Sports Shorts 2011
The Mets have concluded another losing season. Frustrated? You bet I am. I thought that sweeping out all of the things that were dragging down the franchise (Jerry Manuel, Omar Minaya, the bloated contracts, the players who didn't give a shit) and bringing in fresh blood with good track records would put things back on track. I don't doubt that Sandy Alderson is a good baseball man, and that J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta are smart guys as well (and I will get around to seeing "Moneyball" one of these days), but their first major decision was not a good one, and it's determining how the team does now and, well, through 2013 apparently.
Hiring Terry Collins was a bad move. Sure, it looked good for about 5 months when everyone was proclaiming how great he and the team were doing "in the face of everything the team has had to deal with." Then, with about 20 games to go... the team invoked the ghosts of Septembers past. Here's the damning evidence, in case you needed reminding (and I certainly didn't):
2006: 15-15 (the prelude to the October heartaches that would follow)
2007: 14-14 (a little misleading... they started 9-2 and were riding high going into those last 17 games)
2008: 13-12 (again, misleading... they started the month 7-3 before Collapse II)
2009: 11-20
2010: 14-16
2011: 12-16 (7-14 in the last 21 games)
A frustrated Collins went to the press in the last week of the season and complained that his team had quit. Well, isn't it HIS responsibility to do something about that? Now I understand that this team has had a lot to deal with this year... most notably the finances and the continuing fallout from Irving Picard's attempt to take the Wilpons for every cent they have. They also had to deal with Wilpon trashing the team in the New Yorker, Jose Reyes' impending free agency, the trade of Carlos Beltran, and lots of injuries... Ike Davis' season ended in May, Reyes missed chunks of the season, David Wright missed 2 months, Daniel Murphy's season ended early, and Johan Santana's attempt to come back from arm surgery this year faltered. Through that all, the team kept hitting, found young players who were eager to contribute... and that wasn't good enough.
Why? Culprit #1: the pitching. Dillon Gee was a revelation, and had a fine rookie season, but he hit the wall just before the All-Star Break, finishing a pedestrian 6-6 after his red-hot 7-0 start. R.A. Dickey was a hard-luck loser, the only Mets starter who seemed to not get any run support; at one point, he was 5-11 before finishing 8-12 with a solid 3.28 ERA. Chris Capuano put up the numbers you would expect from a #5 starter (11-12, 4.55 ERA). After that, it gets ugly. Jonathan Niese's development stalled, his numbers looking more like Capuano's than a guy who was counted on to be a solid #2 going into the season. Mike Pelfrey imploded, going from a 15-game winner in 2010 to 7-13 with an ERA a full run higher in 2011. Pelf went from #1-by-default with Santana out to someone who could be pushed for the #5 spot in the rotation next spring. The bullpen was horrible, especially after Francisco Rodriguez was traded in Milwaukee. DJ Carrasco could not get anyone out (6.02 ERA)... and yet, Collins kept putting him in games. Bobby Parnell and Jason Isringhausen were iffy at best as closers.
All too often, the Mets' offense were asked to outscore its opponents, and when you have to do that, you're not likely to win more than you lose. The solution is obvious: Fire pitching coach Dan Warthen. The pitching staff was 13th in the league in ERA, playing its home games in a VERY pitcher-friendly park. But that's not going to happen. Collins believes that the poor pitching was because we don't have a lot of pitching talent, and that Warthen really "gets the most out of his pitchers." Yeah... the most runs allowed, the most losses, the most walks...
So we have a manager who can't control his team and refuses to blame his pitching coach for having a godawful pitching staff. Reyes, the Mets' first-ever NL batting champ, is a free agent. The attempt to sell part of the team to David Einhorn fell apart, making it all the more likely that the Mets will be unable to pay for Reyes or, well, anyone on the market this offseason. Last year at this time, I was optimistic that with the right people in charge, the Mets could bounce back. Now, I feel like the losing is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Yes, we have a good young nucleus (Gee, Justin Turner, Davis, Josh Thole, Lucas Duda, Ruben Tejada) and some solid veterans (Wright, Dickey, Angel Pagan)... but we also have Jason Bay, and Wright had another lousy season this year, and Pagan's numbers fell off this year. We also still have awful pitching, although Santana's return next year should help. Most of all, you just have a sense of a franchise that is adrift and not making any strides to get better, with a manager who has never won more than 85 games in a season. Meanwhile, every other team in the NL East is poised to be better than us in 2012. Depressing times, indeed.
