Carlos Mendoza Is Not A Puppet

When a team hires an analytics-based head of baseball operations as the Mets did with David Stearns, it’s easy to expect them to adhere to the “middle manager” theory from that crock of shit known as Moneyball and install a nameless, faceless automaton to implement orders from the all-knowing front office.

The strategy persists today with clubs like the Yankees, Dodgers and Cardinals following it to their postseason doom and, worse, refusing to acknowledge the flaw in the theory that these middle managers do not know what to do when they are in the heat of the postseason. 

However, there are times when a team hires a manager and gives him a certain level of autonomy. While the Mets hiring Carlos Mendoza to replace Buck Showalter appeared to be the latest in a long line of replaceable nobodies who were happy to have the job and took short money amid the understanding that they would do precisely what they were told, his early season moves have shown that he is going to act on his independent streak and flout current trends if the circumstances call for it.

There are several examples of Mendoza having a mind of his own already and Stearns giving him the freedom to exercise his judgment. 

Against the Dodgers, he removed his starting catcher Omar Narvaez with pinch-hitter Tyrone Taylor because he was hunting for more runs. With only one other catcher on the roster, this is generally seen as a no-no. But with a 5-4 lead in the seventh inning and runners on second and third with two outs, it was a tactical gamble to get more runs and potentially put the game away. It didn’t work, but the Mets won anyway and the mere decision to take that step was indicative of his willingness to roll the dice and face postgame criticism.

Against the Giants, he removed starter Sean Manaea with two outs in the fifth inning with a six-run lead and the Giants threatening with two runners on base. Mendoza didn’t worry about Manaea getting a win, removed him and Reed Garrett got the final out. The Mets won 8-2. 

Then on Sunday, he visited the mound in the bottom of the eighth inning to talk to starter Jose Quintana with two outs in a 1-1 game and almost every observer believing he was carrying a hook with righty Adam Ottavino ready in the bullpen. Instead, he allowed the veteran Quintana to pitch to Cardinals righty swinging Willson Contreras. Quintana struck him out.

These are not moves you’d normally see today and are not moves you’d ever see from the known puppet-managers.  

Let’s not take this to mean that the Mets are going to win the World Series with an undermanned roster based solely on the strategic wizardry and fearlessness of their field boss. Barring a borderline miraculous turn of events, this team is not currently a championship contender if even a playoff team. We’re not back in 1980 when Billy Martin dragged an Athletics team to 83-79 after losing 108 games the year before. Nor are we ever again going to see any manager leave a body orchard of arms ravaged and destroyed as Billy did with Steve McCatty, Mike Norris, Matt Keough, Rick Langford and Brian Kingman.

(Just check the innings pitched at relatively young ages and the number of complete games. Even for that era, it was extreme.) 

Never again will we see a manager free to do whatever they want to win today and not worry about tomorrow in the context of the team or the player’s future. That’s a good thing. Still, the constraining influence of front offices has become so oppressive that it’s a reasonable question as to why anyone with an ounce of self-respect would want the job to begin with.

The Dodgers would win just as many games in the regular season with a mannequin sitting in the corner of the dugout instead of Dave Roberts. In the postseason, they’d likely be better off.

Aaron Boone is far better now than he was when he first started and had a blank, bewildered look on his face when the speed with which the postseason decisions needed to be made and he couldn’t fall back on orders he was given and he failed miserably. If the Yankees replaced Boone, Brian Cashman is not hiring someone who will do anything different than what Boone does. So, what’s the difference? 

Oli Marmol? He nearly singlehandedly blew the Cardinals’ National League Wild Card Series in 2022 and the team went into free fall after that. Of course, he was rewarded with a contract extension because he does what he’s told by the front office. 

Some will point to stat-centric teams hiring managers who will be granted a certain level of freedom. Often, in cases like with the Giants hiring veteran manager Bob Melvin to replace Gabe Kapler, it’s done because the front office is on thin ice and if they have another bad year, they’re going to be out the door. As much as president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi can point to knowing Melvin from their days together in Oakland, this is the fundamental reality. Desperation and self-preservation is a shaky and intellectually dishonest method of doing business.

A manager having some freedom within the current framework of numbers and tendencies is becoming more commonplace. The Cubs gave Stearns’ former manager with the Brewers, Craig Counsell, an unprecedented five-year, $40 million contract to manage the Cubs. 

That too is a bit extreme, but that’s a discussion for another day.  

Too many managers get into a high-stress situation and stare off into the distance like they’re trapped in Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru – a no-win situation – to see how they respond. Trapped as they are between knowing what the front office told them and what they’re baseball instincts are saying, they’re the spinning pinwheel on MacBook, not knowing where to go or what to do as the crisis unfolds. Given the first month of Mendoza’s tenure, it suggests that he took the job to do the job and intends to manage the team instead of being a figurehead. When (if) the Mets are in a future postseason game and a moment comes where the manager needs to make an independent decision, it’s a positive sign that they have someone in Mendoza who has the balls to do what he feels is right rather than what he knows is safe.   

Bill Belichick’s NFL coaching future has more questions than answers

ESPN released an excellent in-depth report about Bill Belichick’s failed attempts to get another head coaching job after his split with the Patriots. Not counting the Patriots themselves, there were six head coaching jobs that were open-open where the team had fired their head coach and was about to hire a new one:

• Commanders
• Titans
• Chargers
• Falcons
• Panthers
• Seahawks

The Raiders had an interim coach after firing Belichick acolyte Josh McDaniels, but did a perfunctory search before giving Antonio Pierce the permanent gig.

Then there were two jobs – the Eagles and Cowboys – that were not technically open, but rumblings suggested that the coaches were on shaky ground with a chance that Belichick’s availability would have sparked a move that otherwise might not have been made. Ultimately, Nick Sirianni was retained by the Eagles and Mike McCarthy by the Cowboys.

As the article says, Belichick was hired for none of the open jobs. In fact, it suggests that he was not even particularly close to being hired. 

What does this mean and does it make sense?

Organizations need to assess two scenarios when they think about casting their lot with Belichick:

1) Am I hiring a dour prick who’ll cost a fortune; will make my life miserable; will only be around long enough to break Don Shula’s record for coaching victories; will blow up my organization to the point that when he’s gone, I’ll literally need to start from scratch; won nothing without Tom Brady; and wears the yoke of his unprecedented success being due largely to hitting the lottery with a quarterback and credible allegations of cheating?

2) Is he the tactical genius who will maximize the talent he has; can run an organization from top to bottom; has fifty years of in the trenches experience; is motivated to prove his remaining critics wrong; is fearless in doing what is best for the organization; and will give me a very good chance at winning a Super Bowl if he has the players?

The Brady question is unanswerable and will be debated forever. Still, there are indicators that while Belichick was significantly responsible for the Patriots run, it would not have happened without the luck that precipitated Brady’s rise. 

Underlying considerations aside, Belichick’s regular season record with and without Brady is what it is. It’s fact. 

With Brady, his record is 209-64.

Without Brady, his record is 36-45 when coaching the Browns; 13-8 while Brady was with the Patriots but didn’t play; and 29-38 after Brady left. 

Belichick had three winning seasons without Brady. 

Three. 

To make matters worse, the Patriots were mediocre and then collapsed after Brady left. Brady went to Tampa to win another Super Bowl with the Buccaneers. Now he’s floated the possibility of another comeback. It’s theoretical if not straight up realistic that Brady will be back in the league before Belichick after having retired twice already.

Despite the statistical realities, there is no answer and there never will be an answer. Would Brady even have gotten a chance to play in New England had Drew Bledsoe not gotten injured? Had Bledsoe remained healthy, would Belichick have felt obligated to stick with him due to the quarterback’s contract and his relationship with owner Robert Kraft? Does the dynasty even happen? Or is Belichick fired – again – after two-plus years and back as Bill Parcells’ second in command when Parcells took the Cowboys head coaching job, relegated to being an assistant, never getting another chance as head coach?

My best guess is that the 2001 Patriots would have continued to struggle under Bledsoe. Belichick, under the impression that he was on the verge of getting fired again, would have looked at a 4-7 team and said, “I’m gonna get axed anyway. Let’s look at the kid” and thrown Brady out there. 

