Buck Showalter wastes little time showing the advantages of dugout strategy

In the January 2018 update to our Comment Policy here at Mets360 is the following:

Come here curious to learn new (or old) things and consider new (or old) ideas. If you think the only things that matter are Wins, RBIs and batting average – please go somewhere else. If you think everything is done better today than it was 40 years ago, you’re just as bad.

One thing that seems like it was done better years ago than it is today is the clearly defined roles between the manager and the front office, at least with regards to the best managers. In the 20th Century, if something good or bad happened during the game – we knew who was responsible and it was the manager. He’s the one who filled out the lineup, he’s the one who made the pitching changes and he’s the one who determined when his players were going to bunt or steal. Today all of those decisions are more likely to be handed to the manager by the front office.

We have a whole generation of fans who believe the most important thing for a manager is how well he communicates, both with his players and with the media. If we had a dollar for every time someone praised Luis Rojas for his communication skills, we’d all be walking around in new designer suits and shades. Rojas seemed completely overmatched in the dugout but we were told over and over again that was a minor part of a manager’s job.

In October of 2020, after his first year on the job but when we knew that a new owner and a new GM were coming, there was a poll at the site asking if the Mets should retain Rojas as the manager. We had just witnessed a drop in winning percentage from .532 to .466 and there was a list of managerial blunders as long as your arm that no one should have willingly accepted.

Yet 56% of the respondents felt that Rojas should be maintained.

That was absolutely shocking to me. Rojas’ second year at the helm was little better from a results point of view and the great communicator allowed insubordination from his players and offered barely a whisper of protest when the front office allegedly crammed information overload into the daily hitter meetings.

At least by the end of the season, most people viewed Rojas as a dead man walking. We debated about what type of manager the Mets should get to replace the great communicator and those of us who wanted someone with more say on how things were done were told that’s not how the managerial game was played in the 21st Century.

We should never blindly accept sub-optimal decisions because that’s the way most teams do it.

Fortunately, by the time the Mets were conducting managerial interviews, most people had come back to their senses. In a December 2021 poll, 84% of the respondents here thought Buck Showalter should be the team’s next manager. And indeed, that’s who the Mets chose.

Some were worried how Showalter, who last managed in 2018, would handle a front office that wanted to be heavily involved in the day-to-day activities of the club. If you’ve been a reader here for any length of time, no doubt you’ve seen me use the phrase “creative friction” more than once. This is absolutely a good thing, perhaps even a necessary thing. And it only works if you hire people with backbone. And no one will ever accuse Showalter of being a chocolate eclair.

Instead of all of the stories from the mainstream media about what a great communicator our manager was, we now heard about Showalter’s amazing attention to detail and how no situation was going to catch him unprepared. And if you doubted that for a minute, what happened in Game 2 of his Mets tenure should have put that to rest.

After the Mets were hit by a pitch three times in the season opener, including twice at shoulder height or above, Showalter was 100% ready with what he was going to do if it happened again. And when it happened in the very next game, the 65-year-old Showalter sprinted out of the dugout before any of his players, ready to fight anyone and everyone.

What would the great communicator have done in the exact same situation? My guess is he would have gesticulated wildly with his hands from the bottom of the dugout steps, while crafting the verbal tongue lashing he was going to give the other team in his post-game news conference.

There are plenty of typical strategy things we can point to in support of Showalter here after just three games. The decision to make Tylor Megill the club’s least-experienced Opening Day starter ever, to keep his other veteran pitchers on their normal rotation is one. Having Seth Lugo, who’s been generally treated with kid gloves in his usage, appear in back-to-back games in the club’s first two contests is another. And so, too, was the decision to have all 14 hitters on the roster start one of the first three games of the year.

But nothing will have the same impact for Showalter as his response to another player getting hit near the head. While violence isn’t the answer, the idea that the old man was ready to throw down with people less than half his age was quite the leadership statement. Essentially, with that charge from the dugout, Showalter told his team: We’re all in this together and I’m not going to ask anything less of myself than I’d ask from you.

It’s one thing to think that or even to give lip service to the idea. It’s quite another thing to actually do it. And not only to do it but be ready to do it at the drop of the hat. If players weren’t ready to run thru a brick wall for Showalter before, you can bet they are now.

To all of the fans who were willing to accept communication over strategy from the team’s manager – this is what’s been missing from the “yes men” that have been hired by the Mets for far too long. Chances are we’ll never see Showalter make a similar charge for the rest of his tenure. But we probably won’t have to, either. But you can be sure he’s thinking three steps ahead for his next tactical advantage.

Hopefully, you will never value complete subservience to others from a Mets manager ever again.