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Following his rough start on Wednesday, after which pitching coach Dan Warthen called him out of shape, Oliver Perez was given a stern talking to by fellow LHP Johan Santana.
Santana, speaking to MLB.com’s Marty Noble, said, “I talked to him. … He’s got to get into pitching again and get going. He knows that… He’s got to get his mechanics and his command.”
Perez acknowledged that he was behind schedule, blaming it on his having thrown less during the World Baseball Classic. According to Steve Popper at the Bergen Record, Perez said:
“I feel good. I feel healthy. Right now I’m just behind these guys. So I just have to on these days try to get back. I feel good. I feel stronger. So I just have to keep working in my bullpens and try to throw a lot more innings.”
…Perez was clearly defensive when asked about Warthen’s accusations, and you really don’t want a guy so dependant on his pitching coach to distrust him… hopefully he’s back to full strength soon and they put this whole thing behind them…
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Another reason why the WBC timing stinks. Let these guys go into it in November like the rest that play winter league would. Perez needed to be here.
Anyway, I can imagine the talk between Perez and Santana. Maybe something along the lines of Glory and Morgan Freeman to Denzel Washington. LOL. “Empty headed……
haha nice analogy
Greeeeaaaaat!
Let’s get Ollie the head case even more out of his element by having his pitching coach and staff ace dog him.
I know Ollie is an adult but we all personally know adults who still have the mental capacity of children. Let’s hope Ollie grows a pair and figures this crap out.
I know we want to keep our guys motivated, but I really don’t like how Manuel and Wharthen like to throw their players under the bus in the press all the time. They really should take some lessons from Joe Torre – who was certainly not a good manager strategically, but knew how to work the media in a candid way, without completely killing his ballplayers.
It remains to be seen if it works, but Jerry certainly has some diarrhea of the mouth sometimes. And he seems to declare certain things publically and then change his mind two weeks later.
It might be a better idea to talk to his players before talking to Mark Hale and David Lennon and Adam Rubin.
I agree. I’m not sure why they continue to throw players under the bus. It could work to some degree, but it might really backfire on them. I really hope that’s not the case.
But with Ollie, you might need to light a fire under his seat a little. This guy seems like he’s out in 4th dimension world or maybe he’s just super cocky and doesn’t listen to anyone.
Maybe he does talk to them before he talks to the media. Its not like the media would witness AND report that. Either way its not like he’s going Ozzie Gillen on them.
Well, we know that he never told Jose Reyes about the batting order experimentation before he told the media… so there’s one example.
i understand your concern with the strategy, but so far i’ve been ok with it. this team has underperformed two years in a row and i think a swift kick in the rear is not a bad thing. if ollie came to camp out of shape, i think it should be made public. he’s making $12 mil a year (?); there’s no excuse for being out of shape. he needs to be held accountable.
Well, Joe Torre kinda has a book out now.. and making lots of money off of it…
You mean like Willie did? I trust my guys? Even when they are terrible? Didn’t all of us complain about that too?
i hated i trust my guys to no end
I don’t think anyone is saying that Jerry should be afraid to make changes. I think the point of this thread is that Jerry could communicate with his players rather than with the press.
Exactly..but as humans we are never happy. Complain how Willie needed to get tougher, now you have that and you want more Willie.
I don’t think anyone wants more Willie. And there is no reason a manager can’t be “tougher” behind closed doors instead of making a joke out of himself on the radio.
i think all this talk is overblown. when it comes down to it, i don’t really care what jerry or wharthen say in the media. i care that ollie is out of shape. if he is out of shape, he deserves to be called out for it (imo). he doesn’t need to be pampered. he gets paid millions to play a game; the least he can do is stay in shape. he needs a wakeup call
Can’t he have his azz chewed out behind closed doors?
I don’t think this particularly instance is a problem. But it does seem that Jerry enjoys talking to the media and doesn’t necessarily think before he speaks.
