Callaway or Kapler: Who Gets Fired First?

Callaway or Kapler: Who Gets Fired First?


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jon abbey

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Thought this might be fun, a quick rundown for those not paying close attention:

Both the Mets and Phillies are underachieving after having high expectations entering the season, both are coming off bad losses, and they start a four game series against each other tonight. Also continuing the parallels, both team's GMs just gave their managers a public vote of confidence this past week.
 

jon abbey

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Both in the last couple of hours:

"Phillies GM Matt Klentak said Gabe Kapler will be his manager the rest of the season. Also threw his support behind the entire coaching staff. No internal changes. Believes this is just a bad stretch and they will turn around their season."

"Brodie says this incident doesn't change his confidence in Callaway. "
 

EvilEmpire

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I think Callaway will last the season too, but he is more likely to go first if not. I think the Regan hire was probably a placeholder just to get through the rest of this season and then the Mets clean house and bring in a new manager and staff all at once.

I guess it is good that the GMs are giving votes of confidence. Who is giving the GMs votes of confidence? I think I'd get rid of them all.
 

johnmd20

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Mets are too cheap to fire Callaway. Considering the team is owned by criminals who built their empire on the back of Bernie Madoff, they need to watch every penny. The Mets will be bad for as long as that criminal family owns the team. And they should be bad. The Wilpons are bad people.
 

Sad Sam Jones

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I think they both make it to at least the All-Star break, but maybe not to the off-season. It seems like Callaway has to be on thinner ice because of changes to his coaching staff and the intense media scrutiny. I'll say Kapler hangs on until September and then they can him in the final week to make a statement as the Phils limp to the finish line.

*
 

InstaFace

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Mets are too cheap to fire Callaway. Considering the team is owned by criminals who built their empire on the back of Bernie Madoff, they need to watch every penny. The Mets will be bad for as long as that criminal family owns the team. And they should be bad. The Wilpons are bad people.
wait, what? I thought they lost money to Madoff. Fred Wilpon made his money in real estate, building residential developments, and tax-advantaged properties around the country. Not that the median NYC real estate developer has his nose clean, but "criminals" and "on the back of Bernie Madoff" seems closer to magical thinking than it does even an unreasonable characterization of the history.
 

jon abbey

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Mets score 2 in the first, Phillies come back with 3 in the bottom of the inning. This is going to be a fun series for people not rooting for either team.
 

jon abbey

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The Mets schedule from now until the ASB, 11 more games:

3 @PHI
3 ATL
2 NYY
3 PHI

The second half starts in MIA, my guess is Callaway will be gone by then.
 

Average Reds

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wait, what? I thought they lost money to Madoff. Fred Wilpon made his money in real estate, building residential developments, and tax-advantaged properties around the country. Not that the median NYC real estate developer has his nose clean, but "criminals" and "on the back of Bernie Madoff" seems closer to magical thinking than it does even an unreasonable characterization of the history.
My recollection is that they did not lose money with Madoff. Their "losses" were relative to their expected return, not against their principal. (By the time Madoff admitted it was a Popnzi scheme, he had already paid the Wilpons more in "annual returns" than they had invested with him.)

However, it's worth noting that the Mets structured their finances around the expectation of a steady stream of profits from Madoff, so when it was revealed that his investments were, in fact, a Ponzi scheme, their long-term financial plans became a pile of smoldering ashes.

Here's one example: the famous Bobby Bonilla contract (which will continue paying him until 2035, I believe) was loaded with deferred money at an 8% interest rate. That seemed nuts to most, but it made a ton of sense to the Wilpons, because they assumed they could arbitrage the deferred money by investing it with Madoff and make 15%. (Oops.)

As I said, that's just one example. My assumption is that their entire lives were structured similarly, so when that "guaranteed" return vanished, they were screwed.
 

