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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
National League MVP favorite Ronald Acuña, Jr. (Braves) scored 41 runs in the first inning — the most since the Mets’ Jose Reyes in 2008 (42) and just only 17 fewer than the Mets’ team total of 58 . . .
Matt Olson’s .686 slugging percentage in the first inning was the highest by a Brave since Andres Galarraga’s .687 in 1998 (min. 100 plate appearances) . . .
Olson ended the season as MLB’s leader in homers with 54 but no Brave hit more first-inning dingers than Austin Riley, who had 13 — tied with Eddie Mathews' 1955 total for the most in franchise history . . .
Atlanta DH Marcell Ozuna, who finished with a career-best 40 home runs and knocked in 100 runs, played first base for the first time in a Braves scrimmage @ Truist Park . . .
The Cubs were aggressive last winter, signing Dansby Swanson, Jameson Taillon, Drew Smyly, Trey Mancini, and Bellinger to eight-figure deals, but may be more careful about where they spend their money after missing the playoffs in 2023.
Leading Off
Passing the Buck
Showalter wasn’t the problem with this year’s Mets
By Jeff Kallman
On this much one and all seem to agree: the 2023 Mets’ dissipation was one of baseball’s great disasters, with or without that glandular payroll going in. Their sensible trade deadline move—flipping Hall of Fame-bound but aging/ailing Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer plus other vets for good minor-league prospects—wasn’t enough to save their season.
Or Buck Showalter’s job.
With longtime Brewers architect-and-remaker David Stearns arriving to become the Mets’ baseball operations president, the worst-kept secret in the game was that Showalter would go in favor of a Stearns preference, perhaps soon-to-be free agent Brewers manager Craig Counsell, perhaps not.
But the ovation in which Showalter was bathed at Citi Field, making his final pitching change late in a season-ender against the Phillies, was as real as his players’ publicly- expressed affection for the man. In various ways, his veterans such as Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, and Brandon Nimmo, took responsibility for the season that meant Showalter’s departure.
“He does a great job of understanding his personnel,” Alonso said. “Not just their talents and what they do day-to-day on the field, but he understands how each guy ticks on the roster as an individual.”
Some said that understanding allowed Showalter to stick too long with veterans who weren’t pulling their weight at the plate, until the trade-deadline moves and rumblings from the farm led to call-ups he had to play. Yet Showalter was always considered a players’ manager who took particular interest in his teams’ youth.
There was talk that Showalter remained too much of the Old School to be a topic under an incoming Stearns administration. Or that Showalter’s chatty ways, often called “folksy,” wouldn’t knit with the more-taciturn Stearns. Even a four-time Manager of the Year with four different teams is only human and doesn’t shake longtime habits or thoughts readily.
It wasn’t Showalter’s fault that Díaz would suffer a cruel season-aborting injury while celebrating a Puerto Rico triumph in last spring’s World Baseball Classic. It wasn’t Showalter’s fault that losing Díaz left him with a bullpen lacking consistent options. It wasn’t his fault that key men such as Starling Marté and José Quintana were injured. It wasn’t his fault that his back-line starters couldn’t pitch up.
It certainly wasn’t Showalter’s fault that Verlander—signed as a free agent to re-join his old Tigers rotation mate Scherzer—would have to shake an early-season injury first. It wasn’t Showalter’s fault that Max the Knife would have to shake side and back issues to start showing his own age on the mound.
But when veteran acquisition Tommy Pham called out the lack of work ethic on the 2023 Mets, he implied powerfully that the team’s second-line players were the ones lacking it. Maybe Showalter’s reliance on his veterans to police his clubhouse missed the wrong trick at the wrong time.
He was still capable of enormous tactical head-scratchers but Showalter wasn’t always immune to a little learning and a little more executing on what he’d learned.
“When I make a mistake,” legendary New York mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia once said, “it’s a beaut.”
You could say likewise of Showalter’s mistakes. He looked desperately foolish calling for the inspection of Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove’s ears for sticky stuff, in last year’s National League Wild Card Series Game Three. The gambit did nothing to stop the Padres from sending the Mets home for the winter.
But in Game Two of that set, Showalter showed the world he knew how to learn from past mistakes. It spoke a lot better of him than contemporary Met fans who called for his execution after any one bad 2023 game . . . in April.
With star-crossed then-Met Jacob deGrom coming out after six two-run innings, the Mets holding a one-run lead, and a few of the Padres’ more formidable swingers due to come up again, Showalter showed he learned from not having Zack Britton ready in the 2016 American League Wild Card game, the extra-inning game Showalter lost when he left faltering Ubaldo Jimenez in to face Edwin Encarnación and watched a mammoth three-run homer end the Orioles’ season on the spot.
