Opinion: WBC and the Effect on Pitchers, and Moving On
Yesterday, in response to my post about the World Baseball Classic, Peter Greene from Pacific Palisades, California sent the following email:
The real question is how it affects pitchers, and in particular starting pitchers. Also you might want to look at older players as well.Oliver Perez was this classic’s Jake Peavy. Also something that can’t be quantified: besides the high number of Mets playing, they had a new manager. Think about it…new coach trying to implement his own philosophies…then more than half his team leaves in the middle of spring training.
I think it’s easier to deduct the WBC might have a greater negative impact on starting pitchers than it does with position players, but like i said yesterday, I just don’t think March is the right time for Major League players to be playing competitive baseball, and while playing baseball in March just very well might appear to impact pitchers more, I feel the problem might impact both to the same degree…
To a certain extent, I suppose the changes the Mets made from a managerial standpoint could impact the team, but in the case of the Mets, Jerry Manuel took the helm in June of 2008, which gave the bulk of his current club more than half of a season to adapt to his philosophy whether they liked it or not, and I think the lack of preparedness, as a TEAM, could be partially the result of age and half of them not being around for the bulk of Spring Training last season. But I also have to take a look at the situation with the Colorado Rockies, in that Jim Tracy took over for Clint Hurdle midseason last year, turned his ship around, and guided the Rockies to the playoffs, so in this case, why couldn’t Manuel do that in 2008 with arguably a more talented club.
However, with regards to the Mets, I think we are speaking of two different problems Peter, but you certainly bring up a good point which I feel contributed to their 92 loss season – I agree with the possibility of this team might not have been prepared for the 2009 regular season based on early lackluster play with the key players, but like I said yesterday, while there is no way to truly determine the impact of the WBC on the Mets, it’s impossible not to link the two together when it comes to injuries and how many players, both pitchers and position players, participated in the tournament, and ask whether or not it COULD have been one of the causes.
Keep in mind, while Perez, J.J. Putz, Francisco Rodriguez, and Johan Santana all pitched in or were involved with the WBC and either got injured, or underperformed, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, and David Wright all played their respective positions in the WBC and either got injured or underperformed as well – Pedro Feliciano seemed to be the only key player who came away with a good year in 2009 – and if you look around baseball, there are other players, like Peavy and those I mentioned yesterday, where you could make the same argument.
Now, if this problem is combined with the Mets apparent problems with handling these injuries, it becomes one giant catastrophe.
In October 2006, I spoke with someone who had knowledge of the team’s medical situation with regards to Orlando Hernandez and the calf injury he sustained that fall, and he told me doctors felt he could pitch in that postseason and certainly in the NLCS against the Cardinals, but the Mets decided to take the safe route and keep him sidelined.
I think the commonality with this and for example, the handling of the Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes injuries is that the Mets appear to act rather conservatively in hopes they simply return healthy and i think in all three cases, I think it’s distinctly possible they were wrong and they burned themselves because being conservative with Hernandez might have cost them a trip to the World Series, and being conservative with Reyes and Beltran has certainly been contributing factors to a lost 2009 with a potential overlap into 2010.
To make matters worse, the team causes their own distractions, and they create their own questions about themselves when all of the posturing, the standing off, and the he said/she said games in the press could ALL could be avoided, and this has been happening for years.
As a fan, I’m not as much upset about Beltran being out of action for the next three months as I am with what led to this, the team dueling with their star center fielder, and them trying to make themselves look good when I think NEITHER side looks good in this situation, thus causing an unnecessary distraction as we head towards Spring Training. I mean, why couldn’t they just say ‘the player hasn’t recovered as we expected, and he had minor surgery in hopes of correcting the issue’, deal with the internal problem quietly amongst themselves, and move on. At this point, it really doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, because it doesn’t bring Beltran back any sooner, therefore I feel this game between the team and the player/agent is a big waste of energy.
In the end, I’m hoping the best center fielder in baseball returns to the Mets ASAP and I wish, for once, the focus could just be on winning a World Series and finding the best path towards doing so and NOT dealing with the constant damage control on bad decisions by management and/or players.
It’s all i wanted for Christmas…
