Daily Archives: January 8, 2008
Last night on SNY’s Mets Hot Stove, Willie Randolph had the following to say about Jose Reyes, who hit .205 in 
September…
“I think he learned a good lesson from this. He’s a young player who continues to need to mature and get better. I’m going to down in the Dominican Republic and hang out with him a but, and talk to him and hang out, and get a sense of where he’s head is and where he’s coming from. But, I have no doubt he’ll bounce back…He lost a lot of confidence, and he’s used to having his way a lot, and playing the game very easily, and he just didn’t understand how to get back on track and the more he pressed the more it made it worse for him…
“It was bad timing at the wrong time, and we didn’t need our best player to go through a funk at that particular time. But, he was phenomenal all year long, and he just went through a tough time in his career where he had to learn how to get out of his own way, and it just hurt us at the wrong time…He just didn’t know how to build up and get out of that.”
…when talking about his late-season struggles with people who are close to him and watched him in the dugout and locker room, and before and after games, far more people cited mechanical issues, such as him dropping his back shoulder when he swings, as well as how he missed Rick Down as hitting coach, who was fired mid-way through the season…also, as has been suggested by a variety of reporters, including SNY’s Ron Darling while talking to MetsBlog a few months ago, reyes’s body may have taken too much of a beating from over 100 head-first slides, causing all sorts of problems for him in the second half…
…as i have written before, the conclusion i keep reaching is that jose is young, emotional, a bit head-strong, and while he’s a good kid, who wants to be the best player he can be, he needs to keep working, and working hard, learn from his mistakes and, in the end, he just needs to grow up, which is totally fair when talking about a 24–year-old young man…from what i can gather, he sulks a bit when he does bad, and he may let the game get the best of him at times, which is totally expected from a young player, especially one who had relatively quick stardom like jose…
…the best young players, the ones who go on to great careers, are the ones who rise above this, mature and learn to deal with adversity, fight through it, and keep getting better because of it…it sounds to me like jose had never experienced this before…hopefully, thanks to last season, now he has…
Tagged Willie Randolph |Jason B sent in the following question…
“Do you know if Angel Pagan has any options left – or was his acquisition to keep Endy Chavez hungry and working hard
to win his reserve outfield spot?”
…yes, pagan has options left, and so he can essentially be promoted and sent down from the minor leagues at any time…
…by the way, i seriously doubt that endy needs additional motivation…
…the pagan acquisition led to a variety of interesting theories…i heard people wonder if it means endy could get traded…or, that it must suggest a deal for santana will clobber the team’s outfield depth, i.e., Carlos Gomez or maybe even Ryan Church…who knows…it’s an interesting thought, considering the following:
During a recent chat with the Boston Globe, ESPN.com’s Peter Gammons said that the Mets are currently trying to build up inventory to trade for Johan Santana, adding that Twins GM Bill Smith may be ‘waiting to see if any offer gets better.’
According to El Nuevo Dia, free-agent 2B Jose Valentin is close to re-signing with the Mets.
…from what i can gather, this would 
not be a guaranteed deal…i would think if he’s healthy, playing well, and there is space on the roster, the Mets would love to have him since he’s highly regarded within the locker room…
Valentin had season-ending ACL surgery on his knee in late September, which he initially hurt in April.
He told the newspaper that he still not 100 percent, and may need to begin the year at Triple-A, but of all the teams he is negotiating with it is the Mets who have shown the most interest.
The Mets declined Valentin’s $4.3 million option for 2008 during early November.
…thanks to Sam H for the link…
Last night on SNY’s Mets Hot Stove, Willie Randolph was asked if he prefers to manage his bullpen based on feel, as opposed to having defined roles, to which he responded…
“To tell you the truth, guys, I believe in defining roles – but guys have to step up and take over
that. I mean, just because you say eighth, seventh-inning guy, if he’s not doing the job…
“If you show me you want the seventh spot, eighth spot, I’ll give it to you, because it’s easier for me to go to a guy if he’s throwing the ball well. But, just the idea of putting a guy out there because he feels comfortable in that spot? No. We’re about winning, and winning games, so I’m gonna try to put the guys in a position to help us win. And they need to be available and flexible when they need to take the ball and get the ball done….Players want to be comfortable, but you’ve got to perform.”
…this was my point last September…i kept getting e-mails and comments blaming willie…which was part true, i suppose, since he made the final call on who pitched and when…but, more importantly, he just didn’t have the horses when he needed them…i recall fans getting all worked up because he would use one guy over another and then vice-a-versa on the following night, and no matter what willie did he was wrong…he was wrong, not because of his reasoning, he was wrong because he could do no right…no matter who he called upon the pitcher failed…this is not to say willie is innocent…i mean, he must accept some responsibility…but, the actual pitcher must shoulder most of the blame, as should the starters, who could not pitch beyond the fifth inning for so much of the second half of the season…
SNY’s Mets Hot Stove is hosted by Kevin Burkhardt and airs live every Monday at 6:30 pm and again at 11 pm.
In a post to his blog for ESPN.com, Buster Olney writes about the top 13 stories we’ll be following during 2008, such as where Johan Santana will end up pitching, of which he writes…
“Santana may be the best pitcher on the planet, but there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm among Boston and Yankees officials to add more players to the offers they have made to Minnesota. The Mets would love to have Santana, but Twins’ talent evaluators view the Mets’ prospects as being dramatically inferior to those of the Red Sox and Yankees.”
Also among the 13 topics, Olney wonders if the Mets can rebound from their 2007 collapse, writing…
“Fair or not, right or wrong, this is the reality for the Mets: If they don’t make the playoffs this year, then the jobs of manager Willie Randolph and some players – and maybe even Omar Minaya – could be on the line, depending on how the year plays out.”
