Learn From Mets' Mistakes

Five days ago, Brewer’s All-Star Ryan Braun told the media he thinks the Brewers need to make a trade. Milwaukee’s GM Doug Melvin responded kindly by saying that Braun needed to shut his face (perhaps not in those exact words, but essentially).

While Melvin could have ignored reporters and just let the comment die, his fighting back showed the GM at least wasn’t considering the far worse alternative — pushing the big red panic button up in his office.

You see, most people think the phrase “panic button” is just an expression commonly used in the English language.

But in baseball, GM’s actually have a physical panic button in their office. It’s true, my friend heard it from his cousin who read it online in a blog by a guy who swears he thought of becoming a major league scout once.

Either way, GM’s tend to push this button when media and fan pressure becomes too great, and the panic button bestows upon them a trade that could only make sense to the most warped baseball mind. 

The Royal’s operation is in fact run by a monkey who sits there and hits the button when he isn’t flinging feces around, and former Mets' GM Steve Phillip’s used to get so confused he would hit the panic button just to decide on what to eat for lunch.

This year we have already seen evidence of this with the Mets’ trade of outfielder Ryan Church for Atlanta’s Jeff Francoeur.

Only a very panicked team — which the free-falling Mets’ are — could talk themselves into the free-swinging Francoeur.

Here is a quick comparison of stats:

            Francoeur 2008 -             .239/.294/.359, 72 OPS+

Church 2008 -             .276/.346/.439, 106 OPS+

Francoeur 2009 -             .250/.282/.352, 68 OPS+

            Church 2009 -             .280/.332/.375, 88 OPS+

While Church is no Ryan Braun (or even Mike Cameron for that matter), he clearly has more value than Francoeur.

Francoeur has struck out at least 111 times in each of his full three seasons in the big leagues, but even more troubling, his homerun totals have dropped from 29 to 19 to 11 to a lowly five this year.

Mets’ GM Omar Minaya tried to justify the trade by claiming his young age and boasting of the “energy” he would bring.

"Plate discipline has been an issue with Jeff," Minaya said to SI.com. "I do believe because he's 25 years old, I think that he can improve that."

What evidence is their of that? Francoeur has never walked more than 42 times in a season and whined that he was “embarrassed” last year when he was demoted to AA-ball to work on his swing.

The only explanation is the Mets’ inexplicably still think of Francoeur as the five-toll prospect he was once dubbed by the Sports Illustrated cover, and the New York fans scare the bejeezus out of Minaya. Combine those two with the scary looking panic button, and you have a $3.3 million outfielder who has no power, plate discipline, ability to hit for average or speed (career high of 5 stolen bases in a season).

The point of this all isn’t to humiliate the Mets’ (they do a decent job of that with their play), but that making a trade for the hell of it usually just lands you a bigger shovel for the hole you keep digging. The cliché, “if you aren’t moving forward, you’re going backwards”, is just that, an old cliché.

This is something Brewers’ fans (and the Hammering Hebrew I suppose) need to keep in mind as the Brewer’s keep slumping. Making a trade just to shake things up has as much chance of success as Francoeur seeing ball four.

Melvin has done a good job assembling a strong core of talent. He got the Crew to the playoffs last year. Let’s put faith in the man who helped Milwaukee out the lonely cellar where dwell the Pirates and Reds.

Easier Said Than Done

Sorry my loyal readers for going dark for a week, but rest assured the View From the Bleachers will be updating regularly once again. Starting with this post, I am going to have a weekly segment called “Easier Said Than Done”. It is basically what it appears to be, I am going to be sounding off on things in sports I think are a mistake, but hell, I’m not a professional athlete, so it is probably easier for me to say than for those multi-millionaires to do.

ESTD – Wednesday’s game, bottom of the 2^nd, bases loaded with the Brewers already down three runs and Mike Cameron makes an out by running into a groundball that looks like it was hit by a first grade girl at a family picnic? What do you call a “rookie mistake” when it is made by a 15-year-veteran?

Speaking of which, when can we end the ridiculous cliché of “rookie mistake”. Professional athletes of all ages make mental mistakes that appear heinous from our comfy couches. Whether you are an ickle first year about to be sorted or a burly seventh year, intelligence, or lack thereof, remains roughly the same your entire adult life.

ESTD – Why don’t home plate umpires ask for help on a check swing every single time when it is even remotely close? You can’t tell the depth of a swing while sitting directly behind a hitter. The first and third base umps, however, have excellent views. The Brewers, of course, were burned by home plate umpire Bill Hohn when he disagreed with my assertions (and every other logical baseball fan) and called Gallardo on a strike out with the bases loaded, ending the inning.

This has nothing to do with the post, but…Brian Anderson (the Brewers play-by-play announcer) just called out the Giants for “drinking the Kool-aid on their own team” in spring training. Brian Anderson just accused someone else of possibly showing homerism. Brian freaking Anderson! Talk about Hermione calling someone else a nerd

ESTD – Why does Ken Macha ever, ever, ever give plate appearances to Jody Gerut? Batting .196 on the year, Gerut has hit .114 with Milwaukee and slugged an even more impressive .114 in 38 plate appearance. He has a -18 OPS+. He almost never sees more than two pitches in an at-bat before grounding weakly to second base. These numbers defy sarcasm. He makes Billy Hall look like Ryan Braun. Braun compares favorably to Babe Ruth when stacked up with Gerut (OK, so the numbers don’t completely defy sarcasm).

To top it off, the Crew have a very capable lefty on the bench in rookie Mat Gamel. The tall lefty bats with some power, walks some and most importantly, his jersey does NOT say Gerut on the back.

On a side note, what the hell happened to Gerut? In his rookie year with the Indians, Gerut had a line of .279/.336/.494 and belted 22 home runs, resulting in a respectable 120 OPS+. He even finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting, beating out fifth place Mark Teixiera.