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…
I think the biggest issue with the WBC is not that the players go play in the WBC instead of spring training. I don’t think that has much to do with the injuries. I think the problem is, those players that go don’t put as much time getting back into baseball shape. When they have the WBC I feel like the managers rush their players(that are in the WBC) too much during spring training to get their time at the plate and on the mound before they leave for the tournament.
What they should do the years that they have the WBC is start spring training two weeks earlier than they did so the players have time to get back into everything at a normal pace and not try to rush anything so they can be good for the WBC. That extra two weeks would get them in much better shape and cut down on the injuries.
WBC is a disaster for American MLB fans and a thrill for other fans of baseball around the world. The WBC is a huge public relations windfall for MLB at the peril of its players. I cannot tell you how upset I was to learn how many of our (Mets) key players would be participating last year. Nothing good, from a Mets fan point of view could have come from it. Americans could care less who the heck won that contest. Who was the genius that thought it would be cool to take players out of spring training (which in part is designed to gently recondition players) and plop them in the intensity of international competition which is essentially playoff baseball? Do the darn thing the way the NFL does the ProBowl…after the season!
I’m a firm believer that the WBC was a contributing factor to the Mets injuries. Having players come into camp, spend a couple weeks barely chipping the rust off and then throwing them into games where they play hard and want to win is a recipe for disaster. I think it was a mistake for the Dolpons to allow such a large portion of their roster to participate, and open them up to that risk.
I’m in 100% agreement with the article’s points about the Met’s medical handling taking these injuries into a catastrophy.
>>> Keep in mind, while Perez, J.J. Putz, Francisco Rodriguez, and Johan Santana all pitched in the WBC and either got injured or underperformed
Santana didn’t pitch in the WBC. He wanted to, but there was some concern about his surgically repaired knee holding up, so he pulled out.
Of all your statements regarding the debacle between the Mets management and Beltran, now known as Minayagate, the following comments Matt made, as a fan, couldn’t have summed it up any better:
“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.”
I mean, how much more can we as a fan base be made to look like total morons by the organization we support? They are continually making us look like the biggest dopes in professional sports. Fans of other teams laugh and sometimes feel pity that this is who we are stuck with. As Matt said, Twitter is overflowing with Met jokes, once again this off season. They are completely undermining any decent history this team has ever had. I wish the love so many of us have for this team wasn’t so strong because we will ALWAYS come back. And the owners and management know that. The only way we could ever make them feel what we feel would be a boycott, but we’ll never do that….and ownership and management know that…
Michael Baron posted this
Excuses, excuses, excuses… nobody said anything in 2006 when beltra, wright, reyes, delgado, loduca play in it and we alnost won it all when all those players had a great year for us.. plz ppl, move on, stop making excuses as to why the team failed last year or they got hurt.. is simple, our best players got hurt, and oliver peres sti+nks!!!!! The only person who thought he’s got upside and really good stuff is the person that gave him 3 years and 36 MILLION!!
Are you saying that the only reason they failed last year was because their best players got hurt?
If that’s the case then please explain 2007 and 2008.
I remember reading a Cole Hamels interview last year where he said that he was worried about the upcoming 2009 season because he didn’t put in his normal prep time, in getting ready for the season. As a Met fan, I liked that he struggled last year; but I learned something else. We get so used to seeing these guys perform on the big stage, we sometimes forget the importance of putting the time in to prepare.
The W.B.C. in March is a terrible idea. Spring training is the most important prep time players ever have. Hamels complained that his prep time was messed up because of interviews and public appearances. Now imagine playing in exhibition games that mess up your preparation, that messes up your practice routine, that steals away time to bond and build camaraderie.
This is why we’re overpaying for guys like Cora, and overvaluing guys like Hudson. We have a terrible clubhouse culture. The Beltran fiasco just proved yet again, that this is a top-down organizational problem; and not just a clubhouse problem. I don’t think guys liking each other makes your team automatically better. But I do think guys caring about each other, makes them fight harder for each other; and sad but true…but we are an organization of individuals. Ask the Wilpons, ask Mr. Minaya, ask Jerry Manuel, ask everyone on the 40 man roster. They’ll deny it…but I saw it in 2007, 2008, 2009, and now already in 2010.