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In the Daily News, Adam Rubin wonders if, should the Mets decide to fire some one, could Rick Peterson be the first to go.
According to Rubin, “There was high-level disenchantment with Peterson at the end of 2007, enough so that his job status was briefly murkier than Randolph’s.”
…well, what goes up, must go down…
…by the way, High-Level Disenchantment may be my favorite of the Smashing Pumpkins albums…
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I’m in favor of Peterson still. I think he does good work. As inconsistent as Ollie has been, I give Peterson a lot of credit for turning him back into even occasionally dominant Ollie. Maine was a failure in the Orioles’ system and has had a lot of success with the Mets as well. That’s not Minaya’s doing; it’s Peterson’s. He resurrected the careers of Roberto Hernandez and Darren Oliver, adjusted Joe Smith’s arm angle… you can’t say anything bad about Peterson. Yeah, he didn’t fix Victor Zambrano in 10 minutes. Get over it.
This team’s problem is not that they can’t pitch; it’s that they can’t hit and they look unmotivated out there.
No, I think the approach of the pitching staff as a whole has gotten more cautious, and that’s not good. Our starters have gotten into a bad habit of struggling through the fifth or sixth inning, something that’s even reached over to Santana. I also think Willie leans a little too much on the Jacket for his bullpen usage, which has resulted in a more stressed pen, and an expectation among the starting staff that they’re not ever going for a CG. We need a more aggressive approach, and I don’t think Rick’s fostering that anymore.
that’s baseball in general.
At the end of the day those decisions should be up to the manager. If Willie’s leaning on Peterson to much, then that’s Willie’s fault not Peterson’s. There’s no reason Peterson should be fired because Willie can’t make the decision by himself.
How is struggling in the 5th and 6th a “habit?” The real problem is that Willie yanks guys too soon.
I’d rather leave the starters out there, who are generally good, rather than bring in Sosa. At the very least it should be tried for a few games.
sosa just needs to go, period. There have got to be better /unemployed middle relievers littered all over triple a or elsewhere.
Willie does yank too quickly. He never lets a guy work out of his own mess after the 5th inning, breeding a lot of weakness in the starters. But Peterson has to be held to the fire, too. He’s the pitching bench coach for Willie. He’s the one advising Willie on how the arms are feeling, what they’re capable of achieving and he had and has the big say in helping Willie set his “set in stone” pattern of bringing in the same relievers every game. Willie’s not the pitching guru on this team. He relies on Peterson, and has always relied on Peterson. That’s Peterson’s job performance out there when you see the pitcher’s fail and flail and have no clue how to fix their problems.
modern sports docs agree that most pitchers lose a lot of effectiveness after 100-110 pitches, and that they’re more susceptible to injury. Also, it’s cold. The reason our pitchers can’t go long is ineffeciency, plain and simple. Too many balls, too many walks, too many pitches to get through each inning. I know it’s a give and take, to some extent…someone’s gotta throw the ball…but if we’re overtaxing anyone right now, I’d rather it be a (relatively easy-to-replace) middle reliever or two than one of the starters.
Yeah, but other teams have to pitch in the same weather, and their pitchers don’t seem to have nearly the same trouble that the Mets have been having. And the inefficiency more the “habit” I was talking about.
I posted something longer, but cyberspace ate it. the gist:
I don’t think it’s a mangement issue, I think it’s a permormance issue independant of orginizational philosophy. Just my opinion, time to drink, good weekend, LGM
I’m not for firing anyone, but I do think people have put Peterson on a pedestal a little too much.
He had some success with OP, but his ‘turn around’ could also be attributed to Perez being Perez – who had two good years before Peterson was his pitching coach.
Maine has done well, but how much of it is Peterson vs. Maine just growing up?
Who else can we really attribute Peterson as the reason they were successful (while with the Mets)? Nelson Figgy is too early to tell. Sosa’s success disappeared last year.
Leo Mazzone is out there. Hmmmm. . . . .
But like I said I’m not for firing anyone. Anything that is wrong with the Mets is the players fault. But just wanted to note Peterson’s success might not warrant him being impervious to being fired.