Again, would it have been the same result or was it the confluence of events and utter serendipity (it’s true no matter how distasteful) that Bledsoe was seriously injured forcing Brady onto the field? This was a sixth-round draft pick. Nobody thinks a sixth-round draft pick is going to do much regardless of position and they definitely don’t expect anything out of a sixth-round quarterback. Then there’s the tuck rule playoff win in the snow and who knows how many other examples of divine intervention and chicanery they got away with in the Brady-Belichick era.

Another aspect of Belichick and even Brady’s success is the clear path they had to the playoffs every year. And not just to make the playoffs. More often than not, they had a bye to the second round from the moment training camp started. In most years, they won the division handily and had it locked up with about four or five weeks left in the regular season. The Dolphins, Bills and Belichick’s favored punching bag, the Jets, rarely put up much resistance in the two-decade Brady run. In the one season that is frequently referenced as Belichick’s “greatest” coaching job in 2008 as he won 11 games and barely missed the playoffs with Matt Cassel at quarterback following Tom Brady’s opening game knee blowout, it ignores that essentially the same team had gone undefeated in the regular season the year before. They might’ve won 11 games with Tim Tebow at quarterback. 

The coaching carousel this past offseason was unprecedented with a coach holding the hardware that Belichick does not just left out in the cold, but relegated to nearly begging for a job. The Falcons job appeared to be his to lose, but owner Arthur Blank checked in with Kraft and, according to the article, came away with greater reluctance than he previously had. Compounding this is that Kraft stood to gain financially had Blank hired Belichick, taking the Patriots owner off the hook for up to $25 million of whatever salary Blank gave Belichick. He gave Blank an honest appraisal even though it cost him a good amount of money.

More telling were the whispers that Belichick could not be trusted; that there was never a warm moment between coach and owner; and that the relationship was purely transactional with Kraft putting up with Belichick’s act as long as the team was winning. 

Just think about that. They were together for 24 years and never had a warm moment despite all the Super Bowl wins, the tragedies, the triumphs and the ups and downs. Why would Kraft give Belichick a strong recommendation when factoring in all these issues? 

The lingering questions of Belichick’s personality, the Brady vs. Belichick credit rodeo, and the last few years of borderline ineptitude were bad enough. But would a new team benefit from hiring Belichick if they were getting him and not Brady? 

A ready-made team like the Cowboys, Eagles or Chargers would win with him, but they could win with other coaches too and not have the challenge of convincing players to deal with the grinding work with little joy and the understanding that as soon as he found someone slightly better, they’d be gone without remorse? 

Look at the coaches who are succeeding and being hired. They’re “fun.” Mike McDaniel, Sean McVay, Jerod Mayo, Antonio Pierce, Raheem Morris – players want to play for them. There’s a commitment. There’s a buy in. The days of the czar running an organization as a one-man dictatorship and ruling based on fear are over. 

Belichick inside the building is undoubtedly different from the personality he shows to the public. He’s said to have a wry sense of humor and to truly care about the players. That doesn’t change the single-minded intensity that was a hallmark of the Patriots success in his reign. It’s not a fun place to work and the players said as much. 

Belichick, in his interviews, was said to have shown flexibility about being the de facto GM and running every aspect of the football operation. Good faith intentions or not, the likelihood is that he would have done what he wanted and either mitigated or fired anyone who got in his way. Is it any surprise that executives who he would have inherited with the clubs he was interviewing with were cool to the idea of hiring him and subtly or overtly steered the owner elsewhere?

His supporters offer a full-throated and almost “methinks he doth protest too much” defense and promotion of the Belichick way.

And they are bragging about this?

What Blank didn't say is that he and his top lieutenants had voted on the team's next head coach, ranking each candidate.

Bill Belichick didn't even finish in anyone's top three.

Comical.

— Michael Lombardi (@mlombardiNFL) April 17, 2024

They react indignantly that it was predominately Brady who facilitated the championship run. Yet that seems to be the league wide perception. It’s akin to George Costanza shrieking to Elaine on Seinfeld how he was making moves of skillful deftness when driving that she could neither see nor comprehend.

His plans as the new coach would have included hiring his trusted assistants like Josh McDaniels, Matt Patricia, Joe Judge and others. Thoroughly understandable, a great boss who is trying to succeed quickly will want people with whom he can speak shorthand or does not need to speak at all. That aside, the question as to who was primarily responsible for the Patriots’ success extends to those assistants. All three along with Bill O’Brien and Eric Mangini failed at their head coaching opportunities. Only O’Brien succeeded in not humiliating himself. The team that hired Belichick would need to deal with those guys too?

Belichick is going to get another chance. That is not going to happen until after 2024. He is not taking a job just to pass his nemesis and detractor, Shula, on the all-time win list. Nor is he going for an extended rebuild. It will be a team that is relatively close to winning so he can prove his still questionable greatness as a head coach. While many think it will be the Cowboys or Eagles, my feeling is that it will be the Giants.

Already, co-owner John Mara has taken cryptic shots at current coach Brian Daboll wishing the coach would “tone it down.” This is not done randomly. Belichick loves the Giants. He gets visibly emotional when talking about his time on the coaching staff. The owner is impatient and no longer has guardrails on his worst instincts that his father and cousin showed in the decade before George Young was steered to the Giants to save the franchise in 1979. 

While it is unfair for general manager Joe Schoen and Daboll to be on the hot seat after an unexpected playoff season and first-round victory in 2022, Belichick’s availability is too enticing for Mara to resist. Unless the Giants win 10 games and make noise in the playoffs this year, that is Belichick’s landing spot.

By then, he’ll be approaching 73. It will be his last chance to quiet the naysayers and unless he is able to adapt his style – and find a great quarterback – the likelihood is that he’ll do nothing but prove the criticism accurate and sully his reputation and how justified it is – an issue that has been eliciting whispers as to how much credit he should get for the past two decades. As great as he is, it’s still in doubt. And it probably should be. 

The Marlins’ Necessary(?) Disaster

When a team has had four owners in its history and the most committed and consistently dedicated to winning was Jeffrey Loria, you’ve got bigger problems than you realize.

That is the current situation with the Marlins.

Admittedly, the club’s ownership history is pockmarked. Wayne Huizenga built a World Series winner within five years of the club coming into existence and blew it up immediately after that World Series. Huizenga is the same guy who, as Dolphins owner, told Jimmy Johnson that there’s “no money in sports.”

John Henry owned the team for a blink and, with Major League Baseball’s shady help, traded up to buy Red Sox while passing the club along to Loria. Loria won a World Series in 2003. His teams were up and down; he fired and rehired managers like a mini-George Steinberenner; he surrounded himself with sycophants; he pocketed revenue sharing cash; and he at least tried to win here and there. He succeeded in getting the new ballpark built, festooned with gauche art and the gaudiness of a tourist trap Miami nightclub including a collection of star players Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Giancarlo Stanton and Hanley Ramirez along with a World Series-winning manager in Ozzie Guillen only to detonate it immediately when the team finished in last place. 

Then Sherman bought the team, installed Derek Jeter as team president and part owner and set about…doing basically the same dysfunctional things his predecessors did. 

The state itself is partially to blame. Florida is not interested in baseball to the degree to make it viable. Even in years where the teams – the Marlins and Rays – have been championship contenders with significant star power, they have never drawn well, almost always finishing at or near the bottom in attendance. The ballparks can’t be blamed for it as the new Marlins stadium has every amenity imaginable and people still don’t go. 

Now, the team is again in turmoil and the park will be empty except for when transplants to the state who are fans of other teams make the trek.  

After Tuesday night’s loss to the Yankees, the Marlins are 1-11. They sit seven games behind the first place Braves in the National League East and 5.5 games out of a Wild Card spot.

It’s April 10th.

Sherman is under siege from the national media. Other teams are waiting for their chance to beat on his beleaguered club while scrutinizing their roster to see who they want when the inevitable housecleaning begins and all veterans are traded off to boost a flagging farm system. Reigning Manager of the Year Skip Schumaker and the club agreed to void his 2025 contract option, all but guaranteeing he’ll be managing elsewhere (the Cardinals) next year. 

