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.   

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.     

How Steve Cohen can lure Theo Epstein to the Mets

By now, it’s clear that Mets owner Steve Cohen has no intention of keeping the current front office structure in place. Initially, when he got control of the team, Sandy Alderson was brought back as team president to oversee the relatively young baseball operations crew led by Jared Porter and Zack Scott with the intention that he stay on for a relatively finite period before receding to the background as a consultant once Porter took over as president of baseball operations, chief baseball officer or whatever title they decided to use.

Alderson’s return was comparable to his first tenure with the Mets, albeit under radically different circumstances. As the Wilpons’ finances were in free fall after the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme came to light, Alderson’s hiring was tantamount to him serving as a bankruptcy trustee to keep the Mets from becoming untenable – like a failed state – and needing to be taken over by Major League Baseball itself as was the case with the Montreal Expos and the Frank McCourt Los Angeles Dodgers.

The current circumstance is exactly opposite with Cohen having enough money to buy every single sports franchise in the New York Metro area and other owners fearful of him burying them financially. Alderson’s presence was a calming influence since they knew about his aversion to overspending and he was in line with keeping costs reasonable. This was not an overt Quantum Leap-style reboot with Alderson getting the chance to do the things he wanted to do under the Wilpons but couldn’t because of financial constraints and meddling from Jeff Wilpon.

Now, as Cohen prepares to find a leader to steer the club, the obvious choice is Theo Epstein. Despite his flaws, there is no doubt that hiring Epstein is about as close to a guaranteed championship as an executive can get. Still, Epstein has been coy and relatively consistent in that he prefers his current role as a consultant to MLB and is, ironically, trying to undo much of what he did in turning the game into a slogging, dull endeavor where players are treated as fungible entities whose attributes are plugged into an arcane formula and spit out a desired result sans personality, nuance and strategic preference. It is largely due to Epstein that managers are no longer allowed to have “their” way of play.

There’s no Whitey Herzog who wanted speed, defense and aggression; there’s no Earl Weaver with his three-run home runs and deep starting pitching pushed to throw 275 innings; there’s no Billy Martin with his in-your-face style and tightly wound personality always seeming on the verge of punching whoever got in his path; there’s no Tommy Lasorda sitting at the corner of the dugout cursing up a storm, singing the faux narrative of bleeding Dodger Blue and treating his team like a fiefdom in which he was the Emperor.

The only holdout is Tony La Russa and he’s only managing the White Sox because owner Jerry Reinsdorf hired him personally.

These are all factors in the allure Cohen can sell to get Epstein to take charge of the Mets.

The selling points are as follows:

HE CAN FIX WHAT HE THINKS HE BROKE

Epstein seemed surprised and chagrined that the “children” he sired took his strategies and brought them to its logical conclusion and simultaneously created a rote way in which every team was run from top to bottom.

He will have the freedom to run the team as he wants and put together an organization that fits in with what he’s trying to change in his current role working for MLB.

MONEY

There’s talk that for it to be worthwhile for Epstein to take over any club, he’d need an ownership stake. Owners are generally unwilling to just give away something so valuable. Often, it’s a negotiating ploy to increase the guaranteed money in the contract. It’s doubtful that it’s a deal breaker and if it is, he’s only reluctantly taking the job to begin with if he gets it.

Cohen can offer him a limitless amount of money to take the job.

THE LONG GAME

Appealing to a sense of history would not work with Epstein. He’s already made history. He’s going to end up in the Hall of Fame. What might appeal to him is the chance to run the team the way he always envisioned. One of the challenges he faced with the Red Sox was not building a championship team – he did that in year two. The challenge was to maintain. His goal was to create a sustainable operation that provided a pipeline of talent and was backed up by money within a reasonable budget. There would be lean years, but that was an accepted part of the strategy. Unfortunately, others didn’t see it that way and greed took hold.

After one championship in 2004 and breaking the Curse of the Bambino, he received one free year in 2005. By 2006, as he sought to maintain his farm system and rejected in-season trades to go all-in for another title, ownership, the media and the city of Boston grew restless. He was then forced to go for it in 2007. Winning that second title might have done more harm than good for his extended blueprint and culminated in the collection of mismatched stars to try and match the Yankees move for move, an indifferent clubhouse, a team of mercenaries and a complete collapse that precipitated his departure to the Cubs.

With the Cubs, he had a full-blown rebuild in front of him and turned the team around within four years, winning the championship in five. It looked as if he felt he’d accomplished his mission and was already looking toward the next venture. Epstein himself stated that he knows he’s better at building than maintaining. Perhaps that’s something he’d like to fix.

THERE IS A GOOD FOUNDATION IN PLACE

The Mets do not need to be gutted. Already, there are foundational pieces in Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Jacob deGrom. The farm system is not overly deep, but is top-heavy with players who are already being categorized as potential MLB All-Stars in Ronny Mauricio and Francisco Alvarez. For the 2022 draft, he will be armed with the 11th overall pick as compensation for the club failing to sign Kumar Rocker. If the 2021 season ended today, the Mets would pick 14th as well. That gives him infinite options.

With the money to spend – even if Cohen prefers to remain under the luxury tax – he can do essentially whatever he wants to build a title-contender and would have the ability to do it in a way where he does not need to mortgage the future as he did in his final years with the Red Sox and Cubs.

