The Mets Police

Wait, I didn’t do Bruce Bochy yet?

12 years with the Padres and 13 years with the Giants.

THREE CHAMPIONSHIPS.

66 years old.  Veteran manager (which is what I want).

The media would have to be down with this (if one cares about such things)

A .571 LIFETIME RECORD.  Even won a pennant with the Padres and very few people do that.

Bruce even played for the 1982 Mets!

Come on Steve why are we even wasting time.

Here’s why.  The Mets need to prove they are smarter than everyone else.  So they will get a Mickey Hodges or a guy from the minors or hire someone’s 3B coach to prove they are smarter – instead of doing the Smart Thing and hiring the right guy.

Will Bruce Bochy manage the Mets? No.

 

 

Hey Mets fans, meet your new manager Brad Ausmus!  Here he is (I think) talking to Angels SP Matt Harvey!

Brad took the Angels to an exciting 72-90 record in 2019.  That team had Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani AND Matt Harvey – who I am told are three of the best baseball players on the planet.   72 wins?

Brad also managed the Tigers for 4 years of .486 ball.

So this hiring is so stupid and so unexciting that I am going to say that MAYBE HE WILL manage the Mets because it’s the kind of stupid thing the Mets would do.  The diseased gamblers have him at 9-1 odds for whatever reason I am missing (He’s Steve’s nephew or Sandy’s former intern or something)

So will Brad Ausmus manage the Mets? Maybe.

Joe Torre, Hall of Fame manager, was pretty successful everywhere he managed except one stop – Queens.

Maybe it’s time for Joe to return to Flushing and fix that one glaring hole on his resume.

Joe is old school and can just let the same guys play very day.

I also LOVE The way Joe uses a bullpen.  He doesn’t chase losses.  If the game is winnable he uses the good guys.  If the team is losing 5-2 he lets the scrubs pitch, loses 12-3, and then DFAs all the tired arms.

He clearly proved he CAN be successful in New York and definitely knows how to handle the media.  Wouldn’t  you love to see a snarky Torre take on Gelbs “how did it feel when you lost the game?” questions?   Howie and Gary would have stories to dust off.

Maybe this time, with Steve’s wallet, Joe can win in Queens unlike so many years ago.

But this makes too much sense, so will Joe Torre manage the Mets?  No.

 

 

I’m like really done with the Baseball Mafia tweeting “see, baseball isn’t dying” because THEY are all excited about a walk-off home run that happens at 12:15 in the morning.  If I didn’t have to be at work until 4pm the next day I might watch the game myself (I wouldn’t because baseball is boring but that’s another story).

The Baseball Mafia has also been spinning “This LDS game is the biggest since slice bread in 2017” and such stats.  But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch puts all this in perspective…

The announcement last week that the Cardinals had the best local television rating this season among U.S.-based MLB teams certainly was something to be proud of for the team and telecaster, Bally Sports Midwest. It was the third time in four seasons that the Cards were No. 1, and they were in the top four nationally for the 22nd consecutive year, also very impressive feats.

However, the full picture is not so rosy. According to Nielsen, which tracks viewership, BSM’s 149 Cardinals telecasts were seen in 6.2% of homes in the St. Louis market with a TV — the worst figure for a non-truncated season since the current system of tracking viewership began 32 seasons ago

In a nutshell, this is the fourth time in the last five “normal” seasons that the rating has decreased, and this year it was down a whopping 48% over the 10.0 figure reached in 2015

Baseball is back baby!

The scary part is from what I can see on baseball social media, I think baseball thinks baseball is doing well.  Even the likes of Howie Rose were killing it last week for being long and boring.

Baseball CAN be good.  Two and half hour games can be fun.  Four hours is too much.  I don’t even want a four hour Star Wars movie.  It’s too much.

Baseball also likes playing its biggest moments after midnight.  This has been a problem for decades now, brought up by the likes of Phil Mushnick.

Baseball got away with it because old people like me complained but stayed up.  Especially in this area, there were plenty of Yankees postseasons, so fine we stayed up.

But the back end of the millennial and Gen-Z didn’t.

And time moved on and Jeter went away and the Yankees postseason turned into an Astros game and guess what…..the younger generation didn’t watch.

So the Baseball Mafia can be all excited about a walk-off that happens at 12:15am.  Keep telling yourself everything is fine.  The Post Dispatch knows the deal.

 

Maybe what the Mets need is a guy not afraid to use a computer to help him plan lineups.

The kind of guy who will use analytics to determine that if a pitcher doesn’t give up many ground balls then you can get away with playing a busy outfielder at shortstop.

A guy who knows the rulebook and will successfully hide a relief pitcher in the outfield in order to later win a matchup.

And in this day and age, a manager who will let the players do whatever they want.  They can be vulgar, they can turn against the fans, have some beverages, take some recreational vitamins….as long as the team wins nobody will care.

Will Davey Johnson manage the Mets? No.  But if they do go with some untried manager and someone could convince Davey to be the bench coach, that would be amazing.

Boy wouldn’t THAT be something, but I don’t think Davey’s health is up to it.