Yes, This is an Inside Baseball Post – IOTW Report

Yes, This is an Inside Baseball Post

Tuesday, 10 September 2019, 14:32 BFH Uncategorized 52

I’m not shying away from this post because I think it relates to life in general, in that, it shows how mismanagement is the fault of stupidity and pigheadedness no matter what sector we are discussing.

The way the Mets manage their organization is as bad as any leftist government.

The Mets have a would-be star pitcher if they just wouldn’t f**k with the guy.

Noah Syndergaard has a great arm and could be the ace on any major league team. He’s a winning pitcher, entering this season with 37 wins against 22 losses. He was giving up less than 3 runs per 9 innings. Great numbers.

This year he’s a little off, giving up more than 4 runs a game. Syndergaard is blaming his catcher, Wilson Ramos. Normally I’d roll my eyes and call the pitcher an excuse-making prima donna. But he has a valid point.

When Syndergaard pitches to Ramos he gives up more than 5 runs per 9 innings. When he pitches to any of the two other Mets catchers his ERA is 2.2. Those are not insignificant statistics, and the sampling is over a long period of time. The Mets management, however, DGAS.

Wilson Ramos is having a career year with his bat, having just snapped one of the longest hitting streaks the Mets have ever seen. It ended at 26 straight games, tying David Wright, and coming up 4 games shy of Moises Alou’s record setting 40 game hitting streak.

Does Wilson’s hitting trump Synergaard’s need for a light hitting catcher to be behind the plate in order to be happy and successful? Absolutely not.

The number one role of management is to put the best team on the field in order to get a win. Ramos’s bat can hardly make up the 3-run differential in Syndergaard’s earned run average when he’s behind the plate.

Managers often juggle a lineup to suit the particular style of a pitcher. Ground ball pitchers get the best gloves in the infield. Fly ball pitchers get the best outfielders. Why are they dicking with Syndergaard?

Starting pitchers usually pitch 6 innings. Ramos can enter the game when Syndergaard sits. Catchers need rest as it is. Why can’t Ramos’s rest days come when Syndergaard gets the ball?

Do they feel like Ramos’s feeling will be hurt? Will he lose his mojo at the plate if he sits? Maybe. But we don’t know. We do know, though, that Syndergaard is suffering. For whatever reason, he just can’t pitch as effectively to Ramos.

If the Mets have a must win game down the line and Sydergaard gets the ball, would they opt for the almost certain 3 run gift to the other team and hope that Ramos can make up some of those runs with his bat? Or will they sit Ramos and most likely limit the other team to just 2 or 3 runs? (Remember, Ramos could get 1 or 2 at bats in a game that Syndergaard pitches anyway.)

It’s almost as if the Mets go out of their way to find a way to lose. They are probably the worst managed team, top to bottom, in baseball. If the Mets got just 3 more wins out of Syndergaard they would be nicely positioned to earn a post season slot. (Let’s not discuss how they trotted out Edwin Diaz as the closer after it was clear he is not fooling major league hitters any longer. The Mets have given up more 9th inning home runs than any other team in baseball.)

Loaded with talent, but struggling to stay above .500 and somehow get into a wildcard slot with 19 games to go. They’ll never get there, but not because of the players, it’s because of the suits.

(I’m sure I’ll get a rebuttal in the comments. Bring it.)

52 Comments on Yes, This is an Inside Baseball Post

  5. DH represents baseball kowtowing to the fan that needs lots of runs to stay interested.
    These fans don’t appreciate a pitcher’s duel where the manager has to decide whether to allow a pitcher to bat at a crucial offensive opportunity, or pull him and roll the dice.
    They counter-argue that this hardly ever happens.
    That’s false.

    Why not turn baseball into football? Have a complete defensive team, and an offensive team?
    Why not? BECAUSE BASEBALL ISN’T FOOTBALL!!! You’re supposed to have all the skills, that’s the game.

    22

  8. The Mets just had a game 2 weeks ago where Mickey FAILaway, the Mets manager, allowed Steven Matz, the pitcher, to bunt in a crucial spot and then took him out of the game anyway!!!!!!!!!!

    The DH would allow Mickey Callaway to be a complete dumbass with no one noticing. I find the American league to be the league better suited for leftists. Sorry if this offends anyone, but the AL is not the thinking man’s league.

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  11. I read that whole thing in Your Yonkers accent…

    That being said..Jon Lester used only David Ross as a Catcher, both

    with the Red Sox and the Cubs on their memorable 2016 World Series

    Championship Season ( I gotta put that in because us Cubs Fans don’t

    get a lot of Rings)

    You always make Your Ace comfortable…How’s Your 1st Basemen?