***

This is not to say that Cohen should simply give Epstein whatever he wants. The problem with hiring Epstein has become what NFL teams faced when they hired Bill Parcells. They could deal with the ego, the pettiness, the mind games, the desire for more money and control. What they always wondered was when he would up and leave and it was an annual waiting game. This is the same challenge the Jaguars will face – probably very quickly – with Urban Meyer. His wanderlust, greed and the self-imposed stress will limit his tenure and there might come a day sooner than anyone thinks where he up and resigns only to take a major college job three years later and start the process again.

Epstein has talked about situations growing stale and that front offices need to change to get fresh ideas. That’s fine, but if Cohen is giving Epstein the power, money and opportunity, then he needs a commitment that Epstein won’t decide one day he’s had enough and leave or, worse, do what he did with the Cubs and imply he’s going to leave a year or two before he finally does.

That aside, there is much for Cohen to offer and if Epstein wants his original vision to become reality, he’d need to consider it very seriously.

Why was the 2019 MLB Trade Deadline so different from the past?

The 2019 MLB Trade Deadline was radically different from how it was in the past.

There are several factors that factored in with this peculiar turn of events. Certain teams illustrated this more than others.

Yankees

General manager Brian Cashman is getting scorched for his failure to act. At his press conference, he made reasonable sense as to why he didn’t trade for a prominent starter or reliever. Still, “reasonable sense” is not what made the Yankees so alluring to fans around the world. They won a lot and that will certainly draw attention; but there was always action going on. Now, instead of getting the biggest available names who fit their blatant needs and surrendering the prospects necessary to do so, Cashman again cuddled his prospects, many of whom are quietly being described as overrated.

Ignoring whether this is a wise course of action or not, the fundamental reality is that the Yankees of the Steinbrenner offspring are not the same as the Yankees of the Steinbrenner patriarch. George Steinbrenner would not have wanted to hear about Deivi Garcia if he was all that was standing in the way of getting the caliber of starting pitcher that would have made his team the favorites to win the World Series. This, more than any baseball operations philosophy, is why the Yankees have become so passive to the point of appearing impotent.

Arguing that their injured list with Luis Severino and Dellin Betances rehabbing provides them with two “acquisitions” is theoretically sensible, but it’s also Met-like – one that rarely yields the result the team expects. By now, it is wise not to expect anything from either and the Yankees know that.

The current Steinbrenner ownership does not have the unquenchable thirst to win and dominate that George Steinbrenner did. It wants to win, sure. But it’s not fanatical and desperate. Their desire to win is folded in with advancing the brand. Instead of a World Series-or-bust attitude, they’re content to be contenders, have a chanceto win a championship while understanding the vagaries that go into that result, and do not overreact when it is unsuccessful.

The Boss might have understood all this in a rational sense (or he might not have), but his rage inevitably took over and he reacted by firing people, signing free agents, trading for stars and doing something. That is not to imply that capricious brutality is preferable to wise conservatism, but there needs to be nuance. There wasn’t and these Yankees did nothing.

Having cost control with a respectable farm system and flexibility is great, but it is not the Yankee way. It’s the way of the game itself in 2019 and the Yankees in their years of dominance never adhered to what everyone else was doing. They were trendsetters and everyone wanted to play for them. If other teams couldn’t keep up? Too bad.

While shunning Bryce Harper and Manny Machado made financial sense, it might have had a hidden cost in that players are no longer looking toward the Yankees as their ideal destination. If they’re going to treat it as a cruel business, so are we. In retrospect, the Yankees were right to avoid both on the field, but it could have had a radical aftereffect in the greater context.

Hal Steinbrenner has been conscious of payroll and Cashman was a willing cohort as both got what they wanted. Steinbrenner has the immediately recognizable and financially lucrative brand; Cashman gets to show the baseball bona fides that eluded him when he inherited the late 1990s dynasty and bought his way to maintaining contending status. He rebuilt the team and is now perceived in a category with Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, Andrew Friedman and Jeff Lunhow as an architect. Yet the last championship in 2009 came after a half-billion-dollar spending spree.

Every team ownership in New York has been hammered for its faults. The Yankees have largely been shielded from that. However, Steinbrenner expressed his willingness to go beyond the luxury tax and in trading prospects to get what the Yankees needed.

And they didn’t do it.

Was this Cashman? Did Steinbrenner leave it to the baseball people to decide on cost effectiveness? Or was there a wink and nod with Steinbrenner knowing Cashman would “do the right thing” while they made statements to quell rising fan apprehension?

Put it this way: George Steinbrenner would have told Cashman to get pitching and he didn’t care what it cost. Hal Steinbrenner didn’t.

Padres

General manager AJ Preller has been there for five years and they have achieved absolutely nothing concrete. It’s all about ephemeral prospect rankings and lusty gazes regarding his “outside the box” thinking, aggressiveness, lack of interest in making friends and, in some cases, indifference for adhering to moral and ethical standards.

The latest was acquiring another top prospect, Taylor Trammell in a three-team trade with the Indians and Reds.

Most prognosticators love Trammell and he adds to the Padres’ already strong farm system. But when does the transition from rebuild to trying to win take place? There’s a difference between being happy to win and trying to win. There’s no middle ground with Preller. It’s one end of the spectrum with a ridiculous buying spree like in 2014-2015 or the rebuild where he burned the organization to the ground not with a controlled demolition, but arson. There’s the signing of Eric Hosmer; there’s the trading of Brad Hand; there’s the signing of Manny Machado; there’s the trading of Franmil Reyes; there’s the pursuit of Noah Syndergaard.

