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Today is Jerry Manuel’s one-year anniversary since being named manager of the Mets, during which he is 88–67.
His .568 winning percentage is seventh best during that span, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
…my biggest complaint with jerry this season is that he’s been very, very inconsistent with the lineup… and, i realize that may be a by-product of injury… however, the constant back-and-forth with Ryan Church, which Keith Hernandez criticized on air last night, as well as the constant rotation of shortstop, first baseman and corner outfielders, has been questionable…
Manuel talked to reporters prior to yesterday’s game, and had the following to say when asked about the inconsistent lineup and injuries:
“I can see where people say, hey, you don’t have the same lineup, he’s been inconsistent… That’s OK, I can understand that… But again, it doesn’t go without a thought process or preparation… It’s been tough, (due to injuries), because the things that you implement in spring training are designed to get the core to another level.”
…the injury issue is fair… no question… he’s probably just trying to catch lightening in a bottle, with all the constant shifting around, but i sometimes wonder if he’d be better served just assigning roles and letting these guys play it out…
In a thought-provoking, and well-written post to his blog for the New York Times, Ben Spihgel writes, among other things:
“As he promised, Manuel has helped turn the Mets into a better situational hitting team. They enter Tuesday batting .279 with runners in scoring position, tops in the N.L., and .280 with runners on base. That 80-pitch curveball drill from spring training has instilled the importance of making contact – only five teams have fewer strikeouts with runners in scoring position than the Mets – and helped Carlos Beltran become a better opposite-field hitter.”
…nice work, ben… i hadn’t seen those numbers in a while, and it’s interesting to think it could be the result of jerry’s drills… then again, it could just be…
…in the end, i think jerry has done a good job… not great, but good of course, i’d probably be being saying the same thing about Willie Randolph, or Bobby 
Valentine, or whomever else might have had the job… like i said yesterday, i find managers to be overrated… player performance is most important… so, i never feel any one decision from the manager is bigger than a player’s swing or how a pitcher is throwing… this is probably why i never write detailed post-game criticism of jerry… i guess i’m just not that smart, or i just don’t focus on it… or, at least i don’t focus on it to the extent i focus on the guy who struck out with the bases loaded, or the guy who dropped the pop fly…
…i also reject the idea that any one man can get a major-league veteran to play better fundamental baseball… these guys are professionals… they’re either good at that stuff, or they aren’t… they either trust and believe in their teammates, or they don’t… if the team is playing poor, fundamental baseball, to me, that falls more on the GM than the manager…
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Out of curiosity I wanted to throw this out there…
Of the folks that disapprove, which manager is available that you believe, wholeheartedly, would have this team, with these issues, and these injuries 3 games back of the division lead and in front of the wild card chase 60 games in?
I voted disaprove of manuel’s managing decisions but that doesn’t mean I don’t want him to be the manager of the team. I agree there is no one out there that would turn this team around. My vote was strictly that I disaprove in how Manuel has handled Church all year, some of his in game moves with the bullpen and pinch hitting choices and hardly arguing calls in key situations of games to defend his players. If he would just let Church play RF EVERY day and not bring in a LHP against lefties where lefties are hitting .440 against him then we possibly could be 5 games AHEAD of Philly right now!! Manuel is a good manager but no manager is perfect.
Ok, if Jerry played Murp in LF, tatis at 1b and Cora at ss everyday, and they did NOT produce, I bet, the same people that are complaining about the inconsistancy in th eline-up woul dbeitch because he waited to long to make a change. LETS GO METS !!!
Sorry, I coul dnot finish my post, but, the boss walked in :} I thought that Willies had to go after the big collapse, that plus the way we lost in 2006, it seemed that he has lost control of the team. saying that, I think that the manager has a small role in th eteam playing games. He makes some in game decisions that may affect the outcome, but, in the end its the players that play the games. The manager sets the tone or attitude of the team, and, the team follows suite. Jerry is in control and the team appears to respond well to him. My only complaint would be benching players that make stupid errors, to set a tone in the club house. Delgado when he dropped the pop up, LC, F-mart, for NOT running out a fly, Church for not tagging third, ect, ect, ect. Let them and the fans know that that kinda play will not be tolerated.
I don’t get this fascination Mets fans have with Bobby Valentine. True, Valentine is a great in-game strategist and he gets the most out of his players; HOWEVER, the guy is an egomaniac that wears out his welcome with ownership, the front office, his players and many fans.
Do fans not remember how many were calling for his head at the time he was fired? It’s the same thing with Willie Randolph last year. Everyone wanted Willie fired. Then he was and all of a sudden people supported him.
Valentine was the right man for the Mets job when he got it. I don’t think he’s the right man for this Mets team. I just don’t think his ego plays well with a veteran team.
