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Over at his blog, Mets Lifers, Dave creates a list of demands for Willie Randolph now that he will remain on as the Mets Manager.
Dave’s list of demands for Randolph include, bunting more, defending his players and having more faith in his younger players, such as Carlos Gomez and Ruben Gotay.
…i agree whole heartedly with dave on bunting more…i would have loved to see willie put the squeeze on more often, especially when Luis Castillo was at the plate…it’s such a dynamic play that puts pressure on the other team to make a play and with the Mets speed it should be utilized more often…
…i highly recommend you head on over to dave’s blog, it’s full of quirky posts that provide a different perspective…he also has a nifty logo for his blog…great job, dave…
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in order to put a squeeze play on ‘more often’, we would have had to do it at least once in 3 seasons.
Willie Loves the kids!
yes, MORE bunting. that’s the key. completely eliminate any chance of an extra base hit and lower the chances you’ll even get a single. and don’t make the pitcher work at all, just bunt on the first or second pitch.
the only time bunting is good is when it’s a pitcher sacrificing or castillo from the left side, because he can’t hit the ball out of the infield anyway. and hopefully he’ll be gone.
and yes, more playing time for carlos gomez, a guy with zero plate discipline. a career MINOR LEAGUE obp of .336. if they ever put him in the two hole he will obliterate our offense. (see juan pierre)
speed, somehow, even with all the evidence available, is still one of the most overrated qualities for a baseball player. unfortunately it’s not just fans, it’s omar and willie too, which is frightening. speed is great when you’re reyes or beltran and can actual HIT THE BALL, but for gomez, it doesn’t even come close to making up for the fact that he can’t get on base. people act like bunting guarantees something or improves your chances, and generally it doesn’t. if it does, like in the case of carlos gomez, it doesn’t mean he should bunt MORE, it means he doesn’t deserve a major league roster spot.
the whole idea of ‘putting pressure on the defense’ , at least through speed, is overrated. let’s put pressure on the pitcher. by, i don’t know, swinging the bats and getting hits.
Exactly. Although speed can put pressure on the other team when used wisely.
I couldn’t stand Castillo’s flashing a bunt for most of the season ending slide, except he then started to realize in the last series that Reyes wasn’t getting on base so he was able to collect a bunch of base hits. Otherwise no one was falling for it and there was a period where they were getting a little too bunt happy and were getting thrown out for laying down too many bunts (the Marlins series in Miami comes to mind).
If they were going to try to bunt to advance people they should have flipped Castillo and Reyes then. If Reyes was going to make an automatic out, at least make it productive, sounds like the approach you take with a pitcher?.
And I think Reyes became obsessed with stealing for the sake stealing. Some may blame it on Rickey or blame it on a sudden lack of awareness – especially getting picked off twice in the same game in the 4 game sweep down in Philly. Maybe he got a little too gassed at the end of the season since didn’t he go the last two weeks of the season without stealing one base?
No way are Wright and Beltran quicker than Reyes and even though their number of attempts are not even half of what his are, but their success rate is leaps and bounds above Jose’s because they read the situation a lot better.
I just think the team got away from playing practical baseball. Bunts and steals are nice but they rely very heavily on deception and well before even the end of the season it was fairly transparent what the table-setters were going to do to try to get on base as well as what they were going to do when they made it on base.
i feel like i saw quite a bit of bunting last year. i know the team bunting stats are out there and im sure were at least in the top half of the league.
if im making a list off demands for willie or anybody bunting more is probably one of the last things on my list.
looks exciting but does not win games.
Your right Willie should stick with what worked last year….
I think there is a distinction between Gomez, etc. randomly bunting for hits, and putting on a sqeeze play with a runner on 3rd and 1 out (especially 1st and 3rd).
It stresses the defense, and if you have the speed on 3rd (as Matt referenced), and a good bunter up, it can be a high percentage play if used right.