Aren’t their some good points to that style as well.? I mean there were good points to Willie’s style too but it did not work with these guys. Maybe Jerry’s style will.
what’s the difference if it’s behind closed doors or not? he needs to get his act together. clearly the guy has a big problem staying focused. whatever anyone has tried to this point to help him be more consistent has not worked. if he’s not holding up his end of the bargain, maybe calling him out publically for it puts more pressure on him to get serious
I have a post awaiting moderation and I can’t figure out why. I hope everyone lives long enough to see its contents.
Well the opposite of Jerry is Willie, so if you’re not happy with Jerry..you must want more Willie. Jerry goes to the media in some instances when Willie never called his players out and if he did it was very few times. Its not like he’s calling them out in negative ways. He’s just a real dude, you ask him a question and you get his opinion.
i think i have posts still awaiting moderation from 3 days ago. i can’t figure out why either
Moses:
My world is not so cut and dry.
I like Manuel as a manager so far. I just think he needs to cool it off with the media somewhat.
There are degrees. Jerry and Willie are polar opposites. Jerry could scale down a bit and still not be Willie.
Jerry seems to be making an attempt to be the anti-Willie and doing the opposite by being more candid and upfront with the media as opposed to Willie who detested reporters and anyone questioning him.
I, for the most part like Jerry’s overall style and I’m not longing for the days of Willie. For the record, Willie did not work with the media half as well as Torre did. I know it’s sacriligeous to praise the Yanks around here sometimes, but I think in just dealing with the media, Torre is the model example for a NY manager.
With that said, when you have a player who’s challenging beat reporters to a foot race because the pitching coach said he was out of shape, maybe that’s the kind of player you need to whip into shape behind closed doors. Or you can express disappointment in but try not using terms like “out of shape” and “gained weight” when they may or may not be true.
it’s easy to do what Joe Torre did when you win 4 of 5 world series titles, not that many problems around the clubhouse when you have a team capable of doing that. So in the end, a horrible comparison, sorry Costanz…
Eh – I’ll give it right back to you old buddy.
IMO, Torre was just as effective with the media in the latter half of his career than in the earlier. He was dealing with guys like Sheffield, Wells, Kevin Brown, Clemens, Pavano and A-Rod. And they weren’t winning championships and he was constantly on job watch towards the end the Steinbrenner clan.
You can’t tell me Manuel and Wharthen can’t express disappointment publicly with OP’s conditioning without implying he sat on the couch the last 3 weeks and at a dozen bags of Cheetohs.
i know, i was giving you a hard time, I don’t know if there is a “right” way to go about this, I thin each situation has its’ own nuances that will determine which will work better. In our situation, it still remains to be seen whether or not Manuel’s approach will work.
True, true …
You know, if I had the time or energy, I would propose you and I and some of the old guard metsblog crew stage a recapturing of this site for the sake of sane, rational mets blogging. It looks like there are a handful of people around here who have taken the mantel from our yesteryears, but reading the comments these days generally gives me a headache.
yeah, i could be down for that, nowadays for the most part, I just get overly annoyed at most of the comments around here and I post over the top reactionary opinions for the sake of it, but even that’s getting boring.
i cant blame this on the WBC…it sounds like he was given things to do in between starts for the WBC and just did not do them….this is all on ollie…
True but did we not know this already about Ollie? There are other players like him in baseball, football basketball or even in the work place. Regardless it would not have been an issue if he was doing it in November and here with us in Febuary.
Please met fans… lets not start the season booing OP…
It would kill his season. Lets start by supporting our guys! Especially the head cases!
Were there this many complaints about the WBC in 2006? If there were, it sure wasn’t happening during the season.
Baseball needs to start now.
Something like 2/3 of the pitchers who pitched in the WBC were injured during the regular season.
I would hate to kill Ollie, since the Mets signed him for 3 years and really wish he would do well this season. BUT, if Johan played in WBC, would he be out of shape and behind the schedule? Probably not. He might hurt himself doing too much in WBC, but never behind the schedule.