Which is it? When does this reach its conclusion? Or is this the conclusion?

Maybe “What is he doing?” is the strategy. Always maintain a plausible deniability that he’s failing. This is year five of the rebuild and they’re 20 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West and in “if we have a hot streak” contention for the Wild Card.

The spin from Preller’s first offseason as Padres GM in which he gutted the system he inherited and traded for and signed name players and then pivoted to an ongoing full-blown rebuild happened within his first year on the job. While his system has received laudatory and even beatific praise since then, he is still doing the zigzag of willingness to trade anyone and everyone while simultaneously adding the likes of Hosmer and Machado on big money contracts.

There seems to be a total disregard for actual results, replaced by a reliance on prospect rankings that, one must remember, are completely exterior from baseball front offices!If that obnoxious, arrogant buffoon Keith Law ranks a prospect number 10 in baseball, that does not mean he’s judged the same way by those who are making the actual decisions. It’s a moneymaker. It’s clickbait. Just as there is no award for winning the winter championship, there’s no tangible award for having the best farm system as ranked by some guy.

There is a benefit, though. If and when Preller’s bosses say enough’s enough and ask when the team will start show success on the field, he can point to the praise and prospect rankings and promote it as progress when it is contextually meaningless. When does the plan come to fruition? Year seven? Year nine?

It’s beginning to take the tone of a flimflam man with a modicum of competence who has tricked a wide swath of people and inspired a Manson-like loyalty sans criticism for fear of inundation from his indoctrinated loyalists.

Astros

GM Jeff Luhnow spots vulnerability and compounds that with a willingness to act. Comparing owner Jim Crane to George Steinbrenner is unfair in terms of temperament and overreaction, but not in terms of the hunger to win.

The Astros had several irons in the fire to acquire starting pitching, but would not surrender what the Mets were asking for to get either Zack Wheeler or Syndergaard – namely Kyle Tucker. Then they spun around, gave up a big haul of prospects to the Diamondbacks to get Zack Greinke (not including Tucker or Forrest Whitley) and suddenly the Yankees were KO’d with a shot they did not see coming.

Contrary to the immediate overreaction, this does not mean the Astros are guaranteed a World Series win. In a short series, anything can and usually does happen. But Luhnow’s willingness to deal while still retaining his untouchable prospects is unique. Other teams – like the Padres with Preller – are not simply looking to improve, they’re looking to screw you while they do it. Luhnow will give up value for value. And if it doesn’t make sense, he doesn’t do it.

Once this window of contention begins to close, he won’t patch it with duct tape. He’ll clean house before anyone expects or advocates it and start all over again. That’s why the Astros are where they are.

Mets

Finally, the Mets were caught in the middle of “what are they doing?” with “why are they doing it?”

It’s unlikely that GM Brodie Van Wagenen thinks the Mets are legitimate contenders in 2019. But they’re not at the point where it makes sense to clean out the entire house either. Edwin Diaz and Syndergaard were bandied about in trade talks. Wheeler, a pending free agent, was all but guaranteed to go. Yet they stayed.

With Syndergaard, there was zero point in trading him unless the Mets got exactly what they wanted. For Wheeler, the cost-benefit hinged on comparing the acquisition of prospects to what they will get with the draft pick compensation after making the qualifying offer following this season, re-signing Wheeler or in the unlikely event he accepts the QO.

It’s important to remember that Van Wagenen manipulated the entire MLB Draft to get Matthew Allan – a consensus top-20 talent who fell because he was expected to attend college – at the approximate spot where they’ll get the compensatory pick if Wheeler rejects the QO.

With their recent hot streak that has gotten them within striking distance of a Wild Card and that they added Marcus Stroman to the rotation giving them a devastating starting five of Jacob deGrom, Syndergaard, Stroman, Wheeler and Steven Matz, and there was no urgency to trade anyone. This rotation is tantamount to the “big five” the Mets had long touted as their future with Matt Harvey replacing Stroman, but the Mets only cycled that group once and it was for sentimental “what might have been?” reasons as Harvey was immediately jettisoned after it happened.

As for adding to the bullpen, trading Diaz and adding a few names would have been shuffling the same cards. There’s no guarantee the relievers they acquired would handle New York any better than Diaz; would adjust to the set-up role as Jeurys Familia has not. Rather than change for its own sake, it was better to get Stroman, retain what they had and hope the mediocrity of the National League and improved performances from their own players worked for the rest of 2019 and they could retool for 2020.

***

Teams are no longer passively letting Trevor Bauer and Stroman get traded to obvious contenders, deferring to those whose need is more pronounced and holding their chips – and the good will with their peers – for when they need the help.

The new rule that prevents trades after July 31 had a greater impact than expected. Teams were aware they could not wait out the likes of Justin Verlander and other star players whose contracts likely precluded an August waiver claim meaning they would be eligible to be traded after the “deadline” that was not a hard deadline. Now, it is a hard deadline. Now, the decision as to whether a team was a legitimate contender, a nominal contender, a non-contender or “wait ‘til next year (or, in the case of the Padres, the next-next year; or the next-next-next year), or a team that has surrendered and is adhering to a “plan” is harder to make with any certainty.

There was still a flurry of activity, but much of it was surprising in that the usual suspects who are aggressive in filling holes – the Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals and Red Sox – were quiet. Teams that are not close enough to first place to warrant a buying spree to go for it still made moves that were in part for 2019, but were largely done for 2020. “Sellers” were few and far between as most clubs have shunned the gutting rebuild and tanking, preferring to lean toward a moderate attempt at respectability and maybe even a lightning strike playoff run. Even teams that were willing to sell big pieces added similarly big pieces before deciding to stand pat. This is better for the game, not worse.