Whoever the new manager is, they’re well-advised to not win Manager of the Year. In Miami, it’s been a death knell for every manager who’s won it.

Joe Girardi won it after Loria had fired him.

Don Mattingly won it in 2020 and lasted two more before he and the club mutually agreed to part ways.

Schumaker will be out after 2024 no matter what happens. 

All told, there’s reason to be outraged.

Still, the decisions are grudgingly explainable.  

The optics are undeniably atrocious. Discounting the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the 2023 Marlins made the playoffs for the first time in two decades. They did so under the stewardship of the dual ceiling-breaker, general manager Kim Ng, who was not only the first female GM but the first Asian-American GM in North American sports history.

Buster Olney tweeted the following after the Marlins lost their first seven games:

Following their first playoff appearance in decades, the Marlins tried to demote GM Kim Ng. She turned that down and left the organization. The Marlins are behind early today and if they lose to the Angels, they'll be 0-7 to start this season.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) April 3, 2024

Technically, of course this is accurate. It is also representative of the faction that neither knows nor cares about the sustainability of the Marlins’ fluky playoff appearance in 2023. Olney understands this. Fans? Some do. Some don’t. Some are looking at it from the perspective of how Bendix plans to run the club based on his past with the Rays. Others are angry at what Bendix plans to do and that the numbers will take precedence to a far greater degree than they would have under Jeter and Ng.

But is Sherman wrong? On the surface, the detractors say the Marlins did it with a limited payroll and a patched-together roster under a female, Asian-American GM and think the team should simply have stayed the course regardless of whether that course was wise or repeatable. 

A playoff appearance at 84-78 in which they were bounced in two straight games by the Phillies when they were last in the National League in runs scored, tenth in on-base percentage, tenth in ERA, 13th in stolen bases and 14th in fielding percentage is not going to happen regularly, if at all. 

Farm system rankings are arbitrary, but every relatively reputable voice labels the Marlins’ system as one of baseball’s worst. Overall, they are not good. They weren’t very good in 2023. So what was Sherman supposed to do? He had discarded all of Jeter’s people and Ng was a Jeter hire. For all the justifiable anger at the team’s horrific start, refusing to throw more money into the thresher is not indicative of being cheap in this case. It’s indicative of knowing the facts. 2023 was not the culmination of four or five years of work as the team took its next step into the upper levels of MLB. Objectively, it was a freak occurrence. 

Could they realistically have made a few more signings or acquisitions and risen from 84 wins to 90?

Forget the top tier of Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Aaron Nola or Josh Hader. They didn’t have the goods to trade for Juan Soto. They weren’t even reasonable options for the next level free agents Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman or Sonny Gray. They did not even make a cursory effort to retain Jorge Soler. 

Where were the improvements coming from?  

After restructuring the team’s operations and rebuilding the farm system, Jeter expected there to be financial flexibility to make drastic improvements to the big league roster. They were not fulfilled and he left. With Jeter gone, Ng’s fate was sealed no matter what happened on the field and that was proven when Sherman decided to hire a president of baseball operations to be her boss. Essentially, she was fired because there was no way she was going to accept that power structure in which she had none of the power. For her, being an underling just happy to be invited to the party ended 15 years ago. It’s beneath her. She declined the mutual option in which she would have been a lame duck and undoubtedly discarded after 2024 had she stayed. That’s what Sherman wanted. 

Bendix arrived with the sabermetric pedigree and the 15 years of working for the Rays. He is not looking at it from a player’s perspective as Jeter was. Nor did he claw his way up from the very bottom after 30 years of toil in various roles as Ng did.

Sherman was looking for someone who might be able to achieve success under the mandated payroll constraints and found that in Bendix. The Jeter faction is a memory. Given the financial realities the owner put in place and are legitimate based on their market, you can unload on them because they’re clearly tanking, but you cannot say they’re wrong to do it when considering the circumstances. 

Tommy John Surgery For You…And You…And You

Who wants to play doctor?

Since everyone seems to be doing it with or without a medical degree, a college degree, a high school diploma or a GED, I figured I’d weigh in on the “epidemic” of blown out elbow ligaments and Tommy John surgeries.

Without going into an in-depth research study, my guess is the numbers have been similar for a long while. It’s just that some big names – Spencer Strider and Shane Bieber – are heading for the procedure. This is right on the heels of Shohei Ohtani injuring the ligament a second time and derailing his pitching career, possibly forever. Gerrit Cole is on the injured list with an elbow issue but does not need surgery…yet. In truth, if an exhaustive assessment was done of pitchers throughout professional baseball, I’d guess the number of pitchers – good, bad and ugly – who need Tommy John is around the same.

This will be a big story because it’s drawing significant attention and search engine optimization-related clicks until it recedes into the background. 

That doesn’t mean it should be ignored.

Experts – actual experts and not people who claim to have some form of empirical expertise, i.e. “I’ve been watching baseball all my life” – who know what they’re talking about have long lamented the series of “advancements” in baseball that have likely contributed to the spate of pitchers blowing out their elbows. Dr. James Andrews, who performed the then-radical procedure to save the real Tommy John’s career said the following:

And here is what the recently retired Dr. James Andrews had to say on this topic a few months ago. (Full story here: https://t.co/x9RujnQErC) pic.twitter.com/2yABbqjRiN

— Anthony Castrovince (@castrovince) April 6, 2024

Naturally, there were other notable medical professionals on Twitter like @BillytheSportsObserver2288w2283833 who replied to Dr. Andrews with, “Yes, but…”

And the obnoxious cretin Bill James – who should’ve been placed on the pay no mind list forty years ago –contributed the following:

I was writing about the increasing pitcher injuries for several years before there was any pitch clock.

— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) April 7, 2024

Thanks for that, Bill. I’m still waiting for recompense for the time I wasted on reading half of “The Man From the Train” before throwing it across the room because you’re such an arrogant asshole without a concept of organizing a piece with a linear train of thought.  

In any event, since everyone else is doing it, I’ll weigh in without contradicting doctors, trainers, pitching coaches and actual professionals. 

They’re throwing too hard

Ligaments are essentially rubber bands. The more it’s violently stretched, the more likely it is to tear. Today, when everyone is obsessed with velocity and it’s velocity that gets people drafted, signed, paid and helps them get a job, keep their job or get another job, obviously pitchers are going to try to throw as hard as they possibly can. This is endemic from the despicable entity that is Little League all the way through to the Majors. 

Is it necessary to throw 100 miles per hour to get hitters out? Of course not. Does it get people to “Ooh” and “Aah” at the numbers that are lighting up the questionable radar guns that are used today? Absolutely.

Pitchers like Greg Maddux, Jamie Moyer, Tom Glavine did not throw hard and that was by design. They had remarkable durability and success. Early in his carer, Bartolo Colon ripped it at 100+ as a starter and maintained it. Eventually, he became a craftsman who relied on little more than a moving fastball and pinpoint control. He lasted well into his 40s. 

Pitchers who threw that hard were once rare. They could be rattled off quickly: Rich Gossage, Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard. Now? Every team has at least five guys on their staff or in the high-minors who throw that hard. Hitters aren’t overwhelmed by it calling into question how valuable it truly is other than a macho rite of passage.

Then you add in the hard breaking stuff that is no longer meant to be a different look and change of speeds and is instead of vicious arm snap even on pitches like changeups that are supposed to be tactical. They’re doing this for 90 to 100 pitches a start. Then they’re doing it again five days later. And even with the innings limits and pitch counts, the stress is far worse than when pitchers threw at 80% capacity until they needed to get an out and threw 300 innings a year. 

Sticky stuff bans and pitch clocks

Max Scherzer has said the pitch clock is a problem as it forces pitchers to get back on the mound and throw again before they’ve had the chance to have a few extra seconds to recover. MLB is increasingly becoming like the NFL if not worse in that it proclaims that it cares about player safety and player preferences and then does what it wants anyway. Do those few seconds matter? Maybe. It could be a psychosomatic response or there could be a legitimate medical concern.  