I’ve been saying this over and over, but I think Ollie has ton of talent, but does not have the complimentary work ethic. He’s been on the majors for 5-6 years now and if his work ethic is what it is now, it’s not going to change. He will lack effort throughout his career and will be inconsistent. I see Ollie having similar numbers as last year. 12-9, 4.3 ERA. I hope that’s not the case.
I agree that the blame on Teddy Higuera and the WBC is misguided.
Ollie is all grown up now. He knows what he needs to do.
Ollie is all grown up but we also know that some people NEVER grow up. It’s not just in baseball it’s everywhere. We know who Ollie is and what his problems are. We know he is someone that does not perform well unless you are right on top of him, no matter what his age is he is immature. Thus, him going to the WBC is a bad idea. Especially the timing of it.
Then the Meyts have no one to blame but themselves (even though they are technically not permitted to prevent anyone from showing up they can obviously still find ways to do so).
Don’t you think the MLB and the media might put pressure on them if they don’t?
They might. But how many big name players didn’t go? Yout hink all of those players chose not to go simply because they did not want to?
True but most of them were able to use an injury excuse. Think they could have made up one for Ollie? Not to mention the players, I have no stats to back this up, for the latin teams took a lot more pride in the selection and I think felt like they had to do it for their country. In the US they are used to players turning down the Olympics.
Isn’t that why he doesn’t get Johan, CC, Peavy, Oswalt, Burnett, Lowe or even Silva money?
If he gives us those numbers we will have gotten what we paid for.
How about Roger Cedeno and Kris Benson?
Thems were pretty bad signings.
As much as I love hearing all about the issue, I can’t think Oliver Perez likes that the media is all over it.
hey guys who do u think are the mets top ten contract busts of ALL TIME!
hey guys who do u think are the mets top ten contract busts of ALL TIME!
Are you limiting to free agents? Or are guys they traded for like Mo Vaughn, George Foster and Roberto Alomar involved?
Just free agents, the first one that comes to mind is Kevin Appier. Pedro Astacio is another. Bobby Bonilla gets a bit of a bum rap because he produced after his first season but certainly not to the level that his contract at the time demanded.
Kevin Appier’s contract was 4/$40M, what a joke that was. Thank you Steve Phillips. and going off last season Luis Castillo contract has to crack the top 10 list but I don’t think it’s fair to judge a 4 year deal off 1 season because he still has time to bounce back.
Schoenweis 3/$10M has to be in the top 10 as well.
Kaz Matsui and his 3/$20M was nothing short of a disaster although he was nasty at 1st ABs of the season….
Show’s compared to the market at the time was not as bad as you think. If he was used as just an oogy it would have been a good signing.
Kaz… front and center.
Pedro is Kistics states below is a good one for debate. He gave us one excellent season and then bubkis. The debate will be over whether the “intangibles” of having him around justify the rest.
I vote no. And he unfortunately probably makes my top 10 list.
How about Tom Glavine?
Glavine does not make my list. To me he went out and did what we expected him to do. Pedro does make my list. I was not running away from that contract at the time, concerned but understood it. Now, however, we took a risk and it did not pay off. Kaz has to be #1 in my life time.
I personally never liked Tommy Glavine, still don’t. Tough call, we signed him 4/$40M then an option at about $8M… his 1st season was a disaster. after that he was pretty good. and he pitched really well in the ‘06 playoffs for us. That said — i don’t think he’s top 10 but his 1st and last game pitched as a Met were 2 of the worst performances in the history of MLB. I was at his 1st game against the cubs. Wood was throwing darts on a 40 degree day, Tommy Glavine was throwing beach balls and we all know how his last start went, sorry to remind everybody.
Fair enough on Glavine. I was just throwing his name out there. I tend to agree with you on all accounts re: Glavine and Pedro. I was psyched about Pedro at the time and after the first year I thought he was a steal.
