August 4, 2015

Cards and Players

The Mets defeated the 12-1 Monday night behind outstanding performances by Bartolo Colon, Curtis Granderson, and new addition Yoenis Cespedes. The two hitters combined for six hits and six RBI. Coupled with the Diamondbacks 6-4 win over the Nationals, the Mets find themselves in first place in the NL East by one game. The Nationals faced a number of great pitchers lately, but the aptly named Zack Godley threw six shutout innings for Arizona, and a cold Nick Ahmed knocked out four hits.

The Nationals losing streak prompted talk of Matt Williams handling of the bullpen. The criticism is coming from two directions. There is the armchair manager looking at match-ups, but as we are finding out, players do not want to be used like Strat-o-Matic cards. The real problem:

Ask any reliever how important it is to have a good feel for when he might be used and the response is basically universal.

“It matters a tremendous amount,” Aaron Barrett said. “Obviously, when you know exactly what your role is as far as preparation, certain situations you know you’re going to pitch, it definitely helps out a lot as far as being able to watch the game and kind of watch what types of moves they would make and how the lineup would set up for your role.”

“It’s just understanding your role,” added Thornton, a veteran of 706 major league appearances.

The article notes that Davey Johnson was good at role definition, but I remember his bullpen blowing up in the playoffs as well.

Knowing your role is not just for the bullpen. Starters want to know where they are in the rotation. In general, they don’t want to skip days or delay a start, even if it means a better match-up for the team. Batters want to know where they hit in the lineup, and some get out of whack if they are taken out of their perceived role.

At the moment, Williams has roles for Drew Storen and Jonathan Papelbon. I suspect he wants to use the rest of the pen as he sees fit. He’d probably be better off in the eyes of the fans and the press if he gave everyone a role and stuck to it. Name someone the seventh inning lead pitcher. Name someone the tough lefty pitcher. Name two pitchers the keep us in the game pitchers. Then when they fail, it’s on the pitcher for not living up to his role. I don’t particularly like that kind of managing, but it seems to make the players the most comfortable.

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