Shakeup Street

[Frayed Knot]

Valverde released - Black to be called (back) up. Wonder if he even left town?

I held out little hope for this one from the very beginning. He had played his way off of the Tiggers twice within a year, and the answer to the debate we had about two weeks ago over whom to release, Farnsworth or Valverde, turns out to be: Both!
I think this probably would have been done earlier except that the ugly BB/IP numbers that most of the Las Vegas staff is putting up made a likely replacement hard to find.



Also, Hudgens out as hitting coach, Lamar Johnson is the replacement.
Who? ... Yeah, the name is vaguely familiar but I have virtually no memory of his career. That's what happens with those AL West guys.

I tend to think of these moves as more of a 'Don't Just Stand there, DO SOMETHING' kind of deal than they are actual strategy, but 31 runs scored over the last dozen games simply isn't cutting it.

[Edgy MD]

Lamar Johnson = very White Sox-y figure. Very professional-hitter-y.

[ashie62]

I misread this as Lance Johnson...

[Frayed Knot]

Ashie62 wrote: I misread this as Lance Johnson...

So did I initially.

[Edgy MD]

Now I've got disco Grateful Dead in my head.

[Zvon]

Frayed Knot wrote: I tend to think of these moves as more of a 'Don't Just Stand there, DO SOMETHING' kind of deal than they are actual strategy, but 31 runs scored over the last dozen games simply isn't cutting it.

Yup.

[G-Fafif]

Since May 3 in Coors Field, Mets' only games with output of more than 5 runs have been the two in MFYS III. Good idea to bring in a new hitting coach on the eve of the trip to CBP. A little bandboxing never hurts the image of the offense.

[Edgy MD]

Hudgens calls out the boobirds on the way out the door.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Was a little surprised to hear this but I suppose it's Sandy's way of admitting some culpability as Hudgens was quite obviously one of his guys.

I'm sure nobody believes the switch over to Lamar Johnson (has a house next door to Chet Lemon in my memory) will really do anything but as said above Offense without having fired Hudgie was rotten too.

I suspect if anything strategic it's a last attempt to make a love connection with Chris Young.

[metirish]

Carig on Twitter with quotes form Hudgens acting all pissed about he criticism from the SBY booth


Marc Carig ?

Hudgens: "... Well what do you want to swing at? It just confounds me. It's just hilarious, really."

Marc Carig ?

Hudgens: "I just shake my head at the old school guys that have it all figured out. Go up there and swing the bat..."

Marc Carig ?
Hudgens also referenced criticism of Mets hitting approach by SNY broadcast crew. "I'm glad I don't have to listen to those guys anymore."

[Frayed Knot]

Here's the problem when looking for reasons not to have to carry guys like Farnsworth & Valverde

Vic Black - 17 games, all in relief: 17 walks in 18.2 innings pitched in AAA Vegas
Joel Carreno - 14 games, 2 starts: 13 walks in 28 innings
Josh Edgin - 17 games, all in relief: 11 / 12.2
Erik Goeddel - 17 games, all in relief: 16 / 18.1
Carlos Alvarado - 8 games, 3 starts: 16 / 23.1
Ryan Reid - 13 games, all in relief: 11 / 20
Jeff Walters - 20 games all in relief: [u:3ruy5vpu]31 hits[/u:3ruy5vpu] in 17.1 IP

Zack Thornton (acquired in the Ike deal) is looking better: 14 games, 17.1 IP; 2.60 ERA; 1.21 WHIP; 13/4 K/BB
as is Miguel Socolovich: 19 games; 25.2 IP; 3.86 ERA; 1.48 WHiP; 25/8
and (36 y/o) Buddy Carlyle: 15 games; 17.1 IP; 1.56 ERA; 1.10 WHIP; 20/5

[nymr83]

Hits don't worry me if you are striking people out and not walking people, the babip will even out. The guys with all te walks worry m e, but I would rather see if they can turn it around than keep throwing an older guy who I feel won't out there.

[Frayed Knot]

Nymr83 wrote: Hits don't worry me if you are striking people out and not walking people, the babip will even out. The guys with all te walks worry m e, but I would rather see if they can turn it around than keep throwing an older guy who I feel won't out there.

Maybe, especially since Walters (the only guy where I mentioned hits) isn't striking guys out either (10 in 17 innings). The only good sign is that there are only 2 HRs among those hits.
But, still, 2.25 base runners per/inning is a recipe for disaster no matter how you slice it and there'd have to be a shitload of regression to the mean before that line begins to even get close to smelling good.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

metirish wrote: ?Hudgens also referenced criticism of Mets hitting approach by SNY broadcast crew. "I'm glad I don't have to listen to those guys anymore."

