Mets 1, Rockies 0: Pelfrey Rebounds, Bests Jimenez

I remember he was demanding a two year deal and Cashen rightly didn’t budge. Assuming he would have played for the Mets the way he played for Baltimore, he simply fell off a cliff after 86, and was out of baseball after the 88 season. An 83 OPS+ in 1987 followed by a 63 in 1988—that’s Cora country. Plus, HoJo was already as good a hitter as Knight had been, was cheap, and looked like he was going to get better.

ss rafael santana was terrible offensively. even more of a blackhole than people we have had this year. though i hear his D was good

I just wrote about 4 pages to this but my browser crashed so I’ll give a synopsis on these points. Ron and Sid were increbily streaky. I remember a stretch in 89 I think where after underperforming after the 88 playoff loss to the Dodgers, the Mets went on one of those great streaks that make you happy to be a Mets fan. Ron was lights out, but I also knew it could not stand the test of time. In 86 the star of the staff was Ojeda, a pre-season pickup, with Doc being pre-additction Doc, Ron and Sid following ably in their 3rd and 4th starter roles, and even Rick Aguilera giving the team a chance to win. Having been one of the few lucky folks to see a Bruce Berenyi win at Shea, I can say that even the backup SPs could do the job. Of course that is easy when you have a team like the 86 Mets behind you. I think that Pelf has been given a raw deal recently, and that’s a problem that Mets fans have largely derived from recent disappointments. Streaky 3rd and 4th starters should be viewed in light of their total performance. Pelf just needs to be viewed for what he is, not what he needs to be.

As for Mitchell, he is emblematic of what was right with the 86 team and what is wrong now. Foster was gone mid-summer, due to a constellation of clubhouse and performance factors. Mitchell, I believe, played 7 positions in 86. He also was a backup you could count on ton hit, so the loss of Foster was of negligible cost. As you point out, that team has depth. A ton of depth. Even Danny Heep and Ed Hearn didn’t cause you to expect an instaout, though this was before sabremetrics and I’m going on the views of a then 8 year old. HoJo was backup, and was able in that role. I think Ray Knight is consistently underrated, as he was kind of a nutcase but the kind of nutcase who would preach fire and brimstone—he was very religious, fights notwithstanding—to any teammate who needed to hear it. He also started more than this share of fights, back in the day when fights meant something (as a former Golden Glove boxer, he could hold his own).

Here’s what happened to the 86 team. After that year the team was intentionally dismantled due to personal issues, but more than that (i) Gary and Keith got old, (ii) Straw and Doc had personal issues, (iii) Juan Samuel (enough said), (iv) Ron and Sid could not hold up a staff, as they were 3rd and 4th starters and could not be expected to be better (Cone notwithstanding), (v) Knight was replaced with HoJo, who was a better hitter on the books but not the teammate and was weak wihout support, (vi) the Mets lost the Roger/Jesse bullpen combination, both to the modern trend of having 16 relievers and to the loss of these guys who were great at their defined jobs, (vii) Davey Johnson, who relied on a “party hard, play hard” mentality was replaced by guys who were so milquetoast it’s disgusting, (viii) McReynolds was both not a leader (as maligned as the term may be) and not a nice guy, who detracted from the team, (ix) Santana was never going to be good except as a great defensive but bad hitting 8th hole hitter, and (x) the role players (Teufel, Heep, Hearn, Staub) could not continue as they did and Mitchell was gone. In these 10 points you see the deconstruction of the entire team over the course of 3-4 years.

Sad.

Or not. Or maybe. The thing is. . . disucssion . . . brought to you by Verzion . . . I interviewed Randy Niemann . . . smart baseball.