I think Peterson’s success is really overshadowed when you look at a guy like Duncan in St. Louis who has consistnetly built a strong staff around turds like Weaver, Looper, Suppan and now Loshe. I also feel like Peterson has a way too cookie-cutter approach towards preparation of pitchers towards hitters — way too much emphasis on the “180 zone” rather than approaching hitters more individually. Not saying he should be the first to go, but I think the idea that Peterson is an above and beyond guru has lost its luster.
I agree. He’s done a solid job for the post part, but I don’t think he is irreplaceable.
Part of his ‘allure’ is based on his Oakland days and now coaching in NY’s media market.
Duncan is a great example.
I don’t think that it was Peterson’s fault that Mota sucked and was used constantly (the same can be said about Sosa). Wagner was hurt, and the starters hit a wall. I think some of that blame has to go to Omar Minaya and the players, not Willie, not Rick. Rick’s done a very good job with our ptchers.
Whoever in the met world think peterson should be fired is retarded and should be fired.
Peterson is one of if not the best pitching coach in the bigs.
this thought is absurd,
It kills me that someone with this grammar and spelling even thinks about calling someone else “retarded”. Really classy.
I never pick on grammar, but I like how the last sentence ends with a comma (,).
Spelling words wrong didn’t stop certain people from becoming President.
Therefore, it won’t stop me from posting my comments.
You stay classy San Diego!
god bless america!
There was a fire yesterday in the George W. Bush library. Firefighters were unable to save the books. The real tragedy is that one of the two of them hadn’t been colored in yet.
That is his reputation. . . . Is it true though? What about Bryan Price? Dave Righetti? Bob Apodaca? John Farrell? Mike Maddux?
All very good coaches who have had success and failures. Just like Peterson.
I’m no Peterson fan, but the first guy to go HAS to be Willie. This team has been dead since early last season. I don’t put that on Peterson.
Peterson is certainly in jeapardy – as he should be based on results.
Having nothing to do with that however, I cannot tell you how much I would pay for some video tapes of any conversations that occured last season between Peterson and Rickey Henderson.
Can you even imagine what such a conversation sounded like, and the worst part is that it was all wasted as neither of them was likely to have been listening to the other…
Peterson’s job is in jeopardy…..but only because the new coach after Willie deserves every right to pick his own coaching staff. He better not get fired before Willie, that would be a huge mistake.
If the Mets have any inclination to fire Willie, please fire him now. I don’t want to wait too deep into the season where too much damage might have been done. This guy is not an NL manager, please Omar, do the right thing and get rid of this guy.
As for who replaces him, I’m all for going outside the organization. I want someone who has had no part in the malaise that has taken over this team. Also, PLEASE Omar pick someone with NL roots. So what if Randolph was the disciple of Torre? Torre is no genius by any stretch of the imagination.
which only supports the idea that people place too much importance on the role of managers
Is this an argument for keeping Randolph? If the manager’s effect is small, so is the risk that the next guy will make things worse.
Let’s wait for Schneider to get back into the starting lineup before we jump to conclusions… He has impressed me beyond expectations behind the plate thus far (and in the batters’ box as well). His aggressive calling could make all the difference.
Well if that is the case, then doesn’t that hurt Peterson even more? At least in terms of his true value to a team?
Absolutely not.
Yep, defintiely wait for Schneider to come back on a full time basis.
And No, pitching better because you have a good defensive catcher, does not, in ANY way, negatively affect the pitching coach.
Not sure if anyone mentioned it above, but Peterson has to be blamed for the Starting pitchers only getting past the 6th inning only 6 or 7 times in 26 games (not sure exactly if that is right. I know its close). Santana has been most of those too. Everyone has been so quick to point the finger at Willie and his overuse of the bullpen, but the SP’s inability to go deep into games is the real reason. Peterson’s job is to keep these guys focused during the game and he’s not getting it done…
I don’t think its their ability so much as the philosophy. Why is 100 pitches so magical? 15-18 pitches is typically a good inning. If you take 100 and divide it by 18, you get ~ 5 and 2/3, which is exactly what the SP has been giving us. Why not bump it up to 125 pitches, which is ~ 7. Or here is a concept…how about you forget the stupid pitch count and ask the guy how he is feeling. There’s an old-school concept.
old school doesn’t mean better. This has been said time and again, but pitchers – particularly young pitchers – are never gonna say they’re gassed and want to sit down. Part of the responsibility of the manager is to keep these guys from hurting themselves.
