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0 Subject: the Mets are finally the best at something...

Posted by: Tree
- [468203016] Sun, Sep 30, 2007, 18:22

...sadly, it's the best at having the biggest collapse in MLB history.

i hate myself for loving you, Mets.
1Skidazl
      ID: 08131920
      Sun, Sep 30, 2007, 20:16
just regular season collapse, right?

I still consider the Yankees collapse in the ALDS a couple years back the biggest, and the BEST!!!!!!!!
2JeffG
      Leader
      ID: 01584348
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 09:19
Unlucky 13.

A Mets fan buddy of me pointed this out to me this morning how everything was all fore-told for the Mets fate on Saturday.

The Mest scored 13 runs on Saturday.

Their opponents (Marlins) linescore (R/H/E) for that game was 0-1-3

The guy who broke up Saturday's no hitter and had the only Marlin hit was Paul Hoover who wore #13.

The Mets were commonly quoted as being "7 up with 17 to go". That was on the morning of September 13. From that point forward, the Phillies won 13 games.

Going into Sunday's deciding game, starter Tom Glavine had 13 wins on the season. He will make $13,000,000.00 if his option is picked up for 2008.

The Mets bullpen was to largely blame for the Mets September swoon. The bullpen is anchored by Billy Wagner who wears #13.
3Mattinglyinthehall
      ID: 454491514
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 13:37
Reyes needs to forget about the extra base hits. The stats lines sure like nice with all the triples and home runs but his job is to get on base and let the guys behind him drive him in. He should be looking for soft liners and grounders up the middle. All week long he was taking these ridiculous wild uppercuts when the Mets just need him to get on base.

Also, watching the best base stealer in the game fail to run out ground balls is unacceptable - shocking, frankly, considering the desperation the team was in. If I were a Mets fan I'd be looking for Beltran or someone to step up and put him (and Milledge, for that matter) in his place.
4blue hen
      ID: 16322314
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 14:30
Not here to gloat, I swear.

Reyes killed a lot of his stock this season. He was so valuable coming in, and now he's just an above average player. He'll never walk enough to be a superstar, and he doesn't have the power even of other shortstops like Rollins and Ramirez. The speed is key, but it's not enough.

On the other hand, the Mets, in my opinion, are a better team than the Phillies right now. The bullpen is better, the starters are better, and the hitting is almost as good.

They're pretty evenly matched; the Phils just happened to win this one.
5Mattinglyinthehall
      ID: 454491514
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 15:03
He'll never walk enough to be a superstar

He started off this year showing continued improvement in plate discipline, something that he was widely criticized for lacking after his first year. At the break his OBP was .381.

Some people say (according to Francesa today) that it was when Jose Valentin went down and wasn't regularly around the clubhouse anymore that Reyes' discipline (at the plate and elsewhere) began to wane. He's young and looks very impressionable. Franscesa also suggested today (repeatedly) that Castillo might have been a negative influence. I wouldn't know but from an outsider's perspective assigning Ricky Henderson to work with a young impressionable player might have been a really bad idea.
6Tree
      ID: 3533298
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 15:40
not for nothing, but 119 runs and 78 stolen bases is hardly just "above average"...
7Mattinglyinthehall
      ID: 454491514
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 16:00
Agreed. He was still a different player in the second half, however.

Someone with some connections tells me that a major split in the Mets clubhouse developed between the hispanic and non-hispanic players.

I'm sure that happens to one extent or another in most clubhouses but supposedly the Mets' rift was pretty deep.

If there's any truth to it, perhaps the loss of Valentin is a potential reason. I think most fans tend to look at Franco as that inspirational player/coach type figure but perhaps Valentin's presence and influence is more important than many people realize.
8blue hen
      ID: 16322314
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 16:00
119 runs sure is just "above average" for a leadoff hitter in an offense that good.

The steals are very good, yes, but he was caught 21 times, good for a 79% rate. If he'd been any lower, he'd have been hurting the team (you have to have an 80% rate to still have value).

