“When you ain’t got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose”

How does it feel? Well, it feels pretty lousy, honestly. After Friday’s game, in the Game Chatter my comment said something about it being a pretty depressing loss. And then came Saturday, which turned out to be more depressing.

“An’ here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice”

Blend logoFor me, the nadir of 21st Century Mets fandom was May of 2013, when night after night after night Terry Collins would write the names John Buck, Ike Davis and Ruben Tejada into the lineup, even though all three were hitting like pitchers. They were dubbed the Terrible Trio and watching the games with those three in the lineup was nothing more than a chore.

In 2013, Collins should have had the freedom to try something else, to be creative and take chances. But he chose not to. Here in 2016, he doesn’t have that freedom. This team is supposed to contend and if he benched Player A for Ty Kelly, people’s heads might explode.

Is it worse to have nothing to lose and play it safe or to play it safe when you have something to lose and watch it all slip away?

It’s easy to get caught up in Talk Radio emotion and propose all kinds of radical moves. Don’t just sit there – do something!

Fire Tim Teufel!
Sign Jose Reyes!
Invite the press in and hold bunting practice every day!
Never take out a starting pitcher with a lead!
Trade the farm for the day’s hot trade target!

There’s this point of view in all walks of life, not just sports, where if you do something, anything really, it’s better than doing nothing. But just as the mere utterance of an oral remark doesn’t make you clever – the mere action of making a move doesn’t make your team better, if the move itself doesn’t really address a fundamental need.

Is Reyes an upgrade on Asdrubal Cabrera? It’s not impossible but I wouldn’t wager on it with your money, much less mine. So why do it?

It’s depressing to watch the Mets right now. But as bad as it is, my fear is the solution is even worse. My prescription is from the movie Alice in Wonderland. “Don’t just do something, stand there!” It doesn’t mean literally to do nothing; it simply means to think through the process and make sure that the right things are getting done the right way.

The lineup was constructed with the idea that there were no superstars but that everyone could contribute and keep the ball moving forward. The lineup would succeed because there were no sinkholes.

Let’s look at the lineup. Who are the sinkholes, the guys hitting like the May 2013 Terrible Trio? Okay, catcher stinks but hopefully that gets fixed next week. Who else? Who else is performing so poorly overall that they just need to go?

We know what the problem is, that the team simply doesn’t hit with Runners in Scoring Position (RISP) Some like to employ narrative here, that this team-wide failure is a character flaw, that somehow our guys just don’t want it enough when they’re up at bat in these situations. If only there was some grit here, that everything would be okay. Meanwhile, here’s the reality:

Curtis Granderson has a .782 lifetime OPS with RISP. This year he’s at .446
Cabrera has a .717 lifetime mark and this year he’s at .622
Michael Conforto had a .931 mark last year and this year he’s at .743
Wilmer Flores put up marks of .762 and .723 the previous two years but is at .422
James Loney has an .805 lifetime mark but is at .516 so far
Kevin Plawecki had a .779 OPS last year and a .647 mark this year

The Mets’ failure to produce with RISP is random. It’s not a character flaw. It’s painfully brutal to watch six guys fall between 95 and 336 points off their career marks in this category. But you know what? Sometimes this stuff happens. And fans of every team thinks bits of random bad luck happens more to them than to other teams.

Is it really random though? Here are David Wright’s yearly OPS with RISP marks, starting in 2006:

1.060
.976
.703
.827
.836
.765
.940
.775
.687
.910
.706

He had a .703 mark in 2008, when he finished 7th in the league in MVP voting. And he had a .910 mark in 2015 when no one considered him one of the elite players in the game. Mr. Clutch himself, Derek Jeter, was all over the map in his career, posting RISP marks as low as .571 and as high as four digits. In a three-year span in the heart of his career, he posted back-to-back-to-back marks of .741, 1.063 and .882 in years where he finished 10th, 2nd and 11th in MVP voting.

If stars like Wright and Jeter can bounce up and down year to year in their RISP productivity, should it be any surprise when others do it?