The Giants’ rebuild hits a snag: They’re winning

When the Giants hired Farhan Zaidi away from the Dodgers to replace Brian Sabean as the head of baseball operations, they did not do it to maintain the status quo. The Giants were long one of the main holdouts for the old-school way of running an organization, eschewing a deep dive into statistics as the final determinative factor in procuring and retaining players. It certainly worked for them with three World Series titles in five years starting in 2010.

However, the Giants are an organization that knows which way the wind is blowing – perhaps a lingering aftereffect of Candlestick Park – and moved away from the Sabean/Bruce Bochy line of thought and into the same environment which has built and maintained the Bay Area cohabitants the Athletics as well as the Dodgers, which were the two organizations Zaidi worked for before heading to San Francisco.

While the Giants did not go the route of the full teardown as the Cubs and Astros did under Theo Epstein and Jeff Luhnow respectively (and successfully), Zaidi has not concealed his intentions. Over the winter, the most recognizable names the Giants acquired were Pat Venditte (the switch-pitcher), Drew Pomeranz and Gerardo Parra. These were not moves to radically improve a 90-loss team and they definitely were not designed to close the gap with the Dodgers. They were done for veteran competence and players who might yield a prospect or two at the deadline.

If this were the defending champion Giants or the “we’re going for it” Giants, these are reasonable, role players to add to a championship mix. For a club that finished 64-98 in 2017 and 73-89 in 2018, the latter with a payroll of $200 million, sticking to the admittedly successful blueprint from the past was cannibalizing and foolish. Had the Giants wanted that, they would not have gone so far in the opposite direction from Sabean’s methods to Zaidi’s.

There’s a fine line between trying to lose and not caring about losing. The Cubs and Astros, during their rebuilds, “tanked.” They were not “throwing” games, but the teams were so terrible that losing was a natural byproduct of the terribleness of those rosters. This relatively new phenomenon is not all that new. Upon informing Ralph Kiner that he had been traded to the Cubs, Pirates GM Branch Rickey famously told him that they finished last with him and could finish last without him. The idea gained prominence with the Devil Rays/Rays under current Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman by ostensibly saying, “We’re gonna lose anyway, so what’s the difference between losing 90 and 100?”

The Astros and Cubs took it to its logical conclusion and were positioned to do so with the new heads of baseball ops inheriting bloated contracts, dead farm systems, a history of failure and owners willing to hand the keys to them because there was no history to protect and nothing to lose.

The Giants had played poorly; the players who comprised the foundation for those championships were getting old and underperforming; and the template had run its course. Add in that the National League West housed Zaidi’s old team, the Dodgers, and they had exacted a dominance over the division that the Giants could not come near without radical changes to the structure. That radical change was, in short, copying the Dodgers.

In its actions, the Giants tacitly admitted they were moving on from the Bochy/Madison Bumgarner/Buster Posey/Brandon Belt/Brandon Crawford/Pablo Sandoval years – the last remaining residue of the championships.

Manager Bochy’s spring announcement that he planned to retire after the 2019 season put an exclamation point on the organization’s direction. The question as to whether Bochy is really retiring or is being granted the respect to leave on his own terms so Zaidi and his staff can hire a manager whose thinking corresponds with theirs will be answered if Bochy takes some time off and then leaks that he’s bored and will listen to offers to manage.

Posey, Belt and Crawford are under contract for the foreseeable future, but if they are not traded, they will be ancillary players who fit in with the scheme rather than the foundation around which the scheme is crafted. With no contract extension forthcoming for Bumgarner, they had essentially said he was going to be traded by the deadline. The only question was where.

Then, from the nadir of their season so far on June 29 when they were 12 games below .500, eight games from a Wild Card spot and ahead of only the Marlins in the overall National League standings, the Giants started winning. In the subsequent three weeks and after Thursday night’s/Friday morning’s 16-inning win over the Mets, the Giants were 13-2 and gained 5.5 games in the Wild Card standings.

This is where it gets complicated. Having this happen so close to the July 31 trade deadline in the season after August trades were eliminated by MLB, the Giants and every other team must decide on what they are and what they want to be. The second Wild Card has opened so many scenarios to make an argument to stand pat that the fans and media will not accept a club punting on a season when there is the remotest possibility of making a run. It takes an experienced and entrenched baseball operations boss plus a willing ownership to do that.

Some teams will take a wait-and-see approach to their midseason status before acting. The Mets fall into that category, but they are not in the same circumstance as the Giants in that they have enough young talent and starting pitching under contract that they can say they’re going to retool and try and win in 2020. Some will disagree with the philosophy and its ambiguity, preferring the resoluteness of “this is what we’re doing, like it or not.”

The Twins were faced with a comparable conundrum in 2017. Having abandoned their longtime method of running things with the “Twins Way,” they fired veteran GM Terry Ryan and manager Ron Gardenhire, mitigated background architect Tom Kelly and moved on with former Cleveland Indians director of baseball operations Derek Falvey as the Twins new chief baseball officer They had lost 103 games the previous year and were not expected to be anything more than, at most, a 90-loss team. Instead, they hovered around contention for the second Wild Card and a likely one-game dismissal by the Yankees or Red Sox if they made the playoffs.

