Tim TeufelLet’s put this right at the top. The Mets will not be making a change in the third base coaching box this year. It is not in their nature. Any team that would allow Curtis Granderson to play regularly against left handed pitching despite his career numbers (.224 BA and .296 OBP vs. lefties) and then use him as their leadoff batter is way too protective of egos to make such a move.

This is not to advocate that Teufel be fired but rather reassigned possibly even in a swap of bases with first base coach Tom Goodwin.

In stating my reasoning I will point to several errors made by Teufel in last Friday’s game in Cleveland. Undoubtedly there will be people responding with the fact that the Mets won so who cares if they ran the bases incorrectly. While others will say that since players and managers have their off days we should allow for off days by base coaches. There’s no denying that except that when players and managers have too many off days they are replaced by players and managers who have fewer off days. Teufel seems to have more than his fair share of off days.

Personally I was always a fan of Tim Teufel when he played much of his 11 year career with the Mets. He was an offense first second baseman who, like Neil Walker, made all the plays he could get to but was challenged a bit in the range department. He was not a particularly fast or skilled base runner as his 23 stolen bases against 19 caught stealings attest. That poor success rate may even speak to his judgment of his own running speed but also could be a bunch of hit-and-run plays gone bad.

His post playing career has included a number of minor league managing positions. He was named the Mets’ third base coach after the 2011 season.

In Friday’s game the Mets managed to have not one, but two, base runners thrown out at home plate when there were no outs. The first time it happened was in the second inning. Neil Walker had singled and on a Cespedes double he tried to score. Replays appear to show Teufel waving Walker in. For this to be an advisable move one would need about a 90% success rate with no one out.

In the 8th inning there were two blunders although the bigger one might not be on Teufel.

That half inning went like this:

De Aza singled to left. Granderson singled to center, De Aza to third. De Aza was out advancing, center fielder R.Davis to second baseman Kipnis to catcher Gomes, De Aza out. D.Wright walked on a full count, Granderson to second. On Gomes’ passed ball, Granderson to third, D.Wright to second. Conforto popped out to left fielder J.Ramírez. Céspedes grounded out, shortstop Lindor to first baseman Napoli.

I am not sure whether De Aza was waved in by Teufel or whether he ran through a stop sign. If Teufel was trying to stop him then all the blame goes to the player.

The Conforto “pop out” to left field was in medium left and while my estimation was that Granderson had perhaps a 40% chance of succeeding against the arm of Jose Ramirez (who after all is a converted infielder) he should have been sent because the catch made for the second out of the inning.

My point is that we have endured numerous misjudgments by Teufel in his role as third base traffic cop. In a typical season he may be costing his team anywhere from six to a dozen or more runs. If someone else on the coaching staff has better judgment then that fellow should be flashing the signals from third.

Tom Goodwin might be a good candidate since he was a very proficient runner (though not much of a hitter during his playing days). Goodwin stole 369 bases in his career and had a 63% success rate which is about at the break-even point according to the Sabermetricians. It is altogether possible that Goodwin could do a better job than Teufel at directing traffic.

We will likely never know because the Mets won’t make such a move even though it just might be another little thing they could do to increase scoring and avoid embarrassing plays at the plate like we saw several times last week.

One would think that since most teams have video specialists they could probably create a video test where candidates are shown 10 to 20 cases of runners heading to third. The coaching candidates would be told who the runner is and which outfielder or infielder (if it’s a relay throw) is involved. The viewer would then have a split second to make the send him or don’t send him call. If one of the candidates is clearly superior to the rest i.e. getting the most answers correct, it is he who should be the team’s third base coach.

11 comments on “Tim Teufel should not be the Mets’ third base coach

  • TexasGusCC

    Larry, nice read but there are points to discuss:
    – Any successful organization has to check its egos at the door.
    – Tom Goodwin helps the base stealers read the pitcher.
    – Tim Tuefel has been lauded many times for his hard work in preparing. Everyone has a bad night. Undoubtedly these will be remembered in Metsland as they were glaring miscues. Let’s monitor the situation because I don’t remember Tuefel making many mistakes, aside from early in spring trading this year and Cohen as a joke said its spring training for the coaches also.