Best case is the bunt works, and they try for the play at the plate and miss, so you get the run + no outs. As opposed to a sac fly (if you can get the ball in the air) which is an out, or the Mets specialty, a GIDP.
The squeeze, if executed, gets the same result as the sac fly, but there is at least a chance of not giving up the out, so it becomes effectively a base hit.
I do agree that speed, and SBs to a large extent, are somewhat overrated. At least the flashy kind of “wow he is fast” speed. DW speed is good to have, because it is useful on the bases, but yo uare right, it is more important to get on and drive the ball than just to run fast.
Listen here buddy. How about you take your “evidence”, your “statistical evaluation” and your “science” and haul’em out the damn window. I want heart and hustle and grit and gristle. I want Reyes for Eckstein and Beltran for Erstad right this instant. They might only be mediocre at baseball, but they have skill where it counts. In their heart.
sheesh, i took that seriously for a second. good one haha.
The problem is that so many fans actually do think like that, it’s hard to sort out the sarcasm.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I don’t have any problems with a squeeze play now and then. But I find it odd that of all the eyebrow raising things Willie has done strategically, that people are seizing on this one, essentially trivial quirk. What I want to see is less bunting in certain situation (e.g after a leadoff single early in the game, especially with Reyes on 1st. I hate it when the pitcher bunts with men on 1st and third and one out).
And yes to comments on Gomez. He may or may not become a player. I really don’t know. He can flat fly and flat throw. But I often think I’m seeing the reincarnation of Ryan Thompson, but maybe not as good. If you build your team with the idea of COUNTING on something out of him, you’re stretching.
#3 was a bit unfair. Omar was forced to get Conine once Easley was out for the season. Wasn’t many alternatives out there.
I should point out here that the Mets scored the second most runs in the league in September, after Colorado. The offense did just fine. The reason we lost it was that we couldn’t hold a freakin 4-run lead for even an inning. If we’d had just one dependable arm in middle relief, we wouldn’t be talking about whether Willie should bunt more, or how overrated speed is.
All the talk about grit and fire and all that misses the point, too. The Mets didn’t lay down in the stretch. They jumped out to plenty of leads and fought back after leads were blown plenty of times. But when you have a 4-run lead in the 6th inning and you know it’s not going to hold, it has to wear on your confidence a bit.
Omar has to find some reliable bullpen arms, and we need to hope that what we have either develops (Joe Smith, Burgos) or returns strong (Sanchez). And we need to add at least one starter who can be counted on to pitch into the 7th inning consistently.
Otherwise offensive strategy isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference to this team.
MORE SQUEEZE PLAYS
USE THE WHEEL PLAY ON BUNTS
STOP TRYING TO USE RPs FOR TWO INNINGS AT A CLIP
Heres an idea.
1.) Start being a good manager.
2.) Attempt to improve AS a manager even a little bit this year.
3.) Get resume ready for 2009
More bunting? Ugh.
Willie isn’t as bad a tactical manager as his reputation infers. To be honest, I would like him to manage from his “gut” a bit more. Now before you guys jump all over me, what I mean is, Willie tends to fall into “automatic mode” from time to time. Sending Franco up to PH late in games, for example. It is good for guys to have roles, but you also need to realize when a specific situation may call for a different player.
From time to time? I think you could write a computer program, 20 lines of code at most, that could encompass Willie’s strategy.
I hate to bag on a fellow Mets blogger, but most of these ideas are either stupid or irrelevant. Bunt more? Has the guy not seen all the stats that showing that sacrificing a runner over is a bad move, unless it’s the pitcher or a really weak hitter? The fact that the Mets have a lot of guys that can steal should mean that we need to bunt less, not more. Have those guys steal bases, and then let someone drive them in. The more outs you make in an inning, the less your chance of scoring, so you don’t just give up outs, again, unless you have a bad hitter at the plate. The occasional squeeze play might be nice, but let’s not get carried away.
Several other suggestions were personnel suggestion that Willie may or may not have any control over.
But other than that, good post.