Usually Terry Collins never misses a chance to use a lefty reliever. If you recall, he spent much of the previous two seasons bellyaching about not having a second lefty to utilize out of the bullpen. So it was a bit surprising in a game that lasted 20 innings and one in which the Mets used eight pitchers, lefty reliever Robert Carson was not one of them.
It’s only surprising because of Collins’ well-documented fetish for lefties. If it was anybody outside of the guy who is best defined as “matchup crazy,” we would just consider it a manager trying his best to win the game. Because why on earth would you want to bring Carson into a tie game at this point? Carson has pitched in 12 games and allowed runs in eight of them. In 17 IP he’s allowed 17 runs, 16 of which were earned. That’s an 8.47 ERA.
It’s my firm belief that managing your bullpen to maximize the effectiveness of a situational lefty actively hurts the team. But if you insist on operating in that fashion, at least carry lefties who are, you know, not sub-replacement level. In 157 PA against LHB in the majors, Justin Hampson has a .594 OPS against. By contrast, Carson has a lifetime .893 OPS against lefties in the majors. Yet Carson is the one drawing a major league paycheck.
But it’s not just that Hampson would be a better choice against lefties. Every single RH reliever in the pen does better against LHB than Carson. Here’s how the five righties in the pen have fared against LHB in 2013, followed by our second lefty specialist:
| PA | OPS | |
|---|---|---|
| David Aardsma | 1 | .000 |
| Greg Burke | 29 | .519 |
| Brandon Lyon | 38 | .528 |
| Bobby Parnell | 50 | .548 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 49 | .805 |
| Robert Carson | 32 | .909 |
The decision to remove Collin McHugh from the roster to make way for Aardsma was … curious. Not that McHugh was pitching great but at least he could theoretically act as a long man out of the pen. You know, something that might have been useful in a 20-inning game. Instead, the Mets kept a second situational lefty, one who couldn’t be trusted in a close game.
Without a long man, the Mets turned to Shaun Marcum to soak up innings. The back-to-back rainouts played some havoc with the rotation and made Marcum available for this type of duty, even if he had no idea coming into Saturday that he would be used out of the pen. If nothing else, we see that Marcum could fill the role of long man if needed. He now has 43.2 IP as a reliever under his belt, giving him more experience than Jeremy Hefner in the role – with a better ERA, too.
At this point, we can only hope that Carson gets sent out when Zack Wheeler gets the call to the majors.
Meanwhile, every person has their favorites and their biases. The hope is that a manager’s strong points will vastly outweigh his counter-productive tendencies. Some might call Collins anal in his predilection to chase the platoon advantage. But it’s never going to change unless it’s hammered home by the rest of us that it’s simply not working.
It seems to be a strategy of certain people that if you repeat something often enough, it becomes true in the public’s mind – no matter how idiotic and demonstrably false it is in real life. No doubt you can think of certain politicians who employ this gambit.
At this point, there should be no doubt among those of us with a pulse and functioning eyes that Collins’ desire to have two lefties in the bullpen has been a complete and utter failure. Yet dollars to doughnuts that when the expected Wheeler for Carson transaction is made, the manager will lament having to go through games with only one lefty in the pen.
So, when this expected bleating about the need for multiple lefty relievers happens – do not mindlessly nod in agreement or sit silently, in apparent agreement. Instead ask a very simple and very necessary one-word question:
Why?
For weeks now I have been wondering why Carson is still in the bull pen when we need a 2nd lefty TC doesn’t have to be afraid to pitch in a game? Why is he taking up a roster space
and hasn’t been sent to AAA yet? I am not a big fan of Hampton so why not give Leathersich
a chance? I have also been wondering how long it will be till the mets promote him to AAA
and why the promotion hasn’t happened yet after all he’s been tearing up AA and should have
been in AAA for weeks now but we all know how slow SA and is staff are when it comes to making changes! Because of the shortage of lefty pitchers at AAA and AA the mets should need to take a chance and give Leathersich a shot! The worse that could happen is they send back down but he has the make up to succeed in the ML’s and with his stuff would make a great set up man and a future closer(Bobby’s 29 yrs old)he could also give Parnell a break when they want to give Rice and Parnell a rest!
Hmmm, Brian, it’s not often you’re article is completely off base, but in this case it is. He’s clearly been used as a mop-up man/long man for TC and not a left specialist.
If you look at his appearances, here are the number of innings pitched. 1, 2.1, 0.1, 2.1, 2, 2, 2, 1.1, 0, 0.1, 1, 1.2. That’s 12 appearances and 7 are 1+ innings.
He has only twice appeared in games in which the team was within 3 runs of winning/losing, and the they came in consecutive appearances on April 27 and April 29th. Since then, he’s only pitched in blowout wins or losses. Baseball reference has 62 of his 75 PA’s classified as low-leverage, and i’m guessing it would be much higher if you took out his first 3 games.
So I don’t know why TC continues to use him as a long man. Perhaps he might be able to do well in a traditional 1 inning reliever, but we don’t know at this point. Either way, his role needs to be changed or he needs to be moved. The only reason he even survived the roster crunch was because AAA needed another starter.
I purposely and specifically did not call him a LOOGY.
However, there’s no way anyone can say with a straight face that if Carson threw with his right hand he would still be in the majors.
Carson is 24 years old. If he isn’t pitching in the majors then send him down and keep working on his game. He should have been gone yesterday instead of McHugh for the reasons Brian stated.
As I said in yesterday’s chat – bring up Leathersich but after some thought it wouldn’t be wise because a reliever has to go down for Wheeler so why put Leathersich on the 40 man prematurely . He should be promoted to AAA.
Glad to see Kirk up. The minor league outfielders have not produced in the majors, so I would keep rotating them like a taxi squad and hopefully one will emerge.
Ankiel’s departure opened a 40 man roster spot. I would fill it with Josh Satin to platoon at 1B with Ike and send Valdespin down. Andrew Brown just came off the DL so as soon as he gets a few AB (and if Ike doesn’t turn it around) he would be my next call up and play LF with Baxter getting a few starts and Duda/Satin as the 1B platoon. There isn’t much talent on this team, mostly replacement type players, and after witnessing that 20 innings of futility it is apparent a mix up is needed. After all, we are only shuffling replacement talent around.
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I worried about possible partying ways…I think an athlete today faces incredible pressure from the money, fame and power that comes with making it to the major leagues and needs to become focused on the game.
I also am concerned about Page Six and Matt Harvey. Hopefully, his school teacher father’s standards will keep him steady.
Really his role is simple: DFA.
Today Gary Cohen was saying that Brandon Lyon’s stats were better against lefty hitters than righties. I don’t know how big a sample it is, but it seems TC is wedded to the idea of lefty-lefty match-ups. His head is in the sand.
The awful truth is that the team’s talent level is so poor that even a good manager would look bad.
Rob Carson has no role on this team, as evidenced by his performance today. Send him down and bring another body, lefty or righty, who might stand a chance of getting hitters out. The poor management of this roster just adds the team’s ineffectiveness.
Well, its clear now Carson has been demoted. Ike and Baxter too. Its a paltry start. Sandy says the coaching is not the problem…he is wrong. the coaches and philosophy suck, and so does he as a GM. As we plan ahead, this is now more a ’16-’19 project. We have rot in ever corner of the club.