I know it's en vogue, and rightly so, to bash Omar for his failings. But to think that the Mets poor drafting has to do with Omar is laughable. You can't expect a cook to make a good meal if you don't let him shop for the groceries. By all accounts, the conditions that the Wilpons have set forth for the draft make it virtually impossible to have a good draft.

Do you really think Omar wants to pass up draft picks to get Chris Carter? Do you think he'd rather draft a cheap college player rather than go overslot and spend money on a talent that fell? Please, stop being so dense. There's a million things to kill Omar for, but the draft is largely out of jurisdiction, which in itself is all that needs to be said of this organization.

“Look, kid, don’t ever – ya ‘understand me? – don’t ever let anyone monkey with your swing.” -  Ted Williams to Carl Yastrzemski.

David Wright has sucked this year.  His power is gone and his strikeouts have raised tremendously.  But what's most horrifying is the fact that it's a result of changing his approach, something that was instigated by Howard Johnson.  The following quotes are from an article by Larry Brooks in the NY Post: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/power_struggle_not_big_issue_for_MOdv7u3VfFRnvqIo2FcaJI

“Going into the park we knew it was going to be big, but I don’t think anyone realized just how big it was going to play,“ Wright told The Post before going a quiet 0-for-3 in last night’s 6-3 defeat to the Marlins. “And so in order to be successful here I had to alter my approach a bit.

“You no longer can work the count to get ahead and then look for a pitch to drive out of the park. Instead, you look for a pitch you can shoot into the outfield for a base hit. That’s the approach I’ve been taking, and I’ve carried that onto the road.

“You’d have to be a dummy to keep trying to hit home runs when almost all your fly balls wind up reaching the warning track.”

Now, this is all really frightening, if true.  The notion that they tinkered with the swing of a top 5 player in baseball and he's now become Casey Blake is enough to make one sick to their stomach.  I can't imagine how you could ever let this happen to your franchise player, but this is the Mets after all.  The real question is, has he actually changed his approach, or is he just retroactively making excuses and bullshitting?  Often times players say shit that isn't true, just to have an explanation.  It's easier to say you changed your approach than it is to say that you've been absolute dog shit.  Hopefully, all that's happened is he's had a terrible year at the plate, with a combination of awful luck/slumping/whateverthefuck converging at the apex of the vortex of suck.  Here's his hit charts from the last two seasons.  I don't see a substantive difference in the balls he's put in play; the only thing that's different is the lack of homeruns and doubles.  That doesn't mean he's changed his approach, that just means he isn't hittign homeruns and doubles.  Most of his outs are grouped the same, as are his singles.  He might just not be making solid contact and is making an excuse for it.  Hopefully.  If there's a god.  Who doesn't hate the Mets.

Regardless, Howard Johnson has to be fired.  You can't tell Wright to change his approach.  That's just egregious.  He should never work in baseball again after that.  But that's of secondary importance to Wright getting his shit together.

Around the All-Star Break, I made a gentleman's wager with Sky about whether Gary Sheffield's production was a fluke and if he could match it in the second half of the season.  I forget the actual wording of the bet, and what the standards were, presumably something like expected wOBA (does this even exist?), but considering how poorly Sheffield  hit after the break, combined with the fact that he is no longer playing, I figured there was no way that I could claim to have won the bet.  As befitting my status as somebody who is all that is man, I owned up to my losing bet, told Sky to do his worst, and walked away with a beautiful new avatar and a slightly deflated sense of self worth. 

I'd be lying if I said I slept peacefully that night.  There might have been some forsaking-of-God.  Maybe some questioning of the meaning of life.  I may or may not have gone into a diabetic coma after gorging on Mallomars in a self-pity fueled binge.  None of that really is really important now.  What does matter, to me at least, was the question of whether I was wrong to think that Sheffield's first half performance was indicative of his true talent level at this stage of his career and was more than just fun with small sample sizes. 

As Sky gloatingly pointed out, it seemed as though I was guilty of "making plausible stories fit the data."  Bearing in mind that the hitter is Gary Sheffield, this seems quite possible.  To begin with, he has a HOF resume, so there is the natural inclination to give him the benefit of the doubt RE: regaining his hitting prowess.  More pertinently though, is the fact that Sheffield looks like he was put on Earth to do one thing, and that is to take frighteningly violent cuts at baseballs.  The universe doesn't always unfold as it should, despite whatever Harold and Kumar claim, but sometimes, it seems as though it manages to get things right.  Gary Sheffield found his true calling of hitting baseballs, Gallagher found his calling of hitting things with a gigantic hammer, and Bill Clinton found his way into a position of power that maximized his ability to seduce unattractive women (and what do all three have in common? they were in their prime in the 90s). 

What this means is that when you see Gary hitting baseballs, you feel as though this is his birthright, and you tend to overlook the possibility that luck is aiding him in some way.  How could his BABIP be inflated if he hits balls  200mph?  How could you call it a fluke if he hits an inside fastball 400 feet?  That's Sheffield being Sheffield.  It's what he's always done and was meant to do.  Of course, you overlook the times when he takes his massive hack and rolls over a slider, or gets beat by a fastball and pops it up in the infield, as all players do.

All of that being said, I'm not sure that I was wrong to think that what Gary was doing was flukish.  His OPS in 2008 was .725, but his PrOPS was .826.  This year? A  PrOPS of .811, with an actual OPS of .828.  In 2007: a PrOPS of .916, with an actual OPS of  .839.  Is it really a stretch to say that Gary was capable of an .850 OPS in the NL?  Is is true that the only way you could come to this conclusion is by being seduced by the name on his jersey and by ignoring sample size?  I don't think so.