Instead of having the freedom to do what they wanted with a 100-loss team, Falvey and GM Thad Levine were suddenly saddled with trying to make a playoff run when it was inconvenient to their plans; was a waste of time, energy and assets; and hindered rather than helped. So, they vacillated. They made trades to “improve” as the second Wild Card spot played down to them instead of vice versa. They acquired Jaime Garcia for show, and traded Garcia and Brandon Kintzler a week later as a concession…and then still won the second Wild Card that no one in the front office wanted. They got hammered by the Yankees in the playoff game and were then free to continue their rebuild. Still, loitering around contention might have prevented them from maximizing their best tradeable assets Brian Dozier and Ervin Santana and stagnated what they set out to accomplish. It didn’t hurt them significantly as they are currently in first place, but it didn’t help either.

It might be a bit much to say that Zaidi is displeased that the Giants are playing so well, but it does put a wrench in the machine he’s constructing. Certainly, his life would be much easier if they continued that late-June spiral and freed him to gut the place because, what was the difference?

Now, it makes a difference. Could ownership step in and say it’s worth the shot to get into the Wild Card game with Bumgarner pitching it and see what happens? Absolutely.

Would the fans accept trading a team legend when the club is suddenly in the mix to make the playoffs in a weak Wild Card scrum and vulnerable teams – even the Dodgers – leading the respective divisions? They wouldn’t be happy about it even if the Giants and Zaidi extract a ransom for Bumgarner, Will Smith and Crawford and salary relief for Jeff Samardzija.

Given Zaidi’s background, he will still trade Bumgarner at the deadline and ignore this quixotic leap into the playoff conversation. But the Giants’ hot streak has put that decision from the definite category to the maybe category. Retaining Bumgarner and even adding at the deadline is precisely what Sabean would have done, and that is not what Zaidi or the Giants intended when he took the job.

A note about the Mets bullpen and revisionist history

As catastrophic as the Mets bullpen has been, there is a significant amount of second-guessing, “look how smart I am/give me credit,” and agenda-laden statements masking itself as analysis that is secondary to objective assessment.

This is not a statistical gauging of the Mets’ relievers. It’s a look back at the moves the club made to bolster what they already had and what could reasonably have been expected in terms of performance.

In the offseason, the Mets acquired Jeurys Familia, Edwin Diaz, Justin Wilson and Luis Avilan.

Are these bad acquisitions? Could anyone have predicted that all would be disastrous? And what were the alternatives?

When attacking Brodie Van Wagenen and the Wilpons, there are legitimate criticisms to the hire. However, had Van Wagenen come marching in with a blueprint that so radically deviated from established norms and sought not just to reinvent the wheel, but reinvent one that would turn on Neptune, then it’s justifiable to go over the top in issuing blame. He did not do that.

He signed Familia for three years and $30 million. Had the Mets not done it, someone else would have. He is a historically good – even excellent, if not elite – reliever.

He signed Wilson who in his first six full seasons in the majors appeared in a minimum of 58 games and generally appeared in about 70. He was not solely a lefty specialist and was generally effective as a second-tier relief pitcher.

The Diaz trade was a risky gambit. In its favor, Diaz was dominant in 2018 and had the type of stuff that left hitters inert. To get him, they were forced to surrender two prospects including the sixth overall pick from 2018, Jarred Kelenic. The deal was expanded to include Robinson Cano who has looked every bit of his 36 years after a PED suspension and is combining his trademark lackadaisical act with indifference and defiance. The trade for Cano, however, was to clear the dead contacts of Jay Bruce and Anthony Swarzak. For those who lament the way Bruce and Swarzak have performed in 2019, if they had been this good in 2018, we’re not discussing any of this; it’s likely that Sandy Alderson would have kept his job.

It was a major roll of the dice that looks atrocious now, but cannot be accurately judged for at least five years when Kelenic’s fate will be determined and Diaz will either have gotten acclimated to New York and performed up to his capabilities or he will not.

Avilan was the identical type of signing that every team makes of a longtime MLB veteran who is seeking work and will sign a minor-league contract to earn a spot.

These arms were joining a bullpen that had Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo.

In a preseason assessment, is the following a bad bullpen: Diaz, Familia, Wilson, Lugo, Gsellman and Avilan plus whichever young arms the Mets needed to recall from the minors?

If you say yes, you’re a liar or suffering from confirmation bias.

When discussing potential options in lieu or in addition to the relievers the Mets acquired, big money names like Craig Kimbrel are frequently mentioned.

Signing Kimbrel is in the same ballpark – not identical, but in the same ballpark – of trading Kelenic and Justin Dunn for Diaz. Kimbrel wanted $100 million and he did not back off from that even as his market collapsed and he sat out, waiting. The Mets were not paying him $100 million and no one else was either based on the fundamental fact that he didn’t get it.

Add in the draft pick that would have been Competitive Balance B which was exactly where Van Wagenen and his staff used a clever sleight of hand to get Matthew Allan who Baseball America ranked 16th overall and scared off many teams because he had committed to the University of Florida.

So, pick one. Do you want to hammer the Mets for trading Kelenic and not signing Kimbrel as well, or do you want to hammer them for gutting the system and ignoring any semblance of future planning? You can have one or the other, but not both.

As for the other available “name” relievers? Who’s been good? One pitcher – Adam Ottavino – has been worth the money and he was going to the Yankees, period. Other teams didn’t even really bother pursuing him with any intensity because this reality was known throughout the industry.

