I'll begin with a mildly depressing trivia question. According to Fangraphs the 2008 Mets leaders in WAR were, in descending order, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, and Carlos Delgado. Here's the question: do you know who their seventh most valuable player was (again, by Fangraphs WAR)?

I'll give you time to formulate an incorrect guess by listing my top 5 albums by the Rolling Stones, which I promise will be relevant (sort of) later on:

1. Exile on Main St.
2. Sticky Fingers
3. Some Girls
4. Let It Bleed
5. Between the Buttons

Now, away from Mick and Keith for a bit, and back to the Mets. The seventh most valuable Met in 2008 was Brian Schneider (*gasp*), who contributed a WAR of 1.6. And therein lies the problem. When a team spends $137 million on its players and features Brian Schneider as its seventh-best player, something went very, very wrong. Brian Schneider can get on the 7 train and not even be the seventh-best baseball player on board. That Schneider somehow was the seventh best player on the New York Mets, a professional baseball team, illustrates the fundamental flaw in the recent rosters: a lack of mid-level talent.

To better demonstrate the gap in mid-level talent between the Mets and better constructed teams, I took the playoff teams from the 2009, 2008, and 2007 seasons, as well as the Met teams from those years as well as the 2006 team, and divided those team's players into three categories: Stars, Guys, and PCs (Positive Contributors).

"Stars" are players with a WAR of 5+ (e.g. Zack Greinke, Joe Mauer, or the God of WAR himself, Albert Pujols).

"Guys" have a WAR of 4.9 - 2 (Nick Swisher, Matt Cain, 2009's version of David Wright).

"Positive Contributors" are players with a WAR of 1.9-0.1 (Luis Castillo, Livan Hernandez, almost any reliever, decent bench players).

Here is the breakdown of the 12 playoff teams and the Mets, who, just in case you forgot, did not make the playoffs:

The playoff teams from the past three seasons have averaged just under 2 "Stars" and roughly 7.5 "Guys" per team, while the Mets averaged 1.67 "Stars" and 3.67 "Guys", or about half as many "Guys" as an average playoff team. David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and Johan Santana are all capable of being Stars, so looking ahead to next year, upper level talent should not be the problem. The problem with the roster for three straight years has been not having enough Guys, because Guys often make the difference between a 80-something win team that just misses the playoffs and a 90-something win team that cruises into the postseason. 

Now, as promised, here is how the Rolling Stones tie in. The 2006 Mets were like the Stones' great album Sticky Fingers. Those Mets had their stars having monster years, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes, who are the album's big hits, "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses". The 2006 Mets also had the mid-level "Guys" like Billy Wagner, Endy Chavez, and Jose Valentine, who are the under-appreciated songs, like "Sway" or "Moonlight Mile". It's the mid-level, good-but-not-great songs that carry an album to greatness in the same way mid-level players carry baseball teams to greatness. The 2007 and 2008 Mets were like Goat's Head Soup or It's Only Rock and Roll: mailed-in works that had the heavy hitters ("Angie", Carlos Beltran, David Wright) but not enough mid-level guys/songs to push them into the realm of a classic. Both teams and albums contained too much filler (Shawn Green, Damion Easley, "Hide Your Love") that prevented them from being more memorable efforts. The 2009 Mets, who had no "Stars" due to injuries/ ineffectiveness/ whatever happened to David Wright, are appropriately enough Black and Blue, as neither were any good and both were quite forgettable (or perhaps you found the 2009 Mets unforgettable, you sick, sick masochist).

What can the Mets learn from the Rolling Stones, other than the fact that you can't always get what you want? Well, imagine you are Omar Minaya deciding how to piece together the Mets this offseason, and you only have around $20-25 million to spend, maybe. The fan base is getting antsy and the boss is getting angry, so you can't put out another Goat's Head Soup, or even worse,  Black and Blue, or you'll get fired. You already have four guys capable of putting up 5+ WAR seasons, which is like already having "Miss You" and "Beast of Burden" written and recorded for the next album. As for improving the rest of the team, you have two options. You can go all in for Matt Holliday, or you can pick up three or four "Guys". Matt Holliday is the seductive option. He is a great hitter, a somewhat capable defender (excluding this), and he shaves his head, which gives him a grissiony Bruce-Willis-in-"Die-Hard" look. The "Guys" option is less attractive. You could maybe pick up the much hairier Adam LaRoche, Mike Cameron, and a couple of halfway-decent starters with the money that would otherwise be thrown at Holliday. Option 1, the Matt Holliday and nothing else option, is how you end up with a Goat's Head Soup.  You surround the good stuff with filler and you get a forgettable album or team. Matt Holliday is the best free agent on the market, but if the Mets get him and no one else, the rotation/first base/catcher/Jeff Francoeur situation will be still be a disaster and the 2010 Mets win 85 games, tops. Option 2, the "Guys" option, is how you end up with the great Some Girls after churning out crap for a couple of years. You surround your big hitters with some up-tempo rockers, let a newly semi-clean Keith sing a song, throw in a Temptations cover, and then "Accio Some Girls!" you've made another five-star classic. The Mets already have their big hits written, they just need some above-average material to turn themselves into winners.