What remains is why Gary tailed off after the ASB.  My hypothesis is simply that he's old as dirt and wore down physically, and also checked out mentally and started swinging for the downs at every opportunity.  That may seem like an anti-intellectual cop out, but considering Sheffield is presently incapacitated, threatened to walk out on the team, and has in the past purposefully thrown balls away to be traded, I think it's both plausible and probable that these are likely reasons for his decline. That doesn't excuse me for betting on him.  To paraphrase Chris Rock, when Gary Sheffield gets hurt and checks out, he's not going crazy.  He's going Gary. 

No matter how you slice it, I lost this round.  I may be stubborn for saying so, and perhaps I'm guilty of not knowing when I'm beaten, but I don't think I was wrong to believe in Gary's first half performance.

I'll get you Sky Kalkman! If it's the last thing I do!

Just kidding.

A lot has been made of Billy Wagner being shipped off for salary relief and little else.  The complaint is preicated on the notion that if we had offered Billmando Wagnetiz arbitration, his desire to close would overrule his desire to get paid, he would assuredly reject arbitration and we (the Mets) would walk away with two shiny new draft picks.

There are those who think that Billy will easily find work, while others, such as myself, feel as though this is a dicey proposition.  Rather than arguing back and forth, it seems prudent to look at teams who would be in the market for a closer and to then try to make a logical argument as to why they would be likely to forfeit their draft picks and pay Wagner to close for them.

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It appears as though my time as a member of Omar’s Honor Guard may be drawing to an end.  Being a defender of his actions has long been a dicey proposition, and unfortunately, it’s getting more untenable by the day.  While many people viewed the Wagner trade as a fiasco, a missed opportunity to gain two draft picks, I felt as though it was too large of a gamble to keep Billy; 3.5 million is a lot to risk on a post-TJ closer.  Wagner would have to pitch so well that there would be no question that a team out there would sacrifice a first/second round draft pick to sign a 39 year old closer coming off a major injury.

Right now, there is a nice little test out there for how competent Omar is.  While the move won’t be the difference between contending and struggling, and doesn’t involve a superstar player, it succinctly encapsulates several of the most important functions of a General Manager, most notably player evaluation and resource allocation.

Yesterday Matt Murton was designated for assignment, meaning that any team in baseball could claim him.  Murton was a former top prospect who always had sterling minor league numbers, but was usually blocked by other players.  His minor league numbers have always been great and he’s no worse than an average defender.  Additionally, when he has been given playing time in the majors, he’s done fairly well, hitting a respectable .287/.353/.438.  Perhaps nothing to write home about, but definitely above average.  Considering he’s done this with inconsistent playing time and bearing in mind his minor league numbers and pedigree, he’d represent a smart buy for most teams.

While picking up Murton would be a savvy move, failing to do so would also be understandable.  You could say that you want more flexibility or defense from a bench outfielder, or that you feel he doesn’t have enough pop to play full time, or maybe you’re confident in your younger players to do what he does.  All of that is well and good, and would be enough of an excuse for passing on him.  Where Omar’s competency would be called in question is what he does with Jeff Francoeur.

Compared side to side, here are their major league numbers:

Murton: .287/.353/.438

Francoeur: .269/.310/.429

To begin with, Murton is just better than Francoeur.   He has 1,000 MLB at-bats, which is more than enough of a sample size to cement the legitimacy of his numbers.  He also costs a fraction of what Francoeur will cost next year:  Murton will probably be in a range of .5 to 1 million, while Francoeur will cost 4 to 5 million.

If Omar passes on Murton and then brings Francoeur back, he will be essentially saying, “I would like to have a worse player on my team and then pay him much more money.”  The same reasoning Omar would provide for not signing Matt Murton would also eliminate Francoeur, so it’s not like Francoeur does something that Murton doesn’t.

During the controversy that arose when Bank of America absorbed Merrill Lynch, and whether or not Ben Bernanke threatened to fire Ken Lewis if Lewis pulled out of the deal, Henry Paulson was quoted as saying that backing out was “unthinkable” and that it would be a, “destructive action for which there was no reasonable legal basis and which would show a lack of judgment.”

Essentially, Paulson was saying, “You’re damn right Bernanke should’ve fired Lewis if Lewis backed out, because if he backed out he’d be a moron unfit to run a company.”

If Omar passes on Matt Murton and brings Jeff Francoeur back next year, he has to be fired.  Not because the difference between the players is so great, or that Murton is a star, but because it would show a remarkable lack of understanding of how to evaluate talent and allocate resources, or in other words, that Omar has no idea what he’s doing.

 

*I wrote this at my blog, firejerrymanuel.wordpress.org, but I don't really care about traffic so much as people congratulating me for how awesome I am.

No long winded prose here.  Just wanted to put down some post-hype buy-low candidates who could help this team for next year.  All three people mentioned in the title were highly regarded prospects who ran into injury troubles and/or ineffectiveness, were picked up on the cheap, and then regained their lost luster and turned into quality/great players.

If anyone knows of any players who they feel meet the criteria, or would just be good buy-low pick-ups, feel free to chime in.

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If you take the time to look at the last few line-ups the Mets have trotted out, you'll notice that Jerry has begun platooning Angel Pagan.  When you take a look at Pagan's career splits, this seems like the move of a wise man.  But of course, the man in question is Jerry Manuel, leading one to question if it was serendipity that caused him to correctly implement a platoon.  Well, there's nothing to worry about, as Jerry decided that Angel Pagan should be the lefty-bashing side of a platoon. 

Pagan's career splits:

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