YTF

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Callaway without a doubt IMO, but he probably makes the all star break. The Mets are honoring the '69 team this weekend I believe and I think part of that celebration will include the dedication of a street (boulevard) to Tom Seaver. I can't imagine the Mets want anything in addition to their poor performance to distract from that.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Callaway without a doubt IMO, but he probably makes the all star break. The Mets are honoring the '69 team this weekend I believe and I think part of that celebration will include the dedication of a street (boulevard) to Tom Seaver. I can't imagine the Mets want anything in addition to their poor performance to distract from that.
Look up June 6, 1983 in Red Sox history

Le Coup LeRoux, on Tony C night
 

SemperFidelisSox

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Mets lose again. 7 in a row. 21st blown save of the season. One more with Atlanta and then two with the Yankees. I got Thursday’s off day as the day Callaway gets the boot.
 

jon abbey

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Phillies and Mets starting another series tonight, Phillies are 4-15 in their last 19 non-Mets games.
 

shawnrbu

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2-2 going into the 9th. Díaz blows up again versus Philly allowing 4 runs in 0.1 IP. Another deGrom start wasted. Mets are singlehandedly keeping the Phillies alive for a Wild Card.
 

jon abbey

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They were celebrating the 30th anniversary of Seinfeld at the Mets game tonight, so this is pretty perfect:

 

jon abbey

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I can't believe the Mets broke Diaz so quickly, he is a 25 year old stud with the same stuff that he dominated the AL with last year.

What the Mets have done with their catcher position since Brodie took over nine months ago is quite the saga, the short version is that they had Mesoraco (DeGrom's catcher his dominant 2018) and D'Arnaud. Brodie did not like those options, so he offered Grandal a huge deal, which he turned down only to eventually take a fraction of from MIL (tangential but amusing). Then he was unsuccessful in pulling the trigger for Realmuto, so he offered the good offense/awful defense Wilson Ramos 2/19 and Ramos jumped at it. Mesoraco refused to report to AAA (and D'Arnaud was out of options) and asked to be released, teams almost always say yes but Brodie would not let him out of his deal, so he retired. So Ramos and D'Arnaud were their two guys to start the season, then they released D'Arnaud maybe a month in (he is now playing quite a bit for the much wiser Rays) and went with Ramos and the weak hitting but defensively very strong Tomas Nido, who one should note had been in the system all along.

All of that only leads up to this another month or two later: now both DeGrom and Syndergaard have asked for Nido to be their personal catcher over the higher paid/just signed Ramos (and that is going to happen). So Brodie had three better in-house options just nine months ago but bumped them all to sign a higher paid worse option, now two are gone for nothing and Ramos is killing them because BVW valued offense over catching ability for his catchers. Good job, dude!
 

Gdiguy

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The only thing I'll say is that D'Arnaud has had a lot of chances over the past few years, and between injuries and just overall poor performance hasn't really won the job at any point... if he succeeds with the Rays I'm happy for him, but I haven't seen anything that would suggest to me he desperately needed to be held onto

I really don't know why Diaz specifically, and the bullpen in general, has been so incredibly awful - I'm almost ready to jump on the 'bad defensive catchers can destroy a team' idea, because they've been just amazingly awful the entire year
 

jon abbey

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The only thing I'll say is that D'Arnaud has had a lot of chances over the past few years, and between injuries and just overall poor performance hasn't really won the job at any point... if he succeeds with the Rays I'm happy for him, but I haven't seen anything that would suggest to me he desperately needed to be held onto
Which is fine, but then don't protect him over Mesoraco a month earlier (pushing a slightly unwilling Mesoraco into retirement), then dump him after a whopping 25 PAs this year. Right or wrong, it's continually hilarious decision making, no matter the GM (Omar Minaya looking good in retrospect), apologies to you if you are a Mets fan but stop doing it to yourself. It is going to be funny/sad/something when they dump Ramos and pull Mesoraco off the couch to team with Nido... :)
 

jon abbey

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Bumped two months later with both teams realistically eliminated with two weeks to go...