Pitchers were trained for years and years to take as much time as they needed before making the next pitch. It’s the same thing as the innings limits and pitch counts. If they’ve been doing it one way for 20 years and are suddenly told to change, that is more indicative in causing an injury than the change itself. If they’re trained to adhere to the guidelines from the start, fine. They’re not. 

The sticky stuff was banned in large part because offense had become so paltry. It was a knee-jerk reaction in thinking that because pitchers had increased their spin so massively that it was negatively impacting offense. 

As for complaints that players – including hitters – wanted the guy throwing a projectile 100 miles an hour precariously close to their heads to have at least some form of grip aid, MLB shrugged. “Yeah. Whatever. Get out there and entertain the paying customers and boost our ad rates, clown.” 

Regarding sticky stuff, Tyler Glasnow of the Dodgers gave his take as to why pitchers are getting hurt and he said it’s not because of pitch clocks, but because the absence of any form of sticky stuff led to he and others needing to grip the ball harder to get the same velocity and movement.

Must-listen: Tyler Glasnow's rant on MLB's crackdown on foreign substances.

"I 100% believe that contributed to me getting hurt."

He's used the sunscreen/rosin mix, then went "cold turkey" last week against the Nats. 11Ks. But woke up sore. "I felt completely different." (1/2) pic.twitter.com/BU2qCxmrtu

— Grace Remington (@GraceRemiTV) June 15, 2021

Money

There’s a disconnect between the old man yelling at cloud “In my day…” advocates of pitchers starting 45 games and throwing 360 innings and pitchers begging out of games after 75 pitches a game, throwing 160 innings a year and calling it a day. 

What routinely gets ignored is the financial realities involved.

In the 1960s, 70s and even 80s, players didn’t make a ton of money. Today, the star pitchers are making a thousand times what most pitchers made in a year in the 1970s. Before free agency in 1976, they were at risk of pay cuts if they had a bad season or were perceived to have had a bad season – based on wins and losses and ERA – they were subject to a lower salary. For the lower-tier pitchers, they would be out of a job. Injuries meant they weren’t taking the mound and weren’t doing their jobs. Many pitched through injuries and made them worse. If they didn’t pitch, they wouldn’t have a job. They’d also curry disfavor from other clubs when they sought new employment. “He’s a malingerer.” “He won’t pitch through pain.”

Jim Palmer famously took a pay cut from the Orioles after he had an injury-plagued, subpar year in 1974. This was the year after he won his first of three Cy Young Awards and was second in the Most Valuable Player voting.

He had little recourse.  

Now?

Bieber is a free agent after this season. No, he doesn’t want to be injured and need Tommy John surgery. But he’ll receive a contract after the season, probably for two years. If he pitches well in his recovery in 2025-26, he’ll get a huge contract at 30. 

The same goes for Strider who is 25, already has a long-term contract paying him $74 million guaranteed through 2028 when he’ll turn 30 and be in line for another enormous deal if he recovers well enough. 

Why pitch through pain when this is the reality?

Mechanics

One would think with all the research and development there would be a set of mechanics that are deemed optimal to maximize ability and avoid injuries. 

There aren’t. 

The debate is ongoing with a seemingly endless stream of pitching labs where one advocates a theory and another one that advocates a completely different theory. Is it drop and drive? Tall and fall? Inverted W (why isn’t it called an “M”)? Flip and flop? Bounce and rebound? 

Who knows?

Athletes are always willing to listen to a theory that sounds like it makes sense and are persistent in tweaking their motions, arm angles, head position, movement, training tactics, whatever. They’ll listen to a noted medical professional and some drunk schmuck in a bar. Even anecdotal evidence and a history of success is irrelevant.

To me, a big problem is changing the way a pitcher naturally throws. The Orioles dumped Jake Arrieta after he was labeled a “bust” when they tried to change his natural throwing motion from throwing across his body and his lead foot landing toward third base to stepping straight toward the plate. One of the first things the Cubs did when they got their hands on him was to change him back to his natural way of throwing.

The Giants and every other team were told that Tim Lincecum’s mechanics – designed by his father – were not to be messed with. Teams that were already reluctant to draft him because he was small were completely scared off by that edict. 

When Madison Bumgarner was drafted, the team tried to alter his motion from his preferred slingshot style. It didn’t work, he went back to what he was comfortable with and became a star. 

The Giants were smart enough to know when to back off. With most organizations, there is so much data and so many voices along with people trying to make a name for themselves or just make sure they keep their own jobs by trying to look busy that they screw with their charges and make adjustments that didn’t necessarily need to be made. 

The human anatomy is a mystery

Stephen Strasburg officially retired over the weekend. He was babied in college; he was babied in the pros; the Nationals had strict usage guidelines for him and he still blew out his elbow.

When he returned, he was on a Scott Boras-mandated innings limit that the Nationals didn’t think would be a major issue because in 2012, they weren’t expecting to contend. Contradicting their plans, they won 98 games and, but for the ridiculous shutdown in which they refused to use their best pitcher even though he was healthy, they might have won the World Series. Despite all the protection and medically approved guidelines, that Hall of Fame arm which comes along once a century never fulfilled its potential. For all intents and purposes, he was done at 31.  

Who can explain why someone who lived a Spartan life like former bodybuilder and actor Steve Reeves and never touched drugs or alcohol died of lymphoma?

How did Andy Kaufman die of lung cancer when he never smoked a cigarette or cigar?

How is Keith Richards still walking around? 

Nobody, not even experienced doctors, can say. Obviously nor can some dick on Twitter…or with a blog.   

Frank the Tank v. the Mets

Say this about Frank “The Tank” Fleming v. SNY (SportsNet New York): It’s already a far more entertaining and cohesive story than Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

So, there’s that.

For those of you who missed it or are unfamiliar with Tank and his toxic relationship with the Mets, he is a die-hard fan in more ways than one. He loves and hates the team and, during one of his explosive, shirt-chewing rants, it’s highly possible that his heart or brain will explode leaving his loved ones with a viable wrongful death lawsuit against the Mets. 

He works for Barstool sports, is an influencer and has gained popularity by encapsulating the anger of a vast percentage of Mets fans while simultaneously getting attention from other fan bases and even teams (the Braves watch and laugh at his videos). For the Mets, he’s become something of a bane to their existence. Is it because he goes batshit insane with his reactions to the club’s inevitable flailing no matter what they do? Or is it because what he says about the team is true?

Possibly both.

Recently on X (Twitter), Tank revealed that SNY directors have ordered that he no longer be shown on television when he attends Mets games.  

“I have been told that the directors on SNY have strict orders not to show me on tv again” –@NjTank99

“If they try to kick you out or do something it will be the greatest content of all time” –@StoolMintzy

“I’ll become more powerful than they could ever imagine” –@NjTank99 pic.twitter.com/xh8a9MCh1F

— Viva La Stool (@VivaLaStool) April 2, 2024

The team does deserve much of the ridicule heaped upon it. SNY sending an edict not to show images of a fan who expresses the frustrations of many will not change that.

How many other organizations would be sold to one of the ten richest owners in sports after a previous ownership known for its cheapness, ineptitude and impulsiveness and within five years have fans looking back fondly at that previous ownership wondering whether things could be much worse if they never sold the team?

Under Steve Cohen, the Mets:

• Are currently on their fifth head of baseball operations
• Have their third field manager
• Have had one winning season and are already 0-4 in 2024
• Are scaling back payroll to look toward the future

Then, on Tuesday night, they refused to call a rainout during an unplayable storm spurring perhaps the biggest Mets fan in club history, broadcaster Gary Cohen, to give this candid reaction not meant for public consumption:

Gary Cohen does not look like he wants to be at Citi Field tonight pic.twitter.com/zf2gxNnB2Y

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 2, 2024

This so eerily mirrors the Mets’ performance under the Wilpons that it suggests the problems are structural or outright supernatural and not based on financial limitations and management strategy.

