I've come to a Conclusion

I'm sorry about the fact that I'm going to to write about the Mets and Willie Randolph but I feel like I need to because I finally understand this situation fully(and I'm a die hard Mets fan). I'm also writing about something tactical that happened in last night's game so I guess it qualifies for this blog. I hope I won't have to write about the Mets again.

Last week Moises Alou went on the DL for the Mets. In this event the Mets called up a catcher named Raul Casanova meaning that they would now be carrying three catchers. Against the Braves Ryan Church received a mild concussion while trying to break up a double play, he has not started since because of dizziness. Last night(yesterday in NY) I looked at the Mets lineup and saw that Brian Schneider, a .253/.323/.375 hitter, was batting 6th and I asked myself, is Willie out of his mind??? He could've instead batted the rookie Nick Evans(in AA had a .538 SLG) 6th.

The 7th inning answered my question as to if Willie Randolph has truly lost his mind. I finally understood why these smart writers were saying that Willie should be fired because he's a terrible tactician. It was the top of the 7th, one out, runners on 1st and 2nd and Mets down 3-1. Brian Schneider's up, I thought to myself, I know he'll strike out but it's okay Nick Evans is on deck. Guess what? Schneider struck out! Then Willie the genius decided to pinch hit for Nick Evans with Ryan Church, the guy who is still woozy from the blow to the head. I said to myself, if Willie was planning on pinch hitting Church to win the ballgame why didn't he pinch hit for the inferior batter in Schneider, after all the point of having three catchers on your roster is to have flexibility and to be able to take your catcher out of the game whenever you want to. And of course Church swung way late on three 89 MPH fastballs from Aaron Cook for the third out.

Boy was I pissed after that. I realized that Randolph really is a horrible tactician not using the advantage(having three catchers)
he created for this kind of situation. I would have batted Evans 6th in the batting order and pinch hit for Schneider with Ramon Castro. I know that lineups don't really matter and managers are all similar, but in this case they both did matter and in the study BP did on managers confirmed that since managers basically all use the same methods, the difference between the best and worst managers would be a small difference something around 2.5 wins a season. Well 2.5 more wins for the Mets last year and they'd have been in the playoffs. Please, someone take Willie off our hands.