Jose Reyes of the Mets has caused a brouhaha that underscores the notion that Mets fans can find loss in just about anything. He brought the team its first batting title in its history (and indeed pretty much the only bright spot in the season) but fans are taking issue with the fact that he took himself out of yesterday’s final game after a single appearance…the better to protect his narrow lead in the race.
I know the old saying is, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Well, guess what? This season the Mets played for crap. So I’ll take my wins wherever and however I can find them.
He won the batting title fair and square. He didn’t cheat. He didn’t take steroids (God, I hope not). There’s not gonna be an asterisk next to his name in the record books. He won it. And in a season where wins of any sort have sometimes been few and far between, I’m just not inclined to bìŧçh about how he won it. But maybe that’s just me.
Oh, uh…happy New Year.
PAD
• 
Yeah, well, the Braves just stumbled their way out of the wild card.
.
At least the Mets generally get it over early.
Mike, the collapses of 2007 and 2o08 are not that long ago.
.
And really, just about any fan would rather have their season mean something up until the last day than playing out the string.
I really don’t understand what all of the fuss is about. It was the last game of the season. Except for the teams where the games might affect postseason, the lineups were full of late-season call-ups and scrubs; teams were checking out their prospects.
Instead, let’s examine an INCREDIBLE day of baseball. Yesterday was the most amazing day, let alone last day, of baseball I’ve ever experienced. Two playoff spots at stake, four games – two of them overtime games, three of them won in the last at bat. AMAZING.
Thomas
He still had to actually get that hit in the first place. And he might have actually left hits on the table by sitting. He took a calculated risk, and it paid off. Good on him.
.
Yeah, it was a bit of a me-first move. But a win or a loss mattered little to the team. And he’s hardly the first baseball player to do something that was personally beneficial but possibly suboptimal for the team; no one gripes when a pitcher stays in to try for a no-hitter even when the smart team move might be to go to the bullpen. In a 162 game season, there’s room for individual accomplishments to occasionally take precedence over team success.
.
Happy New Year to you.
IMO, what Reyes told me, by taking himself out of the game after getting a hit, is that he has NO confidence in his ability to hit. He’s saying, “I may make an out, so I’m going to play it safe” rather than, “Put me in coach, I’m confident that I can get a hit off anyone.”
When it comes to competitions, I prefer athletes to – play to win, not play it safe.
If I was meeting with Reyes and his agent I’d ask him point blank, “You must not consider yourself a great hitter deserving of a great hitter’s contract if you didn’t have confidence in your own ability to win the batting title by playing the entire game.”
…that’s not really a question, is it? Not that it’s not a perfectly valid statement, mind you.
Also the fact the base hit was a bunt hit. (Which is part of his game fair enough) but it’s like seriously? you get a cheap base hit and then run and that was his plan all along. Just play until you get a hit.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in his first game against the Brewers he gets plunked.
This situation just seems to highlight why the Mets as an organization are such a mess.
Actually, the most interesting baseball story this week to me has been how the Red Sox and the Braves, who, I think, were both nine games ahead at the beginning of September, managed to end the month (and season) nine games behind.
And Yankees fans are being hospitalized for nearly laughing themselves to death.
Just curious: Has anyone here seen MONEYBALL, and if so, what did y’all think of it? I’m not a baseball fan, but I thought it was an interesting movie (and you can really hear Aaron Sorkin’s writing in the speech about the future near the end of the movie). I also what impact, if any, the “Moneyball” idea has had on how baseball teams without (and even) with massive budgets go about assembling their teams. In a way, it reminded me of ENDER’S GAME when Ender began entering the zero-g combat simulations in a lying down position: Everyone thought he was crazy, then they saw how much better it worked (giving enemies far less area to hit), and soon literally everyone was doing it.
I also what impact, if any, the “Moneyball” idea has had on how baseball teams without (and even) with massive budgets go about assembling their teams.
.
Oh, it’s had a HUGE impact on the game. Moneyball itself is now part of baseball lexicon. The book itself is about Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane as the first throw out the old way of measuring the ability of players in favor of newer sabermetrics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics).
.
Batting average? A pitcher’s win-loss record?
.
While not gone entirely, they are supplanted by the likes of on-base plus slugging (OPS, the ability to get on base plus hit for power), range factor, and wins above replacement (WAR, a player’s value versus an average player).
The really interesting part, that the book & movie don’t cover (because the book was written before it happened) is that the “Moneyball” idea has become such a part of baseball that Oakland no longer derives much of an advantage from it. The original narrative was that sabermetrics would be the great equalizer that allowed small market teams to compete with the massive payroll teams – but that only lasted as long as it took the major market teams to start using sabermetrics themselves.
Happy New Year, PAD.
I’ll still be writing 5771 on my checks for weeks.
I thought, given the injuries and the pressures from above with the Madoff scandals and the bloated payroll, that the Mets really gave it their all till late in the season.
And I was quite fine that Jose did what he did. We can now say a Met won a batting title. I am more than happy with that.