Kuzul

Generally, I am not one to blame managers for a team’s performance.  Mets fans have wanted Jerry Manuel’s head since he was hired in 2008.  

His even-keeled, sometimes humorous attitude about the ebbs and flows of a Major League season is, quite frankly, the way a manager ought to perceive the marathon that is a baseball season, but it has often rubbed Mets’ fans, who live and die with every pitch, the wrong way.

Mets’ fans are a strange breed.  They have “seen some stuff,” to paraphrase a colloquialism.  Epic collapses and playoff berths lost by a single game have caused this team’s fanbase to look at every single game and every single managerial decision and at-bat within that game as Game Seven of the World Series.

Manuel can’t afford to look at it that way.  He needs to look at the season as a marathon and keep his cool under pressure.

Manuel has achieved that, so what is my problem with him?  My problem is that Manuel needs to feel that way internally but not let that feeling rub off on his players.

Up until the week before the All-Star break, Manuel had achieved that.  His players hustled, played hard, were team-first guys, and took the game seriously.  

Since the All-Star break, it has been the opposite.  Stories are starting to come out that demonstrate that Manuel is losing control of this team, and that is when a manager has to go.

Over the course of 162 games, any manager will make mistakes.  He will make bad decisions that cost the team games and bad decisions that inexplicably work out. Those are never the reasons to fire a manager.  

A manager, like a school teacher who is in charge of the behavior of his or her students, is in charge of the behavior of his players, and that is the area where Manuel is falling short.

As his team has entered an epic downswing, there are three things that have occurred that should cause Manuel’s prompt dismissal:

First, when Manuel was asked about this road trip, Manuel said, 

“We felt coming on this trip that the one good thing about this trip is that it’s early enough in the second-half schedule that if it’s what it is, we still feel we have a good enough team and enough time to overcome that.”   

So the team should feel like it is defeated before the trip even started?  Mission accomplished Jerry, good job. 

Second, after the team’s second game in Arizona, there was laughter in the clubhouse. Alex Cora, one of the team’s leaders, exploded that the Diamondbacks had just “stuck it up their [ expletive].”

But here is the problem: Can you really blame the laughter Alex?  Jerry Manuel laughs after every loss in his postgame interview.  The team is simply taking on the persona of its manager, laughing and shrugging off losses.  

Finally, take a look at Jeff Francoeur. He was praised all year as a team-first guy by Jerry Manuel, and just look at what has happened this week.  When Frenchy was asked about his role, was he team-first?  Here are his comments:

“If there was an opportunity to play more somewhere else, that would be great…I love it here, but if they decide to go in a different direction, I would be happy to play somewhere else.”

Well, I am sure glad Francoeur is comfortable enough to go to the media say he would be happy to play somewhere else.  Do you think one of Lou Piniella’s, Joe Girardi’s, or Joe Torre’s players would say that? 

I am not so sure, and that is the problem: profound comfort as a losing New York Met. Jerry’s relaxed atmosphere has rubbed off, just like in a classroom where a teacher let’s everything go and the kids run wild.  Francouer should have had that conversation with Manuel privately.  

The Mets need a manager who will make things a little more uncomfortable right now and who will try to re-light the fire.

As for Omar Minaya, he needs to be fired as well.  It simply isn’t reasonable to allow a general manager who has never won anything but a division title to hire his third manager.  

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The cries are audible. “In my day, the All-Star game meant something.” Baseball purists hearken back to the days of yore when the All-Star game stood on its own merit. The players hustled, the nation stopped to watch.

For various reasons, that just wasn’t the case anymore until the past few years. An embarrassing tie game in 2002 led to Bud Selig’s decision to attach meaning to the “Midsummer Classic.”

For 2003 and 2004, the winning league would receive home-field advantage in the World Series. A spike in viewership led to an extension of the home-field advantage incentive to 2005 and 2006 and eventually, to a permanent installment of this plan. 

The purists complain that the attachment of home-field advantage to the game is asinine, but admit that they have more interest in the game in that they will now have to tune in. Mission accomplished for Selig.

There are also a few more things the purists must get used to: set-up men and utility players. In today’s era of pitch counts, the protection of investment stars with big contracts, and computer printouts of match ups and tendencies, there are more than just nine men on the diamond.

No, I don’t simply mean the Designated Hitter. I am talking about mid-relievers, set-up men, and utility players. Those three positions have taken on an increasingly important role as baseball has progressed and evolved over the years.

The most important outs of an MLB game are typically handled by a setup man in the seventh and eighth inning. Purists have criticized the selection of Evan Meek and Arthur Rhodes to the All-Star team, but they are truly the best players at the relatively new set-up man position.

Finally, the selection of Omar Infante, a man who doesn’t always start for his own team, the Atlanta Braves, has been heavily criticized.

However, in today’s age of baseball, where most players don’t play a full 162-game schedule, and where maneuvering of players late in games is a must, every team must have a “jack of all trades” type. 

While most of these players are flawed, Infante is the best of that group. He plays plus defense at any position and is sporting a lofty .321 batting average at the All-Star break. He is truly the All-Star of his position; the utility man.

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At the beginning of the season, I told you that the Mets would be much better than people think. And while I would love to take full back-patting on that prediction, to do so would be disingenuous. 

Who could have predicted solid starting pitching from R.A. Dickey? Who could have predicted a “hold-down-the-fort” type of pitching performance from Isinori Takahashi? Who could have predicted an Ace-like performance by Mike Pelfrey and Jon Niese?

I believed that the combination of Mike Jacobs and Fernando Tatis, while the weakest part of the everyday lineup, would be good enough to help the Mets compete in the NL east. I could not have guessed Ike Davis would arrive to contribute offensively and settle down the infield defense with a veteran presence that belies his rookie status.  

I thought Jason Bay would lead the team in home runs and RBIs. I also believed Carlos Beltran would return in May, but could not have guessed that Angel Pagan would do his best Carlos Beltran imitation both defensively and offensively at the top of the Mets’ lineup. 

None of the predictions within the predictions came true yet here the Mets are:Ffour games behind Atlanta for the division and a game out of the Wild Card. Getting virtually nothing from Jason Bay, John Maine, Oliver Perez, and still awaiting the return of Beltran, the Mets’ best baseball may actually be ahead of them.

Beltran is slated to return post All-Star break as the Mets look to add a bullpen arm and starting pitcher through the trade market. 

You have to figure that Jason Bay will pick it up offensively which could be huge for the Mets in a pennant race. Beltran’s return should help solidify the lineup which sometimes feels a bit thin, especially towards the bottom of the lineup.

With a hurting Luis Castillo, and the inconsistency and lack of patience of Jeff Francouer and Rod Barajas, pitchers can often use the bottom of the Mets lineup to have quick innings and re-stabilize their starts to go deeper into games. Often, the Mets will put a few runs up early in the game, but cannot maintain offense with the bottom of the lineup. 

Beltran’s addition in the four hole puts another patient hitter in the lineup, and removes an impatient hitter in Francouer. Castillo could provide a nice option in the eighth hole to make pitchers work and get on base for the top of the lineup. He can help to turn a lineup over, and, in turn, raise pitchers’ pitch counts and help to eliminate quick innings for opposing starters.

In terms of pitching, the Mets either need to make the aforementioned move for a starter or hope against hope that Oliver Perez, who is making rehabilitation starts, contributes in a meaningful way down the stretch.

Either way, the Mets are in the race and have a chance to play postseason baseball.  That’s a far cry from what some “experts” were saying about this team.

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