What Went Wrong?

By Taryn "The Coop" Cooper
Posted Wednesday, October 3, 2007

As we dine over our guts about the Mets collapse this year, the question that begs to be answered is…

What went wrong?

It’s hard to say that any one thing was the Achilles’ heel of this club. From the middle reliever all the way up to the upper rings of management, someone had their part in this monstrous fall from grace. If you think about it, the problems started rearing their ugly head around…oh, say Game 2 of the 2006 NLCS.

This was a game that should have been in the proverbial bag. Famously Guillermo Mota, a middle relief guy with tons of moxie who was a welcome change in the bullpen after losing resident bad-ass Duaner Sanchez to an unfortunate injury and who also owned pitches that would knock batters out of the box with their sheer force, shook off Paul LoDuca and subsequently changed the course of the magical playoff run of the Mets in 2006.

We all know what happened almost one week later. But is it possible that impacted the psyche and the moxie of the 2007 Mets? And by that, I mean, losing the NLCS is such a fashion?

Let’s take a look, shall we?

We noticed a decline in the power, first of all, to Mets star David Wright in 2006 that spilled over into the beginning of 2007 (hitting streak or no). Though he put MVP numbers up for the rest of 2007, Mets fans were worried he may have believed his own hype.

We also noticed that Jose Reyes, a spunky ground ball hitter who liked to bunt to get on base a lot, had pop, stole lots of bases, etc, also started to try to hit the long ball a lot. A LOT. Not to mention prolonged slumps of the Carloses, not to mention injuries (which surprisingly, the Mets didn’t get a lot of in 2006, besides to Cliff Floyd).

The bullpen was bulletproof in 2006. In the playoffs, we definitely got to see the weaknesses that carried over into 2007. While Billy Wagner provided brief respite in 2007, a year that was meddled with heartbreaking losses to begin with, Wagner was not as “trustworthy” in 2006, for lack of a better term. With Duaner Sanchez out for the2007 season unexpectedly, Aaron Heilman once again had to shoulder (no pun intended) the bulk of the middle relief responsibility. And as Heilman said a few weeks back as he closed out a game when Wagner was out with a “dead arm,” that he does not have the mental capacity to handle being a closer (hence, supporting The Coop’s theory about Heilman, but this is neither the time nor place).

In 2006, no one questioned Omar Minaya or Willie Randolph or even Rick Peterson, who was hailed as a “genius” for making over young talent like John Maine and Oliver Perez. In 2007, blame was the name of the game, but I would say all three got their share equally. Rick Down, too, although he was fired midway into 2007.

So, Coop! What went wrong?

I would say off the top of my head, there are eight factors that contributed to the collapse this year, including:

1. The starting pitching
2. The bullpen
3. Timely hitting
4. Power decline for Carlos Delgado
5. Injuries, injuries, and more injuries. Did I mention injuries?
6. Refusal to use new blood (i.e. Lastings Milledge, Ruben Gotay, Philip Humber/Mike Pelfrey in relief) over proven vets (Shawn Green, Jose Valentin, Luis Castillo, Mota, Heilman) when it was evident the everyday players were exhausted come September
7. Pronounced in-game management mistakes
8. And last but certainly not least, the enigma of Jose Reyes.

I saved Jose Reyes till the end there because I think it is symptomatic of what playing a boring team can do to you.

The starting pitching and bullpen are almost too easy of targets so let’s start there. With Pedro Martinez out for most of the 2007 season, Minaya’s first step was to fatten up the rotation. I think last year, when Omar’s three-way deal to nab Roy Oswalt fell through, we all knew Barry Zito – young lefty star from Oakland – was on the open market in 2007, he would be Plan B essentially. Technically Plan A was to nab Daisuke Matsuzaka, but when the Red Sox decided to buy their way into the postseason with an astronomical bidding price just to speak to the guy, it didn’t look like he’d come to the Mets.

Barry Zito looked attainable, since he hired Scott Boras as his agent and typically, Boras clients go where the money is. Unfortunately, Zito wanted money and years, and Minaya balked at his asking price in terms of years.