The starters aren’t going deep because they’re not throwing strikes. I said this abouve: too many balls, too many walks. I’d bet large amounts of money that Peterson’s philosophy doesn’t include “walk lots of guys”.
So be it. Clean house.
You know with all this crap going around lately in the media I basically have just turned off SNY, M&MD. Because its just all Met bashing when it is definitely way too early. How about lets get healthy then start writing ridiculous stories. The only thing I tune to for information is this website
2007 – Rick Down = 2008 Rick Peterson
Where did the Down firing get us? We need to think bigger. Willie goes first (and if Peterson goes down with him, fine) and Omar is put on notice. If this team falters again, the blame is put solely on Omar.
Why fire the only guy in the coaching staff who appears to have a strategic approach?
LOL, perfectly said, Danny!
+1
I guess they’ll fire the equipment manager before they fire Willie. Geesh, You’d think this guy was Tommy Lasorda or something
The thing is that they committed to giving Willie at least a legitimate chance this year. Everyone knew a slow start would do him in. I just don’t think being 14-12 in the first 26 qualifies. Unless these guys go on a ridiculous losing streak, don’t count on anything happening before 50 games
Unfortunately, they can easily be 14-15 by sunday…
I don’t think changing the pitching coach in mid-season is particularly advantageous.
Face it, folks, if you are calling for Willie’s head you are calling for a change in managerial style and temperament.
I said this before in commentary earlier this week— if Willie goes, and I am not a proponent of this yet— how about Tony Pena?
if Tony Pena is the best option maybe they should just go with someone internal like Oberkfel or Teufel.
Backman, Carter, Tony Pena… not really up to the task imo.
If the manager is changed, its likely the pitching coach wont last past the offseason anyway, but at least they will provide some stability.
the Mets are 14-12 with the starting LF out all year, 2 of the 5 starting pitchers out all year (minus 3 innings) and their starting catcher out for half of the year and backup catcher out the full year so far…
clearly people must be fired because a team that is forced to pitch Nelson Figuero followed by Joe Smith and Jorge Sosa every night with AAngel Pagan in LF and Raul Casanova catchign should be playing .750 baseball right now!!!!!!
Also, now that there are no more Heilman defenders can we stop defending OP…the guy has a case of the Steve Trachselitis where if he is pitching and either an error is made or he walks a batter on a questionable call THEN HE NO LONGER HAS THE ABILITY TO GET ANYONE OUT. If anything, Willie waits TOO LONG to pull this guy outta games.
My only complaint to this point in the season is with Willie and it goes like this…Show, Smith and Feliciano can all pitch to more than one batter!!! we wouldnt have to use all 7 bullpen guys every night if they pitched to 2 batters….thats it though, otherwise his hands are tied with injuries and with Beltran, Reyes and Wright being awful for the last few weeks…and none of those 3 players is going anywhere.
oh come on, he’s at least AAAngel Pagan… ;)
Or maybe we should be pointing the finger at the guy who knowingly went into the season with an old injury prone left fielder and two old injury prone starting pitchers, without a plan B. It would be one thing if those guys were ironmen, and these were freak injuries no one was expecting, but I would think Omar figured the Alou, Martinez and El Duque would each spend extensive time on the DL. Maybe not all at the same time but still they were basically playing with fire and hoping for the best.
What were our other options?
I’ll agree wholeheartedly that we should have gotten another starting pitcher. Silva or Livan would have worked.
Other than that?
Well there’s what you said. There’s no reason for them not bringing in the other Hernandez and Silvia.
And most fans probably wouldn’t agree with me but I thought our front office should have focused on rebuilding rather than trying to squeeze one more play-off/ws run out of this team. I figured there was no way he could trade for Santana, a right fielder ready to play everyday and a catcher and bring in quality insurance, for Delgado, Alou, Pedro and El Duque with what we had for trade bait.
Of course whether the Wilpons would have allowed him to do that, as in not fired him, I don’t know, but that was my opinion. Obviously Omar went the other way, so I’m hoping we can at least get to the W.S.
