Dumb and Dumber

Today I find myself a little sore after having spent hours on a ladder painting my shingles on Thursday. "Oh well", I said to myself, "at least I got the house painted".

If Willie Randolph had had the job, he'd have put Mike Pelfrey on the ladder, then with the job almost done, he'd have replaced him with Billy Wagner. After all, Mike has to live to paint again.

Then when Billy dropped the brown paint can for the shingles all over the white stucco foundation, he'd drag out somebody else. Or two or three more somebody else’s. And the wall still wouldn't be finished. But everybody'd be fresh for the next time. Doesn't that make you feel better?

<>Nobody knows the affects of exercise on the body better than I. And there's no doubt that pitch counts have an affect on a pitcher's performance. But I believe the data is being misinterpreted. A little information can be a dangerous thing.

While the brainiacs in baseball are getting a little smarter with respect to the effects of exercise on the body, they still aren't dealing with the information correctly. Instead of losing a well-pitched game by removing your starter after a certain number of pitches, wouldn't it be smarter to let him go as long as he can, through nine innings if he can, and simply rest him another day?

You then maximize your team's chances in the current game. You get a happy pitcher, one who's met the challenge of the day. The fans aren't frustrated by some nebulous decision resulting in a loss. And your pitcher not only gets rested, but maybe gets even stronger for his succeeding starts.

<>Wouldn’t that mess up the rotation? Well, it would certainly affect the “every fifth day” maxim. But how smart is that? When compared to the nonsense being perpetrated on Mets and Yankees fans today, all in the name of pitch counts, a minor alteration to the rotation is certainly more favorable.

A change in the roster could also be needed. There might be another long reliever required, another someone capable of giving five full innings. How hard would that be?

The current thinking, managing pitch counts within each game, does not take into account other key ingredients to the psyche of a pitcher, the starter’s confidence and sense of success or the reliever’s entirely understandable misgivings about messing up a heretofore successful outing.

There’s no more superstitious lot than baseball players. Evidence how many pitchers jump over the baseline, or wear the same hat all year, or until they lose a game anyway. How difficult it must be to relieve in a non-relief situation!

The brainiacs are setting the relievers up for disaster. And hurting their starters self-esteem. Not to mention the manager’s psyche. It’s really very simple. I just ask that, instead of managing pitch counts game by game, manage them over the course of the entire season. It really would be easier on everyone, the pitchers, the manager, the fans, and more importantly the team.

There’s been no more shell-shocked team than these Mets. There’s been no more shell-shocked manager than Willie Randolph. The entire situation has swung from questionable to laughable.

The Mets are cursed. They don’t need a new manager or general manager. They need an exorcist. And, while I say this tongue in cheek, there has been some kind of cloud hanging over Shea, and every other stadium the Mets happen to be occupying.

Something always happens to these Mets. They either don’t hit, or get good starts and horrible relief, or they make a mistake running the bases. Or make a critical error. What we have here is a self-fulfilling prophecy, the prophecy of doom.

This team expectation of doom is not without reason. And I must put the fault on management. Blame whoever you want, ownership or Omar or Willie.

Willie only makes a mistake when a decision is made. Every decision he makes comes up zeroes. And, while part of the reason for this lies with the aforementioned curse and team expectations of doom, those expectations have only matured after long experience of failure. Very often, they have been Willie’s failure, Willie’s decision.

While pitching hasn’t been the only problem, it has been the major one. Willie saves his starters and kills his relievers. He kills his positional guys as well, especially the ones he relies on, “his guys”.

Carlos Delgado and Luis Castillo, these men are old. They show it just about every day. But Willie keeps them in the lineup. You may say that he has not had good alternatives. But in most cases, any alternative would have been better than playing these two old-timers.

Sometimes, you have to wonder how much control Willie really has. The pitching coach isn’t his choice, for example, and it’s unclear to me who makes the decisions there. Or, even worse, does every decision become a committee meeting?

The hitting coach also makes me wonder. When asked about the team’s failures in situational hitting, his reply was to the effect that he didn’t think his players were the kind of players that could successfully adjust to a situation. Well, I must say, that explains a lot. And their failures in situational hitting have led to quite a few losses.

So let’s recap. The players aren’t the right players, the manager has made bad decisions, the pitching and hitting coaches are kind of questionable, and the team itself seems to be cursed.

Add to this the fact that the owners have apparently leaked some information to reporters that they haven’t bothered to share with anyone else. Where else would the media get the idea that Willie’s job is in serious jeopardy?

While some will question whether a Billy Martin-type or Bobby Valentine could have done any better with this team, I say they could have and would have. At this point, anybody not named Willie would be better.

So let’s pull the trigger already.