Zack Britton? It’s unlikely he was signing with the Mets and they weren’t overpaying for him. His walks are a major worry.

Andrew Miller? His knee injury was a factor and he’s got a 4.15 ERA, a 5.22 FIP and has surrendered 6 home runs.

Joe Kelly? He’s been effective in June, but started horribly and cannot be trusted in a big spot.

Who did you want instead of what the Mets got? Who was better and was moved? Who was available?

Facts hurt, but they’re still facts. No one with any objectivity could have foreseen the bullpen being this rancid.

Some critics, like Buster Olney of ESPN, torched the hire of Van Wagenen from the start. Most others either took a wait and see attitude, lauded many of the moves Van Wagenen made, then sat quietly to see how they turned out before parachuting in with the “I knew it” template. Repeatedly screaming “rebuild” is not a strategy. Yet the moles are popping out of their holes with criticisms and no solutions. And that is not how anything is fixed. Acknowledging the truth is the first step. Then comes fixing it. The factions are incapable – or unwilling – to do that as they wallow in their own egomania and delusions of grandeur.

A lesson for the Mets on the manager from none other than Billy Beane

As the Mets are resistant to do the obvious and relieve manager Mickey Callaway of his duties, it is difficult to know the justification of retaining him.

His salary is minuscule compared to name managers.

General manager Brodie Van Wagenen is under siege himself for roster deficiencies and did not hire Callaway.

The pitching coach and bullpen coach have already been fired with the relievers pitching at least as badly as they did before, if not worse.

Jeff Wilpon is a target of ridicule for his perceived role in this burgeoning debacle.

And even if they do make a change, there’s no guarantee that they will make the obvious and right move in hiring Joe Girardi.

It’s a trendy shield for teams to assert that managers are largely irrelevant to the overall results of a team and most subscribe to it. This protects them from firing people, paying them not to work and avoids caving to public pressure to hire the decreasing number of “proven” managers who are going to demand a big salary and expect autonomy on the field.

With front offices becoming so immersed in every aspect of how a team is run from top to bottom, the line that general managers never crossed no longer exists. Owners regularly crossed that line with calls to the manager’s office with various orders, but they were the owners. Today’s GMs are younger, hungry for attention, convinced that they know better than the emotional and reactive field staff, and do not want anything to sabotage their algorithms of optimal moves.

The days of Whitey Herzog, Billy Martin, Tommy Lasorda, Earl Weaver, Davey Johnson, Dick Williams and Joe Torre – managers in the truest sense of the word with their own belief systems, preferred style of play and personalities – are gone. The preference is to have a disposable, replaceable and faceless automaton who will carry out the orders of the front office, be the public face of the franchise, not deviate from the plan and play the part of manager rather than be the manager. None of those mentioned would even get a managing job today, except in cases where the owner ordered the hiring over protestations of the front office. They would have problems relating to players who expect to be coddled and know they have the power and could not stand the dissection of every single decision they made with public criticisms from an exponential number of outlets who would never be forced to face them in person.

The altered landscape is aptly described at the end of Casino when Robert De Niro as Sam Rothstein laments how times changed with the corporations taking over Las Vegas:

In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it’s checking into an airport. And if you order room service, you’re lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it’s all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number.

There’s a clear parallel between this perspective and how baseball teams are run.

Billy Beane is cast as the first GM who was publicly portrayed as running the team from the front office. It was Beane who wanted a manager to follow orders. It was Beane who allowed this desire to be out there for all to see. And it was Beane who repeatedly downplayed the importance of managers by discarding them to be replaced by “another guy.” It didn’t matter who.

When he elevated his close friend Bob Geren to the manager’s chair, the Athletics were embarking on another retooling. Geren was the epitome of mediocrity. A vanilla personality who maintained the same blank look on his face regardless of what was happening around him, he certainly fit the role of “some guy” standing at the corner of the dugout and epitomizing the factotum. The results on the field were just as bland as Geren. Never better than .500; never worse than 12 games below .500. They were blah. He was blah.

Eventually, with players complaining about Geren’s communication failures, the team floundering and – perhaps most importantly – Beane’s image reaching fluke status, Geren was dismissed.

Beane steadfastly refused “name” managers in his previous hires with Ken Macha and Geren. This time, however, he did bring in a known entity in Bob Melvin. This was a tacit admission that the model from which he had been working was not a good one. Still, he clung to the tenets when explaining why he dismissed Geren by ignoring player complaints as though they were irrelevant and blaming the media and the speculation infecting the franchise.

Beane’s actions and the aftermath of those actions do not match the rhetoric and that was clearly intentional. He clung to the narrative while deviating from it making it obvious that he knew the other way was not working and was not going to work with a team that did not have the spending power to put a self-sustaining product on the field.

Whereas Geren did not have the resume to protest Beane’s orders and was known to be one of his closest friends, with whom could the players confide if there were issues with the front office? Who had their backs?

Melvin had two previous jobs as manager. In the first, he inherited Lou Piniella’s Mariners as they were just beginning their downward slide. He won 93 games in his first season and the entire club came apart in his second, losing 99 games. He was fired. The next year, he came in second to Wally Backman for the job to manage the Diamondbacks. When Backman was found to have lied on his job application, he was fired and Melvin took over. After four full seasons including one division title and an NLDS win, he was fired 29 games in to the 2009 season as he resisted front office interference and GM Josh Byrnes famously said he wanted someone who provided “organizational advocacy.” Ironically, the person tabbed to replace Melvin and for whom any chance of success was detonated with those two words as he was viewed as a spy, was AJ Hinch – currently considered one of baseball’s best managers with the Astros.