As for those teams that are actually good enough to be in the playoffs (sorry, Boston... and Atlanta... actually, I'm not sorry for you, Atlanta), Tampa is riding their wave of momentum to an early lead over Texas in their ALDS, but that can only last so long, and the Rangers are still the Rangers. The Yankees dodged a bullet with the postponement tomorrow night... now they only have to face Verlander for an extended period once. Your ALCS this year will be the same as the ALCS last year: Rangers-Yankees. The Phillies could have folded up the tents at 3-0 in the 1st inning tonight against the red-hot Cardinals, but they bounced back big time. The Cards did pound the Phils a couple weeks ago, so this won't be an easy series, but the Phillies will prevail. The Brewers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in their series with Arizona, and with their ridiculous home record and dominant bullpen, they should be able to advance. Your World Series? Yanks-Phils. 2009 rematch. The winner proves that their fans can talk the talk and their team can back it up... the loser earns the right to have the entire baseball world laughing at them for the entire offseason (when they're not laughing at the Red Sox and Braves, that is).
One final note... As some time has now passed since the stunning news came out about Syracuse and Pitt jumping from the Big East to the ACC, what I'm going to say here probably has been said previously by everyone from commentators to fans to Jim Boeheim. However, this is my space to say what I feel about things, so I need to get this out. I can believe that SU made its move because the Big East failed to act swiftly enough to ensure its stability as a BCS football conference. Let's face it... football moves these decisions, nothing else. Daryl Gross wants SU football to stay relevant, and to do so, they have to be in a BCS conference, not one that slides to mid-major status while retaining its hoops dominance. So here we are, and it's tough because all I know is Syracuse in the Big East, and there's all that history, football as well as basketball. It's a new era in college sports, and as we all know, it's driven by the almighty dollar, so we're just gonna have to get used to it. I think we can all agree, though, that the next 2 years are going to be a little awkward while we run out the clock on Big East membership.
Hiring Terry Collins was a bad move. Sure, it looked good for about 5 months when everyone was proclaiming how great he and the team were doing "in the face of everything the team has had to deal with." Then, with about 20 games to go... the team invoked the ghosts of Septembers past. Here's the damning evidence, in case you needed reminding (and I certainly didn't):
2006: 15-15 (the prelude to the October heartaches that would follow)
2007: 14-14 (a little misleading... they started 9-2 and were riding high going into those last 17 games)
2008: 13-12 (again, misleading... they started the month 7-3 before Collapse II)
2009: 11-20
2010: 14-16
2011: 12-16 (7-14 in the last 21 games)
A frustrated Collins went to the press in the last week of the season and complained that his team had quit. Well, isn't it HIS responsibility to do something about that? Now I understand that this team has had a lot to deal with this year... most notably the finances and the continuing fallout from Irving Picard's attempt to take the Wilpons for every cent they have. They also had to deal with Wilpon trashing the team in the New Yorker, Jose Reyes' impending free agency, the trade of Carlos Beltran, and lots of injuries... Ike Davis' season ended in May, Reyes missed chunks of the season, David Wright missed 2 months, Daniel Murphy's season ended early, and Johan Santana's attempt to come back from arm surgery this year faltered. Through that all, the team kept hitting, found young players who were eager to contribute... and that wasn't good enough.
