Why Collins, Hagin and Rose were wrong

Saturday’s Mets-Phillies game was not available live on mlb.tv due to the Fox blackout. However, the live radio call was an option so I had that on while watching the Reds-Braves game which was broadcast on TV in my area.

The SNY broadcasters are generally great. The Mets’ radio broadcasters fall something short of that standard. Now, they’re not as bad as the Yankees radio team but still it is a letdown expecting to hear Gary, Ron and Keith and instead ending up with Howie Rose and Wayne Hagin. If you put “Wayne Hagin” into Google, the first result that comes up is the Web site – Fire Wayne Hagin Already!

I grew up listening to a lot of sports on radio. Ralph Kiner, Bob Murphy and Lindsey Nelson doing the Mets, Marv Albert doing the Knicks and Rangers and Marty Glickman doing the Jets is what I cut my teeth on. Radio in the hands of the right broadcaster is terrific. But somehow I doubt that any kids growing up now are going to one day wax nostalgic about the days of their youth when they listened to Howie and Wayne.

Last night, when the bullpen failed to hold another strong outing for Mike Pelfrey, Howie and Wayne were recapping what happened. I’m paraphrasing here, but the general ideas that they conveyed were:

1. All of the moves that Terry Collins made backfired
2. The fault does not lie with Collins because he made the right moves
3. The pitchers did not execute

Numbers one and three are basically correct but two is wrong and indicative of what’s wrong with both managers and broadcasters today. Game management has come down to establishing roles to eliminate second-guessing. The manager is now off the hook if he follows the book and brings in a reliever in a certain situation, regardless of the outcome.

With the game tied 2-2 with two outs in the eighth inning, Chase Utley came to the plate with a runner on first base. Collins went to the pen and brought in lefty Mike O’Connor. A lefty batter up in a key situation, bring on a lefty reliever. That’s basic managing 101, right? A lot of times the answer is yes. But this situation was not one of them.

Why is that? Well because Utley is a superstar. One of the things that makes Utley great is the fact that he is indifferent to whether there is a lefty or righty on the mound. Here are his career left/right splits:

vs RHP – .297/.375/.519 for an .894 OPS
vs LHP – .283/.392/.500 for an .892 OPS

When Utley is at the plate, you want him facing your best pitcher, not the one who throws from the left side. With two outs in the eighth inning, every pitcher in the pen should have been available to enter the game. Where does O’Connor rank in terms of the Mets’ best relievers? I see no way you can rank him as better than the team’s fifth-best reliever.

Call me crazy, but bringing in your fifth-best reliever with the game on the line with two outs in the eighth inning against your biggest rival one night after a crushing loss – I count that as a managerial mistake. Yes, O’Connor takes fault for not getting out the lefty. But Collins takes just as much fault here and is in no way, shape or form off the hook because he managed by the book and brought in a lefty reliever to face a lefty batter.

This is not a small sample thing. Utley has been hitting just as well against lefties for nine years and 1,378 PA now. If you don’t know that Utley has no platoon split, you should neither be managing nor broadcasting major league games.

Did Collins think that O’Connor, who has been pitching great so far in 2011, was his best option in that spot? If the Mets had a 2-1 lead in the ninth inning, would Collins have brought in O’Connor to close out the game? What would Howie and Wayne say if O’Connor was brought in to get the save in the ninth inning?

I tip my hat to Utley, who once again came through in a big spot and proved it makes no difference if there’s a lefty or righty on the mound when he’s at the plate. I shrug at O’Connor and tell him to take his place in line behind all of the other pitchers that Utley has beat in his career. And I shake my head and wag my finger at Collins and the broadcasters for not knowing better.