How many other organizations would hire a baseball operations crew that, within one year, had the new GM, Jared Porter, fired because he sent unsolicited and unwanted images of his genitalia; dismissed his former assistant and interim GM Zack Scott after a DUI arrest (he was acquitted) and that it was clear the owner and team president Sandy Alderson didn’t think he did a particularly good job; hire a new GM in Billy Eppler who “resigned” but was really fired and wound up suspended for misuse of the injured list; hire a proven manager in Buck Showalter and interfere with him relentlessly before firing him; and finally stumble onto the head of baseball operations that Cohen wanted in the first place, David Stearns?

When Cohen gained control of the team, I said that if the Mets intended to try and win fast by spending money, they should have hired Dave Dombrowski. 

It was true then and it’s true now. 

Will Stearns figure it out and turn the Mets into an annual contender within reasonable spending constraints with a consistent pipeline of talent? Given his history and how well-regarded he is in the industry, it’s more likely than not that this will be the case.

But it’s not guaranteed. Cohen pushed back at Max Scherzer revealing that the plan was to take a step back in 2024. Given the roster and their atrocious start, it’s patently obvious that Scherzer was accurately relating the context of the conversation.

That doesn’t make the Mets foolish for what they’re doing. Still, this is where we come to Tank and his reactive videos and rants as to the state of the team. 

Is he truly wrong?

When getting beyond his bellowing, the team has been an objective embarrassment. Even in 2022 when they won 101 games, they did so while blowing a seemingly insurmountable division lead to the Braves in August and September and were quickly dispatched by the Padres who had won 12 fewer games during the regular season. 

Is Tank’s perspective any more preposterous than the opposite end of the spectrum where pseudo “experts” defend the club and its processes? This is the same fan base where voices suggested that the Daniel Vogelbach/Darin Ruf platoon at DH had comparable production to Bryce Harper.

Bryce Harper.

Ruf has been traded or released six times and needed to spend two years in Korea to rejuvenate his career. He is not currently with any MLB organization.

Vogelbach has been traded twice, sold/waived twice and is currently on the Blue Jays bench where he will eventually be designated for assignment as well. 

Bryce Harper hit three home runs on Tuesday night, is a two-time National League Most Valuable Player and will be a Hall of Famer. 

Which is more absurd?

And it’s not just the fans. Supposed “insiders” like SNY’s Andy Martino make nonsensical assertions with no realistic foundation. Martino is the same he/him who said the following about the Mets and former manager Luis Rojas:

While I agree with the general sentiment that experience is preferable, the Yankees and Mets gambled and won with Boone and Rojas, so it can obviously work that way, too.

— Andy Martino (@martinonyc) December 6, 2021

They gambled and won at what?

During Mets spring training, he also talked about the communication and hands-on approach of new manager Carlos Mendoza and his staff. Whatever that means. 

Is Tank less sensible that this Martino nonsense? Martino says more ridiculous things in a five-minute hit on SNY than anything Tank says in a month’s worth of videos. Last I checked, Martino is still allowed on SNY camera while Tank apparently isn’t. 

Who’s dumber: Tank calling bullshit on the Mets trying to hug prospects and sell Vogelbach and Ruf as reinforcements for a team trying to win a championship? Or the “experts” promulgating the idiotic myth that the underlying numbers made those two journeymen difference-makers?

He does get secondary benefit from his self-flagellation to the degree that it’s become his career. Personally, I can’t take the endless negativity and have unfollowed/muted him on X. None of this has any connection to his right to express his displeasure any way he chooses. My take on Tank is that his Mets fandom is so self-destructive and his misery so intense that he could never feel sufficient joy to justify the loyalty. If the Mets win five consecutive World Series, it will literally never make up for the pain he clearly feels with every loss.

But he’s a fan. He can do and say what he wants. The team’s flagship network is not obligated to show clips of someone who is a fan but mocks the team worse than any other team’s fan ever could. 

Apart from that, is he over the top?

Yes.

Is it purposeful?

Probably by at least 50%.

Does it hurt anyone?

No.

If the Mets want it to stop, then maybe the first step is to quit validating much of what he says with their play and management – something they’ve done during their entire existence and have inexplicably continued to do despite being acquired by an owner who was supposed to have the cash and competence to put an end to it once and for all.     

These Mets Won’t Fight

As I begin this post at precisely 9:55 a.m. on Sunday, March 31, it’s possible – though extraordinarily unlikely given the history – that by the time many of you read it after this afternoon’s Mets-Brewers game scheduled to start at 1:40 p.m., the Mets will finally have stood up for themselves and begun to shed the well-earned reputation as a flaccid laughingstock.

In the first two games of the 2024 season, the Mets are already justifying the widespread perception throughout baseball that they can easily be pushed around and will meekly and perfunctorily stand up for themselves without actions to back up their talk. This is not a recent phenomenon.

Jeff McNeil’s complaint about Rhys Hoskins’s slide was not without merit. The circumstances muddy the waters in determining who’s at fault. Hoskins did slide late and collapsed McNeil’s knee. McNeil seemed to have lost his flow for the attempted double play when he tried to transfer the ball from his glove to hand. The screaming match that followed was indicative of what the Mets have become and why the rest of MLB mocks and humiliates them at every opportunity. 

Hoskins was perplexed and dismissive of McNeil’s complaints. It was not a Chase Utley dirty play. For Hoskins, a player who lost his entire 2023 season when he blew out his knee, it’s highly unlikely he was doing anything but trying to break up the double play. Still, if McNeil was mad enough to fight, then fight. Instead, he shouted and gestured, both benches and bullpens emptied and nothing happened.

In the aftermath, the keyboard warriors thundered on X, Facebook and in blog posts as to how the Mets “had” to respond. The ancient “it’s time to retire” scribes retreated to the team’s glory days as to what this team should do in response. These are the same people who’ve never been in a fight in their lives and are staring into their bathroom mirrors playing “baseball brawl guy.” 

“Drill Hoskins!”

“The Mets need to stand up for themselves!”

“Enough of this!”

“Ray Knight would’ve…”

And of course, as if it was preordained, the Mets yapping resulted in Hoskins shoving it completely up their asses by going 3 for 4 with a home run, 4 RBI and more emasculating right in their faces. Only late in the game did Mets pitcher Yohan Ramirez throw behind Hoskins sparking more screaming and accusations, but no fisticuffs. 

Big deal. 

In the years since the Mets’ late-1980s badassery when anyone who looked at them wrong would wind up on the wrong side of a Ray Knight punch or a Kevin Mitchell chokehold, the organization has desperately tried to get back to that two-fisted “mess with one of us, you mess with all of us” attitude that had them feared and hated throughout baseball. That entire roster was not just filled with gamers who wanted dirt on their uniforms and would do literally anything they needed to do to win, but it was filled with guys who could legitimately fight. In addition to Knight and Mitchell, Darryl Strawberry was one of baseball’s most intimidating figures. Even mild-mannered types like Tim Teufel and Gary Carter wouldn’t hesitate to drop the gloves when challenged. The first base coach/batting instructor Bill Robinson essentially took on the entire Pirates roster and started a brawl after accusing Pirates starter Rick Rhoden of cheating.

This filtered down from manager Davey Johnson, through the coaches, to the team leaders Keith Hernandez and Carter down to the last guy on the roster. “We are not your buddy and we want you to hate us because we’re gonna kick your asses on the field. If you got a problem with it, we’ll kick your asses in general.” 

This team?

Pete Alonso is built like a truck but the one time the Mets finally fought back after getting drilled and buzzed repeatedly, he got thrown to the ground by Cardinals first base coach Stubby Clapp who’s about half the size of Alonso.

He got thrown to the ground by a guy named “Stubby.” 

It’s ironic that the Mets are wearing a memorial patch to the late Bud Harrelson when their behavior as a team is diametrically opposed to what Harrelson would have done and did when, in the 1973 National League Championship Series against the Reds, he challenged Pete Rose when Rose slid hard into him. Rose outweighed Harrelson by about 35 pounds. A massive and extended brawl ensued with players throwing punches instead of barking at each other, issuing limp threats and making crying gestures.  

McNeil railed at Hoskins and…did nothing.

The benches and bullpens emptied…and nothing happened.

The Mets asked for a review of the slide to see if it should have been called a double play for violating the slide rule…and lost.