We live in an era where it's harder than ever for an outsider to judge what kind of job a manager is doing, so much we don't know about player availability and who is available but hurting and specific matchups plus now so many instructions come from the front office before the game, and the manager less often than ever gets a chance to make impactful decisions in the moment.

That's why it's so amazing that Mickey Callaway seems to make obvious and crucial mistakes so so often. I was sitting here tonight thinking that already after a really odd sequence in the 6th inning, Mets down 7-4, runners on 2nd and one out. Rosario grounds one to the left side that DH-playing-1B Daniel Murphy played into a very close play that Rosario maybe barely beats out, but they go to replay.

Now this is the good part: Mickey was going to pinch-hit Panik (.641 OPS) for Nido if Rosario was out, but when he was ruled safe after the replay, Mickey went to Guillorme (.675 OPS) instead. But, Jon, you say, maybe that made sense because he thought Guillorme would be a better bet to put the ball in play and at least get one run in? I didn't look up the numbers there, certainly possible, but that's why it was even funnier when Guillorme took two 92 MPH FBs down the middle to get to 1-2 and then struck out swinging on a curve. Then Panik got his shot, grounder to human vacuum Arenado, squander complete.

So if that was it, still odd but maybe not worth the effort of posting, even though I was watching and just amazed at how many times Callaway has made decisions that were odd to inexplicable beforehand and how often they have gone just the way one would expect. But then, next time around the lineup, those two spots came up again, and for absolutely no possible reason, Mickey had left the pitcher's spot at 8 and the catcher at 9, instead of double switching. Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez were left kind of speechless once they realized what was happening, so I thought I'd memorialize that one.

Anyway, I don't know how Mickey has made it this far, but even the Mets have to fire him the day after the season ends. Kapler I follow a lot less but I think he is somewhat less culpable because the Phillies have had tons of injuries, I could see him at least getting the first few months of 2020.
 

jon abbey

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Also Callaway used LHH in all top four spots tonight because of Senzatela's splits, and he did get two HRs and three runs from them in the first three innings (nothing after that). On the flip side, that allowed lefty Pazos to come in in the seventh with a 7-4 lead and get the top of the lineup 1-2-3, two Ks, in an eventual 9-4 win. I'm not saying that's an obviously bad decision by Mickey, but I am saying sometimes there's a reason almost no other manager does something (bats LHH 1-4).
 

jon abbey

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Wow, now the press conference is going on, I didn't realize he had Ramos and Frazier on the bench but went with the other two guys because they were lefties. He seriously said that he was OK holding onto the righties there because "there were 4 or 5 innings left". It was the bottom of the 6th, please put this man out of his misery.
 

InsideTheParker

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The Mets have a higher winning percentage than 15 other teams in mlb. Is it the budget, big city expectations, or what else that makes their manager particularly vulnerable to firing?
 

jon abbey

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The Mets have a higher winning percentage than 15 other teams in mlb. Is it the budget, big city expectations, or what else that makes their manager particularly vulnerable to firing?
He's consistently seemed overmatched all season long, he was a good pitching coach in CLE but seems overmatched in the managerial job and has pretty much since he's been hired. My previous post gives you one simple example (thinking there were '4 or 5 innings left' after a situation that occurred in the sixth inning) and if you go to the Mets thread, there are a bunch more examples I've posted periodically all season long. The Mets would be much better off with someone like Girardi, if he'd take the job given all of the organizational ineptitude around it.
 

EvilEmpire

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Girardi with what talent the Mets already have could be interesting.

Edit: But he might be the next Cubs manager.
 

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The Mets have a higher winning percentage than 15 other teams in mlb. Is it the budget, big city expectations, or what else that makes their manager particularly vulnerable to firing?
A similar case could have been made in 2003 with the Red Sox manager. Sometimes guys aren't cut out to be managers regardless of the relative success of the team.
 

YTF

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Girardi with what talent the Mets already have could be interesting.

