Mets Officially Hire Buck Showalter

[Philip]

1 hour ago, Finisher said:

They're in for a treat.

How do you not win with Scherzer and deGrom at the top of your rotation though? Amazing situation to walk into.

How did the Tigers lose to us with three Cy Young winners?

two great pitchers, you bet. And we’ll see about the rest of the roster.

[Frobby]

26 minutes ago, Philip said:

How did the Tigers lose to us with three Cy Young winners?

two great pitchers, you bet. And we’ll see about the rest of the roster.

What happens in a short series is a lot different than what happens over 162 games.   But let’s see if Scherzer and DeGrom stay healthy.   I do think the mid-market moves they made on offense were significant upgrades for them, and I won’t be surprised if they do more this offseason.  

[Philip]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

What happens in a short series is a lot different than what happens over 162 games.   But let’s see if Scherzer and DeGrom stay healthy.   I do think the mid-market moves they made on offense were significant upgrades for them, and I won’t be surprised if they do more this offseason.  

Well, the reason we beat the Tigers was because their bullpen was lousy, but I also firmly believe that if you have disorganized leadership It doesn’t matter how good your personnel are. The Mets are a mess, And I completely lost faith in Buck over his last few years. I don’t think he was a good choice, And I certainly don’t think Dan would be a good choice. Recycling is very wise in many ways, but not when it comes to old managers and GM’s.

Mike Schilt Would’ve been a good choice, but honestly, I think you could hire the Risen Messiah to manage the Mets and nothing will be done because of the dysfunctional management. 

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Philip said:

Well, the reason we beat the Tigers was because their bullpen was lousy

Not really.   In game one their bullpen allowed the O’s to expand a narrow lead to a big one in the bottom of the eighth, but we were winning in any event.   In game three the bullpen was no factor at all.  So really the bullpen only cost them one game.  They’d have had to beat us twice more if they’d won that game.  

[now]

5 hours ago, forphase1 said:

He certainly did.   But at the same time he also had a hand in turning us into the terrible team we've been the last few years, including his final team.  The Davis signing sits firmly on his,  and PAs, plate.  The power struggles between him,  DD and Brady were a mess.   While I love the good he did here and enjoyed the good teams, I'm also going to look at the bad.   It was a mixed bag at best. 

On the other hand, the post-Buck Skanks didn't turn out too shabby.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, now said:

On the other hand, the post-Buck Skanks didn't turn out too shabby.

It's almost as if talent is the important thing to have.

[now]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

It's almost as if talent is the important thing to have.

Who'da thunk?

[OriolesMagic83]

I'm happy Buck got the job.  Buck is my favorite O's manager.  We all know about his love of veterans, so managing the Mets won't be a problem.  Buck was one of the best managers I've seen at managing the bullpen.  I hope he finally wins a World Series that he deserves.  At least he won't have to deal with an owner that won't pay for the last piece or two to put the team over the top.

[Roll Tide]

Congrats to Buck 

[forphase1]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

I will never blame Buck for the Davis deal.   First of all, we’ve never gotten anything but speculation about how involved he was in that.  Second, it’s on the owner to let the GM make the decision to say no.   I think DD gets off too light here.   If he was against it, he should have made a strong stand, not sat idly by and let it happen.   And I doubt Buck was negotiating the details of the contract.   At most he would have said it was important to have Davis back.  

I dunno.  My impression from that time is that DD had moved on,  Buck went above his head to PA, and PA demanded he be signed at almost whatever it cost.   If DD was against it,  what was he supposed to do,  tell PA he refused to negotiate with Davis?  In the end,  PA was the boss and DD the employee... only so much he could do,  even if he knew it was a bad idea. 

 

Don't get me wrong,  DD made mistakes and has to own up a great deal for our current situation... but I think Buck sometimes gets off too light here,  kinda like you feel DD does.  He was instrumental to the disfunction and downfall in my opinion.  I appreciate what he accomplished, and there was some great things he did.   But he certainly had his flaws too, and they sometimes get swept under the rug IMO.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

I dunno.  My impression from that time is that DD had moved on,  Buck went above his head to PA, and PA demanded he be signed at almost whatever it cost.   

My point is, that’s your “impression.”   There’s been no solid reporting of it anywhere.   Occasional vague rumors, with no sources cited, that Dan was against it but Buck was for it.   No details whatsoever about how it went down.  To me, it’s something we never heard until Chris’ performance started heading south.   Like Dan leaked it out there to save his reputation.  And I’m not saying he was for it.   We just don’t know how hard he tried to stop it.   If he had the courage of his convictions he would have pushed hard, but we don’t know that he did.   