They then complained to the league. 

Terrifying. 

This is not a singular experience. The Mets’ reputation throughout baseball is that they’re soft. They were constantly thrown at in 2022-23 and did next-to-nothing to retaliate or to charge the mound and make clear that it would either stop or there would be consequences. 

The Braves laugh at them. The entire league ridicules them. And they asked for it. Apart from a few random years under Terry Collins and Dallas Green, the Mets – particularly during the Bobby Valentine years – were known for not showing a willingness to fight when necessary. Former manager Buck Showalter adheres to old-school values and presumably would not have minded if a player took the initiative and charged the mound during his two years at the helm. Carlos Mendoza? His first spring training and start to the year indicate he’s another empty uniform automaton who’s going to do what he’s told by the front office and is unsure of how to respond to these direct challenges to his club’s manhood. 

Many in the media, the blogosphere and on social media are bellowing from the rooftops that the Mets just need to start a fight. For them, there’s a lack of understanding as to what built those mid-1980s teams in the first place. For the most part, they were young and reacted emotionally; they grew up together and had a bond that was crafted through the minors and making the innocent climb to championship contention; they were akin to a street gang in a close-knit neighborhood where outsiders were ill-advised to venture wittingly or otherwise. 

It’s certainly possible that Saturday, March 30^th was the day the Mets finally decided enough was enough. It’s also possible that aliens will land at Citi Field at 3 p.m. and kidnap Mr. Met to be their new deity.

Considering the team’s history, nothing is going to happen. If it does, it will be for show and not as a show of force. Until they bring in people who have that intense competitiveness within them and are willing to stand up for each other, they’ll continue to be the joke they are and teams will repeatedly shove them around with impunity. 

Russell Wilson, Sean Payton and the Broncos – the Objective Truth

Amid the mockery of the Broncos cutting Russell Wilson and absorbing the $85 million salary cap hit, several factors are being glossed over:

·      The current team ownership did not own the team when the trade was made

·      The current head coach and de facto GM was not the head coach and de facto GM when the trade was made

·      Retaining him for financial purposes or to save face only makes matters worse

·      The money is gone regardless of whether he’s there or not

You can find the gory details of the trade itself anywhere, but the Denver Post tallied up the draft capital the Broncos surrendered to the Seahawks to acquire Wilson here.

While it’s easy and cheap to tear into the trade as a horrific gaffe – which it was – the details are conveniently shunted to the side. The Broncos franchise had only just gone on the market in February 2022. Wilson was acquired on March 16, 2022. The team was officially sold to Walmart heir Rob Walton in August 2022. They inherited Wilson much like they inherited the money to buy the team. They also inherited coach Nathaniel Hackett and the football operations staff.   

The timing played a large role in the decision to cut Wilson. Once Walton took over, the 2022 team was largely set. This is not unusual when there is a new ownership in place and there was little they could do to make substantive changes immediately. They needed to live with what they had and hope for the best as they looked forward.

As the Broncos’ 2022 season unraveled almost immediately with Hackett’s ineptitude and Wilson’s seeming indifference, it was clear that the owners were going big game hunting with their new head coach. That was Sean Payton.  

Payton is ostensibly functioning as its football czar. Nothing football related is going to happen without his imprimatur or he wouldn’t have taken the job. Had the Broncos told him that he needed to make it work with Wilson because of the negative implications of cutting him and swallowing the money and ridicule, the odds are that a coach in as heavy demand as Payton would have politely declined and waited out the Cowboys, the Chargers or some other more appealing job where he’d get the power he felt he needed and the money and contract security to do what he felt was right.

Historically, Wilson is not ideal for Payton’s offense. In his heyday with the Seahawks, Wilson relied on a brutal and punishing smashmouth running game, primarily with Marshawn Lynch. He used his legs to improvise and took deep shots down the field. They had a punishing defense.

None of this is indicative of Payton’s history. Drew Brees, Payton’s quarterback with the Saints, stayed in the pocket and stuck to the game plan because he and Payton were aligned in what they wanted to do and what Brees could efficiently execute. His running backs were of the Reggie Bush, Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara ilk who are just as dangerous catching the ball as they are running it.

The difference between what Wilson did with the Seahawks and what Payton did with the Saints are not only divergent playbooks, but they’re not on the same planet. What was the team supposed to do? Just continue forward by ordering Payton to keep Wilson and figure it out? That’s not fair to Wilson or Payton.

This past season was indicative of how the forced marriage was going to proceed. After a 1-5 start, Payton patched it together but keeping games close, constraining Wilson from his usual freelancing and limiting the number of throws he made, pulling games out late. They rallied to 8-9 and were in the playoff race until late in the season – truly a remarkable coaching job.

Toward the end of the season, Wilson was benched. According to the club, it was a football decision. According to Wilson, it was because he refused to renegotiate his contract by removing the injury guarantee that would pay him $37 million in 2025. Wilson would have been a fool to do so. Payton and the Broncos are insulting the intelligence of any reasonable person by saying they felt they would get a “spark” offensively from journeyman Jarrett Stidham.

The reality is that they were cutting Wilson and they wanted to save as much money and limit their exposure when they did. The alternative was to continue down the road with a quarterback the football boss didn’t want and didn’t suit his offense while compelling a new owner to pay for past mistakes and ignore what their handpicked football boss wanted.

It’s become trendy for sports franchises to be viewed in business terms. In that context, the Wilson contract was a sunk cost. They did as much as they could to mitigate what they needed to pay him by benching him and did what everyone with a brain knew they were going to do when they cut him. Payton will find a quarterback he wants whether that’s Trey Lance, Justin Fields, someone from the draft or a name no one has considered but has caught the coach’s eye. Wilson can still play and will get a new team among the Steelers, Falcons, Raiders or Vikings and have the offense tailored to his strengths. The ridicule ignores these facts out of convenience, ignorance or both.

What people are missing about Edwin Diaz and the WBC

The reaction to Edwin Diaz tearing his patellar tendon during the World Baseball Classic when celebrating a win for Puerto Rico over the Dominican Republic rapidly split into visceral partisanship. On one side were the rabid WBC fans; on the other were the fans who were either indifferent to the spectacle or hated it outright. Diaz’s injury became fodder for rampant logical fallacies; self-justifications; and a confirmation bias about the tournament itself. This is a rare instance where there is no “right” or “wrong.” Still, there is a disconnect between what happened to Diaz and how people reacted to it.

I have never been a fan of the WBC. I think it’s a silly, manufactured product masquerading as an event designed to take on the pageantry and status of the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics and other longstanding competitions where players at the top of their professional leagues compete for their country against other countries. For me, more than any undertones of a marketing scam or meaninglessness of it, the timing was the peak of its absurdity.

It’s played during spring training. Players leave their teams and join their country’s team. Often, their “country” isn’t even their country. They’re allowed to play based on which country they have a thin shred of a connection to – think the third cousin once removed was a quarter British so they can play for Great Britain. Or they play for a team from a country that is not really their own but for that minuscule drop of blood, they can play. This while they wouldn’t make their actual home country’s team. Marcus Stroman played for the U.S. in 2017 and is playing for Puerto Rico this time. What sense does it make? 

They’re going one-hundred percent in March, playing to win, treating the games as if they’re postseason contests for a team that is not paying them. Repeatedly, we’ve heard players say that winning the WBC for their home country means more to them than winning a World Series. I’m sure owners love hearing that. 

How about this? If they love it so much, tell them that if they get injured playing in it, their contract is voided. See how much they love it then as their agents, families and everyone else who somehow benefits from their lucrative paychecks forms a human shield to stop their plane to the WBC venue from taking off.

Before Diaz, there were no major injuries stemming from the WBC since its inception. The argument many made was that his injury – a non-baseball one where he was hurt celebrating instead of pitching – could have happened anywhere. The point being ignored is that it didn’t happen “anywhere.” It happened on the field wearing a uniform that said Puerto Rico instead of Mets and he’s lost for the season. 

