Joey's Soapbox: Can the Mets Trade Eric O'Flaherty For Doug Sisk?

I can't "bear" to watch the screen whenever Eric O'Flaherty takes the mound for the Mets.

Good Labor Day weekend to you all.  This is Joey Beartran, your fav'rit Studious Metsimus roving reporter/culinary expert/soapbox climber.  It's been far too long since I've gotten on my soapbox to complain about a Mets player I strongly dislike.  On the positive side, that's probably because the Mets have actually been a good team this year.  On the negative side, that means we were probably long overdue for a player who deserved my wrath.  And I've found that player in left-handed relief pitcher Eric O'Flaherty.

In Friday night's series opener in Miami, O'Flaherty came into the game in relief of Erik Goeddel, who had retired four of the five previous batters he had faced.  Why was Goeddel taken out in favor of O'Flaherty?  Because left-handed swinging Christian Yelich was up, and we all know lefties retire lefties, right?  There's only one problem with that for me.  Left-handed batters were batting .226 and had a .250 on-base percentage against Goeddel this year, while O'Flaherty had faced 23 lefty-swingers during his brief tenure as a Met and had allowed nine hits and one walk.  For all you kids out there, that's a .409 batting average and a .435 OBP.

O'Flaherty must have had his Lucky Charms before the game because he got Yelich to hit into a fielder's choice.  However, his luck ran out once Martin Prado stepped into the batter's box.  Let me set this one up for you, 'cause this one's a knee-slapper.

Prado is a right-handed batter.  He also had four hits in the game entering his confrontation against O'Flaherty.  Jeurys Familia had still not been used by the Mets because he had to be held out for a potential save situation in case the Mets took the lead, which, because it's the Marlins, might not have occurred until the 20th inning.  So let's leave O'Flaherty in the game to face a right-handed hitting Mets killer.  Makes perfect sense, right?  I mean, O'Flaherty had retired eight right-handed batters in his month with the Mets, so why couldn't he make Prado victim No. 9?  Never mind that he had also allowed eight righties reach base against him, including two doubles and one home run.  That's not important right now.

So Prado stepped in to face O'Flaherty with the speedy Christian Yelich on first, working the count full.  With two outs and a 3-2 count, Yelich would be running on the pitch.  Sure enough, Prado ripped his fifth hit of the game down the right field line, scoring Yelich easily from first base and setting off the jubilant celebration for the Marlins' third-ever World Series championship victory - or at least it seemed as if that's what they were doing.  I almost expected Marcell Ozuna to come out of the dugout and fire 2015 World Champions t-shirts into the stands with his cannon arm so that the four Marlins fans who attended the game could come to blows over them.

But I digress.  The point of this rant is to discuss Eric O'Flaherty and why he's still on this team.  And I'm going to bring up a former Met to kick everything off.

Let's hop in the DeLorean and go back to 1985.  No, we're not reenacting a scene from Back To The Future.  We're going back to Shea Stadium in the mid-'80s to pay a visit to Doug Sisk.  In 1984, the right-handed reliever was coming off his second consecutive solid season for the Mets.  Sisk had 15 saves and a career-best 2.09 ERA in 77⅔ innings, as he held opposing hitters to a .215 batting average and .260 slugging percentage.  His '84 season was fresh off his successful '83 campaign, a year in which he posted a 2.24 ERA and pitched a career-high 104⅓ innings, while recording 11 saves.  Then 1985 happened, and Sisk hit the fan.

One of the few problems experienced by Sisk in 1983 and 1984 was his lack of control.  He did walk his share of batters over those two seasons (113 in all), but always seemed to pitch his way out of trouble.  He finally learned how to throw strikes in 1985, and continued to throw balls over the plate in 1986, as he walked just 71 batters in those two seasons.  There's only one problem with that.  Hitters like balls over the plate.  And they responded by batting .286 over the two campaigns, pushing Sisk's ERA and WHIP to 4.20 and 1.63, respectively.

When a team has a plethora of good pitchers as the Mets did in 1985 and 1986, fans tend to notice the pitchers who don't do well, and Sisk got the undivided attention of all the boobirds during those two otherwise successful campaigns.  Let's put it this way.  In 1985, fans showed up to cheer Dwight Gooden, who posted a stellar 1.53 ERA.  Those same fans showed up to boo Doug Sisk, who produced a cringeworthy 1.73 WHIP in '85.  When one pitcher has a higher WHIP than his teammate's ERA, that's a problem, and Sisk was used less and less until he threw his final pitch for the Mets in 1987.