Don't get me wrong, we're not talking Juan Uribe here, or even Edgar Renteria. Reyes is better than those players. But he certainly isn't as good as we once thought he was.
9Mattinglyinthehall
      ID: 454491514
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 16:18
Reyes steals by half:

Pre ASB: 46 steals and 81% success rate.
Post ASB: 32 steals and 76% success rate.
September: 5 steals and 56% success rate.
10Ref
      Donor
      ID: 539581218
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 16:19
Reyes was a world-beater that first month. Wonder how he fared after he cooled off numbers-wise? Perhaps those numbers would reflect someone closer to average or just above?
11Mattinglyinthehall
      Leader
      ID: 01629107
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 18:51
Thats a great point. I was really just looking at the pre and post ASB splits. But the difference is similarly pronounced looking at the April and post-April split:

April:
ab:104 ba:.356 r:26 2b:9 3b:5 obp:.442 sb:17 success rate:85%

May thru Sept:
ab:577 ba:.267 r:93 2b:27 3b:7 obp:.333 sb:61 success rate:77%
12Mattinglyinthehall
      Leader
      ID: 01629107
      Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 18:54
He definitely regressed this year but I still believe (hope?) his best years are in front of him.
13Mattinglyinthehall
      ID: 454491514
      Wed, Oct 03, 2007, 17:20
NY Daily News
But the Jose Reyes meltdown along with the other periodic breakdowns of discipline (Reyes and Lastings Milledge not running out balls, Endy Chavez, Reyes and Carlos Gomez all attempting to steal third base with two outs) that reared their ugly head in September go to the deeper problem that threatens Randolph's ability to manage this team as he envisioned.

That would be Minaya's assistant GM, Tony Bernazard who, it would appear, is the real power in the front office. Before being hired by Minaya, Bernazard worked in the Players Association as essentially the union's liaison with the Latin players. Donald Fehr would hold meetings with the players in spring training, outlining all the elements of the Basic Agreement and then Bernazard would recite it all in Spanish (Carlos Delgado once referred to him as "the highest paid translator on the planet").

As such, many Latin players throughout baseball hold Bernazard in "second father" regard. I'm also told that all of the Mets' minor league Latin players have Bernazard's cell-phone number with the understanding they should call him any time if they encounter problems either off the field or with club officials.

What is unique about Bernazard's situation with the Mets is that no other assistant GM, let alone GM, spends as much time in the clubhouse - which is supposed to be the manager's domain - as he does. After Gomez was thrown out stealing third for the final out in the ninth inning against the Marlins in Miami on Sept. 21, Bernazard was immediately at the kid's locker after the game - which could not have been very settling to Randolph. But the fact is, once the Mets fired Randolph's only hand-picked coach, Rick Down, at the All-Star break, they sent a message to the players that the manager didn't have the juice they had perceived him to have. At the time, Minaya made a point of saying Down's replacement on the staff, Rickey Henderson, would be a good influence on Reyes. Right.

Until then, Randolph had attempted to instill discipline in Reyes by employing the "tough love" approach. But when a player knows he can go over the manager's head to a higher authority with a sympathetic ear, the manager's message starts to get tuned out. And while Bernazard may insist his open fraternization with Senators manager Manny Acta in Washington was no big deal, what kind of message do you think that was to Randolph's impressionable young Latin players?

Mets sources have told me that Bernazard pushed hard for Acta to get the manager's job before Minaya settled on Randolph. I have no doubt that if Acta were not under contract to the Nats the next two years, Minaya would not have had that press conference with Randolph yesterday. The same sources insist that, because Randolph had no previous managerial experience, the Met hierarchy expected he would simply do what he was told and go along with the program. They didn't want a manager who would exert his will. If they did, they would have hired Jim Leyland.

But it turned out, in Randolph, they got more than they bargained for. From the moment he stepped on the field in his first spring training two years ago, Randolph brought a professionalism not seen around Mets since Gil Hodges held forth in the manager's chair. The Mets, Randolph declared, were going to play baseball the right way; were going to play hard and play smart every day and they were going to conduct themselves as professionals. And for the better part of 2-1/2years they did, but we started seeing an erosion of all that these past few weeks - at the same time it had become increasingly clear that the Met hierarchy's support for the manager had eroded.

Now, with Minaya serving as its front man with the weak vote of confidence yesterday, Mets ownership brings him back, seemingly for all the wrong reasons. Is it doing it just because the majority of the media are saying Randolph doesn't deserve to be fired? Or because it doesn't want to eat the $4.25 million?

Instead of saying Randolph is our guy and we believe in him and his program, Met ownership says nothing. Instead of giving their manager some juice, they give him an unspoken ultimatum and a target on his back.

14Wilmer McLean
      ID: 57938213
      Wed, Oct 03, 2007, 21:42
Mr. Met Heads Home:

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