There is no doubt that Hinch’s experience in Arizona is a reason he is now successful in Houston.

The A’s played better under Melvin after he replaced Geren. Then, the next year, they won the first of back-to-back division titles and made the playoffs in the third year as a Wild Card.

Was it the players? Was it the manager? Was it the front office realizing that maybe it was time to give the manager a bit more freedom and respect than they did before? Was it a combination?

Experience. History. Knowing when to push back against the front office. All are key parts of managing that will never change, especially if the team is not the Yankees or Dodgers and does not have the money and personnel to gloss over a nameless, faceless manager who does what he’s told. For most teams, the season hinges on 15 or 20 games where the manager makes the difference. If he’s losing games due to his ineptitude, then it’s time to make that move to hire a person who has a clue.

It benefits the players to have a manager they respect; one who has a salary large enough that he won’t be dumped just to hire the same guy with a different name and face; one who can speak to the media without sounding as if he’s a hostage reading from a script; and one who will make the decisions he feels are in the team’s best interests in the short and long-term rather than because he was ordered to by guys in suits and polos in the front office suite. Even if the players disagree with the manager, a track record gives a certain amount of leeway. “At least he knows what he’s doing” is as good a reason as any to hire a manager who has done it before.

To continually present the manager’s job as meaningless while maintaining the veneer of an all-powerful and all-knowing front office is cannibalistic and destructive.

So many front offices either don’t understand this or are too paranoid and egomaniacal to admit to any level of weakness. But the players know. It would help if front offices did too. Maybe the Mets will learn this before someone else hires Girardi and they take the first step toward fixing what ails them with the simple act of hiring a manager who knows what the hell he’s doing.

The Mets and ending their definition of mediocrity

Earlier in the week, New York Mets manager Mickey Callaway elicited eye-rolls when he discussed the Mets’ struggle to reach .500 and get on a roll to get beyond the record that is the objective definition of mediocrity. After Tuesday’s doubleheader split with the injury-riddled crosstown Yankees and Thursday’s rain suspended tie against the equally mediocre St. Louis Cardinals, there are certain fundamental realities that the club and the fans must accept and act upon to maintain a glimmer of hope that this team can make the postseason.

Forget Jarred Kelenic

That means stop mentioning Jarred Kelenic.

Stop obsessively tracking the progress of Jarred Kelenic.

And come to the acceptance stage of the grieving process that the Mets no longer have Jarred Kelenic.

They have Edwin Diaz who, despite his struggles, is still a top-three closer in baseball when he’s performing up to his capabilities. He’s in a slump. His advanced statistics have been relatively consistent with his 2018 numbers with the Seattle Mariners. He’s given up more home runs, but that could be a byproduct of his home games being a park where it’s easier to hit home runs at Citi Field compared to what they were in then-Safeco Field, that the ball is clearly juiced, and hitters are going to the plate trying to hit home runs in every at-bat.

The mental aspect cannot be ignored. He knows who he was traded for and what the fans and large factions of the media said when the trade was made. He’s hearing the whispers and seeing the laments. Demoting him, trading him in a housecleaning, rebuilding – none of this is going to happen. Rather than repeat the same pattern that achieves nothing but validate an entrenched confirmation bias, live with what the Mets have and ignore what they traded away.

Dom Smith must play

Certainly, no one is expecting Smith to maintain his basic statistical split of .354/.442/.573. Nor can anyone believe that his advanced statistics of wRC+ of 174 is sustainable. His BAbip is an absurd .417. He’s only had 95 plate appearances, so he’s going to fall back to earth. The only question is whether the landing will be soft and he’ll settle into his minor league splits of .295/.360/.425 or it will be a crash landing of his previous non-production in the majors.

The Mets have openly said they’re not writing lineups based on contracts or veteran status. Smith has played left field adequately. Once Brandon Nimmo and Robinson Cano return, that should not impact whether Smith is in the semi-regular lineup. If that means putting into practice the recent suggestion of Jeff McNeil seeing some time in center field, so be it. If Cano and Nimmo are unhappy about it, it’s simple: When you play, hit. If you don’t hit, you don’t play. If that means Cano will sit if he’s not hitting, he’ll need to sit without complaint.

They must buy – within reason – at the trade deadline.

As mentioned earlier, the idea of a gutting and rebuild is a fantasy from those who have:

A) never run a business

B) are harboring dreams – as inexplicable as they are – that losing 100 games for three years automatically results in a dynasty

The Mets either need to be bold at the trade deadline and add or essentially stand pat and wait for the offseason to make radical changes (that will not include a gutting rebuild).

The Atlanta Braves have been playing excellently and were aggressive in signing Dallas Keuchel.

The Philadelphia Phillies are ravaged by injuries and, with a flurry of trades and roster shuffling, are repeating the same failed blueprint from 2018 when they made panicky maneuvers to fix a flat tire by buying a new car.

The entire National League is flawed. With the Mets’ moves in the winter designed to win right now, they can’t do an about face and sell the likes of Zack Wheeler and Todd Frazier to look toward 2020 and beyond unless they completely collapse and fall double-digits out of the division lead and Wild Card spots.

What is buying “within reason?”