Well, everybody wanted Santana and now they complain Gina, it is what it is. Omar doesnt make that trade if he doesn’t feel his job is in jeaopardy, thats how I feel. And Omar’s job is safe for now, because he got Santana, which is what 99.9999 percent of the fanbase wanted at all costs. The thing is, for LF there are guys available, 1B also. Dan Johnson, Kendry Morales, Juan Rivera, Matt Murton, all of these guys can most likely be had for b prospects. Even Barry Bonds is still out there, which I am all for. Nobody will convince me his bad clubhouse vibe cancels out his 450 OBP and 1000 OPS every year.
And give Omar credit for filling in RF and C cheaply also. Imagine how bad this team would be without Church in RF. Milledge is doing okay in Was., but his numbers are better looking in CF, and Church has been fantastic with the glove. Filling spots with solid players cheaply is a huge part of being a GM because it frees up money for when the big fish comes along.
If the performances of the 4th and 5th starters and the replacements for Pedro and El Duque were the reason the Mets are luckluster right now, this would make more sense.
Pelfrey hasn’t been great, but he’s been OK. Figueroa has on the whole pitched quite well.
The problem is neither O Perez nor Maine has come close to expectations. Maine needs to be getting into the 7th inning on a regular basis, and he’s spitting the bit in the 5th and 6th.
We would be absorbing the losses of Pedro and El Duque quite well if Perez and Maine were holding up their end and not running the bullpen ragged. Even as it is, I’m more bothered by the general malaise and by the unimpressive numbers being put up by Reyes and Beltran (Delgado I don’t even expect anything from).
Um, I’m actually still defending Oliver Perez and Aaron Heilman, as well as Rick Peterson.
Perez had a bad April after a 15-10 3.58 ERA 1.3 WHIP 180 innings 9+ SO/IP 2007.
The logic of a disconcertingly large proportion of the Metsblog Comment section goes like this…”He had one excellent year -for a #3 starter–and one bad month that included one terrible game. Therefore, the bad month, and particularly the terrible game, are indicative of his value to the team, and the excellent year was an abberation. This is true because the terrible game occured two days ago, and I remember it well, and it causes my wrath hormones to percolate, and my hormonal status is the best metric by which to analyze and manage a baseball team.”
The same can be said of Heilman, except that he’s had a terrible month, whereas Perez has merely been bad. There is no reason to think that Heilman will not work himself back up to something closer to his career numbers, even if he ends up having an off year.
Of course, Willie has Feliciano and Smith, who are pitching well, as substitutes for Heilman, who is pitching poorly, and Sosa, who sucks, and he does not use them. Heilman and Feliciano are highly comparable, except for the fact that Pedro2 is pitching much better right now (and the same goes for Smith and Sosa, except that Smith seems to be much better than Sosa period) and Willie continues to ignore this. It’s like continuing to go for the blond at the bar, even when it’s a man.
@nomota
I agree with most of that
All these people booing Heilman are ridiculous. After Sanchez had that disaster cab ride Heilman stepped up big time and helped out the team. He deserves enough respect to go out there and fix his problems so he can help us out in the long run
The only reason I would think about firing Peterson would be if the players are no longer listening to him. Most of them have been around him for 2 1/2 years or more, so its possible they need a new voice and some fresh thinking.
What year was it that the Mets fired Bobby V’s pitching and hitting coach in June? wasnt it ‘99 or 2000? Seems like it worked well then…
Imagine a psycho lil Ollie Perez w/o Peterson, who has been a godsend to him despite some recent meltdowns..
John Maine, Mike Pelfrey Even Pedro Feliciano have all benefitted from Peterson..To go with someone else,with different philosophies from Peterson would cause huge turmoil in our staff.
What are we gonna do,have one of his assitants replace him for the rest of the year? Who do u replace him with?
Peterson is far from the problem..Our pitching is fine…We need Reyes and Delgado to produce. They are like the 86 team Mookie and Daaaarryl.. Thats what we need..And maybe,just maybe Bobby Valentine who would never leave his Japanese team mid season.
What. The. Hell.
Rick Peterson is the best thing that ever happened to the Mets.
Seriously, we’ve had TONS of pitchers have success here that went on to do nothing elsewhere.