Obviously, if the Mets can get Matt Holliday and three or four "Guys", that would be the way to go, but it looks like maybe ownership can't or won't spend that much money. If that is the case, then either Omar Minaya, Jeff Wilpon, SPECTRE, or whatever shadowy organization really runs the Mets these days needs to focus on adding as many "Guys" as they possibly can. The 2009 Yankees won the series with 3 "Stars" and 11 "Guys". The champion 2008 Phillies also had 3 "Stars", but also had 7 "Guys" (and 25 "Douchebags"). The 2006 Mets won the NL East with 2 "Stars" and 8 "Guys". It's those good-but-not-great players that push teams into the post-season, and it's a lack good-but-not-great players that has kept the Mets out of the playoffs the past three years.

I plan on putting anything Mets-related I write here on AA, but if you want to see my non-Mets stuff, or if you are just a fan of poor web design, my uncreatively named blog is located here.

Isaac Newton's third law of motion roughly says this: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". I've worked at a summer science camp and successfully taught this idea to kindergartners, usually by letting a balloon fly around the room, and the kids usually can comprehend it. I admit that the kids who attend this camp are exceptionally geeky children, whose overeager parents ruin their summers by sending them to science camp, dooming them to lives of ridicule and asthma and nerdy baseball websites, but still, they can understand it because the law is not a particularly difficult concept to grasp. The law's uses reach from billiards to actual rocket science. However, it does not apply to the successful construction of baseball teams.

via www.sciencetoymaker.org

Let me explain. Each year, Omar Minaya's offseason strategy seems to be dictated by the failings of the previous year. In this bizarro Newtonian scenario, the previous year's failure is the action, and Omar's offseason moves are a reaction. Action > Reaction. The 2007 Mets imploded in epic fashion when they failed to get a big start out of anyone down the stretch (action), so Omar Minaya went out and got Johan Santana (reaction). The 2008 Mets bullpen imploded in equally epic fashion (action), so Omar asked for and received two closers from Santa (reaction). Now, these moves improved the team marginally, but simply fixing the previous year's problem isn't enough. Being a good general manager is about building the best team possible, anticipating new leaks and not just plugging the already dripping ones with chewing gum, ala Chevy Chase in "Vegas Vacation".

A pool ball hit with a set amount of force at a set angle will ricochet around the table in a predictable manner, and will follow a similar path each time it is struck. Baseball teams aren't so easily predicted. Players have down years, up years, they suddenly lose bat speed, they get injured, they get in taxicab accidents during snack runs, they can be Oliver Perez. It's random and often unpredictable. The best strategy to combat the randomness is to construct a team strong in all areas, so a deficiency that inevitably develops in one can hopefully be overcome by strength in another. Building the best possible team doesn't guarantee success, but it seriously improves the chances.

Omar Minaya fails because he doesn't see the randomness. He still sees the pool table. His shot goes awry and he compensates by aiming a little more to the left or right. He gets a Johan Santana but neglects the bullpen. He rebuilds the bullpen, but then hands a AA infielder the starting left field job based on two months in the majors, and the catcher's job to someone with a career .652 OPS in the minors based on one Fenway home run. He sees the 2009 Mets suffer from an absurd number of injuries and an embarrassing lack of power, and then looks for players who don't get injured and hit home runs (I assume). This is a stupid way to build a team. It's like busting on one hand in blackjack, and then refusing to hit on a 5 and 6 because you busted on the previous hand. Its different cards each deal. The shortcomings of last year don't predict as much as Omar thinks because the 162 game season involves a ton of chance. Omar asks himself, "how can I fix the problem?" when he should be asking himself, "how can I put together the best team possible?" He reacts when he should act because he ignores the effects of chance.