Players are hurt off the field or suffer fluke on-field injuries all the time. Chris Sale flew over the handlebars of his bicycle and broke his wrist; Jim Lonborg hurt his knee skiing; Vince Coleman was run over by an automatic tarpaulin and lost for the 1985 World Series; Jeff Kent broke his wrist riding a dirt bike and lied about it saying he slipped while washing his truck; Jerry Blevins fell off a curb and re-broke his arm as he was set to return from the previous break; Duaner Sanchez blew out his shoulder as a passenger in a cab accident; Aaron Boone blew out his knee playing basketball. It absolutely does happen. 

Had something similar occurred with Diaz, the team and the fans would have been as angry and disappointed, but it would not have led to the overridingly irate response that the WBC was to blame. The tournament is not to blame, but the reality that it is a sanctioned event from MLB with clubs having limited control over their players blurs the line between what MLB deems as beneficial for its product and the employer-employee relationship.

Much was made of the announcement that the Mets and owner Steve Cohen would not be on the hook for Diaz’s salary for the time he spends on the disabled list after knee surgery. That’s very nice, but do you really think Cohen cares about Diaz’s $21.25 million salary? Or does he want the pitcher who finished ninth in the National League Cy Young Award voting in 2022, was just signed to a five-year, $102 million contract and was expected to be a key component for a World Series run?

A common sentiment from those avidly defending the WBC is the quality of play, fan enthusiasm, the excitement it has engendered and the massive ratings. Again, all true. This morphed into the preposterous argument that if you dislike the WBC, you’re not a “real” baseball fan. 

There are rules to being a fan? Ok. Here’s a rule. Fans have teams they support and they prioritize their team’s success over a country winning a tournament that I defy you to name who won in any of the previous times it was held. Owners of MLB teams are paying their players a lot of money to work for them; to play and help their team win. 

Then there were the snide responses when a player was hurt in a spring training game. “Oh, so are we supposed to cancel spring training now?”

No. But a player getting injured in a spring training game when he’s trying to get his timing down and get ready for the regular season while playing for his employing team differs greatly from a player getting injured in the WBC. In spring training, Diaz was being managed and overseen by Yadier Molina whose mandate was to win for Puerto Rico. At Port St. Lucie, he was being overseen by Buck Showalter and his staff whose mandate is to get the team ready to play from April through, they hope, October. 

See the difference?

Teams were lauded for treating their operation as ruthless businesspeople with a litany of books about Billy Beane, Theo Epstein, the Rays and the Astros. Now looking at it as a business means you don’t love the game?

I do not like the WBC. I do not watch the WBC. Am I less of a fan because I was concerned that exactly what happened would happen as one of the stars for the team I support – the Mets – was injured while off and away from the Mets’ supervision? No. It makes me rational in that I view it from an employer-employee perspective and said employee became injured taking part in an irrelevant competition away from his high-paying job and it’s having a negative impact on the Mets and the game in general for no acceptable reason whatsoever.

The Astros, Jeff Luhnow and misplaced values

In reading Winning Fixes Everything by Evan Drellich, the Houston Astros’ corporate culture is exposed as a toxic time bomb. The organization’s focus on getting to its desired destination regardless of the human cost is facilitated by owner Jim Crane, implemented by general manager Jeff Luhnow, and put in action by the obsequious underlings whose primary function is to serve the needs of the master.

The players? Eh. Who cares what they think?

Luhnow comes across as a truly terrible person — the embodiment of putting results over humanity; achieving one’s objectives no matter how it is accomplished; shifting blame to others; and using gray areas to shield oneself from the negative while taking full credit for the positive.

Despite that, it’s difficult to cast all the blame on him for doing what he was hired to do. He was hired to do a job and he did that job. There are plenty of horrible people in sports. There are worse people than Luhnow could ever be in the corporate sphere, politics and society in general. Does that alter how he should be perceived when assessing his tenure with the Astros and his work in baseball in general?

Maybe it should.

Luhnow was a self-promoter who was flexible in accurately relaying what he did and didn’t do.

But is that any different from Billy Beane or Theo Epstein?

His treatment of those who were below him on the food chain took the tone of a Terminator-like machine that did not care about humanity in the quest to achieve its mission. There was no concept of baseball and people at a cellular level, exemplified with his attempts to change how relief pitchers were used and not understanding or caring that they’re human beings who might not be able to do the things he was asking them to do and outright ordering his staff to implement no matter the physical toll it exerted and careers it damaged. His views came across as someone who had never watched a baseball game without a spreadsheet in front of him as if simply watching would somehow impact his ability to analyze.

His personality was a significant problem that likely superseded how he did his job. Invariably, he is shown to be condescending, arrogant and cold-hearted. That might work in an industry where he’s running a website or consulting with fellow corporate types who couldn’t care less if a guy could tell or take a joke, but it cannot work in a people-oriented industry that is directly in the spotlight like sports.

As time passed and the club came closer and closer to its goal, the weeding out of people who had some semblance of decency put the amoral acolytes in greater positions of power. David Stearns was seen as a positive influence on the club and once he left for the Milwaukee Brewers, the likes of Brandon Taubman took on a greater role. Taking his cue from Luhnow, the ends always justified the means. It was a survival of the fittest with less honor. Most of Luhnow’s edicts took on the tone of threats. If you don’t give me what I want, I’ll fire you.

There were instances where Luhnow was unfairly castigated. The Brady Aiken draft selection where the high school pitcher’s medical reports showed him to be too great an injury risk turned out to be accurate. With former first overall pick Mark Appel, the pitcher was struggling mightily in the minor leagues and the front office brought him to Minute Maid Park so the big league staff could have a look at him to try and find solutions. Not telling manager Bo Porter about it? Irritating journeyman major leaguers who were not going to be around when the team was set to contend was somehow a problem? He was under no obligation to tell anyone anything. Could he have? Sure. Was it an issue that he didn’t? No.

Regarding his changes to how players were drafted and developed, it’s not as if there was already a successful formula in place that could not be questioned. The number of players drafted and signed as amateurs who make an impact in the majors is frighteningly low. There is nothing wrong with making fundamental changes to a system that doesn’t work all that well to begin with.

The real problems for Luhnow arose when he tried to cover up these relatively minor disputes by asking people to lie outright or commit lies by omission. Going back to Watergate and beyond, the cover-up is always worse than the crime itself.

This extended to what eventually got Luhnow fired by the Astros and blackballed by baseball: the sign-stealing program.

He claims to not have known about it. Absurd given how his thumb was on every aspect of baseball operations.

Even after they were caught, the club continued its rampant prevarications, childlike “everyone was doing it” shrugs and passing the buck.

In his initial portrayal long before he became a star GM and later pariah, he was cast as a pure outsider who entered the game as its foundation was being shaken by new methods in which to analyze players and construct teams. In truth, he used various connections through his work at McKinsey and as an entrepreneur — along with family links — to be interviewed and hired by the St. Louis Cardinals.

With the Cardinals, he was viewed as an interloper with a pipeline to the owner like he was a nepotism case. To longtime baseball people like then-Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty and manager Tony La Russa, he was the owner’s mole who was untouchable because of that connection. Unlike an owner’s son or daughter who was installed in a key position in an organization, he was just some corporate asshole who sold cat toys and was parachuting in to tell lifelong baseball people how to do their jobs.

From his perspective and holding to the McKinsey modus operandi, he was hired to accomplish what the owner wanted. The idea that McKinsey and other prominent consulting firms are giving evenhanded analysis is idiotic. They are hired to achieve what ownership, shareholders and others in an entity’s positions of power want. The end result is detailed and they need to find a way to get there while providing information that justifies it. They want to downsize by firing 25,000 people? Ok. Here’s how you do it. They want to reduce costs by sending fewer advance scouts on the road or find ways to maximize the MLB draft capital by using financial sleight of hand? Here you go.

In short, he did his job as he was asked to do it.

After joining the Astros, he rebuilt the team in the image he wanted with financial constraints, brutal fact-based decision-making and turning baseball into a microcosm of the corporate world that people watch sports to escape. A clash was inevitable.

