Word is Steve Cohen’s first big expenditure upon being formally approved as new Mets owner will not be on a high priced free agent such as J.T. Realmuto or Trevor Bauer, but rather an investment to beef up the Mets’ analytics department.
It is certainly understandable why Cohen, whose hedge fund entities are all operated with a heavy influence of analytics and data, would want to take that same route in baseball. The Mets’ analytics department — headed up by Adam Guttridge, a Brodie Van Wagenen hire who is said to have played an integral role in the acquisition of J.D. Davis and holding on to Jeff McNeil — is reportedly one of the smallest in baseball. At the same time, it was a smart and safe move on Cohen’s part to install Sandy Alderson, an experienced hand at building championship teams on limited budgets, as head of baseball operations. For in the past couple of years, as some of Cohen’s new MLB lodge brothers can attest, hiring these new wave general managers whose prime modus operandi is the emphasis of analytics over scouting, can result in less-than-desired results.
Last week, Angels owner Arte Moreno fired GM Billy Eppler, previously Brian Cashman’s analytics chief with the Yankees, after five straight losing seasons in Anaheim. “Obviously, we’re not doing it the right way,” said Angels president John Carpino. “We’re not winning games, so something is not right in our organization. So we have to look in the mirror and find out.”
It’s a very similar situation in Philadelphia where the Phillies, who have failed to make the postseason and had only one .500 season in the five years, finally forced out Matt Klentak as their GM Saturday. This year had to be especially disturbing to Phillies owner John Middleton: The Miami Marlins, with the 27th lowest payroll of $31 million made the playoffs over his club with the fifth highest at $78M. The Phillies’ season ended with a listless 5-0 loss to Tampa Bay and over the season they had the second-worst bullpen ERA (7.69) in baseball history, where Klentak’s GM counterpart with Miami, Mike Hill, built an entire new bullpen from scratch, mostly from the scrap heap rejects of other teams — much of that the result of good scouting.
Word around baseball was that Klentak had no relationship with his scouts and barely communicated with them. Ditto, he never talked to the veteran accomplished senior advisors, Pat Gillick, Terry Ryan and Larry Bowa. Under Klentak’s watch, the Phillies have one of the shallowest farm systems in baseball. Third baseman Alec Bohm, a favorite for NL Rookie of the Year, is about the only Klentak-drafted position player to have any impact in the majors, while, at the same time, he was burned badly for $51 million on free agent relievers Pat Neshek, Tommy Hunter and David Robertson.
Middleton, who last year stepped in and fired Klentak’s man Gabe Kapler, a disaster as Phillies manager, and replaced him with Joe Girardi, will likely look to a similar veteran baseball man for his GM. The very fact that Miami, which lost 105 games last year and half their team to the coronavirus this year, finished ahead of the Phillies and in the playoffs was the convincer Middleton that, like Arte Moreno’s Angels with Eppler, his team under Klentak had clearly not been doing it the right way.
Then there is the situation in Colorado where Jeff Bridich, another Ivy League analytics whiz kid like Klentac, has done a terrible job but apparently still retains support from Rockies owner Dick Monfort. It’s hard to figure out why. Under Bridich, the Rockies have finished under .500 in six of the eight years he’s been GM and in the other two were quick postseason kayoes. Bridich wasted $106 million of Monfort’s money on free agent relievers Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw and Jake McGee, and spent $70 million on Ian Desmond, who’s had three mostly injury-plagued so-so seasons before opting out of this season because of COVID-19 concerns. In addition, Bridich’s decision two years ago to let the popular DJ LeMahieu — who desperately wanted to come back — walk as a free agent and replace him with Daniel Murphy was an egregious mistake. Finally, Bridich has totally alienated the Rockies’ franchise player Nolan Arenado.
It’s a wonder how Monfort can sit back and watch all this and not conclude: “We’re not doing this the right way here.”
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
The Baseball Writers Association last week voted overwhelmingly (89%) to remove the name of the first commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis from the MVP award plaques. Even though most BBWAA members probably didn’t even know the awards were named for Landis, it was an entirely appropriate decision given the fact that, as commissioner, he was most responsible for keeping the game segregated. The 2020 plaques — yes there will be BBWAA awards this year — will be nameless. Despite numerous alternative suggestions from writers to re-name the awards, I would hope they leave them nameless. For in this day and age, it’s become too easy to uncover dark sins and scandals of peoples’ past life, and with the exception of Jackie Robinson honoring the National League Rookie of the Year award, there is no need to put someone’s name on the awards. … The Professional Baseball Agreement between MLB and minor league baseball expired September 30 without a new deal, clearing the way for MLB to take over management of the minor leagues and implement their plan to contract the minors from 160 teams to 120. That has already begun with the announcement by MLB that the 10-team, MLB-owned Appalachian League has been converted to a college summer league for rising (pre-draft) freshmen and sophomores. Though they have not announced anything, MLB is said to be working on doing the same with the short-season eight-team Northwest and Pioneer Leagues as well as most of the New York-Penn League, which would account for the bulk of the contraction. It is believed, as part of the MLB plan, a few of the New York Penn League teams, including the Mets-owned Brooklyn Cyclones and Cal Ripken’s Aberdeen team, will be offered the opportunity to join an expanded Low-A South Atlantic League. But as much as the Appalachian League operators expressed gratitude to MLB for not eliminating them altogether, they have reason to be concerned that this is only a three-year deal, meaning MLB is not convinced it will be successful. In any case, the average $8-10 million value of the short season teams is going to be substantially reduced if they are converted to unaffiliated summer league teams. And there is considerable doubt about the viability of creating so many more summer leagues, diluting the talent level overall. Most hurt by this will be the venerable Cape Cod League which has been in operation since 1923 and has attracted the cream of the college crop and hordes of major league scouts. Now MLB will presumably steer most of the premier college players to their own summer leagues. Though both MLB and MiLB issued statements to the effect that they are still negotiating, MLB, which is moving the minor league offices from St. Petersburg to their headquarters in New York, is holding all the cards. Grassroots minor league baseball is over and a lot of minor league owners are going to lose everything and they have to know by now the politicians can’t do anything to save them.