Give Manuel credit. The man has lost Delgado, Reyes, Putz, Maine, Perez, Wagner and Church (for a bit) and still has the Mets 3 games from first place in the NL East and 1.5 games out of the Wild Card.
reading that last paragraph just boggles the mind. we were and are, missing some key players for long stretches. All really highlights the lack of depth Omar has given us.
The “lack of depth” that has us 3 games off the division lead and 1 game off the wild card lead despite the ridiculous number of injuries to key players?
Bobby V wasn’t the problem. Steve Phillips was, and obviously Phillips wasn’t going to fire himself. That is why Valentine was fired. There is a reason why Phillips is still in the booth and not back in the front office. How many other managers can you think of that could get a team to the World Series with a starting outfield of Jay Payton, Benny Agbayani, and Timo Perez?
I’m not knocking Jerry Manual. He’s a decent manager, and seems like a decent guy. That being said, he’s not in the same league as Bobby Valentine.
Overall, I do not complain about Jerry (tho I am often around those who do!). The players like him, he seems less reverential of veterans than Willie did, he calls someone out when he deserves it, pats someone on the back when he deserves it. The lineup, well, he’s playing very short stacked, sometimes trying new things, sometimes giving status quo a shot, I’m not super peeved at that.
What I just don’t get, tho, are some of his pinch hitting choices and bullpen choices. Talk about some arbitrary seeming moves. Certainly he has his own logic, I’m just not sure I always get or agree with it.
And altho poor Brian Stokes isn’t the best thing to ever hit our bullpen, how’s he supposed to pitch well with 11 days rest, 9 days rest, etc?
the word of the day is…reverential
…fully applicable btw.
those hitting numbers are interesting.
I’ve said before that I have no idea how Jerry deals with or inspires or does not inspire the team behind closed doors, but his on-field, tactical decisions seem to me to be generally poor.
That said, the lineup’s hitting has so far been among the top in baseball though suffering calamities right and left. So maybe his juggling has something to do with keeping guys who are otherwise subpar on their toes. Or something.
The defense has been the worst in years, but we’ve been playing backups at short.
I guess I do have to give him credit (I voted approve), but I still have lots of reservations about him, and on some days might say he’s no better than a huckster. I think the team made a mistake in (seemingly) not even exploring the field before giving him the job.
As a supporter I mostly agree with this post. The thing that makes me wonder even more so is that with this being Omar’s last managerial hire, you’d think he’d shake every tree.
totally…he had to know this next guy would probably make or break him w/ the Mets. I’d make damn sure I shopped in every aisle before buying.
But hey, maybe he did, and didn’t like what he saw, what do I know. Maybe he’s a fast shopper.
Matt, you have the history to check but it seems to me that one of your major complaints of Willie Randolph was that he NEVER changed the lineup regardless. Now Jerry changes it too much. I am sure there is a balance you are trying to strike but you can’t have it both ways. You either like constant change or no change at all.
I would ahve added indifferent to the poll because while I am truly amazed that this team is so close to first given what they have endured, I think a large part is the fact that we have two guys hitting .340+ in the middle of the lineup and a guy like Alex Cora continuing to lead in the clubhouse. To those who thought he was a waste or overpaid (and I was in that camp) I think we were wrong on that. Good signing Omar. Now I am trying to remember whether we have him for two years…
just the one year. Omar sucks.
j/k
Its obvious this team needs to get back to fundamental baseball. It is the managers responsibility to make that happen. Run drills before the game, drills after the game, drills on off days..You do it until they get it right. If the players don’t like it then bench them, you will soon see how quickly they start to hustle.
I reject the notion that we should be happy that we are so close even with all the injuries. That is a defeatist attitude, a losing attitude, its an excuse..Jerry uses it all the time and it drives me nuts.
Even with the injuries we are far better team then the Pirates so how do you explain that series? If we were healthy we should run away with the division. Injured like we are, we should be still on top albeit a closer race.
Does Shpigel really think a manager can make a team hit better with RISP? If so, it’s no surprise newspapers are failing.
“That 80-pitch curveball drill from spring training has instilled the importance of making contact”
So it took a spring training drill for the Mets to learn that making contact is better than swinging and missing?
fair point…but there is an impact. Its the style of hitting that you use when RISP or with 2 strikes..etc. You dont always swing for the HR every pitch…it all depends on the count and the situation. The whole idea with the drill was to shorten one’s swing, think opposite field…it just makes it more simple to make things happen with RISP than just trying to hit the 3-run bomb.
the key motive i think would be consistency with RISP.
that makes sense, i guess i just agree with Matt that a manager’s impact on players is completely overrated.
that drill to me was a dog-and-pony show by manuel for the media. “Look at me and my inventive drills. Be sure to credit me when great hitters like Beltran and Wright do well this year.”
lol…he probably was thinking that too.