Now he goes on the loser’s list.
baseball-reference does not have salary data going back to the 70s and early 80s. But given the escalation of salaries the last 20 years, I think the majority of the names will come from that time frame. It’d be tough to compare the generally under $1m salaries of the early 80s to the current ones, Foster’s notwithstanding. Plus, free agents were far less prevalant then anyway.
I was not really paying attention then, but wouldn’t Geroge Foster be really high on the list?
Foster was acquired in a trade.
But had to be signed by the Mets. In a 5 year 10 million dollar contract.
I was not aware of that. In that case, he’s got to be on the list.
I think Pedro’s contract has to be up there too. He was good when he was healthy, but 3 out of 4 years he was injured.
Agreed to an extent. It should not matter if we liked the player or thought it was ok at the time.
Yes, in terms of on field production alone, Pedro’s contract must be one of the worst.
VINCE COLEMAN.
Hands down, number one. Even if you strike the firecracker business from the record, the golf club to Gooden’s shoulder, and the general good vibes he brought to the clubhouse… the contract was just a bad idea from day one.
So far we have, in no order:
1. Pedro
2. Foster
3. Matsui
4. Coleman
5. Appier
6. Bonilla
7. Astacio
8. Castillo
9. Schoenweis
The last two are debatable but we still have room for one more, and two to potentially take over for Luis and Schow.
Roger Cedeno and Kris Benson.
Cedeno for sure. I am not sure about Benson. He did ok for a while and netted a decent return.
What about Elduque?
The one thing about using the media to get the message to Ollie is that he is signed to three years, so he knows he better show some improvement or he’s going to get crushed by the fans.
Since his issues are above neck, maybe that’s exactly the motivation he needs?
You are showing your age if you recognize these slightly edited lyrics.
(Mmm…Mmm…Mmm)
Ready Manuel? Yup.
Ready Warthen? Uh-huh.
Let’s go!
Let’s go!
One! Two!…
Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, get your ab work please.
Ollie, Ollie, Ollie do some ab work here.
Come on now Ollie, get some
ab work here
You’re going to need
If you wish to win,
Or even think about it.
Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, get your ab work please.
Got a lot of jolly, Ollie ab work for you here.
Anything you need and we can make it absolutely clear…
Hello folks, this is Manuel., saying we have every workout in the
book, so come on down and look.
Hello folks, Warthen, here. Suppose your slider needs to paint a corner -
how are you going to paint it? That’s where the ab work comes
in. We can also give you a special intensifier so you can paint it
very neatly or rather quickly.
I posted this up in the thread but still think its very relevant.
Isn’t that why Ollie doesn’t get Johan, CC, Peavy, Oswalt, Burnett, Lowe or even Silva money?
If he gives us last years numbers we will have gotten what we paid for. The reason we signed him is because most likely he will give us at least last years numbers but have a chance to give us much better.
If Ollie followed up 2008 with the same numbers as he had in 2007 he could of written his own ticket anywhere in MLB. The Mets would of never been able to sign him at the rate they did.
You actually made a logical post. Becareful you might be expected to make all logical ones.
Tsk tsk, trs. That type of reply is unbecoming of a ‘golden boy.’
What if I replied to him with a golden shower or gave him the golden rod? Would that be more becoming?
I was expecting more from him and I think Omar did too. Omar made him out to be the #2 starter and he does have the stuff to be our #2 starter. It’s just sad to see all that talent and STUFF wasted.
Although, as long as he dominates the Phillies I’ll be happy.
Did he? Perhaps some of us did. He said he was a very good pitcher with a lot of potential to be great. How many #2’s get 12 million a year for 3 years?
Are you saying that he did not get paid as #2?
I just think that with $12 mil we should get more responsible and consistent Ollie.
My whole point was that he doesn’t work hard enough and should learn from Johan. That’s it. I think we all agree on that point.
He did not get anywhere NEAR what a #2 gets. Look at an old Lowe and an oft injured Burnett. Look what they got.
And also I’m not trying to compare Ollie with Johan. I’m just saying that he can learn from Johan and at least try to workout with him on regular basis. I think that should be really helpful.