Start with the bullpen. Wasn’t Feliciano pitching in Japan a couple years ago, or am I mixing him up with someone else? Darren Oliver, Chad Bradford’s career year, getting anything out of Roberto Hernandez, Heilman’s two or so good years. Duaner’s great half year was better than he had done in LA.
Starters: Maine and Perez have both exceeded expectations, greatly. The fact that Glavine did much of anything after his bad first year with us. Where’s Jae Seo now? Even Al Leiter picked it up in his last season when we had Peterson.
As to this whole overused bullpen / quick hook with starters thing. Johan’s gone 7+ innings most of his starts, and Willie’s left him in when he’s been in trouble before. Figgy and Pelfrey, you can’t really blame them for only giving us 5 or 6 innings.
So the starters in question are Ollie and Maine. Now come on, every time Ollie comes out of a game, you KNOW he’s done. He’ll look great, then all of a sudden he’s walked 6, thrown 4 wild pitches, and made 16 errors in one half inning.
Meanwhile, you can tell Maine’s done when he can’t stop pouting over a bad call.
If you want to blame their mental issues on Peterson, whatever. But how many times this year have either of them come out in situations where they’ve given any semblance of a hint that they could get another out? Maybe 1?
Sure, getting more innings from them would be nice, but not giving up 7 run innings is nicer.
And last, as to Willie’s overuse of the pen…
Some article by Marchman:
“The team ranked 10th in the league in bullpen innings. Other than the durable Heilman, no one pitched even 70 innings in relief. Altogether, the Mets needed 3.15 relief innings per game, a hair above the 3.08 that represents the National League average over the last five years, and the 3.12 the average NL playoff team needed this year.
The bullpen wasn’t worked particularly hard because the starting pitchers gave the team a normal amount of innings. The Mets averaged 5.80 innings a start. Over the last five years the league average is 5.84 a start, and this year’s playoff teams average 5.86.”
We’re no more bullpen happy than everybody else.
Rick Peterson is one of the WORST things to happen to the Mets. He’s run Scott Kazmir and Heath Bell out of town, and hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary in what was supposed to be his specialty, keeping pitchers healthy. And I can’t even believe you’d bring up Jae Seo, who Peterson jerked around his entire time here, giving Scott Erickson and Tyler Yates and James Baldwin spots in the rotation first in 2004, despite Seo being one of the best pitchers on the team in 2003, then not bringing him up until half the season was over in 2005 when he was excellent again. And Roberto Hernandez…he was buried in the bullpen in 2006, where was Peterson’s magic then? Talk about revisionist history. And Oliver Perez…20 unearned runs last year and 5 this year already, because he’s a headcase and implodes almost every time an error is made. Where is Peterson with that?
I mean what has he done in close to 4 years here…I suppose he can hang his hat on John Maine’s half a season last year?
It is farcical how this guy has coasted on a bogus reputation for this long, and apparently a bunch of imaginary things he’s done here. Please get this bum out of here, it’s already long overdue.
Okay, the Kazmir trade is somewhere around Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi. Although Kazmir’s been injured a lot, in 10 years, he might not have done much. Still a terrible, terrible, terrible trade.
And Heath Bell, well, he was bad here. No one thought he had anything. If I had known all he needed was to gain 50 pounds and pitch in an absurdly large park, I would have fed him donuts and expanded Shea’s walls myself.
As to Jae Seo, he was inexplicably one of my favorite players, but if he were any good, he’d be pitching for someone right now. It’s no coincidence that he vanished right after he left the Mets.
Roberto was great the first time we had him, that was 2005? Best year he had in a while. 2006 not so much, but he was buried in the back of the pen, as you said.
Perez is much better than he was with the Pirates from 2004-2006.
Go look at the Mets’ team ERAs over the past 5 years. You’ll find they’re consistently in the top third of the league, and occasionally much better than that.
Then look at the pitching staff. Talentwise, they’re rarely much better than the top third in the league.
Shea helps, but the Mets have pitched well on the road as well.
hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary in what was supposed to be his specialty, keeping pitchers healthy.
That’s really unfair. I’m not aware of any young pitchers coming up with serious arm or shoulder problems while with Peterson — and certainly none on the Mets.