I heard a great piece by Gammons last night about how our team could really thrive by playing in Citi field and how the stadium is perfect for the game’s -re-emerging small-ball trend. And he was pointing to Wright and Beltran being totally different hitters now in our park and that ideally this will make us a very strong offensive team…especially when carried on the road into smaller parks.
I voted approve. I know a lot of people feel that Jerry makes excuses and I am sure there are times he does but I really don’t think that’s one of his major issues. I think the fact that a lot of people don’t like him or some of his desicions is that he sometimes goes with his gut, (which he has admitted i believe) and that sometimes they don’t work out. I guess at that point he really can’t explain it and it makes people frustrated but for the most part I think he has a team first attitude and tries to keep the guys together as a team which I think has been evident this season. he also has a winning record so thats something we all want. He has made stupid moves yes but there are probably a lot of moves he made with his gut that turned out well and therefore were not criticized and discussed.
I gotta say, having the 7th best record in baseball with last year’s bullpen blowing so many games for him, and all the injuries this season, pretty much speaks for itself — and Jerry has always been a second half manager in Chicago because his long-term managing style is stronger than his short-term (read: in game strategy) style. I’m not saying his plan is going to work and the team will be more cohesive in the second half and not make the bad errors, etc, nor am I excusing them for being so sloppy in the first half by pointing out his second half success in the past. Just saying, it does allow for some optimism.
“Historically for me, my teams play better late than early, because I kind of know how they fit,” Manuel said. “Unless there’s been a rash of things thrown into the mix, and it takes me a little longer to figure out who fits where.”
His records in Chicago, for the most part, backs this up.
makes sense…and he has said this, in that he tries to see what he has in players now by testing them in seemingly odd sitautions… but if that gives him the knowledge of who to use and when to make that play, etc…late in the season, then great.
The one thing I will say about Willie is that he too did this — I remember when he left Alay Soler in the game on 4th of July to face ARod with the bases loaded, and he hit an A-bomb to blow the game open. While that was made a likely loss a definite loss, we never saw Alay Soler again, because even tho he had been successful in April and May, we saw what little guts he had in the bigger spot.
There is something to be said for doing this in the meaningless spots, but when you, say, bring Omir Santos in cold from the bullpen to PH with two out in the 9th against a pitcher that was struggling — and it doesn’t work out — you may be taking it too far.
i was gonna use that exact situation as an example. it was stretching things a bit…it also was a slap in the face to Castro IMO.
I think Jerry’s personality works in NY much more effectively than Willie, but his lineup and bullpen management is real questionable. IMO he needs to let Murphy and Church play pretty much every day and he needs to tell them they will be.
BRING BACK WILLIE !!!
BRING BACK MIKE PIAZZA !!!!
BRING BACK TOM GLAVINE !!!!
HELL, BRING BACK TOM SEAVER !!!!!
The principal difference between Manuel and Randolph is he the former talks to his players and allows them to talk to him and you can see it in the game.
Randolph had a don’t bother me I am thinking air about him and it came off that way in his conversations to the press too.
Randolph had become so paranoid last year that when it was suggested that his move to put Ryan Church in the two hole was good and sparked the offense he could not even agree with the reporter posing the question. Instead he insisted that it was coincidence and that Church was not going to remain in the two hole. That was just the apex of I have lost my mind moment for Randolph. All he had to say was “seems to be working out, we are going to ride that for awhile.” But instead to be smarter than the person trying to give him credit for an intriguing move, he backed off the move.
this team wouldn’t be making so many mental errors in the field and on the basepaths if gil hodges was in charge
The amount of mistakes this team has made this year is downright embarrassing. Even last night there were several mental errors made and Beltran was not running hard on the dropped pop-up by Huff. We also saw Wright fail to take the extra base on two occasions. I’m sorry Matt, but part of this has to fall on Jerry. There is no excuse for the laziness we see day in and day out.
While there are many things that really bother me about Jerry and the team’s play in general, I will say this about them. They are a much more resilient bunch with Manuel than they were with Willie. By that I don’t even mean fighting back late in games. It just seems that they are able to forget about a poor performance quickly and come out the next day and play a good game. With Willie, it would seem like a poor outing would weigh on the team for the next couple of games and one bad game turns into a three game losing streak. These guys bounce back, and considering the assortment of mind boggling losses this team has taken, that might be the best thing they have going for them.
Again, we have to be careful what we wish for.
Jerry Manual – I am not a fan. But right now he is somehow helping us keep afloat. Also, there are a lot of bad managers out there. Jerry seems to be getting his team to play for him
Omar – I am a fan here unlike Jerry. You would be hard pressed to name 10 GMs (maybe 5) who are better than Omar. Be careful people what you wish for. We would have Cashman who minus the 200 million + is a lousy GM.