I’m not saying that Dice-K or Zito would have helped much if at all. But those two non-signings definitely changed the dynamic of the pitching structure before the season even started.

For example, Minaya had let Chad Bradford, bullpen stalwart and dependable arm in 2006, walk to the Orioles, who offered him one more year the Mets offered. Apparently, the thinking was Joe Smith was another submariner coming through the ranks, Bradford’s services would not be needed in three years, along with supposed inning eaters Dice-K or Zito coming to the team.

Well since neither came to the team, in what I deem Minaya’s “panic move,” he signed Scott Schoeneweis to a similar deal to Bradford’s with the Orioles. Not to mention, the team would need to rely on Guillermo Mota more since Duaner Sanchez reinjured his shoulder during rehabilitation during Spring Training, where he also showed up about 30 pounds overweight.

So not only is the starting pitching full of question marks with John Maine’s first full year in the majors, Oliver Perez’s known inconsistency, Tom Glavine and El Duque’s ages catching up to them, and Mike Pelfrey’s inexperience (since he won the draw to the be the fifth starter out of ST), the bullpen is not nearly as strong as it was in 2006.

But of course as long as the pitching kept us in the game, the offense would surely take over, score lots of runs, then game over.

NOT!

In The Coop’s debut article at FU (Down on Rick), she noted the uselessness of Rick Down, who just basically sat around, as the offense went into decline. While he got fired, and she lamented that fact here, Howard Johnson was a definite upgrade for his protégé David Wright, he fared a little better, but not much.

The point is, timely hitting became almost a punch line for Mets fans this year, watching game after painful game, points where ducks were on the pond, and the batters could not drive them home. Now, we all know fundamentals like clutch hitting or hitting with runners on the base cannot be taught, but we have very gifted hitters and offense here in Queens. No reason for this decline except for maybe laziness or tiredness.

Tying into poor offensive games, that was when the pitching would show up, and you’d see the starters give up two, maybe three runs. Of course, the bullpen would be bulletproof that night too.

So let’s ReCoop if we may. Starting pitching was shaky, old in some areas, but for the most part formidable. The bullpen had more question marks. But the offense was to keep us in games too. Win them, too.

Enter Carlos Delgado, remover of all things scoring-wise and hitting wise.

Delgado, of the spiral notebook fame, had a noticeable power decline in the first month of the season. When David Wright and Delgado both had a pronounced power slump, most fans were concerned but knew they would both pull out of it.

While DW put up MVP numbers for the rest of the season, Delgado…not so much.

And while he did bounce back, with a .258 BA for 2007, as opposed to .265 in 2006, his production declined massively, as he followed up his 38 HR and 114 RBI year in 2006 with a whopping 24 HR and 87 RBIs in 2007.

No wonder F.U.-ers are calling for A-Rod to be a Met next year. With that decline in production, we had to find those RBIs elsewhere. Thank goodness for Carlos Beltran and David Wright. But still, it was not enough.

Carlos Delgado sat out with an injury early in September as he was getting hot (and ironically, his season ended not because it was the last regular season game but because he was hit with a Dontrelle Willis fastball), but Delgado was not the only who sat out with an injury this season.

Carlos Beltran was called to task many times on our forums due to his “injuries” that would magically appear as his numbers suffered. Now, I can’t say that he was making it up, but the management always seemed very shocked to hear about these injuries.

Trust me, there was more. Starting second baseman Jose Valentin was out early in the season, then after he came back, had a season ending injury. His replacement, Damion Easley, tweaked his leg while trying to run to second base, also late in the season.

Endy Chavez popped his hamstring running out a simple grounder in June. Free agent “coup” Moises Alou was out three months with a quad injury. Coincidentally -- surprise! -- the Mets collective production declined and they started their descent.

That said, Moises put up decent numbers the rest of the season -- .341 BA, .392 OBP and .524 SLG. Madon’, as Tony Soprano would say, could you imagine what he could have done for the team had he been here May, June AND all of July?

With Alou’s “replacement” Chavez being down, their replacement in Lastings Milledge was ALSO injured, bringing up Carlos Gomez to an early rise. Carlos Gomez HIMSELF got injured, but that was after everyone was pretty much back.