That was 2016: It wasn’t a “proper save situation” to think about Britton, he said.
This was Game Two last year: Showalter sensed the “save situation” was right then and there, in the top of the seventh, and went to his usual closer Edwin Díaz in relief of deGrom. He wasn’t going to let the Padres snatch a too-fast trip to the Division Series unless they could beat his best.
They couldn’t.
Díaz got rid of hot hand Trevor Grisham on a groundout to first, shook off Austin Nola’s deep infield base-hit, then got back-to-back groundouts from Jurickson Profar and Juan Soto, the last right back to Díaz himself.
Maybe that move put a little fire into the Mets lineup for the bottom of the inning, when a leadoff base-hit (Lindor), a wild pitch sending him to second, and back-to-back walks to Alonso and Mark Canha set the table for Jeff McNeil’s two-run double, Eduardo Escobar’s RBI single, and Daniel Vogelbach’s sacrifice fly.
That made the big difference in the Mets’ series-tying 7-3 win. Maybe seeing their skipper acknowledge the true save situation coming well before the ninth inning and act accordingly put a little extra motivation into the Mets’ bats.
The Mets needed to solve their top-of-the-front-office situation. Stearns provides the solution. He was bound to prefer bringing his own team into the clubhouse and dugout brain trust.
Mets fans should hope Stearns proves a solid administrator and fortifier. If he does, just the way he did in Milwaukee, the Mets may not have to wait as long to return to the post-season as people think.
But it hurt that Showalter, a decent man as well as a baseball lifer, had to be sacrificial lamb Number One. Further proof that the good guys don’t always escape unscathed.
Jeff Kallman is an IBWAA Life Member who writes Throneberry Fields Forever. He has written for the Society for American Baseball Research, The Hardball Times, Sports-Central, and other publications. He has lived in Las Vegas since 2007, where he plays the guitar and writes music when not writing baseball. He remains a Mets fan since the day they were born.
Cleaning Up
New Ballpark In Same Bad Location Won’t Solve Tampa Bay’s Chronic Attendance Problems
By Dan Schlossberg
The Tampa Bay Rays now have the winter to wonder why they bounced out of the post-season so quickly — and why so few fans showed up to support them.
They’ve announced plans to build a new $1.3 billion ballpark, which is the good news, but foolishly agreed to build it in the same St. Petersburg location that makes rush-hour commuting to night games difficult if not impossible.
Only 19,704 fans showed up to the first game of the American League Wild-Card Series. It was the worst total in an uninterrupted season since 1919 (that’s no typo).
The Rays revived this year, adding power to their performance, and nearly won 100 games. They have a .586 winning percentage and a World Series performance over the past six years.
Yet attendance has been such an issue that the team actually played three official games at Disney World’s Champions Stadium, which holds only 11,000 when full.
The idea to make the Rays a regional team is not new; ownership even floated the concept of splitting “home” games between Tampa Bay and Montreal, provided a stadium could be built to replace The Big O.
With the possible exception of the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum — or whatever the A’s call their moribund ballpark — Tropicana Field is far and away the worst facility in the major leagues. And we did mention where it is? As Greg Maddux might say, ‘Location, location, location.’
The Rays are always a solid team but have averaged only 20,000 per game since 2010.
Isn’t that enough of a sample size for anyone to the team plays in a bad park in a bad location?
Time is not the issue either. Consider the crowds at other afternoon playoff games:
The Braves drew 42,461 to Windy Hill for Game 1 of their 2022 NLDS game, which started at 1 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. And getting to Truist Park by mass transportation is a pain in the you-know-what.
Earlier this week, the Minnesota Twins attracted 38,450 for their Wild Card game at 3:30 in the afternoon. Even manager Rocco Baldelli noticed, saying, “The fans took over and helped us win the game.”
After a 99-win season, the Rays won the battle but not the war. Before they start digging the foundations of their new edifice, they need to find a viable location.
Otherwise, their problems will continue — especially after the novelty of the new place wears off in a year or two.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is weekend editor of Here’s The Pitch and national baseball writer for forbes.com. His email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
All four Wild Card Series were 2-0 sweeps, with visiting teams winning two of them and Tampa Bay losing in the opening round for the second straight year . . .
The punchless Milwaukee Brewers were flattened by the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks in an opening playoff surprise . . .
And Minnesota managed to win after losing 18 straight post-season games . . .
One year after placing second in National League MVP voting, San Diego third baseman Manny Machado had expected elbow surgery. His contract runs through 2033.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.