A "Best On The Worst" Side Story: The Donne Wall For Johnny Damon Non-Trade

Every year, I write a 13-part weekly series that spotlights former Mets players who are connected via the theme of the series.  This year's theme, "The Best On The Worst", focuses on Mets players who experienced their best seasons on some rather lackluster Mets teams.

This past week, I turned the focus of the series over to Steve Trachsel, a pitcher who won 66 games as a Met, with 50 games of those victories coming between 2001 and 2004, a four-year period in which the team was nearly 60 games under .500.  While doing research for the piece, I came across a news article that caught me by surprise.  It was so shocking that I felt the need to write a side story to the Trachsel post.  And it's all because of a certain relief pitcher on the Mets who could have been traded for a dynamic leadoff hitter in his prime, but wasn't - the Donne-for-Johnny trade that never was.

Back in December 2000, the New York Times published an article by Murray Chass on the signing of Steve Trachsel.   Chass discussed the flurry of activity by Mets' general manager Steve Phillips, which included the free agent signings of starting pitchers Kevin Appier and Trachsel, as well as a trade for relief pitcher Donne Wall.  At the time, the Mets had a strong bullpen with right-handers Turk Wendell and Armando Benitez and left-handers Dennis Cook and John Franco.  Chass noted that because of the Mets' bullpen depth, Wall could have been flipped to Kansas City as part of a deal that would have brought 27-year-old Johnny Damon to Flushing.

Wall had pitched beautifully for San Diego prior to his acquisition by the Mets, posting a 2.92 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in three years with the Padres.  Meanwhile, Damon had come off a season in which he hit .327 with a league-leading 136 runs scored and 46 stolen bases.  But Damon was a center fielder, and the Mets already had one of those in Jay Payton, who had just finished third in the Rookie of the Year vote.  Damon was also a Scott Boras client, which posed a problem for the Mets for two reasons.

• Damon was about to become a free agent, and Boras had made it clear that Damon would not sign an extension with any team under he first dipped his feet in the free-agent waters.

• A month prior to the acquisition of Donne Wall, the Mets had strained their relationship with Boras because of a botched attempt by Phillips to sign another of Boras' clients - free agent shortstop Alex Rodriguez.

Eventually, the Royals did trade Damon to Oakland, as part of a three-team deal that also included the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  The Mets were left with Payton in center and Wall in the bullpen.  Payton failed to approach his 2000 numbers again as a Met, and within two years, he had been traded to Colorado, where he had a tremendous season (.302, 28 HR, 89 RBI) for the Rockies in 2003.

Wall, on the other hand, was horrible in his one season in New York, losing all four of his decisions and posting a 4.85 ERA and 1.59 WHIP.  Wall allowed multiple runs in a quarter of his 32 appearances and became a part of major league history on August 23, when he allowed a home run to Rockies' starting pitcher Jason Jennings in the ninth inning of a 10-0 loss.  Jennings was making his major league debut in the game, making him the first pitcher in modern major league history (since 1900) to pitch a complete-game shutout and hit a home run in his first big league appearance.

It's no wonder a certain Mets blogger who attended that game will never forget what he witnessed on that infamous night at Shea Stadium when Jennings took Donne "over the" Wall.

Jason Jennings - #NeverForget

Like Donne Wall, Johnny Damon also had an off-year for his new team in 2001.  But for Damon, his off-year in Oakland still produced 108 runs scored and 27 stolen bases, even though his batting average dropped to .256.  However, unlike the Mets, Oakland reached the postseason in 2001, and Damon was outstanding in his first playoff experience (.409 batting average, .591 slugging percentage).  Damon parlayed his October brilliance into a free-agent contract with the Red Sox and became a legend in Boston.  Wall became an ex-Met following the 2001 season and an ex-baseball player by June 2002.

Imagine how things could have turned out different for the Mets had they actually acquired Johnny Damon for Donne Wall and friends.  Steve Trachsel might never have been a candidate for "The Best On The Worst" because the Mets might never have become a last-place team.  It's a non-trade Mets fans will never forget.
 

Potential New Rule Is Open To Interpretation

Former Mets reliever Ryota Igarashi reacts to the news that his interpreter has left the building.

A Japanese pitcher, a catcher and a pitching coach walk into a bar.  Think you understand where this joke is going?  No?  Well, the protagonists of the joke didn't understand it either.  But come Opening Day, they'll have a better chance of getting it.

According to Jayson Stark of espn.com, baseball owners have approved a new rule that would allow interpreters to join managers and pitching coaches on trips to the mound.  The new rule would go into effect this season and would cover all languages.  If a Japanese pitcher needs a Japanese interpreter, one with fluency in Japanese would accompany the coach or manager to the mound.  Similarly, a Spanish-speaking pitcher would be afforded an interpreter fluent in Spanish, and so on.

