Talkin’ Baseball …

Like the song says, I am going to be “Talkin’ Baseball” today – – but not about Willie, Mickey and the Duke.  I have commented before that the NY Mets have seemingly had a very difficult time finding someone to be their President of Baseball Operations; they have been searching for someone to take that job for about a year now.  The idea expressed by new owner Steve Cohen when he closed on the purchase of the team was to hire that Team President who would then assemble a management team under him of a GM and then a Field Manager.

According to Albert Einstein:

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

Using that yardstick, Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson must be awfully smart, because they just changed course radically.  About a month ago, they announced that they will not hire anyone as a Team President but would only look for a structure with a GM to hire a Field Manager.  They accomplished that task several weeks ago and announced their new field manager last week.  Buck Showalter will take over the NY Mets once MLB gets back to business.  I think this has the potential to be a brilliant hire on the part of the Mets – – and simultaneously, it has the potential to end very badly.  Let me explain…

Buck Showalter is 65 years old; this is Showalter’s fifth MLB managerial job.  He is definitely an “old-school” baseball lifer.  One of the first challenges he has with this job will be dealing with the team’s new owner.  More than a few baseball reporters have suggested that one of the major stumbling blocks the Mets have faced in finding new executives for the Front Office has been a sense that Steve Cohen is going to be a “difficult boss” who loves to use Twitter.

The good news here is that Showalter has been there and done that – – minus the bit about Twitter – – because his first managerial job was with the Yankees when George Steinbrenner owned and operated the team.  It is almost frightening to think of what Steinbrenner might have done with a Twitter account, but Showalter managed the Yankees from 1992 until 1994 in the aftermath of the strike that year that canceled the World Series.  So, the good news is that Showalter has had experience compartmentalizing his dealings with a mercurial boss and his dealings with the team on the field.  The bad news is that if Cohen and Showalter do not get along to the point where Showalter gets fired after public clashes, it will cement Cohen’s reputation as a “difficult boss”.

  • [Aside:  Showalter also managed the Orioles for 9 years dealing with owner Peter Angelos for an extended period of time in the process.  I remember a former colleague saying that after dealing with Steinbrenner and Angelos, Buck Showalter should have a surplus of Grace on the books when he meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.]

Another challenge for Showalter is the pitching staff the team has assembled for him.  The Mets’ starting rotation could be spectacular with Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer as the #1 and #2 starters – – in whichever order you prefer.  However, an old school baseball guy might recall the 1948 Boston Braves whose pitching staff was characterized famously as:

  • Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.

You cannot doubt the skills of either deGrom or Scherzer if you have paid even a little attention to baseball over the past several years but there are question marks that should not be ignored:

  • deGrom will be 34 years old in mid-June.  In 2021 he was only able to start 15 games for the Mets.  The reported diagnosis was a strain of the ulnar collateral ligament.  For those who are uninterested in anatomy and physiology, that is the ligament that is the “Tommy John Ligament”.  The existence of the major league lockout prevents deGrom from dealing with the team doctors and trainers as they work on rehab that would – hopefully – obviate a second Tommy John surgery for deGrom; he had that operation back in 2010.
  • Scherzer will be 38 years old in late July.  In the playoffs last year, he had to be replaced as the starter for the Dodgers because he said he had “overcooked his arm” in a previous game.  Scherzer has been in the major leagues for 14 seasons and has pitched over 2500 innings during his career.

Certainly, there is no need to panic there – – but managing the pitching rotation could become a challenge for Showalter as the season progresses.

I think a third challenge – and potentially the biggest one – for Showalter will be dealing with the return of Robinson Cano to the clubhouse.  Cano missed all of the 2021 season on suspension for a failed PED test.  I will stipulate that Showalter’s previous managerial times will give him background skills for dealing with this kind of situation, but Cano could provide a burr under Showalter’s saddle outside the realm of his integration into the club house.

As I said, Showalter is an “old school” baseball lifer.  Cano is not renowned for his hustle; when he hits a ground ball to the infield, he will often jog about a half dozen steps toward first base and then walk toward the dugout without ever getting near the bag.  I do not read minds, but I have an idea that will not sit well with the “old school” baseball lifer in the dugout.  Keep an eye out for “insider reports” on this topic.  Cano is signed through the end of the 2023 MLB season.

Finally, Dwight Perry noted another challenge for the NY Mets in his column in the Seattle Times over the weekend:

“Hope the Mets signed 18-year-old Venezuelan outfielder Miriojaycey-Rachidnycander Ray Jean Tadeo Benita.

“Good luck trying to get him to fit all that on an autographed baseball.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………