It doesn’t mean gutting the farm system for a rental. It does mean looking for upgrades at positions of need with relievers Brad Hand of the Cleveland Indians, Will Smith of the San Francisco Giants and Cam Bedrosian of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They cannot sit on the sidelines and expect different results from similar strategies used in the past of waiting out injured players and expecting them to be comparable to deadline acquisitions as they did with Wheeler in 2016, Yoenis Cespedes and Jed Lowrie.

The problem Mickey Callaway won’t have time to fix with the Mets

Even in baseball’s current landscape of data-centric strategies and tightly controlled implementation, there are fundamental job requirements making it difficult for just anyone to do it. While managerial experience and tactical knowhow is no longer deemed as make or break in hiring someone and other aspects – handling the media, steering the clubhouse, adhering to front office edicts – have taken precedence, there are unavoidable factors that make it necessary for certain clubs to have a manager who can blunt interference from the front office and ownership and make in the trenches decisions that might not come out of the new managerial manual.

As the New York Mets tread water in the National League East and hover around .500, it is abundantly clear that manager Mickey Callaway is not equipped to handle the job as it stands. Either the situation must change making it more tenable for this manager or the manager must be changed. There’s no in between.

Fortunate though they are that the division and nearly the entire National League is mired in mediocrity keeping them within striking distance of a playoff spot, at some point they need to win their own games and establish a level of consistency. That means not blowing games they should win. On this road trip through Los Angeles and Arizona alone, bullpen implosions have cost them two games they should easily have won. Contrary to popular sentiment, the Mets’ bullpen is not unusual in being inconsistent to the point of terribleness. However, the Mets do not have the wiggle room to lose these games and think it will eventually even out.

There are teams that can hire a manager with limited or no bona fides for the job and get away with it. With the crosstown Yankees’ stellar play, it’s difficult not to give credit to Aaron Boone, but he is still functioning as a conduit to the front office with general manager Brian Cashman and his staff calling the shots. Dave Roberts has done nothing but win since he became Los Angeles Dodgers manager, but he too benefits from abundant information and little left to his whims. Those clubs also have resources they’re willing to spend. These things cannot be said about the Mets. The Mets do not have the same margin for error that clubs like the Dodgers and Yankees do. They can survive knowing that the template covers for real-time managerial errors that the numbers crunchers didn’t have time to mitigate with a flowchart of “if this-then that” moves.

If Callaway seems overmatched, he’s only partially at fault for that. No, he did not have any managerial experience whatsoever when he took the job, but his history having played for Mike Scioscia and Buck Showalter and serving as Terry Francona’s pitching coach should have been sufficient for him to have absorbed enough managerial touch and feel that these snap decisions would not be as worrisome as they are. Worse, he says and does one thing and the players and front office will openly contradict him making him appear not to know what is happening in his own clubhouse. This was evident in Saturday night’s loss and Jacob deGrom’s hip concerns being the latest example.

Deciding on who catches based on “catcher win percentage”; denying that there will be a personal catcher system between deGrom and Tomas Nido, but if there is it will be a problem in the playoffs; saying Edwin Diaz would only pitch one inning and then backing off on it after viral critiques and questions – all appear to have come either from the front office or fear of what the front office will say if he exercises the autonomy the manager must have to maintain credibility.

But he has no autonomy, is losing credibility, and does not have the experience or the contract to resist.

Obviously, a chunk of that is because of front office dictates that seemingly stem from reaction to fan anger and media attacks, not because they have examined the problem and formulated a detailed and information-based solution for it even if it is neither popular nor understandable to the critics.

All too often, he is relegated to the organizational puppet whose job is not to manage the team, but to serve as its punching bag, making statements before and after the game that sound like flimsy excuses because he doesn’t know how to frame his words and is too nice to make generic “because I’m the manager” statements that are tantamount to telling the questioner to shut up and mind his or her business without saying it so combatively.

In the past decade, the Mets have not been an organization that entered the season with a relatively accurate interpretation of what they will be, barring injuries and unforeseen occurrences. They have had a series of ifs and maybes with the best and worst-case scenarios dictating the midseason strategy. If they deemed themselves close enough to warrant buying at midseason and trying to win, that’s what they did. If they were trapped in the middle, they stood pat. If they were hopelessly out of contention, they sold players who were pending free agents. There has not been a deep dive into a single blueprint that they would stick to no matter what. Whether that was due to fear or mitigation or both is irrelevant.

Having hired Brodie Van Wagenen as GM, they made clear they are trying to win now. Still, they have not gone all in with that attempt.

After the sweep by the Miami Marlins two weeks ago, Callaway’s job was clearly in jeopardy, but the Mets tried to go the “let’s be fair” route and understood that the team’s woes are not solely the fault of the manager. They gave him a reprieve, to quote Van Wagenen, “for the foreseeable future.”

Fairness is one thing, but acknowledging reality and the inevitable is another. Callaway is not the problem, but he’s clearly not the solution either.

The Mets have two choices: either change the way the team is run from the top and let Callaway handle the job or hire someone who can do the job in this environment. With the division still winnable and the team staggering, something must be done to save the season even if it means that the front office will need to defer to its new manager and pay him a salary commensurate with his experience.

Hiring Joe Girardi, Showalter, Scioscia or Dusty Baker does not mean the bullpen won’t keep blowing games. It does eliminate the randomness in the usage of the relievers; stops statements from being made and immediately backtracked on because outsiders don’t like it; and the manager will have the contract and the cachet to say why he did what he did and not sound as if he’s clumsily trying to talk his way out of a speeding ticket.