July 15: PM Mets Links and West Coast Trip Open Thread

Tonight’s game is a late one… So check out these links and feel free to comment on them as we wait to see Carlos Beltran’s return…

OnTheBlack – Kerel Cooper thinks Angel Pagan should play everyday. It kind of scares me that this discussion even needs to take place, but it obviously has to be said. When did Jeff Francoeur become so highly regarded?

Real Dirty Mets Blog – The Cubs are reportedly looking at Robert Carson, Kyle Allen and Jeurys Familia as possible pieces in a deal involving Ted Lilly. Interesting…

MetsFever – Ed Ryan raises Andy Sonnanstine as a potential mid-level SP that the Mets could acquire.

Wall Street Journal – Mike Sielski has the scariest article you’ll read today, titled,  “Four Ways Mets Can Blow It.”

TONIGHT’S GAME

The Mets will face the Giants tonight in the first game back from the All-Star break. R.A. Dickey (6-2, 2.77)  gets the start against Tim Lincecum (9-4, 3.16). For a scouting report on Lincecum, check out LongLiveSheaStadium. First pitch at 10:15pm EST.

METS LINEUP

Jose Reyes was initially slated to leadoff, but he was scratched because of his lingering oblique injury. Here’s the current lineup:

Angel Pagan – RF
Alex Cora – 2B
David Wright – 3B
Carlos Beltran – CF
Ike Davis – 1B
Jason Bay – LF
Josh Thole – C
Ruben Tejada – SS
R.A. Dickey – RHP

Random Act of Managing

If you’re wondering why R.A. Dickey is starting the first game back from the break, instead of Johan Santana Mike Pelfrey, here’s why: by setting up Dickey to fail against San Francisco’s ace, Jerry Manuel cannot lose. If Dickey wins, Jerry is a genius. If Dickey loses, it was expected and Jerry can boast about giving Santana Pelfrey some extra rest. It’s a beautiful system – we’ve seen it recently with resting Jason Bay on his own bobblehead day, right before the All-Star break. Way to go, Jerry!

  1. gary s. July 15, 2010 at 6:33 pm
    what about jerry putting beltran in the clean up spot??
  2. Bill July 15, 2010 at 6:36 pm
    I’m normally the first guy to jump on Manuel… but wouldn’t starting Johan tonight be putting him on 3 days rest? Or is my math off?
    • loge mezzanine July 15, 2010 at 7:32 pm
      you sir, are totally correct. apologies to jerry – even though he does stuff like this all the time.

      so pelfrey should be starting tonight. same principle, although the easy excuse is that pelfrey has a dead arm, even though joe debunked that last week.

  3. mooshinator July 15, 2010 at 9:29 pm
    I’m going to defend Jerry on this one, actually… to be clear, I generally agree with most of the points made on this blog about the poor decisions Jerry makes, but here I think his decision is defensible in two ways.

    First, I don’t believe there’s an advantage in throwing your best guy against the other team’s best guy, and then your 2nd best against theirs, etc, down the line. This gives you the best chance to win ALL of the games, but it also gives you the best chance to lose them all. Over the course of a baseball season you need to win, say, 60% of your games, not 100%. Ceding a game to the other team’s ace and thereby putting yourself in a very solid position to win the next two or three games, in my opinion gives you a better shot at taking the series even if it lowers your chances at sweeping the series. I think you could reasonably argue both strategies but at a minimum I don’t think it’s a completely dumb idea.

    On the flip side, it IS dumb to give your worst starters more overall appearances than your best starters. So for that reason, and not for the reason of trying to min/max matchups, I think it’s best to start your best starter today.

    However… I think you could reasonably argue that Dickey IS their best starter right now. Given Santana’s recent hot streak, maybe Santana is done tipping his pitches and so Santana is probably preferable but he’s on 3 days rest so he’s out of the picture. I’m not sold on Pelfrey yet. I like the guy, but he needs to show me a good full season before I treat him like an ace. Right now, after Santana, I am most confident in Dickey and Neise, not Pelfrey.

    So for me, personally, I’ll keep bashing Jerry for his horrendous bullpen management and questionable in-game managing, but not for this decision.

    • loge mezzanine July 16, 2010 at 10:13 am
      Hmm… Good points all around… I do agree that Dickey is the team’s best SP right now. However, if you don’t want your hottest pitcher to face Lincecum, wouldn’t you have pushed Dickey back a few days?

      Either way, I think Pelfrey earned the first start, since (as someone pointed out already) Santana would’ve been on 3 days rest. Jerry’s logic is so confused it is hard to make sense of what he thinks he is doing, other than covering his ass in any way he can.

  4. tthai July 16, 2010 at 2:02 am
    According to your suspicion, MasterMind Jerry could have purposely sat Reyes out or have Reyes exaggerate his injuries.

    So that if Beltran fails this series at least the mets could have some hope left when Reyes is back in the lineup the following series.

    Then and if that fails, at least he’ll have our “veteran” 3 time all-star, 3 time golden glove 2nd basemen for LA to again try and shed some false hope.

    At this rate, he’ll never get fired !

    • loge mezzanine July 16, 2010 at 10:08 am
      Um, no. I never said Jerry was doing anything to manipulate, cause or exagerrate injuries. He does, however, setup longshots that nobody expects to work. When they work, he’s a genius. When they don’t, it’s no biggie because it was a longshot anyway. And who cares, it works. Good for Jerry.

      Some other examples off the top of my head – batting Jacobs fourth, keeping Mejia in the majors out of spring training, batting Reyes third, resting Bay right before the All-Star break. The latest is that he wants to bat Bay second against lefties, once Reyes returns. Now, why else would he do that?