    You can always spell Him and let Ramos play 1 Game out of 5…

    2

  12. If the pitcher constantly has to call off the pitches (shaking his head, and then calling out the catcher to discuss pitch selection) it undermines his confidence, etc. Then there is a blame game that develops,. Constantly bickering about pitch selection is a very bad thing. If you have a catcher that understands you better and you find yourself agreeing with their pitch selection, there’s a groove that the battery gets into that becomes something to behold.

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  17. The other day, Nido, the backup catcher, insisted on making the pitcher throw inside to lefties with a one run lead. This is nearly unheard of in late innings. The pitcher started by shaking off. Nido insisted. They went with his program. The inside pitches actually worked.
    That forges a trust between pitcher and catcher that can get those inside pitches to be that much more sharp and definitive, unquestioning.
    Syndergaard is having trouble with Ramos. There is no confidence there.

    9

  20. Mets = Fags

    I must admit. Hard to argue.
    The fans do sound like whining assholes. I don’t even know why I watch. Probably our version of cutting ourselves.
    So Mets = Fags is spot on.

    8

  22. More inside baseball –

    The Buffalo is an acquired taste – he’s not as good at framing pitches as other catchers are (thus getting less called strikes) … the Buffalo is older than most pitchers and thenks he now mor…. (it become a latino male thingy!)

    Steve Carlton always used Tim McCarver as catcher even when McCarver had no knees or throwing arm because they were brothers from another mother…

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  23. I’m lucky and really like Joe Maddon’s approach to the Game…

    Your Post reminds Me of Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four” where after His

    Arm went, He wanted to work on His Knuckle Ball during the Game in the

    Bullpen .Management said “WTF are You doing?????”

    They simply could not bend to new ideas.

    My favorite quip from Bob Euker

    “What’s the easiest way to Catch a Knuckleball?”

    Bob: “Wait til it stops rolling and pick it up”

    9

  25. I seem to remember baseball back before 1994. A strike during the world Series, and that was the last time I watched it on TV, except for the final two innings of the Cubs winning the series. I haven’t bought tickets to a game since and have only gone to four games when I was given tickets. (One was in Curt Schillings’ luxury box, but that’s a story for another day).

    3

  28. I love this post. But I’m stuck on DGAS (and venting!). Maybe it was something I ate. (I usually root for the METS or the CUBS if they make it. Love the underdog (and my hotdog with it).

    4

  29. I remember when the Mets were in SF earlier this season. Mike Kruko, our announcer, took issue with Ramos’ habit of dropping the target for no apparent reason – even with the bases empty. I can imagine that driving any pitcher nuts.

    5

  30. Fifty years ago Dick Deitz was the Giants catcher. He was a terrible catcher but he was good with a bat.

    The thing that bothers me about sports is the announcers now. Even if somebody is the announcer for a particular team I expect them to treat both teams equally. If your team is so great, why aren’t they a run away in first place? I hate it when their team is trailing by four runs but their team is the best there has ever been while the other team does not even belong in the same league.

    And the screaming. “HE HIT A BLOOP SINGLE AND IS ON BASE!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! THAT’S GOING TO BE ON THE HIGHLIGHT REELS FOR THE DECADE!!!”

    6

  31. I hate baseball. As a kid, I had no depth perception, so I could never hit the ball. Practice consisted of the best pitcher trowing to the best batter, and for the rest of the team, if you caught the ball 3 times, you got batting practice. I never caught the ball.

    The few times I actually hit the ball, I’d run like hell to first base, and I’m out? When it dawned on me that not only must I hit the ball (pure chance), I must hit it in such a was as to not let it be caught? For me, that would be a one-in-a-million chance. I was never safe at first. Never.

    So, baseball meant my “friends” groaning in disappointment every time I came up to bat, and strangers from the other team scoffing at me. If baseball is life, for me life is hell.

    8

  32. I grew up watching Sandy Koufax pitch. I love a good pitchers’ duel.

    This Ramos guy is obviously not calling the pitches correctly for Syndergaard. A good catcher has to know his pitcher and call pitches accordingly. Agree that it is dumb to leave him in on the days that Syndergaard pitches.

    8

  34. Phil Niekro had his own catcher (Biff Picaroba) and that poor kid led the league in PBs, yet if anyone else would have been behind the plate, the PBs would have been doubled. Know your team and adjust accordingly.
    As far as the DH rule, I’ve hated it since day one. It’s like girl’s softball with the tenth fielder.
    That’s why 5 years ago I started watching, learning cricket. No gloves, no DH, no excuses. You get drilled in the ribs, head, or anywhere, tough. Suck it up buttercup and play on.
    Plus it’s 360 deg vs 90 deg playing field.

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  38. BFH, based on my (lack of) performance on the grade school softball field, every single grade and high school coach thought I was worthless for every other sport. It was only later in life (40’s) I discovered the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), where I found a sport that I could actually play, hitting people with a stick!