[forphase1]

38 minutes ago, Frobby said:

... but we don’t know that he did.   

True.  But nor do we know that he didn't.  I doubt the story of what all happened with that signing will ever really be known.  Regardless, I tend to lean towards the Buck deserves quite a bit of the blame from what I've heard, even if they were vague rumors.  Either way, the fact that things weren't kosher in the administration of the team and the power struggles between PA, DD, Buck and Brady were very well documented, even if the specific details are not well known, and that makes me view all 4 in a less favorable light, to one degree or another.  

[UMDTerrapins]

Did Buck pull the Hangout plug on the way out? 

[SteveA]

Ken Rosenthal had an article in the Athletic a couple days ago, after the hiring, that was interesting.   Some details that I hadn't heard before about the aftermath of the 2016 wild card game, the next spring, related by Zack (once known as Zach) Britton:

Talked about how Showalter is big on holding players accountable for what they do, then...

Quote

Showalter, 65, holds himself accountable, too. In the spring of 2017, he addressed his players following an offseason of questions about his failure to pitch Britton in the wild-card game, which the Orioles lost to the Blue Jays 5-2 in 11 innings.

He apologized to Britton. And he apologized to the team.

“We always had this spring training thing, which I thought was cool — off-site, get together in a movie theater, kind of show you the highlights of the previous season, just a bonding moment for the team,” Britton said. “During that meeting, he got up there and said, ‘Before we start, I just want to address the elephant in the room.’

“He apologized to me, which I didn’t think he needed to do. I think there were some guys on the team that were frustrated by the move. He just said: ‘That’s my bad. I messed up.’ And it was done with.”

A bit later in the article:

Quote

Dom Chiti, the Orioles’ bullpen coach at the time, had told Britton to prepare to pitch multiple innings if the Orioles were ahead. But the game was in Toronto, and Showalter preferred to use his closer on the road only with a lead. The Orioles did not lead after the fifth inning. Showalter ended up using seven pitchers but not Britton, who had gone 47-for-47 in save opportunities during the regular season with a 0.54 ERA, the lowest ever for a pitcher who had worked at least 50 innings in a season.

“Everyone always talks about it,” Britton said. “But he had his reasons. I’m not 100 percent sure why, but it didn’t matter. I always knew Buck was thinking through it. He always had a plan. Maybe it didn’t go according to his plan, and then it kind of backfired. But he was willing to take that risk, sticking with the plan.

“The reality is, if I was to pitch, and we stayed tied — because we weren’t scoring runs — I was like the only guy left in the bullpen. People forget that. I would have had to have thrown all the way through the game. And I had just come off (a multi-inning appearance, 1 2/3 innings against the Yankees two days before) to get us into the playoffs. I don’t know his exact reasoning. But I truly think he was trying to do right by me and not hurt me. I’m going to be honest: I don’t think he thought we were going to score. And he didn’t want me to have to go out there for two or three innings.”

And

Quote

Showalter, a colleague of mine at MLB Network who was voted manager of the year in 1994, 2004 and 2014, has never explained the full reasoning behind his decision. But he viewed his apology the following spring as an important step in holding the team together.

“They needed me to address it, just deal with it,” Showalter said. “It kind of set the tone, as an example.”

To be accountable. To own your mistakes.

“We never questioned anything he ever did,” Manny Machado told The Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli. “I think he’s one of the best managers to manage a bullpen. For him to not put in Zack, in one of the biggest games of our lifetime, I think it hurt him. I think it hurt a lot of people. But I think it hurt him mostly.

“The next year he came up and apologized. We learned from it. It shows we’re all human beings. And we make mistakes sometimes. But you learn from it. That’s the beauty of our game.”

 

Goes on to talk about times Buck held players, including Manny, accountable for their behavior, without actually calling them out.

Anyway, I'd guess the quotes I have shown probably comprise about 35% of the entire article.   If the moderators feel that is too much from a pay site to be considered an acceptable excerpt, feel free to delete my post.

[waroriole]

Zack makes an interesting comment that I think we all agreed with at the time. Buck probably didn’t think we were gonna score. Everyone was swinging from their heels to try and hit one out. My thought is eventually someone’s gonna connect and it’s better to have Britton give us zeroes for a couple of innings. He could’ve come in, and then Ubaldo if he goes 2 innings and we still don’t score.