How can you expect Peterson to keep old goats like Pedro and El Duque healthy? No one can. Peterson is a pitching coach. Not a miracle worker.
In fact, I would say that Peterson has been much better than many pitching coaches in ensuring his pitchers remain healthy and free of pitching-related injuries.
That might be Peterson’s strongest asset. I wish I knew more about what it was that bothers the Mets brass (and a lot of fans) about Peterson. I don’t worship him, but I just have no idea what he’s doing that supposedly is lousing up the pitching staff. Self-promotion and self-involvement on the part of the ptiching coach can’t by themselves cause a pitching staff to underperform, can they?
The only thing I can guess it is (as Bobby Ojeda complained when he left the organization) that there is too much emphasis on the technical stuff and not enough on developing pitchers’ mental toughness.
Youre not aware of young pitchers with arm problems – and certainly none on the Mets??!?? It’s “unfair” to say he hasn’t done anything special in this area??!??
Does Victor Zambrano right after the Mets got him for Kazmir count? If not, how about:
Tyler Yates (labrum)
Joe Smith (shoulder)
Ambiorix Burgos (tommy john)
Phil Humber (tommy john)
Orber Moreno (shoulder)
Juan Padilla (tommy john)
Brian Bannister (hamstring)
Jason Vargas (elbow)
wait cactus are you serious or is that the greatest email ever????
if you are serious either:
A. stop doing heroin
B. your mother dropped you a lot as a baby
C. Both of the above
D. what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul
You know what’s funny, and it’s not this ripped-off unoriginal post, but it’s that you’re saying I can’t “understand even the smallest minutiae of baseball” while having a mis-spelled play on the name Guiller-NO MO-ta for a screenname while defending Rick Peterson. The irony here is that once Mota got to Milwaukee, they found something in his delivery right away (too hunched over) that the guru Rick Peterson missed. So far Mota has 18 K’s in 15 IP and a 2.40 ERA.
Reading these comments, I get one reaction, WOW!
Can we give this team 50 games before we start firing the entire front office, blow up the team and start the rebuilding process?
This is ridiculous its been barely 1/10 of the season and already we get multiple posts a day talking about trading away half the team and firing the entire front office.
this is ridiculous
Matt stop posting this garbage, Petersons proven his worth.
Personally, I prefer Siamese Dream.
Agree, although Adore is criminally underrated.
i’d keep the coaches and manager and use the millions that would be paid out for their contracts to hire the scouts and scouting directors of the dodgers, twins, red sox and d-backs.
I like this idea, but I’m starting to think it’s a pipe dream.
Matt, can you please ban “Cactus” from ever posting on this site again….seriously, what an awful person and clearly someone who does not even understand even the smallest minutiae of baseball.
Trading Jae Seo for Sanchez goes down as the 2nd best Mets trade of my lifetime only behind the Benitez & Cedeno for Hundley trade…only cause that one led to hampton eventually and to a WS trip.
My personal favorite set of trades were, and I could be wrong here…
Wiggington and prospects who didn’t turn into much for Kris Benson, Benson for Jorge Julio and Maine, Julio for El Duque.
Wiggington and prospects who didn’t turn into much for Maine and El Duque. Gotta love it.
Matt Petersen and Justin Huber.
Huber should have been a good hitter, not sure how the Royals managed to ruin him.
Which lead to David Wright (the draft pick the Mets got when Hampton left via free-agency).
and to take it a step further, hampton eventually led to the draft pick that got us david wright
sorry jova didnt see that
gish
And yeah, Gish.
Seriously Cactus , what are u smoking?
YES He can brag and post of his resume that he has made John Maine into an excellent pitcher.. if u disagree you must not be a Met fan.
U think Dauner Sanchez was that good in L.A? Didnt Heilman Succ before he came?
Who would u replace him with?
Name a better pitching coach
People have to realize that Jacket isn’t going anywhere. He was just signed to a multi year extension. Also, Willie doesn’t even listen to Peterson when it comes to pitching moves. He. “asks” him his opinion given the situation… then goes with, “his gut”. Remember when Bobby Valentine used to give Dave Wallace, or Charlie Hough full reign of the pitching staff? Well, William needs to do the same with Peterson. Have him make all the decisions regarding the pitching staff. That means, taking a pitcher in and out of a game as well. Peterson is a guru when it comes to specific matchups…etc.