Why? Culprit #1: the pitching. Dillon Gee was a revelation, and had a fine rookie season, but he hit the wall just before the All-Star Break, finishing a pedestrian 6-6 after his red-hot 7-0 start. R.A. Dickey was a hard-luck loser, the only Mets starter who seemed to not get any run support; at one point, he was 5-11 before finishing 8-12 with a solid 3.28 ERA. Chris Capuano put up the numbers you would expect from a #5 starter (11-12, 4.55 ERA). After that, it gets ugly. Jonathan Niese's development stalled, his numbers looking more like Capuano's than a guy who was counted on to be a solid #2 going into the season. Mike Pelfrey imploded, going from a 15-game winner in 2010 to 7-13 with an ERA a full run higher in 2011. Pelf went from #1-by-default with Santana out to someone who could be pushed for the #5 spot in the rotation next spring. The bullpen was horrible, especially after Francisco Rodriguez was traded in Milwaukee. DJ Carrasco could not get anyone out (6.02 ERA)... and yet, Collins kept putting him in games. Bobby Parnell and Jason Isringhausen were iffy at best as closers.
All too often, the Mets' offense were asked to outscore its opponents, and when you have to do that, you're not likely to win more than you lose. The solution is obvious: Fire pitching coach Dan Warthen. The pitching staff was 13th in the league in ERA, playing its home games in a VERY pitcher-friendly park. But that's not going to happen. Collins believes that the poor pitching was because we don't have a lot of pitching talent, and that Warthen really "gets the most out of his pitchers." Yeah... the most runs allowed, the most losses, the most walks...
So we have a manager who can't control his team and refuses to blame his pitching coach for having a godawful pitching staff. Reyes, the Mets' first-ever NL batting champ, is a free agent. The attempt to sell part of the team to David Einhorn fell apart, making it all the more likely that the Mets will be unable to pay for Reyes or, well, anyone on the market this offseason. Last year at this time, I was optimistic that with the right people in charge, the Mets could bounce back. Now, I feel like the losing is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Yes, we have a good young nucleus (Gee, Justin Turner, Davis, Josh Thole, Lucas Duda, Ruben Tejada) and some solid veterans (Wright, Dickey, Angel Pagan)... but we also have Jason Bay, and Wright had another lousy season this year, and Pagan's numbers fell off this year. We also still have awful pitching, although Santana's return next year should help. Most of all, you just have a sense of a franchise that is adrift and not making any strides to get better, with a manager who has never won more than 85 games in a season. Meanwhile, every other team in the NL East is poised to be better than us in 2012. Depressing times, indeed.
As for those teams that are actually good enough to be in the playoffs (sorry, Boston... and Atlanta... actually, I'm not sorry for you, Atlanta), Tampa is riding their wave of momentum to an early lead over Texas in their ALDS, but that can only last so long, and the Rangers are still the Rangers. The Yankees dodged a bullet with the postponement tomorrow night... now they only have to face Verlander for an extended period once. Your ALCS this year will be the same as the ALCS last year: Rangers-Yankees. The Phillies could have folded up the tents at 3-0 in the 1st inning tonight against the red-hot Cardinals, but they bounced back big time. The Cards did pound the Phils a couple weeks ago, so this won't be an easy series, but the Phillies will prevail. The Brewers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in their series with Arizona, and with their ridiculous home record and dominant bullpen, they should be able to advance. Your World Series? Yanks-Phils. 2009 rematch. The winner proves that their fans can talk the talk and their team can back it up... the loser earns the right to have the entire baseball world laughing at them for the entire offseason (when they're not laughing at the Red Sox and Braves, that is).
One final note... As some time has now passed since the stunning news came out about Syracuse and Pitt jumping from the Big East to the ACC, what I'm going to say here probably has been said previously by everyone from commentators to fans to Jim Boeheim. However, this is my space to say what I feel about things, so I need to get this out. I can believe that SU made its move because the Big East failed to act swiftly enough to ensure its stability as a BCS football conference. Let's face it... football moves these decisions, nothing else. Daryl Gross wants SU football to stay relevant, and to do so, they have to be in a BCS conference, not one that slides to mid-major status while retaining its hoops dominance. So here we are, and it's tough because all I know is Syracuse in the Big East, and there's all that history, football as well as basketball. It's a new era in college sports, and as we all know, it's driven by the almighty dollar, so we're just gonna have to get used to it. I think we can all agree, though, that the next 2 years are going to be a little awkward while we run out the clock on Big East membership.
posted by Dave | 6:15 PM
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