According to MiLB.com, Edgardo Alfonzo is batting .335 with five HR and 33 RBI in 54 Winter-League games.
The 35-year-old former Mets infielder signed an incentive-laden Minor League contract with the Rangers on Dec. 17.
…thanks to the informative Peter Wade for the info…
Last night on SNY’s Mets Hot Stove, Willie Randolph had the following to say regarding Carlos Delgado, who hit just .258 with 24 HR last season…
To watch clip of Randolph speaking about Delgado last night on SNY, click here.
“I think it was as simple as adjustments. Carlos is a very
proud player, but for some reason he got caught up in to just feeling like he was on track but not making the necessary adjustments when he needed to. He kept falling in to the trap of what they were feeding him, instead of dictating what he wanted to do…You have to be realistic, you have to be honest with yourself, and just put your pride aside and do it right, and all proud players have to do that…
“You know, he was swinging at pitches that weren’t strikes, they were balls that were out of the zone. He wasn’t making the adjustment. If you noticed, the balls he would crush were thigh-high and down. The balls he thought he could get to, in his mind, he wasn’t getting to and that was the problem – and he was very stubborn in making that adjustment. But, he’s gonna bounce back, I have no doubt.
“You know, when you’re in the heat of that, you don’t really step out of your body and see it for what it is. Again, he worked hard, he had an idea of what he needed to do, but he couldn’t get out of the rhythm of feeding off that one pitch and they exploited it.”
…for what it’s worth, during his conference call with us last week, delgado acknowledge this need to adjust, which is good, because according to willie he was unwilling to do so last season…and he clearly needs to…because, .258 is not going to cut it…
…as i have said before, at this point, delgado is what he is, which, if healthy, is probably a .280–hitter, maybe more, maybe less, who’ll hit 20 to 30 HR in bunches, and drive in 80 to 100 runs in a slow-burn kind of way…which is more than fine…but he’s not going to carry a ball club…instead, he’s a supporting hitter – you know, fifth or sixth in the order, like he ended the season – who adds protection for younger, more consistently powerful run producers, like Carlos Beltran and David Wright…
For what it’s worth, in his final 130 at-bats last season, Delgado hit .283, while averaging one home run every 18 at-bats, as well as one strike out every four at-bats, both of which are on pace with his career averages.
Tagged SNY, Willie Randolph |Last night on SNY’s Mets Hot Stove, Willie Randolph had the following to say regarding…
…on getting over the ‘collapse,’ and how much it hurt…
“It took me a lot longer than I expected. It stung
really hard…I’ve been in baseball a long time, and experienced a lot of ups and downs, but this is one of the toughest pills I had to swallow…It was tough, man.”
…on what he would do differently, if he had to do it over again…
“We felt we were right where we wanted to be, most of the season. Then, obviously, we got in to a funk. I believe very much in the rhythm of a team, and guys who are hot and who are not. It was unbelievable. We dealt with a lot of injuries during the year, but we were able to rise above that. Then when we needed guys to step up, we had a tough situation with Jose – and I’m not blaming him, but he went in to a tough funk at the wrong time – and our bullpen kind of went down at the same time, where guys just weren’t getting the job done, and Delgado got hurt at a wrong time. These are not excuses, it’s just that we really felt going in to the final weeks that we were primed and ready to go in to the playoffs. But, you know, in this game, if you take for granted things that happened early in the season they’ll come back to haunt you – and this case is a perfect example of that.”
…him and his teammates living with the demons of this ‘collapse,’ and knowing, even if they’re winning in August of this coming season, that this sort of thing is possible and had happened to them once before…
“Well, I’ve been really encouraged by some of the conversations I’ve had with some of my players…I’ve talked with some of our main guys, and they all are really looking forward to this season…
“We have to learn from it. I don’t think you go through a collapse like that and not really soul search, and not think about what you did wrong and why you didn’t get the job done…We’re gonna have to deal with that.
“I’m gonna tell my guys, yeah, right now we might be remembered for the way we finished the season, but we have a chance to get back and show people what we’re made of and redeem ourselves and get back to where we’re supposed to be…
“That’s part of the job of the coaching staff and I to make sure that we stay positive and that we dwell on those things. Obviously, it’s going to creep in to your psyche when you go through that, but I think my guys are tough enough and professional enough that once we start the season then it’s about getting back to where we need to be. I have confidence in my guys that they’ll bounce back from this.”
…in some ways, i believe that if the Mets win the World Series next season, then last season will be viewed as just a set-back in a larger narrative…you know, one step back, two steps forward…however, if the Mets do not win the World Series, regardless of whether they make the NLCS, etc, last season will continue to be referenced…it will be seen as a lost opportunity, ‘what could have been,’ etc, and no player or manager will be able to escape that…
…and so, again, if this team does not win it all, depending on how it all plays out, one year from now we could be talking about a pretty big overhaul…that seems crazy, because no team should exist beneath such unrealistic expectations, but i just don’t see how an organization will be able to keep going in to battle, and be expected to win, year after year, with a group of people who must perform with such a large cloud over their heads…
To watch a clip of Randolph speaking about the ‘collapse,’ and next season, click here.
Tagged SNY, Willie Randolph |
Yesterday afternoon, the popular M’s blog Prospect Insider wrote that the O’s and M’s are making significant progress on a trade involving LHP Erik Bedard.
Later in the day, at FoxSports.com, Ken Rosenthal wrote that a deal could be ‘moving closer’ to getting done.
According to Rosenthal, “The Mets made a strong run at Bedard at the general managers’ meetings in November.”
Prospect Insider believes the Mariners could send Brandon Morrow, Carlos Triunfel and Adam Jones.
