Success Means a Good Contingency Plan

By the time you read this, Willie Randolph may no longer be the manager of the Mets.There are some good reasons for Randolph’s job being in jeopardy. The Mets have been a .500 team over the past calendar year, with a recent slump knocking them below even this season. It’s gotten so bad that even some of his players are anonymously saying it’s time to part ways.But there are plenty of other factors responsible for the Mets’ malaise. None loom larger than their lack of a contingency plan.At the start of the season, the Mets had three players on the roster who were locks to miss significant chunks of time: Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou, and Orlando Hernandez. There were other question marks on the roster, too. Could Carlos Delgado reverse the decline started last season? Oliver Perez was likely to regress, but by how much? Sure enough, Martinez, Alou, and Hernandez have all missed big chunks of time. Delgado’s started hitting lately, but still owns below-average numbers for a first baseman. Perez has been wildly inconsistent, and just plain wild. Add Ryan Church’s concussion and you have a team with a litany of holes.The Mets have been unable to make up for those weaknesses. The combination of a farm system stripped by the Johan Santana trade and an inability to land quality major league backups has forced an army of subpar replacements into full-time duty, with mostly lousy results. Endy Chavez has been horrible, hitting just .218 AVG/.271 OBP/.277 SLG. Damion Easley is at .250/.289/.330. Nick Evans hit .174 in his brief outfield audition, Fernando Tatis just .246/.279/.333 in his. Quadruple-A starter Nelson Figueroa tried gamely in his fill-in attempt before sputtering out of the rotation with 24 walks in 38.2 innings.If those ghastly performances look familiar, they should. The Mets’ whiff last season came down to their late-season collapse, of course. But the team blew games they could have won earlier in the year, too, also due to their iffy backups. Carlos Gomez got pressed into playing time before he was ready, hitting .232 with a .288 OBP. Mike Pelfrey posted a 5.57 ERA in 13 starts. Worst of all, the Mets gave Brian Lawrence six starts, with a 6.83 ERA the result. That’s Brian Lawrence, the pitcher who missed all of 2006 due to injury and hasn’t pitched at all this year.Omar Minaya takes the blame for those shortcomings, exacerbated by several ill-fated trades over the past few years. Those bad moves — or lack of moves — look even worse when compared to other teams’ well-executed contingency plans.Few teams have exceeded expectations by a wider margin than the St. Louis Cardinals this year. Coming into the season, the Cards’ starting rotation was missing its ace Chris Carpenter, and the offense lacked punch behind Albert Pujols and Rick Ankiel. Juan Encarnacion’s eye injury raised further questions, with the Cardinals’ outfield an open question mark. On the pitching front, the Cardinals did what they always do: Find hidden gems. After watching mediocrities like Carlos Silva reel in big, multiyear contracts, Kyle Lohse watched and waited, before finally settling for one year, $4 million with the Cards. He’s been a massive bargain, logging a 3.77 ERA while walking just 21 batters in 88.1 innings. Todd Wellemeyer’s been an even bigger surprise: a 3.67 ERA and 65-to-28 strikeout-to-walk rate.Both players’ contributions pale compared to the efforts of Ryan Ludwick. The Cardinals scooped him up off the scrap heap last year and got a solid .267/.339/.479 effort in 303 at bats. He’s blown past that performance this year — his 1.028 OPS ranks sixth in the majors. Throw in Skip Schumaker’s .310/.375/.448 and it’s no wonder St. Louis owns the second-best record in the NL and sits within striking distance of the first-place Cubs.As I recently wrote in this space, the Angels owe a lot of their success this season to luck. But let’s not forget the contributions made by the team’s stand-ins. Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders were sixth and seventh on the Halos’ depth chart before injuries to John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar forced them into the rotation. They’ve responded with 3.40 and 3.32 ERAs, respectively. After injuries and ineffectiveness hit a couple of Angels relievers, rookie Jose Arredondo responded, with a 0.69 ERA and just eight base runners allowed in 13 innings.Several other teams have also filled holes with aplomb: The A’s struck gold with Greg Smith, Dana Eveland, Joey Devine, and until he hit the DL, Frank Thomas. Fill-in Eric Hinske has been the Rays’ best hitter, Gabe Gross was a steal in an early-season trade, and J.P. Howell has finally found a niche as a strike-throwing lefty out of the bullpen. The Marlins have plugged Joe Nelson and Doug Waechter into their pen with success, while Jorge Cantu’s slammed 14 homers as a surprise starter at third base, even if his defense doesn’t quite inspire.All those teams did a better job of scouting and player acquisition than the Mets did. They also did so with smaller payrolls, in some cases much smaller.They say necessity is the mother of invention. Maybe necessity is what the Mets have been missing.Mr. Keri (jonahkeri@gmail.com) is a writer for ESPN.com’s Page 2.

Success Means a Good Contingency Plan

Success Means a Good Contingency Plan

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