The success bred increased ruthlessness and the refusal to be questioned. More and more, the GM isolated himself by either willful ignorance or by simply not being there. This was not solely based on the sign-stealing scandal that led to his ouster. It was the case with his strangely timed vacations to Mexico, notably when the Aiken signing deadline was upon them and Aug. 31, 2017 when the club was trying to get Justin Verlander before the waiver trade deadline. He put assistants in charge to oversee both key moments and no explanation as to why he needed vacations then has ever been presented.

I wasn’t there and didn’t know about this.

This epitomizes plausible deniability, no matter how preposterous it is on its face.

There are endless villains large and small in the Astros’ tale.

Manager AJ Hinch seems overwhelmed; reluctant to openly challenge the veteran players, especially about the sign-stealing operation; and afraid to speak out beyond a certain limit due to his past managerial failure with the Arizona Diamondbacks and that he was well aware of how the Astros operated in that the manager was largely irrelevant to the point of being a near inconvenience that Luhnow needed to hire one at all.

Bench coach Alex Cora comes across as insubordinate and a borderline alcoholic lunatic nearly getting into physical confrontations with Hinch and broadcaster Geoff Blum.

Brent Strom is caught outright lying to Cora when Hinch had been ejected and Cora was managing in his stead.

Brandon Taubman is cast as Luhnow’s Sith apprentice. At age 30 and immersed in a corporate culture that was indifferent to people behaving like douchebags if it produced the desired results, it encouraged it. He treats people horrifically and gets himself fired for his verbal attack on female media members by defending the team’s ill-advised trade for Roberto Osuna after Osuna had been charged with physically abusing the mother of his son.

Is “just doing what I was told” justified? For most, it sort of was as everyone involved — save for Luhnow and Taubman — now has a job in baseball.

Carlos Beltran is now a special assistant to the GM with the Mets, the same team (albeit under different ownership) that fired him as manager before he steered a game after the Astros scandal exploded.

Hinch is the manager of the Detroit Tigers and now has power exponential to what he had in Houston.

Cora is the manager of the Boston Red Sox, rehired by the club after being fired in light of the Red Sox own sign-stealing scandal following its 2018 World Series win.

Mike Elias, Sig Mejdal, Mike Fast, Kevin Goldstein — all assistants under Luhnow who were servile in acquiescing to his bullying wishes are in baseball in varying capacities.

The key question about the Astros is whether it was what they did under Crane and Luhnow that was the problem or the way they did it? Had they been more gentlemanly in their viciously pursuing their goals, had a system in place that prevented going so far over the lines of propriety, treated people with respect and not been so despised throughout the industry, would this have been as huge a story and would Luhnow still have a job somewhere in baseball?

Purely transactional relationships are unsustainable for the long term. In sports, people have generally known each other for decades or have mutual friends and acquaintances. There’s an unspoken bond of trying to beat the competition without trying to fuck them. Even hard core criminals have lines they won’t cross. A clear example is the scene in Casino when Nicky Santoro pushes back on Ginger Rothstein’s cavalier entreaty to kill her husband Sam “Ace” Rothstein. Stone cold gangster Santoro responds angrily, “I know the guy thirty-five years, I’m gonna fuckin’ whack ‘im for you?!?”

Would someone like Luhnow do the same?

The Astros, under Luhnow, abandoned the pretense of any honor whatsoever. If you essentially tell your underlings that they can not only behave like dicks to fulfill their mandates but will be rewarded for it, what’s going to happen?

Even Crane, whose history in business is pockmarked with outrageous behavior and allegations of wrongdoing, accepted the Astros’ previous methods were wrong by hiring high-quality people with sterling reputations within baseball like Dusty Baker.

Ironically, of all the cast members in this saga, it’s Taubman who seems to have truly changed in the aftermath by taking part in domestic violence awareness programs and personally apologizing to the reporter over coffee after meeting by happenstance.

Part of the blame certainly falls on outside influences like the fans and media who have stoked the partisanship between those who adhere to stats above all else and old-school baseball observers who trust their eyes and history. Every executive is seemingly trying to have a Moneyball-style book written about them and this affects their behaviors no matter who is run over to get to the destination.

None of that excuses the Astros and Luhnow, but it is useful to look at it from a different perspective and ask why was this able to happen in the first place.

Luhnow still denies wrongdoing. He sued the club to be paid his contract after his termination. He’s never getting a job in baseball again. He sought to radically update the game to suit his aesthetic. And he did. The result was him winning a championship, showing that reaching the logical conclusion is about as good a thing as acknowledging one’s mortality, and getting himself canonized as the change agent who exemplifies what not to do.

Like his entry into baseball, he achieved his goal. Just not the way he envisioned. It’s not like he didn’t ask for it.

On Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Apart from Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel’s outings since the conclusion of Phase Three have been niche films with reviews that ranged from lukewarm to outright negative. This was inevitable. As evidenced by Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the transition from one blockbuster storyline to another is a difficult one. Without the major characters who are easily recognizable even by non-fans — Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, Spider-Man — and without A-list stars as attractions for ancillary characters like Ant-Man, Marvel is essentially in a retool mode where it is simply trying to bridge one phase to the next without alienating its hard-core “I’ll watch anything Marvel produces” fan.

Those who are responding negatively to Quantumania have lamented its relentless CGI, characters brought from the back to the front, difficult to follow narratives and absence of clear-cut resolution. Bluntly, those who enjoy Marvel and know these characters will take affront at the criticism, but looking at it from a different perspective gives clarity to the negativity. 

I have never seen one episode of Game of Thrones. If you dropped me in the middle of season three, episode five (this is random; don’t look it up to nitpick), I would mock the sets, the script and that I have no clue who any of those people are, nor do I care about them. The same can be said for any long-term, interlocked project where the minutiae is a large part of the entertainment in recognizing minor characters. This is what Marvel has relied on since it started the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man in 2008. 

The films and television shows of Phase Four have been gateway films to the next phase. This is where Marvel needs to regain its footing or run the risk of hitting a wall from which it cannot recover its lost luster. In the long run, small Easter eggs that were dropped in Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder and Wakanda Forever were the entire purpose of the films. Had they not been part of the MCU with a guaranteed, built-in audience even if the film itself was objectively atrocious, they might not have been made as standalone films at all, let alone at the massive budgets allotted. 

Marvel’s current predicament can be compared to a sports dynasty that is moving on from its core group of players and integrating newly developed talent to the roster without burning it to the ground. Comparing what Marvel is doing with how erstwhile Marvel star director James Gunn is rebooting DC and making difficult decisions such as removing Henry Cavill from his role as Superman, apparently moving on from Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and torching Zack Snyder’s beautiful cinematography and ponderous plots for the greater good. DC is tearing it down to expansion team-level status while Marvel is trying to remain competitive until it gets to the next phase of star-level characters ninety-five percent of the planet recognizes by name. 

Quantumania is entertaining. The characters and actors are likable, but they’re basically furniture — there to complete the decor. Jonathan Majors’ introduction as Kang shows a charismatic, weirdly likable and profoundly dangerous antagonist who will be a key who Fantastic Four, X-Men and the new roster of the Avengers (however it is comprised) must confront. Still, the criticism — when looked at on its own merits — is fully justified as viewers who parachute in without prior knowledge of the comic books and an intermittent interest in the prior films wonder why there are so many characters that look like rejects from the Star Wars cantina scene, the Terminator, Ed Wood and a really bad acid trip. 

As Marvel moves forward with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, Captain America: New World Order (apparently without Steve Rogers/Chris Evans), Thunderbolts and Blade, it must-must-must make sure that it nails Phase Six starting with Deadpool 3 and Hugh Jackman entering the MCU as Wolverine in what one would hope is more than a brief cameo. To ensure Marvel returns to its glory, the studio cannot miss as it finally gets its hands on Fantastic Four and has the opportunity to reboot the cornerstone team that was a critical piece of Marvel Comics from its early days. Next come the Avengers taking on Kang and a highly-anticipated big screen version of Secret Wars.

Like many worthwhile destinations, getting there is the problem. 

Phase Five has not been a disaster. It does show hallmarks of Marvel fatigue predominately because the backups are being asked to carry the team and have run into the catch-22 of showing precisely why they were backups to begin with.