That brings us back to Eric O'Flaherty and Friday night's game against the Marlins.  The game was started by Jacob deGrom, who like Gooden thirty years earlier, was having an exceptional sophomore season after winning the Rookie of the Year Award the previous year.  DeGrom left the game with a 2.40 ERA.  When O'Flaherty's night ended after Prado's double, his WHIP stood at 2.45.  Even Doug Sisk has to be shaking his head at that.

Doug Sisk is cringing in this photo because he knew we'd someday compare him to Eric O'Flaherty.

General manager Sandy Alderson acquired O'Flaherty to face left-handed hitters.  O'Flaherty replaced southpaw Alex Torres, who had far more success against right-handed batters (.157 batting average, .298 OBP) than lefty-swingers (.268 average, .406 OBP).  In hindsight, they should have kept Torres, as O'Flaherty has allowed all hitters to bat .405 against him and slug at a .622 clip.

O'Flaherty has pitched in 13 games with the Mets.  He has allowed base runner in ten of those 13 affairs.  In two of the three games he shocked the world by retiring every batter he faced, every batter consisted of one batter.  Even Doug Sisk could get one batter out more often than not if he only had to face one batter.

There is no reason why O'Flaherty should have been in the game to face Martin Prado.  He faced his one batter in Yelich and got him to ground into a fielder's choice.  O'Flaherty is a one-and-done pitcher.  That's all he should ever be for the Mets.  Instead, he faced one too many batters and the Mets were the ones who were done.

Doug Sisk will turn 58 at the end of the month.  His fellow Washington State native Eric O'Flaherty just entered his thirties this past February.  And yet, somehow I think I'd rather take my chances with the former Met and current AARP member on the mound to face batters in a back-and-forth affair than I would with the ticking time bomb we've come to know as Eric O'Flaherty.

Then again, Sisk might prove to be useful in other ways if the Mets continue to trot out O'Flaherty in tight games.  You see, Sisk has been working in sales for a Washington-based wine company since the beginning of the year, and has been participating in wine tastings in the Pacific Northwest.  Should O'Flaherty continue to implode on the mound, Mets fans in the Atlantic Northeast might need to partake in a sample of Sisk's wines.

Right now, I'll drink anything to make me forget what it feels like to watch Eric O'Flaherty "pitch".  Keep 'em comin', Dougie.  Keep 'em comin'.

I don't remember posing for this photo with an empty beer cup on my Mets hoodie.

The Worst Team Money Wasn't Spent On

"What do you mean, I won't spend money?  I got you four months of Chris Young, right?"  --Papa Smirk

Going into today's matinee with the Miami Marlins, the Mets have managed to score just 520 runs in their first 137 games.  That averages to 3.8 runs per game.  At that pace, the Mets would cross the plate 615 times this season, which would be four fewer than their run total from 2013.

So how far back do we have to go to find the last time the Mets scored fewer than 615 runs over a full 162-game season?  You have to set the arrival time on the DeLorean to 1992, when New York scored 599 runs.  If you recall, that 72-90 squad was more famously referred to as "The Worst Team Money Could Buy."

That team, full of superstars and a major league high $45 million payroll, batted .235 and was the last Mets team that didn't register 600 tallies in a non-strike shortened season.  And prior to 1992, the last time the Mets scored fewer than 615 runs (the pace they're currently on for the 2014 season) was in 1983.  That year was the seventh straight season the team averaged fewer than 3.8 runs per game.  Long-time Mets fans would recognize that seven-year period from 1977 to 1983 as the Grant's Tomb era - the period in which Mets fans abandoned Shea Stadium almost as quickly as former team chairman M. Donald Grant abandoned his senses, his wallet and his ability to field a winning team.

So basically, the 2014 Mets are scoring at a pace that's been seen just twice by the franchise in nearly 40 years.  And both low-scoring periods have been associated with some of the lowest moments in the club's history.

But not all is gloom and doom.  On the flip side, this year's pitchers have allowed just 533 runs, putting them on pace to give up 630 runs in 2014.  That would be the lowest total in a non-strike shortened season since 1990, when the team allowed 613 runs en route to a 91-71 campaign.

Although pitching wins championships, a little hitting and run-scoring helps as well.  Both the 1969 and 1986 championship teams boasted pitching staffs that allowed fewer than 600 runs.  Of course, those two teams combined to outscore the opposition by 296 runs.