Seeing the effects of chance is important. It prevents you from handing out two-year deals to the Julio Franco's and the Marlon Anderson's of the world, and it explains why giving a three-year deal to a relief pitcher is silly. Understanding that old injury prone players get injured more often explains why relying on a 40-year-old Moises Alou is stupid, and why relying on a 41-year-old Alou is unforgivably stupid. More importantly, it keeps you from thinking that just plugging the holes on a rotting ship is enough. Just adding K-Rod and Putz while failing to improve other areas isn't enough. You can keep patching holes, but building a stronger ship is a better plan.

Imagine this plausible scenario. The Mets lacked power this year. Omar, after turning on his computer for the first time ever, will eventually stumble onto Molina's baseball-reference.com page after Google searching "bENngie molina is he anygood please help interweb i might be fired?", and he will see that Bengie Molina hit 20 home runs. He'll miss the part where Molina only walked 13 times because Omar isn't sure what "BB" stands for, and he asks beat reporter Marty Noble, who happens to be walking by on his way to a "Matlock" marathon. Mr. Noble explains to Omar that "BB" is a new Sabermetric whose formula looks like this. So Omar just sees the 20 home runs, and gives him a three year deal, and then gives Jeff Francoeur a three year extension just to make this made up scenario really horrible. Omar puts his feet on his desk and thinks to himself "power problem solved, mission accomplished" and proceeds to hibernate until spring training. Indeed, Molina may patch the home run problem, but does signing the Mario* of the Super Molina Bros. create the best possible team? Probably not, because Bengie Molina is an out-machine on a team that already has too many out-machines, and will likely cost more money than he is worth. Omar needs to ask himself if signing Molina creates the best team, rather than if he just patches a hole. Maybe the money spent on Molina would be more effectively spent elsewhere.

*He gets to be Mario because he's the pudgiest looking one. I think Yadier can be Luigi, and I'll make Jose Wario because he's on the Yankees, and thus the evil one.

Omar Minaya's problem is that he is a reactionary GM. He doesn't realize that reaction is not a plan, it's a response. Fixing a broken bullpen is a good idea, but maybe adding a corner outfielder is a better idea. Doing both is the best idea. The Mets will continue to fail until the distinction between active planning and reactive hole plugging is made.

Joel Pineiro looks like a disastrous free-agent signing waiting to happen. He enters the market coming off a career year when he posted a 15 - 12 record with a 3.49 ERA in 214 innings pitched. Giving a player a multi-year contract for millions of dollars based on one good year is what is sometimes referred to as "a bad idea", or more often as an "Ollie Perez". Pineiro's K/9 rate has dropped three consecutive years, and his HR/FB ratio was at a suppressed 6.5% this year, well below his 11.2% career rate. It looks like Pineiro was somewhat lucky in 2009, and the dropping K/9 and fastball velocity does not bode well for a long term deal. All signs seem to point towards regression to the mean.

Only really, they don't. The 2009 Pineiro is a completely different pitcher than his previous incarnations. Already sort of a groundball pitcher with a career GB% of 48.6%, his GB% jumped to 60.5%, and while his strikeout rate did drop, it was accompanied by cutting his walk rate in half, so his K/BB ratio actually improved to the tune of 3.89. Again, this could all be attributed to wild fluctuations and luck and the pitcher whispering powers of Dave Duncan, if Pinerio was pitching the same way he was in previous years, but a look at pitch selections for 2009 shows up that he significantly altered his pitching style. So I guess it probably is attributable to Duncan.

Pineiro's rocketing ground-ball rate is attributable to him using a sinking two-seam fastball. His weighted fastball value jumped in 2009 from a negative wFB/C of -1.57 to a positive wFB/C 1.14, because he started throwing a groundball inducing two-seamer to accompany his previously below average four-seamer.

Pineiro indeed has many of the signs that traditionally indicate a regression to the mean, but I think these can be ignored because the 2009 Pineiro should be looked at as a completely different pitcher than any previous versions of Pineiro. If he can continue to suppress home runs and induce groundballs with his new sinker, as well as keep his walk rate absurdly low, he could continue his run of success and be a productive pitcher for the length of his contract.

Or, in terms Omar Minaya might understand, "He's the next Sandy Koufax!"