So... he was, like, listening to those guys? Like, in-game? Or did he DVR the games, go home, and listen to the guys then?

[metirish]

here it is

Meanwhile, Hudgens told Newsday about the critical SNY booth: "I'm glad I don't have to listen to those guys anymore. I just shake my head at the old-school guys that have it all figured out. Go up there and swing the bat. Well what do you want to swing at? It just confounds me. It's just hilarious, really."

[stevejrogers]

Edgy MD wrote: Hudgens calls out the boobirds on the way out the door.

*sigh*

Guess the "True New Yorkers" is more than just a stupid social media contest gimmick.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: Hits don't worry me if you are striking people out and not walking people, the babip will even out. The guys with all te walks worry m e, but I would rather see if they can turn it around than keep throwing an older guy who I feel won't out there. Maybe, especially since Walters (the only guy where I mentioned hits) isn't striking guys out either (10 in 17 innings). The only good sign is that there are only 2 HRs among those hits. But, still, 2.25 base runners per/inning is a recipe for disaster no matter how you slice it and there'd have to be a shitload of regression to the mean before that line begins to even get close to smelling good.

Ryne Duren was a very effective relief pitcher for the MFYs. He was known for three things:
A good fastball. (over 9k per IP)
Thick glasses.
A famous lack of control (6 BB per IP)
He would add to the aura by throwing a warmup pitch to the backstop when he came into a game.
Then, he would peer through his glasses, adjusting them frequently.
Scared the shit out of the hitters. Not many of them dug in against him.

Who knows? Black could be one of those guys. Or, he could be a pitcher who falls behind, has to come in with a fat strike and BAM!

We'll see,

Later

[Edgy MD]

Relief pitchers in general:
[list:13w4prsz][*:13w4prsz]Strike out more people[/*:m:13w4prsz]
[*:13w4prsz]Walk more people[/*:m:13w4prsz]
[*:13w4prsz]Have much more variance in BAA, but generally hold batters to lower averages.[/*:m:13w4prsz][/list:u:13w4prsz]

And that makes sense. When the go-ahead run is on third, you're going to pitch around the hitter a lot more in the seventh or ninth than you would in the third or fifth.

[Vic Sage]

metirish wrote: here it is Meanwhile, Hudgens told Newsday about the critical SNY booth: "I'm glad I don't have to listen to those guys anymore. I just shake my head at the old-school guys that have it all figured out. Go up there and swing the bat. Well what do you want to swing at? It just confounds me. It's just hilarious, really."

Actually, i don't disagree with Hudgens on this. I've noticed that, as the losing and non-hitting has mounted (since last season, really), the guys in the booth have all taken to task the hitting philosophy of the team. And that's fine; they're supposed to have opinions and voice them. But the tenor of it has become "these kids today, and their on base percentages; gosh darn it, in my day we tried to drive the run in!" This is coming from good players, like Keith, Ron and Bobby O, who i've come to like as broadcasters generally, and offer insight on other aspects of the game. Of course, if the team was hitting, none of this would be said, but failure breeds blame. I just thought we had a more enlightened set of jocks in our booth. But they sound like good ole boys who've got a problem with them thar statisticals... and whats all this about eevolushin and globil warmin? They are sounding more and more to me like cavemen from a Geiko commercial.

The funny thing is (and by funny i mean not funny at all), this criticism is coming from a couple of pitchers who couldn't hit a lick. Darling (in 600 major league at bats) hit .144, with 15 BB and 175k. And he's got a problem with Duda's APPROACH? Ronnie, if you'd taken a few more pitches, you'd have kept yourself in a few more games, helped your team score a few more runs, and would've ended up with a few more wins. so shut up. And Bobby O was even worse! And Keith? Keith is a complete fucking hypocrite on this subject since he had the same kind of hitting approach that he's now excoriating the Mets for promoting. Keith NEVER swung at the first pitch. He'd just spit on it. He'd work the count, and wait for a good pitch to hit. He averaged 80-100 BBs a year and ended with an OBP north of .380. As I recall, he himself was criticized in his own time for sacrificing power to maintain this approach. The difference of course is then he could actually HIT the strike when it came, whereas the clowns wearing the blue and orange today couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.