The 1992 squad was the last team to score as little as the 2014 club has.  That was known as "The Worst Team Money Could Buy".  This year's squad is about to become "The Worst Team Money Wasn't Spent On".  The front office has a lot of work to do during the off-season to make sure future Mets teams don't have "The Worst Team" moniker attached to them, regardless of how much money can or won't buy.

Justin Turner "Un-Vail-ed"

It seems like a lot of people have sent the Justin Turner bandwagon into overdrive. From #JustinTurnerFacts on Twitter (tip of the blue Mets cap to The Daily Stache for creating what has become a trending topic on Twitter) to this guy who's written too many blogs on him recently, Justin Turner seems to be on everyone's mind. Even a certain renowned writer who has an equal amount of "faith" and "fear" in his team has weighed in on Turner's recent accomplishments.

Needless to say, I noticed a connection between Justin Turner and Rusty Staub that has nothing to do with their hair color. Unfortunately, it's not one most Mets fans would want to make.

Let's hop into the DeLorean and set the time coordinates to 1975. At the time, the Mets were in a transitional phase. Yogi Berra was fired in August, replaced by Roy McMillan. 1969 World Series hero Cleon Jones was released outright. However, the Mets did produce their highest team batting average to date (.256), saw Dave Kingman belt a franchise-record 36 home runs and watched Rusty Staub become the first player to drive in 100 runs in a single season.

That team also produced a young outfielder named Mike Vail.

Mike Vail was a hitting machine at AAA-Tidewater in 1975, hitting .342 in 115 games. He was also a clutch hitter, driving in 79 runs despite hitting only seven home runs for the Tides. On August 18, he made his major league debut as a pinch-hitter. He singled in his first at-bat. Two days later, he made his first start and went 0-for-5. He wasn't held hitless again until September 16, when ironically, he did not collect a hit in an 18-inning victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, going 0-for-7 in the extra-inning affair.

Vail's 23-game hitting streak set the franchise record, unsurpassed until 1984 when Hubie Brooks hit in 24 consecutive games. After hitting .302 in 38 games in 1975, Vail made Rusty Staub expendable in the minds of the front office, who traded Le Grand Orange to the Detroit Tigers for the rotund and past-his-prime Mickey Lolich.

The Mets did well in 1976, finishing with the second-most wins in franchise history at the time (86), but that proved to be the final respectable season for the team until 1984. Rusty Staub went on to average 106 RBI per season for the Tigers from 1976-1978 (no Met drove in as many as 106 runs in a season until Darryl Strawberry collected 108 RBI in 1990). Mike Vail went kaplooie after being anointed as the "player of the future" following the 1975 season.

A basketball injury sustained during the off-season kept Vail on the disabled list for most of the 1976 season. Upon his return, Vail struggled, hitting only .217, scoring eight runs and driving in nine in 53 games. He performed slightly better in 1977, but still only produced a .262 batting average with eight home runs and 35 RBI in 108 games.

The so-called "player of the future" helped send the Mets back to their losing past. After being an excellent contact hitter in the minors, Vail struck out 114 times in 584 career at-bats for the Mets. He attempted eight stolen bases as a Met and was thrown out all eight times. Vail also made Jeff Francoeur look like a walking machine. From 1975-1977, Vail drew only 34 bases on balls, never walking more than 19 times in a single season for the Mets. This continued throughout his major league career, as Vail walked a mere 81 times in 10 big league seasons.

Now let's get back into the DeLorean, fire up the flux capacitor (anyone have a spare piece of plutonium lying around?) and return to 2011. Justin Turner just set the Mets' rookie record by driving in at least one run in his seventh consecutive game. Prior to his streak, Turner had only driven in six runs in his major league career. But like Vail, Turner was also an outstanding contact hitter in the minor leagues, hitting .309 and striking out only 279 times in 2,202 plate appearances.

Justin Turner is also playing third base, filling in admirably for the injured David Wright, who drove in over 100 runs last season. With just about every Met having the "untradeable" tag removed from them, could it be that history is about to repeat itself?

Let's hope not. Justin Turner is on quite a bit of a roll, but he will never be David Wright, even when the longtime third baseman reverts to his David K. Wright persona. At best, Turner will platoon with Daniel Murphy at second base until Terry Collins decides that one of them has won the job outright.

Justin Turner is a nice player whose 15 minutes of fame have stretched into a second week. He's not David Wright just like Mike Vail was not Rusty Staub. Let's enjoy his hot streak while it lasts, but let's not make the mistake the front office made in 1975 by anointing him "the player of the future". For now, Justin Turner is a player of the present. We'll let the future take care of itself.