    BTW, if you want to see bad, you should have seen the Arizona-San Francisco game on Tuesday night. First and second, nobody out. Tomas hits a ball that Span goes back for, dives, and can’t get; one bounce to the wall. Goldschmidt was on second, and originally was going to tag up, but now starts running. [Matt Williams is the third base coach for Arizona and was for years, with many accolades.] Williams holds Goldschmidt up, on a ball that bounced to the wall!! It was such a “no brainier”, the trail runners had to sprint back almost a full base path to their bases! How no one was thrown out is impressively lucky. The announcer for Arizona (think it was Mark Grace) couldn’t believe it. Neither could I. All three of those guys scored eventually, but the announcers kept talking about it into the next half inning.

  • Eric

    So, I gather this is one of those pieces where the author reacts to current events but ignores the body of work. Thank God fans don’t get a voice in running the team. Nice piece though.

    • Larry Smith

      I used Friday’s game as an example. Personally I have seen Teufel’s bad judgment calls for years. When the team was a joke it didn’t matter that much and I even felt he was being groomed to be Terry Collins’ replacement.
      But when even one or two wins could be the difference between making and missing the playoffs you have to have all the oars in the water. That means maximizing runs on the bases and minimizing embarrassing baserunning errors made by a coach’s error.

      • neal

        I agree with you Larry, i never felt Teufel was a good 3rd base coach. Way to many runners getting thrown out at the plate.

  • mike cala

    Teufel is one of the worst 3B coaches I have seen in my over 50 years watching baseball games. He is not only often wrong, but he’s also inconsistent. He hasn’t a clue how to judge the sending of runners. The above suggests auditions for this job. Everyone knows coaches are hired because they are friends/colleagues of the Mgr, or loyal former team players.

  • James Preller

    I am not out for Teufel’d head, but he did have a very bad night in Cleveland.

    I’ve probably coached 3B in at least 750 games, ranging from men’s hardball to Little League. For me, all of those decisions are fluid, with many variables. But I do love the “run expectation” charts that have been calculated by the folks at Baseball Prospectus and elsewhere. They’ve entered all the raw data into a computer and come up with percentages for every hitting situation: no outs, nobody on base; two outs, man on third; etc.

    When teams have runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs, they average a total on 1.89 runs that inning. When there is a runner on 2nd with one out, they average .65 runs. That’s a huge difference. So when you send a guy home with nobody out, it can’t be close. The risk is too great, because this is the moment when you can run your team out of a big inning. In addition, you have to factor in where you are in the lineup, the score of the game, and so on. This was a DH game — no pitcher batting — so it really was just horrible decision-making, IMO.

    But the game isn’t easy and guys screw up. I think Timmy might have gotten caught up in the team’s offensive struggles and tried to “make something happen.”

    When I manage games, I remind myself of a favorite expression: “Don’t just do something, stand there!”

    That is, resist the urge to impose yourself unto the game. Let the player’s play

  • Matt Netter

    Kipnis’ relay throw was an absolute bulls eye bullet and it was still a close enough call to warrant a replay. If that throw wasn’t perfect, de Aza was safe.

    In general, I tend to err on the side of risk with sending runners. Not every throw is perfect, runs are hard to come by (except in Philly and Cleveland apparently) and you hate to see a runner stranded at third. Of course, I’m not suggesting to send a runner on a shallow fly to Stanton or Heyward.

    • TexasGusCC

      Very fair point about the de Aza play.

  • EddieMetz

    If this is what we are all worrying about for the Mets ( 3b coach ?) really ?
    Guess then the Mets are doing pretty darn good.

    Just go back to April of ’15, ’14, ’13 and see what we where all worrying and crying about then !

    How about 17 homers in 5 games ?
    Syndergaard, Matz, deGrom coming back, Neil Walker, Cespedes mashing again, better defense, etc, etc…
    This is a WS team if healthy, cut it out already about the darned base coaches !

  • Chris F

    HRs apparently eliminate the need for a 3B coach!

    In any event, this is a harsh assessment of Tuff. As mentioned above, one play was replayed…after a safe call. That’s not on 3B coach, especially at a time when we couldnt find home plate with a GPS.

  • TexasGusCC

    Larry, you were right…

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