Setting the Record straight

Before we start making excuses and saying that there is still 1xx games left in the season and that it's a long season and things can change, let's disprove the notion of remaining patient, for once. It has become apparent, that we need to shift emphasis from judging this team based on the results, and instilling the anti-Machiavellian train of thought that the ends don't necessarily justify the means. Don't judge the results - judge the whole schema and ideology behind the fundamental process, especially in roster management and decision-making.

Without further ado, the rundown:

1) The Mets' front office chose to promote the likes of Mike Jacobs and Frank Catalanotto over Chris Carter and Ike Davis. Carter and Davis scorched pitchers in spring training, while Catalanotto and Jacobs were uninspiring at most. I'm not even basing my point on this, but that is a damning fact. Jacobs is horrible defensively and doesn't get on base as often as he should (.300 OBP), and Catalanotto is average at best. And yet, the front office capitulates to stupidity. Chris Carter is a player who gets on base considerably more often (as evidenced by his minors stats), has above average power and can hit for contact (he rarely strikes out). THIS is the kind of player the team so desperately needs! And, what more can be said of Ike Davis? He has done everything he needed to do to show he's ready, and he is good defensively. And releasing Nelson Figueroa was just plain stupid, given the situation. Screw the minor league options argument - the front office failed to make the right decision any way you cut it.

2) Jerry Manuel and Dan Warthen are proving that, despite the opinions of some, that they are, in fact, losing this team. Yes, it's a long season, but you can NOT make progress by saying "you're unprepared" and creating artificial scapegoats! (Warthen incriminated himself, saying that the emphasis to "pitch strikes" led to a decresae in the pitchers' velocity. Bullshit!) Completely and utterly unacceptable! No wonder the team has thrown in their motivational towels!

3) Minaya is good when it comes to signing big name free agents, but is absolutely horrendous in figuring out a way to utilize the farm system and bottom of the order/bench properly and creating the atmosphere of a team DYNAMIC. Minaya basically makes it appear that a few All-Star caliber players will improve the team considerably, but the fact of the matter is, that is not necessarily true. You must be able to build the team using players who contribute in less tangible ways on all fronts! Players like Angel Pagan and Endy Chavez may not be offensive beasts, but their defensive prowess is invaluable! The whole is greater than the sum of its parts! Why Gary Matthews Jr.?! Minaya may think the bottom of the batting order and the bench are less important (as roster filler), but the fact of the matter is that they are important, and they must fill a niche somehow! (Keyword: NICHE) Matthews Jr. does not do that! Ignorance of the "little players" is the difference between winning games with the synergistic contributions of all and having one defective part of the machine break down and creating a series of collateral damage, consequently. If you have no niche, you are USELESS! In fact, you only serve to hurt the team by serving as more of an anchor than as a buoy.

4) Jeff Wilpon is too busy (well, not really) with his laissez-faire style of running the organization! He needs to get his hands dirty, hire some real experts and efficiency managers, and have them evaluate this organization from the bottom up! This may not be a well-defined description of what I really mean, but if Jeff Wilpon is so uninformed of the mechanisms of the game and its management by the staff, it could only help to hire a real "brain trust" of experts who can nitpick on all the little details and make the necessary criticisms and corrections. In fact, replacing the GM position with a GM oligarchy of experts (led by a chief, the designated GM) wouldn't be such a bad idea at this point. I elaborate on this in point 5, below.

5) The bottom line is that a paradigm shift is in order. When the Red Sox hired sabermetrics founder Bill James and took his advice on how to build a championship team, everyone looked at the organization in ridicule and mocked them. They won a championship 2 years later to break their 86 year "curse". The lesson here is this - if you can check, evaluate and correct the numerous intangibles that are wrong with the organization and reform the school of thought, the progress will begin to add up as those intangibles begin to 'click' together! In fact, the results begin to pick up at an exponential pace as the synergistic dynamics of the team and managing begin to work with each other, as more connections between the singularities (intangibles) can be made. This works in much the way that a double play does - having bad defense at 2nd and/or 1st could be the difference between making that play and not, and it usually takes only one piece to screw it up, sometimes regardless of how well the other piece does on defense here. Synergistic dynamics works in much the same way - one improvement can often improve other factors without directly getting involved in improving those other factors.

Whew! I think I nailed the idea behind it all.

Bottom line - Yes, it's a long season, but I'm not judging the team by the RESULTS as my impetus for expressing signs of hopelessness! The fact is, the fundamentals (if there are any) on which the team is based is largely flawed and worse, the politics in the front office is very inept at identifying the status of the current situation and hiring the right people needed to instill a sound and logical fundamental ideology of teamwork and synergistic dynamics. Every player is important - even the 25th player! Omar is too ignorant to realize that inputting some ambiguous roster filler for the sake of filling in those spots, rather than evaluating the players' usefulness is catastrophic to the success of the team, in the long run. In fact, as someone had pointed out, having the wrong players on the roster is even more catastrophic to a team's success than setting the worst possible lineup. But, as long as the Mets front office plays on caveman logic and sheer dumb luck afterwards from there, this franchise is doomed to repeat history. Again. It all comes down to this point - Omar doesn't know how to prioritize, and Jerry doesn't know how to manage.

A parting shot, before I conclude - Sabermetric analysis has enough of a correlation with progress and results when implemented that they should be considered. The Red Sox won the World Series twice in a few years after a long, long drought, mainly because of this reform. If the correlation between making a decision based on historical analysis and actual outcome is considerably positive, I say then, that it is time to consider this much needed and desperately sought paradigm shift. It's not numerical garbage - it IS a science, given the sample size. It's a matter of common sense - remember that the biggest mistakes are the ones you don't learn from!