Once again it’s time to get your daily dose of TRDMB’s Mets in the Papers.
Brian Costa, “NY Mets Make Minor Changes To Staff With Eye Toward Next Season”
The Mets addressed their alarming lack of defensive fundamentals this year with the removal of Alomar, who was also the infield coach. They addressed their repeated baserunning gaffes by booting Alicea and reassigning Shines.
Bart Hubbuch, “Bring On The Knife: Reyes Opts For Surgery”
If Reyes had chosen surgery in early June, when the hamstring tendon was torn, he could have returned for the final month of the season. Instead, he kept putting it off in a failed bid to heal the injury non-surgically and ended up not playing after May 20.
Bart Hubbuch, “Mets Spare Razor Ax In Shakeup”
Manuel, who is heading into the final season of a two-year contract, faced the most scrutiny for bringing back Shines after the former major-league first baseman was a total disaster coaching third base.
David Lennon, “Jeff Wilpon Promises Improvement; 2 Coaches Fired”
As for the coaches, Manuel said he was unhappy with a number of areas. Defensive lapses in the infield, especially the problems turning double plays, led him to dismiss Alomar Sr. He said he had to dump Alicea and switch Shines because of their poor handling of baserunners.
Asked why he was allowed to return, Manuel picked a curious time to inject some comic relief into the news conference. “Depending on how you feel about the mix that we had, some might say 70-92, I should be the Manager of the Year,” he said, laughing.
“I’m just joking. But no, it was a failure. We didn’t live up to expectations, period, and that’s my responsibility.”
Wallace Matthews, “The Mets’ Problem? It’s In Your Mirror, Jeff Wilpon”
In fact, don’t expect anything to change in Flushing until the year after they change ownership. The Wilpons have got to be the only owners in the history of professional sports who can captain the Titanic as if it were the Good Ship Lollipop.
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Steve Popper, “Wilpon: No Spending Restrictions”
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While it has been assumed all along that the Mets’ payroll would shrink with approximately $30 million due to come off the $147 million the team spent in 2009 — and the memory of the Bernie Madoff scandal still fresh enough to explain a savings plan — Wilpon said no limits have been placed on spending.
Adam Rubin, “Mets Fire Bench Coach Sandy Alomar Sr. And First Base Coach Luis Alicea”
Dan Warthen appeared vulnerable because the Mets issued the second-most walks in the majors despite playing in a pitcher-friendly park, but Manuel offered a positive review of the pitching coach. Manuel suggested Oliver Perez, Mike Pelfrey and John Maine had the best stretches of their careers under Warthen. Manuel partially assigned responsibility for the walks to pitchers such as Livan Hernandez, who purposely pitched around certain hitters. Manuel also suggested Maine threw more strikes in September when he returned injury-free.
Let’s Go Mets !
9 comments
wannybackstra
10/6/2009-10:43am at 10:43 am (UTC -4)
“Manuel suggested Oliver Perez, Mike Pelfrey and John Maine had the best stretches of their careers under Warthen.”
And their worst…(and it’s not even true that Maine or Perez pitched their best stretches under Warthen — both of their best years were in 2007 or Ollie’s with Pitt).
“Manuel partially assigned responsibility for the walks to pitchers such as Livan Hernandez, who purposely pitched around certain hitters.”
240 of the Mets 616 walks came from relievers in 501 IP – a walk every 2.08 IP. Starters walked one every 2.45 innings. How is it Livan’s fault the bullpen walked so many hitters?
Manuel is a f*ck*ng clown. And I can stomach reading or hearing another word from him. He’s either terrible uninformed or he’s a liar. And neither of those traits make him particularly qualified for his job.
CaseStreet
10/6/2009-10:58am at 10:58 am (UTC -4)
I’m surprised he didn’t blame all of the baserunning gaffs on Church.
wannybackstra
10/6/2009-11:06am at 11:06 am (UTC -4)
Livan should send Jerry a rat in the mail. What a prick this guy is — always laying all the blame on someone who is no longer around.
Kingman 26
10/6/2009-11:14am at 11:14 am (UTC -4)
That’s what people like Jerry do.
He is a glad-hander and a joker to the media (hear his thing about 70–92 maybe making his worthy of manager of the year, considering what he had to work with?), and a backstabbing creep.
wannybackstra
10/6/2009-11:03am at 11:03 am (UTC -4)
The other problem with Jerry’s blame it on Livan theory is that he had a better IP/BB ratio (2.64) than Redding (2.4), Maine (2.13) and Ollie (1.13). For God’s sake, Ollie walked 58 in 61 innings!!!
GravediggerHebner
10/6/2009-11:32am at 11:32 am (UTC -4)
Considering how happy I was that the team had anyone but Willie in the manager’s office, it is astounding how far Jerry has fallen in my eyes. If any of you have seen the 1976 Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange remake of “King Kong” I would describe Jerry’s fall in my eyes as comparable to that of Kong from the World Trade Center. You must be a pretty bad manager to fall that far. I was astounded pretty much daily throughout the season how inept he was. It took me a long time to acknowledge it because I was so happy the team had canned Willie. So I guess I will feel exactly the same way about the next guy, whoever and whenever that is. I will give that person a ton of goodwill because I will be so happy about who they are not. This organization is on a really bad streak with managers. Valentine’s curse?
wannybackstra
10/6/2009-11:40am at 11:40 am (UTC -4)
I had the exact same feelings, Grave. But the evidence this season from Jerry on a daily basis was astounding.
I suspect the players felt the same way when Willie was canned. They were probably just relieved to be out from under his antique set of Yankees-style rules. Looking back, the healthier version of this team was just too good not to get hot at some point and get back into the race.
And although the Mets hopes this season were destroyed early on by injury, it sure didn’t seem like any of the remaining players were buying what Jerry was selling.
GravediggerHebner
10/6/2009-11:33am at 11:33 am (UTC -4)
What a surprise that the most vitriolic article is penned by Wallace Matthews.
CaseStreet
10/6/2009-12:40pm at 12:40 pm (UTC -4)
funny how that works.
I haven’t seen any of his articles in months, and when one finally shows up, it’s the same old crap.