Edit: But he might be the next Cubs manager.
I would think that Joe would find the Cubs gig much more desirable. The Cubs have been a solid contender in recent years with a good young core of players, they're a more stable organisation than the Mets and there would be no need (real or perceived) to compete with the crosstown rivals. Girardi was also born and raised in Peoria, was drafted and came up through the Cubs' system and he and his wife went to Northwestern University. In many ways it would be a homecoming and if any of that means anything, then waiting for that opportunity might be the reason why he's still available.
 

EvilEmpire

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I agree. I think Girardi would fit best with the Cubs, both personally and professionally. In addition to all that, while I think he rep as a hardass was somewhat overstated toward the end of his time with the Yankees, style wise, coming in after a guy like Maddon might be a good cultural shift for that team.
 

YTF

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I agree. I think Girardi would fit best with the Cubs, both personally and professionally. In addition to all that, while I think he rep as a hardass was somewhat overstated toward the end of his time with the Yankees, style wise, coming in after a guy like Maddon might be a good cultural shift for that team.
There might be a lot of mutual respect between the players and Girardi going into this as the Cubs aren't that far removed from a World Series championship and Girardi has four rings of his own. He's also been afforded the opportunity to observe the Cubs in a unique way in his role at the MLB Network.
 

EvilEmpire

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Maddon is in jeopardy?
If he isn't, I think he should be. But yeah, I think Theo made some comments in the media recently that imply there could be trouble for Maddon.

Girardi taking his place is pure speculation on my part based on fit and the reasons discussed earlier.
 

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At this point, I think that Davey Martinez gets fired before either Callaway or Kapler. The Nats had a 7 game lead over the second wild card just two weeks ago and it’s now down to one game (and could be tied before the Nats play again on Friday). If they blow this, I think that Martinez is gone (my only hesitation would be if Martinez’s medical problems keep him out for the rest of the year, in which case the Lerners may be hesitant to fire him if the finale collapse came while he was out).
 

jon abbey

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At this point, I think that Davey Martinez gets fired before either Callaway or Kapler. The Nats had a 7 game lead over the second wild card just two weeks ago and it’s now down to one game (and could be tied before the Nats play again on Friday). If they blow this, I think that Martinez is gone (my only hesitation would be if Martinez’s medical problems keep him out for the rest of the year, in which case the Lerners may be hesitant to fire him if the finale collapse came while he was out).
I don't follow anything in the NL so closely, but isn't the Nats' problem total lack of a competent bullpen for the umpteenth year in a row and shouldn't that be on the GM much more than Martinez? They keep firing managers and the bullpen keeps being awful year after year, maybe it's not the manager's fault.
 

jon abbey

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Honestly it's almost like Callaway is trying to get fired. Here's another (non-)move he just made, with some background:

7 or 8 days ago there were news stories about Syndergaard much preferring to work with either Nido or Rivera over Ramos, his numbers are far better with other catchers (Ramos isn't good at framing his slider so Noah throws it a lot less). Callaway and NY ignored this, started Ramos again in Noah's next start, and it went badly and the Mets lost.

So today they started Rivera (in Coors Field, so it was hard to get a realistic read on the effectiveness), and the Mets were down 3-2, bottom of the 6th, bases loaded, two outs, and Rivera, a defensive-first catcher who has never hit well, up. Callaway chose to leave him in and not go with one of his many superior pinch-hitters, presumably because Syndergaard, who was already at 90 pitches, would be in for one more inning. Of course he grounded out.
 

B H Kim

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I don't follow anything in the NL so closely, but isn't the Nats' problem total lack of a competent bullpen for the umpteenth year in a row and shouldn't that be on the GM much more than Martinez? They keep firing managers and the bullpen keeps being awful year after year, maybe it's not the manager's fault.
I don’t disagree, but Rizzo seems to get a pass from ownership, no matter what happens. (The front office’s failure to build a workable bullpen was also largely to blame for the NLDS losses in 2016 and 2017 that led to Dusty getting fired.)
 

jon abbey

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Both teams officially eliminated, the Phillies are collapsing down the stretch.