    No, this is neither LARPing nor RenFair. How’s THAT for geeknerd?

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!! -bfh

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  40. Personally, I like the designated hitter rule. When I first started watching baseball, starting pitchers went until their arm fell off and relief pitchers were just pitchers who weren’t good enough to start. No pitch count, and those guys went every fourth day instead of every fifth day. So, when there was a hot pitcher and his spot came up in the lineup, the manager had a decision – pinch hit for his starter or suffer the likely out.

    Things have changed. Most starters on on a 100 pitch count, the managers are only expecting 6 or 7 innings, and it seems the complete game is becoming rarer and rarer. Even relief pitching itself is becoming specialized; you have closers, 8th inning set up pitchers, 7th inning set up men, and long relievers for when your starter screws the pooch and your team is down by 8 runs in the third inning. Even in the National League, managers have no problem pulling a pitcher for a pinch batter from the 5th inning on – the starter is about done anyway and the bullpen is now an integral part of the staff.

    Once in a blue moon a starter may be pitching a 2 hit shutout up to the 7th inning and the game is tied. At that point, maybe the manager has a dilemma – pull the pitcher for a pinch hitter, or leave him in. But that’s rare; usually the situation is that your team has men in scoring position and your rally-killing pitcher is due to bat. Even in the National League, most managers from the sixth inning on pull the pitcher for a pinch hitter and go to the bullpen without a second thought.

    My point is that with the current method of managing pitchers and the increasing reliance on the bull pen as an integral part of the team, the designated hitter doesn’t really matter as much or, in the later innings, at all. If the National League had a DH and Ramos was on a hitting streak, you could dump him in the DH role and go with a catcher Syndergaard is comfortable with.

    But with all of baseball’s reliance on metrics, I surprised the Ramos dispute is even an issue.

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  42. @geeknerd

    I hear ya!. I’m no athlete. I was good at flagging down fly balls in the outfield but I couldn’t hit the ball worth a damn. I was too skinny – no arm muscle. Plus, I swung too hard and fast, like I thought I was going to hit a home run every time. My father kept telling me “just try to meet the ball and get a single”, but I never heeded.

    I remember some of my friends seemed born to be athletes. Not me.

    4

  43. The ONLY good thing about Port St Lucie Florida is the NY Mets having spring training there and their minor league team the St Lucie Mets is pretty good.

    Now that I’m living in Louisiana near NOLA I gotta put up with a minor league team called the Babycakes! WTF kinda team name izzat?? Kingcakes I woulda been okay with.

    But even that team got sold off to Up North. What the hell name are they gonna give the replacement team? Bourbon Street Vomit? French Quarter Muggers? I got some names! Cajuns. Coonasses. Crawfish. The Mardi Gras’s. NOLA’s. Specks. Sheepshead!

    3

  48. I’m a Cubs fan.

    Willson Contreras catches Jon Lester; Viktor Caratini catches Yu Darvish. Contreras is a better power hitter but Caratini bats pretty well, too. Both play other positions, so both could conceivably be in the game at the same time.

    Also, the Cubs’ pitchers hit pretty well, too. NL pitchers that don’t take batting seriously are hurting their team. NL managers & brass that don’t think pitchers should be concerned about batting even a LITTLE bit do their teams a disservice.

    3

  49. the DH & expanding the playoffs skewed the Holy Grail of Baseball (Statistics) forever …. everything that proceeded has been wiped away …. 100 years of tradition, gone … ‘eff it, more $$$ for more owners every year

    & catching is the second-most important position on the field … you don’t understand that, you don’t understand the workings of a baseball game. if a pitcher & catcher aren’t on the same page, in sync, the team will not be successful (something I learned a long time ago … as a catcher) … the manager calls the pitches, but the pitcher is in charge. he wins & loses by his actions … if he wins he plays again … he loses enough, he doesn’t … ain’t up to the catcher

    Ramos sucks as a catcher … learn to shag flyballs

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  50. BFH is a sad case of a Nue Yourker from Chunkas who has self transplanted to Florida. Port St Lucie winter league bench splinters ought to be enough, but NOOooooo. This typical NY Know-it-all needs to send his regards to Broadway, so to speak. I feel for you. You have a good blog and willingness to speak your mind!

  52. Do New Yorkers even care about the Mets? I have asked the question and the answer seems to be that the Yankees are everyone’s favorites. The NY Giants competed well for baseball fans with the Yankees until 1957, but the Mets? Not so good.

    The team name does not inspire. What is a “Met” and a “Metropolitan”? The museum of art? A person who lives there in the city? An area that includes the 5 burroughs and outlying communities? A sophisticated man about town?

    Good grief, they could have found another vicious animal or monster to name the team after.

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