I would have hoped an intelligent fellow like Gary Cohen would at least make it interesting by playing devil's advocate, so there was some debate on the issue. But no; he's just a jock sniffer happy to cozy up to whatever view Ron and Keith are spouting at any given moment.

So I'm hoping the Mets start hitting, if only to shut the booth up about this.

[Edgy MD]

I think the culture is just washing over these guys. They're popular, but they've got to get with the zeitgeist of contempt or get left behind.

Either that, or frustration just makes doubters of us all. I mean, it's natural to distance yourself from a losing formula --- even if it's not the formula at all.

When that old skool bullshit rears it's ugly head, Gary can become SUCH a suckup.

[Ceetar]

Vic Sage wrote: So I'm hoping the Mets start hitting, if only to shut the booth up about this.

It will never end. At least, not while Duda's here imo. He's become the main target. He can't take a pitch anywhere near the plate without Keith groaning at this point. (This is a guy who both Keith and Ralph absolutely raved about when he first got promoted. They LOVED his swing)

And who knows, maybe Duda was TOO patient last year but he was an above average hitter last year and after slumping he's dropped down to an average hitter so far this year. i.e. Not The Problem.

Personally I do think they'll start hitting better to at least make this a non-focus. Even just one more actual hitter would go a long way, whether that's Chris Young getting it together, Bobby Abreu taking the proper roll back the clock drugs, someone else, Cesar Puello, den Dekker, Nieuwenhuis or Flores taking SS and actually hitting, or d'Arnaud returning and actually hitting..

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I totally agree with everything Hudgens said on the way out, although he is as guilty as the booth guys as over-generalizing the other side's POV.

What really troubles me about the whole tenor of the debate around the Mets today is how much of it is rooted in complete misunderstanding -- about the hitting philosophy, about realistic expectations of building a farm, about how many wins is 90, about everything.

[Vic Sage]

i remember when McCarver came along, he was such a breath of fresh air, talking about baseball in an interesting and insightful way that jocks never did. He got irritating and self-aggrandizing toward the end, but for a while i thought we had the best baseball analyst in the biz working Mets games and i was happy about it. Now, not so much.

[Frayed Knot]

Vic Sage wrote: I would have hoped an intelligent fellow like Gary Cohen would at least make it interesting by playing devil's advocate, so there was some debate on the issue. But no; he's just a jock sniffer happy to cozy up to whatever view Ron and Keith are spouting at any given moment.

Yeah, don't hold your breath waiting for Gary to bail you out here, he's more anti-Sabermetric than any of them -- not that this is a pure stats-vs-not argument, but he's as likely as anyone to cast a skeptical eye on 'the ways things are done these days' and see a stats-savvy front office as the root of the problem whether it fits in that case or not.

[Edgy MD]

If Keith finds a contrasting viewpoint on anything these days, it's generally from himself having a afterthought.

[Vic Sage]

he's more anti-Sabermetric than any of them -- not that this is a pure stats-vs-not argument,

Yes, but it's definitely being cast in that light, setting up the stat-heads as a convenient strawman for them to tear down. I just don't understand why smart baseball players think "work the count and get a good pitch to hit" is some newfangled kind of Sabrmetric boondoggle. And then they misstate the Sabrmetric understanding of strikeouts as "they're not any worse than any kind of outs", so they can sneer at each stranded baserunner and blame OB% for the hitter's inability to move a runner along, or get a guy home from 3rd with less than 2 out.

[Ceetar]

And people forget how hard it is in general. Keith's frequently saying things like "That was a fastball with a lot of plate. That should be over the fence." or

"I like it! First-ball fastball hitting!" Notice he never says this when the guy floats the first pitch fastball to LF for an out.

[Theoldmole]

What really troubles me about the whole tenor of the debate around the Mets today is how much of it is rooted in complete misunderstanding -- about the hitting philosophy, about realistic expectations of building a farm, about how many wins is 90, about everything.

Wait! I can help with the "how many wins is 90?"

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Hudgens to sing to Francessa at 3, then to Kay at 3:30.

Sandy supposed to go on with Kay following that.

I suppose if you're into intrigue you could ask whether that Hudgens firing was Sandy coming to terms with one of his failings, or perhaps, the "organization" trying to punish Sandy for failing.

I could see the latter being true, at least, can see Fred & Jeff vigorously approving the naming of a scapegoat that acknowledges their critics.

[Edgy MD]

Some bloggers seeing Jeffy fingerprints on this that I can't spot.