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The Oliver Perez Situation and the 24 Man Roster

The Oliver Perez Situation and the 24 Man Roster.

 

Oliver Perez will not go to the minors.  I know most of us think he probably should, and some irrationally want him released, but if he’s not going to go the Mets need to figure out how to proceed.

 

Burying him in the bullpen is not a recipe for success or a solution.  This is systematic of the problem that Omar and Jerry created with how this roster is constructed.  You could call it managing scared, or managing not to lose.  Putting him the bullpen and not addressing the reason he’s there in the first place is basically playing with a 24 man roster.

 

I want to clarify here that I’m not excusing Oliver Perez here.  He’s pitched poorly, failed to execute his pitches, lost his velocity, and is actively hurting the team by refusing to go to the minors to get it straightened out. 

 

Oliver Perez is talented.  He has ability to throw the baseball and get guys out, and win baseball games.  He did this the last year he was healthy, in 2008.  He did it the year before that, in 2007.  His greatest success was with Peterson, and he continued that for a period after Peterson left.  He has steadily declined the longer Warthen was the one guiding him, including this year when new mechanics seem to have sapped not only his control, but his velocity.   There were times this year when Perez was throwing four pitches, at four different speeds, and was able to throw them for strikes.  Maybe he just hasn’t had enough time to get a handle on this new way of pitching, maybe just a mere 1-2 mph on the fastball would make a world of difference.  This is not something I, or anyone else, can figure out from the other side of the television set.

 

So what is Dan Warthen doing?  Has he buried Perez in the bullpen and doesn’t know what to do with him? Is he actively working on getting Perez to be better with those strikes?  Tinkering with his mechanics so he’s more comfortable?  To me, it’s always seemed like Perez has lacked a fundamental understanding of pitching, of when to throw strikes and when to throw balls, on when to go for a strikeout, and when to pitch to contact.  These are things that can be taught, if you could get through to Perez, and I don’t feel like Dan Warthen is.  Coupled with this is John Maine, who tried and failed to pitch the way Warthen thought he should.  When John Maine went back to what he was most comfortable with, he was successful more often than not. 

 

I see no pitchers that have actively gotten better since Dan Warthen has been the pitching coach.  No reclamation projects, no continued bouts of success.  Whatever Dan Warthen brings to the table, it doesn’t appear to be in the best interest of the Mets pitchers.  Oliver Perez, for better or worse, is here with the Mets.  He’s not going to take a demotion, and that means the Mets need to find the tools to get the most out of him.

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The Only Way to Fire Him Badly

While I like Willie Randolph and didn’t want him fired, I’ve long said I could live with it because I felt a change needed to be made for changes sake, and who knows what the problem is?

However, if Randolph was the problem, then undoubtedly so was Manuel and Howard Johnson, but they are still here. Of course, the shoddy way the Mets handled this so far could mean they’re gone when they wake up in Anaheim today. Ken Oberkfell is promoted from Triple A manager to first base coach, and I assume that the idea is he’s the favorite for manager and Jerry Manuel is truly an interim guy, but if the Mets go on to win in the playoffs like they are capable of, how can you fire him? And firing coaches/managers twice within a season is just an unneeded (for the players) distraction and disruption.

If they were going to fire him, Friday was the time after a bad stretch of games. Instead, now they’ve won four of six and three of the last four. They didn’t make a huge move, bringing up triple A guys to fill the coaching spots, so why did they need to hold off on making this decision? I even went to bed last night thinking the Mets were on an upswing and Willie probably even had a days reprieve or so. To make a guy fly out to Anaheim and win a game well with a young pitcher on the mound, a game where he made the right bullpen moves to win the game, and then fire him after it is silly.

Maybe it was in deference to Randolph? If they fire him Friday and then the Mets start winning, he looks bad and like the cause of the Mets struggles. However, now that they’re playing well again, it just looks like any other manager firing and maybe he doesn’t get all the blame.

I know nothing about Nieto and have no reason to understand why he got fired, but Peterson I can live with an am almost happy with. I don’t really know how much impact he has had, and how much impediment he has been. I tire of his babying pitchers and his pitch counts and what seems to me to be molding a pitcher to his philosophies rather than teaching the pitcher how to succeed with what he’s got. I know nothing about his replacement though, and it’ll be interesting to see how things go. The only guy I’m really curious about is Perez. Maine has progressed enough that I think he’ll actually benefit with someone else’s suggestions and only get better. Pelfrey to me was just a matter of confidence and practice, not necessarily who was giving it to him. Plus having Pedro here is worth as much as any pitching coach.

So we have all day and night to talk about this, and then it’s time to move on and start/continue playing good baseball and get back to the ultimate goal of winning the World Series.

Does Willie still get to go to the All Star game? Also, I don’t want to hear from Yankees fans on this. The Yankees totally mishandled Joe Torre (although at least it was in the offseason) and have a crybaby for an owner.

And in a game of what if?

Willie Randolph gets Jim Leyland’s job, and manages the Tigers to a championship over the Mets. Then after asked “You’ve just won the World Series, what are you going to do now?” he returns to Anaheim where he was fired. “I’m going to Disneyland!”