Breaking down Marchman's Column

By Matt Himelfarb
Posted Sunday, May 4, 2008

Well, as I promised, I took a good look over atTim Marchman's column calling for Willie's head a few days back and my overall feeling is: Blah.

First off, for what it is worth, Marchman is a really good guy who communicates regularly with readers like myself; I know, that is like confessing to your man crush on players that run out every well hit grounder to first, but like everything that should be universally standard, you probably know as well as me that the purveyors of reason do not always back up their claim to connecting with their readers to be their number one goal.

This being true despite the fact Marchman has not been as quick to join the dark side until now. To be fair and diminish my hyperbole, Marchman has never seemed overly enthused with the idea of firing Willie Randolph, although I doubt he would go on to commit Harry Caray if the Mets did so. Here is what he had to say on the matter when I interviewed him back in December for Flushing University:

6) Do you think Willie Randolph should have been fired following the collapse?

Probably not, but that's just because I think bad managing is a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. Replacing Randolph wouldn't have had any real effect.

Still, anyone familiar with Marchman's work will tell you that he is generally alienated, to put it lightly, from the old, cursty, cliches usually associated with baseball columnists. That includes, for instance, when I asked him if he believed the widespread consensus within media circles and Metsville alike that the Mets "lacked a certain bit of fire last year":

If they'd won two more games no one would really be complaining about their lack of fire; they just weren't as good or as well-managed as everyone thought they were. I figure the best way to fix that is to get better players.

Hence, Marchman started off his column on Friday as would would expect, stating that "it may not be precisely the managers fault when his men are alternately listless, inattentive, and perplexed." What is truly perplexing, however, is how many blatant exceptions Marchman's finds to this belief.

You see, Marchman goes on to attribute Oliver Perez's, Jose Reyes's, Carlos Beltran's, and Carlos Delgado's early-season struggles to some different version of any of those three descriptions. The fact that Reyes's performance has closely mirrored that of Christian Guzman is wildly inaccurate given Reyes's peformance to date (.275/.325/.477) and Marchman deserves some blame for his poor comparison, but I think it is also fair to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was alluding to his less-than-spectacular performance in the first few weeks. In addition, those very struggles and their relation to Willie's ability to connect with his players, or as Marchman seems to like it, "inspire his men to play at their best", has some serious drive, as I explained earlier. Including Carlos Beltran in that group seemed to be a poorly crafted move on Marchman's part to appeal to the slightly less astute readers; forget the fact Beltran clearly performs better when his teammates are also playing well. There is no reason to think Beltran will not revert to his Hall of Fame form and raise his .398 SLG% in April, with or without Randolph's negative influence.

Nope, there really just two glaring problems with Marchman's column that need to be addressed thoroughly. One, either I am missing something (hey, wouldn't be out of the ordinary), or tying Oliver Perez's outing on Wednesday in which he walked five over 1.2 innings to, "unforgivable errors of concentration and execution"- basically implying that Willie is at fault for this- is completely ludicrous. Marchman needs to be reminded of a little history here, like, 1) Perez has a reputation for being a head case since his Pittsburgh days and, like, 2) Perez has traditionally had control problems since like... Pittsburgh. If anyone is to take the fault for his mental problems, it is Rick Peterson.

More importantly, ascribing Delgado's struggles to Randolph's negative infleunce is not only likely flawed reaosning; they are a complete contradiction to his column exactly a week before. This is not a question of what was written in context; there is no excuse for writing one week this...

Barring the rare case of plain jaking, uninspired play is the result of poor or diminished skill, not the opposite. Usually, if a hitter looks lethargic and as if he doesn't care, it's because he's not any good.

... and than basically accusing Delgado as having all those qualities and blaming it on Willie Randolph. Frankly, I think Marchman was simply looking to fill some columns space there myself.

Given the fact Marchman is usually a well written and enjoyable columnist, I believe part of the motive behind his poor effort can be traced to two factors:

1) The need to say current: Whether gratuitous or not, a lot of the criticism surrounding the Mets the past week or so, as reflected in Billy Wagners recent comments, is that the Mets are playing lackluster and are devoid of enthusiasm and a sense that they care. However, the call to fire Willie Randolph from fans like myself to this day is mostly a product of our frustration with Willie's moves down the stretch last year that led to the collapse, and some of the recent criticism only slightly augments our argument, if it does at all. I am also pretty sure Marchman, judging from his past writing, is pretty familiar with this, but I will cut him some slack on this one because, after all, as I said before, Marchman's goal in the end should be to connect with his readers.

2) Appeal to a larger audience: Again, whether you like it or not, the mainstream fans that, hopefully, if their current opposition to Randolph stays consistent through the ups and downs of the season will be the eventual driving force behind his firing, are the ones that make up the core readership of nearly all baseball publications. Marchman would not necessarily be able to attract more writers to unite in opposition towards Randolph than he would right after the collapse if he listed most of the talking points following the collapse. As he put it, Randolph has basically, "relentlessly inept at identifying his own talent."

The answer is problem a mix of both. Of course, I agree with Marchman's underlying message, but nearly all of his reasoning leaves much to be desired and seems to indicate that he was looking to satisfy some other intentions and, more importantly, feel some extra columns space. I admit to being able to easily relate to this, particularly the latter, but Marchman's contradictions and flat-out factual errors are mind-boggling and should not be ignored.

You can read more of Matt's work at Mets Geek, his blog, and contact him here.