"Phillies have lost 5 in a row, 7 of last 8 and 9 of last 12. They are now .500 for first time this season. Need to win 3 of final 4 for first winning record since 2011. "
 

YTF

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Yeah the Phillies are going down in flames for the second time in Kapler's brief tenure. They were just swept in a five game series by the Nats and lie a game below .500. Perhaps the loss of Roberts, Arrietta and McCutchen buy him another season, but there is still some damn good talent on this team and when you look at how Tampa and the MFY were able to succeed with the injuries that they sustained it's hard to argue that point. On the flip side I think that the Met's are slowly moving in the right direction, but Callaway's not the guy to lead them. Think Mickey and Kapler are both on their way out, which one of them goes first may depend on whose game finishes first on Sunday.
 

jon abbey

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jon abbey

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They have a much better sense in what they might have in Alonso, McNeil and Rosario. Perhaps in a lesser extent Nimmo and Conforto. That's a good young core that they can feel better about moving forward.
This is true and a good point, but it’s worth noting that all of these guys were in place pre-Brodie a year ago. Also McNeil just broke his hand, which is less than ideal even going into the offseason.
 

Gdiguy

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This is true and a good point, but it’s worth noting that all of these guys were in place pre-Brodie a year ago. Also McNeil just broke his hand, which is less than ideal even going into the offseason.
Yeah, but on the flip side, you need to give credit to Brodie for promoting Alonso and letting him stay up the whole season, which is one of the major reasons why they were competitive.

I don't know - 'third place finish again' sounds bad, whereas 'best record for a team that missed the playoffs' isn't as bad (and for a team missing the playoffs, this was one of the more fun seasons I can remember). I'm completely ambivalent on Callaway, but I'm not as anti-Brodie as I would've expected going into the year.
 

jon abbey

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I'm not as anti-Brodie as I would've expected going into the year.
I mean, a little credit for not burying Alonso in AAA for a month, but they gave away four of their top prospects for Diaz/Cano/1 1/3 years of Stroman and made the team worse in doing so. Diaz went from awesome to badly broken and is about to get pricy, rarely has a player lost so much value in a season without an injury. Syndergaard is one year closer to FA and had a very up and down year, he is a lot less valuable now than last winter (although I think they could still get a good haul). Also the carcass of Lowrie is clogging things for another season, not to mention four more years of Cano. I'm not saying they're in terrible position going forward, I agree there are a surprising number of potential core pieces in place (Seth Lugo too) but as Sherman says, they now have more money committed and fewer potential trade chips than they did going into last season, plus I think they were decidedly behind ATL coming into the season, and maybe even more so now.

From my non-fan perspective, I think the Wilpons, Brodie and Callaway are all horrendous at their respective roles, and it's hard to divvy up the blame, but Callaway is clearly overmatched by this job, both on the field and off, and also obviously the most vulnerable to taking the hit.
 

YTF

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This is true and a good point, but it’s worth noting that all of these guys were in place pre-Brodie a year ago. Also McNeil just broke his hand, which is less than ideal even going into the offseason.
He's got the whole off season to heal and hopefully that will be all that he needs. As for Brodie, you're right but this is about Mickey and I guess my point is that now that there is a better sense that there is indeed a young, productive core to build from the team is likely better off with someone else as the skipper. There are a lot of things from this season that aren't Mickey's fault, but IMO Mr. Callaway's not the guy to be managing that team.
 

jon abbey

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OK, I think we're basically agreeing then. Brodie has a lot of potential ways to go with this roster, if he has somehow learned from his many first year mistakes, there are some things he could do but I would not be optimistic as a Mets fan (about Brodie's capability of improving this team).
 

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I forgot about Lowrie. did he even play a game this year?

we laugh at the Mets but it feels like they got some bad luck this year.
 

YTF

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Lowrle"s appeared in 8 games and is 0-6 with 1 walk in 7 PAs. B-Ref shows no innings played in the field to date so it looks like he's just been used as a PH due to the roster expansion as the Mets tried to make a WC push.