Additionally, if they get swept in AZ, I cannot see how they retain William. He has a cheap contract for a reason… As for Bobby V. supporters (which I am as well), there is no way he will come back to the Mets unless he is promised significant power within the organization. He is a god in Japan, and I think he is quite happy there. I also believe Maz would be a good fit too. He did get a raw deal in Baltimore… just like every other manager has since Davey Johnson in the late ’90’s. It is a managers graveyard.
It’s May. There’s no such thing as a 3 game series in May that should determine a manager’s fate.
yeah, it’s May… what’s your point? This 3 game series… or 6 game trip doesn’t decide the fate of Willie. It’s over a large body of bad work. This series/road trip could be the final nail in the coffin. This team has been under achieving since July ‘07. Willie has been on the hot seat since the beginning of the season.
Hey Dafatone80,
How about a 17 game stretch in September?
But as long as we’re talking managers, why not bring back Davey Johnson?
Davey has been out of MLB coaching for years, and, as people who actually follow baseball know…..is the manager of this year’s Olympic team. So, he’s a bit busy, what with the travel to Beijing this summer.
I’m fine with Peterson. He can’t turn Jorge Sosa or Aaron Heilman into Mariano Rivera. It takes more than good mechanics and a good repertoire to do that.
The first one of you that can name one instance where a different manager makes a tactical move that Willie hasnt made so far this year wins. Liek I said earlier, I think he uses Sosa too much, but cant blame him for Heilman sucking, thats all Aarons fault and the mets had no other 8th inning guy until Sanchez got healthy, so who you gonna throw in those situations? Smith? He’s been just as bad recently and will be demoted the second Matt Wises goatee is ready to go.
Just please Willie, stop using Sosa late in games the day before anyone buy Johan or Maine pitches (as we may need some innings the next day out of him) and please just let Show and Feliciano try and pitch to 2 batters and maybe we wont use the whole pen every night. Other than that, Wright, Reyes, Delgadoand Beltran not hitting is not your fault, and is no way a managerial move. These idiots will bas you but I dare you to sit DWright for a game and then they will bash you for sitting him…those people are idiots and prob werent Mets fans in 2005.
What the Mets are really missing is a legitimate mopup / longman in the pen. I think Figueroa could do the job if Duque / Pedro come back.
Obviously we’re not going to get a repeat of Darren Oliver, but having a reliever who can throw a few innings is very, very helpful.
I don’t disagree with you, but do you promise not to bitch if Show or Feliciano gives one up to a righty?
See, I sort of agree with Willie here. Sort of.
Show should NEVER, EVER, EVER face a righty with any hitting skill in anything remotely close to an important situation.
Feliciano, he can face occasional righties.
In the opposite direction, Aaron Heilman needs to stop being brought in to face fantastic lefty hitters. Over and over, we hear “his changeup is good against lefties! He can get lefties!” Nobody ever looks at slugging against. He gets hammered by lefties much more than righties. In fact, he’s not even getting lefties out this year. To the splits!
Righties are batting .283 against him, and according to mets.com, slugging .200 against him. Yeah, that’s impossible. But his righty WHIP is under 1, meanwhile his lefty BAA is over .500, slugging right around 1.000, and lefty WHIP? 3.21.
Wow. Even worse than I thought. Wonder why no one’s looked into this.
Here’s some stats I’m sure Jacket already knows:
Through 26 games, Mets starters are averaging 5.6 innings per start. Johan is at 6.95, Figgy is 5.8; Pelfrey at 5.5; Maine at 5.44: and Ollie at 4.83 (if you toss the 1.2 abortion last start, he’s still only at 5.5.) The Mets have to have more innings from their starters (Johan is fine), or the bullpen will not last. Unfortunately, when you throw 100 pitches in 5 innings, you will not last. Willie has little choice at that point to call the bullpen. The Jacket has got to get them to throw strikes. Walks are bad, but so are deep counts. 15 pitch innings is what we’re looking for.
It would help if Willie didn’t bring in Sosa or Heilman into a big spot and then have to bail them out.
Is there a guy available out there who would do better than Peterson? If not, don’t fire him.