I did not see yesterday’s game, but much like how you can’t pop into LA for a party when your ERA is in the 7s (something that say Todd Frazier could have gotten away with), you can’t lose 8 of 9 or whatever we’re up to and have your team bat out of order. Such things, during bad times, make people look in your direction. And I am looking.
Let me start with you dear reader. Before I lead you with my words, what do you think Mickey Callaway is good at?
While you ponder that question, let’s review.
Mickey gets hired. We are told how groovy he is.
“He had a gift of just making people feel really awesome, which is what I think he’ll bring to New York,” says Day. “He’ll make people feel like they should feel, and they’ll want to play for him.” (Daily News Oct 25)
Great, they want to play for him. Nothing wrong with that.
Mickey’s mission was to fix the pitching.
“But short-term,” Alderson added, “what is most critical for our success is the pitching, and I think that he has had so much success recently with a pitching staff definitely was a factor for us.” (Times, Oct 23)
In that same article Sandy mentions there may be some growing pains with a rookie manager (good call Sandy) but the mission is to fix the pitching. Fix. The. Pitching.
How’s the pitching looking to you? Even Thor hasn’t been pitching at mascot cuckolding levels, and we broke The One True Ace. (On that, you may recall the manager let him go back out there after the AB in question.)
Mickey WANTED the challenge of fixing Matt Harvey
“We looked at a lot of tape,” Callaway said. “We really liked where his stuff was coming out at the end of the season. We want the challenge of helping this guy out. He deserves it.” (Formerly MetsBlog)
How did that work out? I am the last guy that will stick up for TDK, but how did this work out? You’re a pitching guru. Nothing. But OK TOS surgery, I will free pass this and free pass sending JDG back out there and Thor has been OK (although I maintain that a human can’t throw 101 all summer and they should back him down a little.)
How we doing with Vargas? That’s right, broken thumb, a third free pass.
How is the bullpen looking?
You may recall Mickey was was hard on a 22 year old.
“We have expectations for our guys, and if they don’t meet that expectation, we have to hold them accountable, and that’s why Dom wasn’t in the lineup today,’’ Callaway said. “The guys know the things we’re saying are going to be done.” (NY Post)
Howie Rose said that Dom Smith’s “benching was Mickey Callaway’s Gil Hodges Moment.”(WOR)
That was in February. Let’s take a beat here and think about that sentence. And it didn’t come from some yahoo blogger in his mom’s basement (I blog from my own den) it came from Howie Rose. Howie has pretty good command of Mets history. Come on Howie, drink the Kool Aid much? Hodges? From you of all people? In February?
But the Kool Aid was drunk. And the legend of Mickey Hodges began. Because he sent a late 22 year old home in February. Let’s see what happens if Yo strolls in twenty minutes late tomorrow.
Then there’s the new culture. The Salt and Pepper.
Is that Mickey? Or is that Ruben Amaro starting it and Todd Frazier running with it? To me, the “fun” of the team seems to revolve around Frazier.
The Mets started 11-1. Everything was great in Queens. However, you may recall the same thing happened in 2015 with Terry before the wheels came off. Fans were making road trips, the comedians were back, and we had t-shirts and everything!
You may recall the Mets had a chance to break the Nationals’ backs in April. They didn’t and let the Nats get off the floor, and now look at the standings.
You may also recall we saw the first signs of the Mickey magic wearing off in St. Louis. Fortunately Mickey was somehow able to mind trick the Cardinals into throwing a flat pitch to Cespedes. If the Mets had lost that game I can’t imagine how restless the natives would be now.
The difference here is that Mickey has better players than Terry did.
There are legit MLB players at all 8 positions now (I will give yet another free pass to the C situation for three weeks). There is legitimate depth on the bench. I don’t love The Virus but he’s someone you can play for 10 days if you need to. Mickey Hodges isn’t running Hairston, Muno and Monell out there (well maybe a little Monell action).
So now that you’ve read this far and you think I am a jerk, let me ask you – what is Mickey good at? What are you seeing here? I’m seeing a team spiral faster than some of the wonderfully awful teams of the past, except this one can start Thor and JDG up top and has “too many” outfielders. I’m seeing a media that decided there was a Narrative and fed it to the fans. I’m now seeing a fanbase rejecting The Narrative.
I don’t dislike Mickey, but so far he’s no better or worse than Terry, and I do dislike when the media and the sheep part of the fanbase buys into someone being The Next Seaver or having a HODGES MOMENT in February.
The Mickey Magic isn’t real. It’s a story sold to you.
If there is Mickey Magic I need to see it right now. The ship is sinking, and I see nothing that makes me thing anything is going to change.
The Mets are fortunate that the division is weak. It hid a lot of sins. But at one game over .500 when you can’t hand in the lineup correctly…there’s no hiding.
Am I being tough? Let me leave you with a quote from the man himself.
We have expectations for our guys, and if they don’t meet that expectation, we have to hold them accountable.
