State
Of the Game
By Stuart Miller

The line between stubbornness and stupidity, it turns out, is not so fine. Just take a look at the New York Mets’ handling of Hamstring-gate—the never-ending injuries to the legs of top prospect Jose Reyes—and you’ll understand how a badly run organization can make one frustratingly foolish decision after another.

In a sense, this is a "moneyball" (the term was the title of Michael Lewis’ 2003 best-selling baseball book) story without the statistics. The Oakland A’s make it to the playoffs every year on a low budget while the Mets finish near the bottom of the standings no matter how much they spend, but it is not just about whether Oakland’s general manager Billy Beane emphasizes on-base percentage more, or whether drafting pitchers with only college experience is the way to go. No, the true lesson of Michael Lewis’ book is a broader one—one that echoes back to the days of team owners Branch Rickey and Bill Veeck.

The lesson is this: while much of baseball’s appeal and drama stems from connections to its traditions and its history—a rarity in this everything’s disposable, keep looking forward country—you can have too much of a good thing. Many baseball executives cling too tightly to traditions and history or are just so stubborn and afraid of change that they are often paralyzed.

What in the name of statistics expert Bill James does that have to do with Moneyball, much less Jose Reyes’ fragile hammies? Glad you asked. Billy Beane has liberated baseball in a new (less socially significant) way with his emphasis on modern statistics—but it isn’t the particular stats that matter. What Lewis showed was how willfully obtuse most baseball executives are and how their unwillingness to open their minds results in their opening their wallets for the wrong players. It is a mental flexibility that links Rickey and Veeck to Beane and disciples like Theo Epstein and it is that characteristic so sorely lacking in New York’s management.

The Mets, laboring under the "Curse of A-Rod," since they refused to sign him in 2000, thought they finally had a spark for the future in Reyes. Skill-wise he has proved to be everything they’ve promised, but health-wise he is veering dangerously close to the storyline followed in the 1990s by can’t-miss Mets Bill Pulsipher, Paul Wilson and Jason Isringhausen.

There’s one difference, however. These days there seems to be an answer for the problems plaguing Reyes but the Mets have ignored it. In this era of specialists, there are at least two well-known experts, Mackie Shilstone and Mack Newton, both of whom have proven track records in helping major leaguers overcome lingering hamstring problems. But a team has to be willing to think creatively, to understand that it might not have all the answers that its staff might have to accept outside help.

Despite the fact that the New York media keeps hammering at this theme—the New York Times quotes both men almost every time it mentions Reyes’ injuries—the team has blithely insisted that the problem can be handled in house.

Except, of course, it can’t be—that’s why he keeps getting re-injured.

The worst moment came at the end of spring training when the Mets finally conceded that sending Reyes to Shilstone might be the best move, but said they couldn’t do it until the All-Star break because that would be the first time he’d have three days off. But, Reyes wanted to continue his baseball workouts.

Didn’t anyone in the front office learn the "Grady Little lesson" about listening to your player when you’re the one responsible for seeing the big picture? Didn’t they try to persuade him that a three-day delay might be worth it if he’d really be injury-free afterwards? Couldn’t they have just ordered him to go? Apparently not, and this stubbornness came back to haunt the club last week when it announced that Reyes had, once again, hurt his hamstrings and was now shutting down completely.

The Mets response: general manager Jim Duquette claims the club is open to outside options but says he is comfortable with the approach it is currently taking. Maybe it’s time Duquette read "Moneyball" —or at least the Cliff Notes version that explain the book’s themes.