MLB 2019

[The Buscher]

Oakland A’s:  two straight years with 97 wins, two straight years being trounced in the Wild Card game.

[Meacon Keaton]

It's almost like a 162-game season shouldn't come down to a one-game playoff or suttin!

[The Buscher]

If they have to have two Wild Cards (and they shouldn’t), it really should be that the lower seed has to win two games while the higher seed just needs to win one, unless they have identical records.

Wouldn’t prevent the rest of the playoffs from starting on time.

[The Buscher]

Mets fire Mickey Callaway

[Meacon Keaton]

Hey Mickey, you so fired

You so fired, you got no job! 

Hey Mickey, Hey Mickey!

[The Buscher]

The team played hard for Mickey, I'll give him that.  He was firmly on the hot seat 10 games under .500 at the break, and when a manager has lost the clubhouse it's super easy for the team to just play out the string and ensure the guy gets canned.  But they went on a nice run and finished 10 games over .500.

But this team could've made the playoffs if not for his horrendous in-game management throughout the year, specifically with the bullpen.  That it took him until three weeks left in the season to remove Diaz from the closer role after he'd been getting lit up all year is astounding.

All that said, I'm not optimistic that the team will bring in the best candidate, and that would be Girardi.  It doesn't figure to be a super active offseason, with so many young players hitting arbitration for the first time the projected payroll next year is already way higher than this year without making any moves.  So if their big financial splash is Girardi I think the fanbase would be fine with that.  But even still, I don't know that I buy the Mets being willing to dole out $5 million a year to a manager when they can hire some guy like Joe Espada for less than $1 million, even though it puts them right back at square one.

[The Buscher]

Carlos Beltran openly expressed wanting to manage two years ago when he retired and was the runner-up for the Yankees job.  He's apparently turned down an interview opportunity with the Padres and a source close to him has said the is no chance he returns to the Mets.

Still plenty of openings out there if he's waiting for the right situation but straight up turning down the Padres with their loaded system has me thinking he's decided against managing at all.  He's still got his baseball academy to run.

[Meacon Keaton]

I hope he goes nowhere. He's been a fan-friggin'-tastic special advisor for the Yanks. He'll make a mediocre team good and a good team great whenever he does take a managerial job. 

[GhostMachine]

Relax, Relax. He won't go anywhere until the Yankees get eliminated by the Astros.

 

[Meacon Keaton]

Why are you still in this thread? The Red Sox were eliminated like a month ago. 

[GhostMachine]

My parents are Dodgers fans, so them being in contention is good enough for me.

What will be interesting is to see what poor fool takes the Mets job. That should easily be the least desirable available manager job in baseball. 

 

 

 

[The Buscher]

Prospective managers are attracted to a controllable young core of hitters.  Here's the team control for the Mets' young players:
Alonso, McNeil, JD Davis, Dom Smith - 5 years
Rosario - 4 years
Nimmo - 3 years
Conforto - 2 years

Plus a strong 1-4 in the rotation anchored by the soon to be 2x Cy Young Award winner.

It's by no means a perfect situation (ownership, Cano for four more years, trying to fix Diaz and Familia), but to say it's the worst available job in baseball is stupid.

[Meacon Keaton]

Aaron Judge is better than your favorite player.

[gunnar hendershow]

The only thing that makes the Mets undesirable as a job is the ownership just being bad. Everything else about them is appealing. Dealing with the NY media can be tough but that's more for players than managers. To be a manager you're probably pretty capable of dealing with media on a daily basis and being the person standing in front of your players when the bullies (NY sports media) come out in force.

[The Buscher]

Yankees/Twins is the only playoff series that felt like a foregone conclusion going in, even more than Astros/Rays.  You can say the Yankees padded their record against the Orioles but just look at the Twins who had two 100+ loss teams in their division and a losing record against teams over .500.

Toss in the franchise pressure of getting clowned by the Yankees in the playoffs every time they make it and yeah.  They'd be lucky to even win a game this series.

[Meacon Keaton]

25 minutes ago, Meacon said:

Aaron Judge is better than your favorite player.

And so is DJ LeMahieu!

[GhostMachine]

2 hours ago, damsher hatfield said:

The only thing that makes the Mets undesirable as a job is the ownership just being bad. Everything else about them is appealing. Dealing with the NY media can be tough but that's more for players than managers. To be a manager you're probably pretty capable of dealing with media on a daily basis and being the person standing in front of your players when the bullies (NY sports media) come out in force.

Bad ownership can keep a team from accomplishing things, even if you have loads of talent. The Mets are in the same situation that the Knicks are in. 

Not to bash on NY teams (except the Yankees), but they're the Mets and Knicks are the teams with the worst owners in their respective sports. 

I would love to see the Mets be competitive, but its bad ownership and bad luck that is preventing that from happening. 

And Meacon is deluded. Aaron Judge is no Mookie Betts.

 

Betts has 2 Silver Sluggers, 3 Gold Gloves, an AL MVP,  a Defensive Player of the Year award, is in the 30-30 club, has hit for the cycle, won the AL batting title and actually has a World Series ring. Judge has the record for most walks for a rookie in a season, Rookie of the Year, and led the AL in Home Runs. Betts also has a better career batting average,  and beat Judge in Home Runs, Runs AND RBI this year.

Judge will never be a 30-30 club member, and I don't see him ever winning Defensive Player of the Year. I think he'll get a World Series ring, but my gut feeling (not just wishful thinking!) tells me it won't be this year. 

All I will give Judge props for is hitting home runs. He's been in the majors 2 years less than Betts, but is only 19 or so career HR behind.

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by GhostMachine

[DMN in the House]

4 hours ago, Meacon said:

Aaron Judge is better than your favorite player.

 

3 hours ago, Meacon said:

And so is DJ LeMahieu!

Hah, my favorite player is Gary Sheffield, so....

[GhostMachine]

Can I get some thoughts on something I've been wondering:

Should Connie Mack's managerial records be ignored? He managed the Philadelphia A's for 50 years and set all sorts of records, BUT he was owner or part-owner for the majority if not all of his run. And he had an overall losing record. MLB forbade owners from managing teams soon after he retired in 1950 *, so his records can't be broken.

My case for them being irrelevant: Him being an owner = job security. His team's performances in the 1915-1916 seasons, where the A's lost over 100 games each of those seasons, would get any normal manager fired, even back then. They had more 100+ loss seasons later on, not just those two years.

Tony LaRussa is second to Mack in number of games managed and lost. John McGraw is second in number of games won. Those accomplishments mean more to me than Mack's.

Bobby Cox has the record for most ejections by a manager. I think we can all agree that's he is more than welcome to keep that one.  HOWEVER,   Cox took the record from John McGraw, who was ejected alot because of his hothead temper. Cox usually got ejected as a tactical decision on his part to get involved as a way to keep his own players from being ejected.

*Ted Turner managed the Braves for one game in 1977, and got in trouble for it. They lost, but considering the rules, I can't help but wonder if they'd have been stripped of the win if they had actually won?

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by GhostMachine
spelling error

[gunnar hendershow]

Connie Mack had some bad teams sure but he also managed 2 of the greatest teams of all time.(1910-1914 and 1929-1931) but both teams got blown up because the franchise never made money. Him being owner and having job security long after he was a competent manager is a mark against him and I wouldn't call him better than the GOAT John McGraw, but he's still a legend.