Someone, likely Chris F., asked me earlier in the year how I could not be upset by this. And it’s not that it isn’t upsetting to watch because it surely is. But what’s your defense against randomness? You can bitch and moan and complain – but all that does is bring you down even more. So why do it? The last two nights have been tough and I fear that bitchiness has encroached upon me. But I’m trying Ringo. I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd.

10 comments on “Reflections on consecutive tough Mets losses

  • Larry Smith

    Brian, I wrote a Mets 360 article in June railing against Teufel and his horrible judgment as third base traffic cop. He is IMHO largely culpable for Saturday night’s loss. Unlike other proposed solutions it can cost the team little to nothing by giving Teufel a reassignment. Let Teuf and Tom Goodwin swap bases for a month or two. Or promote a coach from double or triple A.

    • Brian Joura

      For better or worse, I think of you leading the get rid of Teufel charge.

      Unlike the two instances which came right before you wrote your article, I do think Teufel made a poor choice last night.

      • Metsense

        I was sitting behind third base and I wanted to run out and tackle Flores as he rounded third in order to stop him. A very poor judgement call by Teufel.

    • jeff

      There was no upside to waving the runner around 3rd with zero outs, none.

      Editor’s Note – Please do not capitalize words in your post, as that is a violation of our Comment Policy.

  • TexasGusCC

    While I wrote several days ago that if I were Alderson, I would give alot of thought to signing Jose Reyes. At the time, I was weighing pluses and minuses. I’m done weighing, call his agent. Some players Reyes is better than who are on the roster:
    Ty Kelly
    Alejandro de Aza
    Matt Reynolds
    James Loney
    The catchers don’t count
    You could debate Flores and Lagares, but, I won’t.

    He can play third, pinch hit, give your SS a breather (who had to ask for a day off last week), and give you depth and experience.

    • Chris F

      Gus, come up for air. The only person he can sub for is Cabrera, and hes one of the best guys on the team. and oh, his offense and defense are offensive. Reyes is not the answer to any question this team has.

      • TexasGusCC

        Chris, I was talking about the roster as a whole. Can’t he play third, or second also? While he may not be what he was, he has hit at least .280 every year until he was traded to Colorado. After all, he fits our budget: minimum wage 😉

        Just a thought…

        • Chris F

          I’m closer to maximum rage.

  • Chris F

    Brian,
    It was me. RISP itself is a bit of an albatross because in an of itself carries no relative value. A team batting .250 with RISP sounds much worse than a team batting .350, yet the value does not account for how many times a team finds itself there. In the second example, RISP is higher, but maybe the team gets runners in place at only 50% the rate the other team batting lower is. So there is no exact way to make the comparison with RISP number alone.

    This team could have a number of more wins had BL 0 out situations had a single to drive in 2. It might not require a huge change in RISP number to have a good outcome. The danger in any metric is that none is a sole measure of a team’s standing. There are many ways to win, and lose. In any event, if you look at RISP in connection with almost every batting metric the Mets are dead last…runs scored, hits, double, triple, OPS, slugging…and that does say something. If you look at runs scored with RISP we find the league pretty much sorts itself out. The top half teams are there, with the addition of rockies and reds – who have serious other issues, namely horrific pitching. The bottom also sorts itself out, but the the Mets being anomalous, and again it is pitching that is the culprit, but in our favor since it is so good. It is the only thing keeping the Mets from being the Braves. Unfortuantely, its constantly putting the staff in high leverage situations, which no doubt is adding to the situation.

    Alderson made it clear: the team needs to have more diversity that hitting solo HR. Its a diet entirely of nachos…tastes good, but no nutrition.

    LGM

  • MattyMets

    Brian, nice post. While I agree that no move is better than a bad move, i don’t think the “wait for the cavalry to return” approach is going to work. Wright may be done for the year and Duda and TDA weren’t doing much before they got hurt.

    My first move as GM? Move Walker to third and call up Herrera. It could provide a spark as well as some answers about our future infield.

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