between. That depends on factors beyond the staff's control.  The current roster of position players is too heavy a load for any pitching staff to carry.   Even if there are players waiting in the wings, developing their chops in the minors who might lighten the load, the issue is whether they will be able to do so in a time frame that coincides with the development of a top tier pitching staff.

More on that next time.