Even Paul LoDuca was not immune, tweaking his hamstring running the bases. Something tells me that if ANYONE should get canned, it should be the Mets conditioning coordinator!

My point is – the injury bug reared its ugly head this season. A lot. And it impacted the team more than we could possibly imagine.

Even with all these injuries, even with Shawn Green in a season long slump (save April and September), even when we all knew as good as Moises was, he should not be out there every day…Willie continued to use Green over Milledge for the most part. Ruben Gotay was new blood that could have been used every day or at least platooned with Valentin or Easley.

Leading me to the next point: the refusal to use young blood when it was obvious the guys who had carried the team in 2006 were simply exhausted.

When the 40-man roster was activated in September, Mets fans breathed a sigh of relief. No more Mota! No more Schoeneweis! No more Sele! No more Heilman’s dirty looks! Seriously, these guys needed some time to rest up for the “postseason.” Even with young dudes Willie Collazo, Philip Humber, Pelfrey and Smith hanging around, Randolph still continued to drive the every day guys into the ground. Prompting even Billy Wagner to say some controversial statements at the end of the season about how Randolph does not understand the mindset of a reliever, that he cannot go to the same guys every day and expect the same results. Although the timing was impeccable, Wagner was right.

And when Brian Lawrence, legendary 5th man, blew any team chances of coming back for, well, at least four tries too many, Minaya as rumor has it forced Randolph’s hand into using Humber. Now, we are not sure how true that is…but in the middle of a heated pennant race…the last week of the year…with the second place team literally breathing down your neck…Humber did the improbable and kept the team in the game. For four innings. Enter bullpen. Game. Set. Match. For the Nationals.

Leading me to my next point – in-game strategy by the management. Do I need to bring this up again? Thought not.

Lastly, Jose Reyes. Jose! Jose-Jose-Jose….where did you go?

While F.U. Prof Stefi Kaplan warned that Jose might start buying into his own hype here, personally, I thought it was a crazy notion. I didn’t think it was completely off, but I thought, oh Jose is just misunderstood, he’s having fun. He wasn’t that robot SS over on the other New York team. Jose had personality. Heaven forbid, right?

Wrong.

If I had to point anything glaringly missing from the team in the second half it would not only be Jose’s pop but Jose’s head. Where were you Jose? Talking to blog wizard Greg Prince from Faith and Fear in Flushing, after watching Jose ”dog” another ground out, I asked him his theories. His explanation was very simple. We forget how young he is and how young he was when he was anointed the savior of this club. True enough. But I guess David Wright’s aw shucks demeanor that kind of grew tired compared to Jose’s sabor and hand jives and dancing in the clubhouse (not to mention his contagious enthusiasm and smile) was the right way to go?

Not really. Baseball needs guys like Jose Reyes to keep it real.

What we don’t need is another head case a la Bobby Bonilla. Or Vince Coleman. Or Jeff Kent. Or Richie Hebner.

Or Rickey Henderson.

Perhaps the peanut gallery is right in saying that when Henderson arrived as first base coach after Howard Johnson was promoted to hitting coach, there was a distinct change in Jose’s demeanor. He became more arrogant, like he was entitled to a stolen base. I’ll never forget the Marlon Anderson interference game against the Phillies in August when Jose got picked off not once but twice in the game by two different lefties.

Or he could have just been tired. Or some other rumor I heard that I will not mention in a public forum.

So what is my final answer on the Mets? Well, I can’t pick just one problem. This team never had “it” and by “it” I mean, they never seemed to click at the same time. How many nights of a Mets loss we’d say – wow, if only the pitching could have held the fort to five runs, we’d have been good. Or if only the bats woke up tonight, the pitching was stellar. Or the starting pitching and bats were all right, but that ‘pen will kill ya.

You can’t pinpoint where it all went wrong. Some can point to the June swoon, others to injuries, others to players not performing to expectation.

But on Monday, October 1, after the Mets were not just eliminated from postseason contention but humiliated out of postseason contention…all we know is, it just went wrong.And unfortunately, for the fans like us, we are left holding the fabulous bag. Or the postseason tickets that are as worthless as a three-dollar bill.