I am sure he can learn from Johan. My point is that the reason that he got 4-5th starter money instead of #2 money is because he is Ollie Perez. If he WAS consistant then he would be a #2 and he would get Burnett type money. Look at Burnett’s numbers and Ollie’s numbers. They are very similar. Now look at their contracts. Don’t you think there is a reason that one makes almost 2 times what the other does?
Well, you agree that Burnett got way too much for what he has shown.
It is hard to compare salaries among players because ot the timing in which they received their contracts. For example, Dan Haren is way better than Ollie Perez for 1/3 of the annual price but the A’s bought out his arb years and possibly some of his free agent years (I’m not certain).
Dice-K also makes less annualy than Ollie but that contract was signed a few years ago and you also have to consider the posting fee.
If you look at this year’s signings of Burnett, Dempster and Lowe, I think it is fair to say that Ollie got paid more like a 3 (which is what he is projected to be for the Mets, like it or not) than a 2.
Look what Lohse got. Think they expect him to be more than a #3/4? If Olllie puts up last year’s numbers this year they will have still got what they paid for.
I’m not sure what all the fuss about OP is right now, his 1st start back from the WBC he pitched 3 scoreless innings. Then his next start he got bombed… sounds like Ollie is in mid-season form already.
fair point.
And let’s be honest, with the WBC this year spring training has been super long so don’t you think these guys are ready to pitch in games that count? I’m not saying that’s how it should be since they are professionals — highly paid professionals at that — but they’re human and it’s human nature to get bored with these meaningless games.
I don’t know what to think. Olllie has the mostly well earned reputation (with exceptions of course) of performing well against ‘good’ teams and not so well against others, which sort of indicated to me that he might be an ‘adrenaline’ pitcher, but then his utter failure in the WBC would seem to contradict that. More evidence of Ollie as enigma.
Scorelessness aside… By all reports– and his manager’s words– he was all over the place, command-wise and velocity-wise, in that first start, too.
But the bottom line is results. Would you prefer somebody who pitches 6 innings while letting up 0 runs but the velocity is high 80s and he’s extemely wild OR somebody who pitches 6 innings while letting up 3 runs but the velocity is in the mid 90s with perfect control?
It’s ST. The results matter a LOT less than how you’re throwing.
If the whole idea behind a hypothetical outing for a hypothetical young pitcher is to test out, say, work on pounding the zone, and that pitcher ends up walking 6 in 3 innings… does it matter that he only lets up 1 run (because of, say three double plays turned), or that the team wins?
Your 1st sentence says it all…
IT’S SPRING TRAINING!!!
who the F cares about ST?? There is 0 correlation between spring training performance and regular season performance.
In midseason, Ollie’s fastball is low-90s. During the first game, according to Manuel, it was kind of all over the place.
In addition, he was sailing pitches left and right.
Santana also means business. OP needs to listen to the future HOF’er.
I love that Johan is taking Ollie under his wing.
The media is overblowing this thing with Manuel. He talks to the media more but he is no Ozzie Guillen.
Nice signing Minaya. Great job.
Nice post! Filled with insight, info, and an excellent argument!
And the wisdom of judging the signing before the first regular season game of a new three year contract goes without saying…
Well he is the great Fiyawhatever. Would you expect less quality?
I hope Omar reads this board from time to time: Here’s a suggestion. Put in everybody’s contract NO MET will be allowed to participate in the WBC ever again…period! I don’ care how un-p.c., how poor a public image this presents, nor how the players react to it. You want to play for the Mets, you’re not playing for your country in that dopey moronic series. It’s too dangerous, it hurts the team’s preparation in camp, and obviously they are not working out enough or properly. This is not about the player’s feelings, the media’s opinion, or anything else–this is about running a serious business with huge investments. Let the players know–at those salaries–you own them and they have no say in the matter. It’s for the good of the team.
BTW, not that anyone cares, but it the USA won, I could give a crap. There’s enough reason why they shouldn’t let the players play in that dopey tourney.