2009 Mets Setting Themselves Up For a 3rd Place Finish

Relishing his new permanent role as the Mets manager, Jerry Manuel explained his philosophy of constructing the team. Sorry Mets fans, this isn't exactly what you want to hear from the supposed leader of your ball club:

"You get so many statistical people together, they put so many stats on paper, and they say, well, if you do this and you score this many runs, you do that many times, you'll be in the playoffs," he said. "That's not really how it works, and that's what we have to get away from. And that's going to have to be a different mind-set of the team in going forward. We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people. We have to win because we have baseball players that know and can understand the game."

Yes. They clearly need to get away from the things that the statistical people are saying wins games. Things like...scoring runs. And preventing runs. Those are a couple of important stats. Manuel would rather have guys who "know how to win" and "understand the game". I'll take the "good hitters" and "good pitchers".

For Manuel, the key is teaching his players to execute in the key situations. "We have to put a value on say, moving a runner over. We have to put a value on getting a bases on balls. We have to put a value on infield back, [getting a] ground ball that's sufficient to score a run," he said. "Those types of things have to be accented in order for us, in my opinion, to kind of get to the next level."

(Emphasis added). So he's saying that they should be putting a value on aspects of the game.... which is the total opposite of what the stats guys are trying to do with things like "VORP". Who knows what that stands for. Something something replacement player. I can't remember what the "V" stands for.

"You don't see a lot of guys that have statistical numbers play well in these championship series," Manuel said. "What you see is usually the little second baseman or somebody like that carries off the MVP trophy that nobody expected him to do. That's because he's comfortable in playing that form of baseball, so therefore when the stage comes, it's not a struggle for him."

Yes. Given a short series, almost anyone can be a star. However, in order to get to those games in October, you have to have good players over a 162 game season. The Mets might still be fine, with talented players like David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and Johan Santana. But this isn't the way you want your manager thinking going into a season where your biggest competitor in your division just advanced to the World Series.