Having an interpreter on the mound would eliminate potential confusion and misunderstanding between a pitcher, his catcher and his pitching coach or manager.  This is especially true in Asian pitchers, who might convey that he understands what his coach is saying with a simple nod, when in reality, he's just nodding to be polite and doesn't understand any part of his coach's instructions.

As told to David Waldstein of the New York Times, former Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson once paid a visit to South Korean-born pitcher Jae Weong Seo on the mound in a game against the Atlanta Braves in 2004.  With the newly-retired Chipper Jones still in the prime of his Met-killer career, Peterson instructed Seo not to throw Jones a strike.  He had a number of statistics to back up his reasoning for the instruction, but did not tell Seo because he wanted to make it as simple as possible for his non-English-speaking pitcher.  Seo simply nodded and said okay, leading Peterson to believe that his pupil had understood what he was asking him to do.  Jones promptly crushed a perfect strike off the Shea Stadium center field fence for a double, causing Peterson to say:

"You know, I don't think he understood a word I said."

Jae Weong Seo is no longer pitching in the major leagues, while Rick Peterson has bounced around from team to team since being fired by the Mets in 2008.  He is currently the director of pitching development for the Baltimore Orioles.  It should be noted that in Peterson's first year with the Orioles in 2012, the pitching staff lowered its ERA to 3.90 after registering a 4.89 ERA in 2011.  It was the first time the Orioles' team ERA was under 4.00 since 1997, which was the last time the team made the playoffs before 2012.

It's imperative that a pitching coach or manager get his point across to the pitcher every time they come out to the mound.  But what hope does the pitcher have of heeding his coach's advice if he has no clue what he's saying?

While he was a member of the Mets' coaching staff, Rick Peterson had difficulty conveying his point to his non-English-speaking pitchers.  Many other coaches have had the same problem as well.  But beginning in 2013, the language barrier between pitchers and coaches will drop due to an interpreter being present for all mound conversations.  Perhaps now, the barrier between being a successful pitcher and a mediocre pitcher will also drop for some foreign-born pitchers as well.

Ryan Howard Fears Oliver Perez

I know this is a site for Mets fans.  I also know Ryan Howard is a Phillie and Oliver Perez still gives Mets fans nightmares even though he is a continent away in Seattle.  But I needed a distraction from last night's debacle, when Johan Santana went from being No-Han to retiring No One (give or take four batters).  So today I'm focusing on a little tidbit I found in the Sunday New York Times.

In Joe Brescia's weekly "30 Seconds..." piece, he interviewed Ryan Howard, asking him various questions about his health, his performance on the field and the state of the Phillies.  (In case you hadn't noticed, the sellout streak is over at Citizens Bank Park.  Phillies fans will tell you they're just getting ready for the Eagles' upcoming season, but methinks the NL East standings have something to do with the dearly departed streak.)

One question at the end of the interview caught my eye.  The Phillies' slugger was asked which pitcher was the toughest he ever faced.  His answer was Oliver Perez.

Before you chuckle at Ryan Howard's inability to hit a pitcher who allowed everyone and their mothers to reach base during the latter half of his tenure in New York, take a look at how Perez has fared against the Subway sandwich shill.

In 25 career at-bats against Perez, Howard has collected only three hits, batting .120 against the former Mets left-handed pariah ... I mean, pitcher.  Perez has had no trouble finding the plate against Howard, walking him twice while striking him out 14 times.  That's 14 times in 25 official at-bats.  Even Jason Bay doesn't strike out that often.

Of course, this season Howard must think he's facing Oliver Perez every time he comes to the plate.  In 100 at-bats following his return from the painful groundout that wiped out the Phillies' 2011 campaign and the first three months of his 2012 season, Howard has struck out 40 times while drawing only ten walks.  He also sees the dinner plate more than he does home plate, as Howard has scored ten runs, seven of which came when he drove himself in by hitting the ball out of the yard.

Meanwhile, Oliver Perez has taken what he learned from facing Ryan Howard and has become a serviceable reliever in Seattle.  In 20 games for the Mariners, Perez has a low 2.00 ERA in 18 innings, striking out 18 and walking only five.  Compare that to what El Perez-idente did in 2009 for the Mets, when he made 14 starts and walked at least five in half of those starts.

Ryan Howard is a large hulk of a man.  Pitchers should be afraid of him, not the other way around.  But Howard fears Oliver Perez the way Mets fans feared the bullpen phone ringing whenever Perez was warming up.  It just goes to show that you can't script baseball, especially if Ryan Howard and Oliver Perez are two of your main characters.

Did Terry Collins Say What I Think He Said?

In Saturday's 5-4 victory over the San Francisco Giants, the Mets blew a three-run lead in the ninth inning, costing Mike Pelfrey a chance to get his first win of the season.  Pelfrey pitched eight strong innings, allowing one run on six hits while throwing 102 pitches.  Despite stifling the Giants' bats all day, manager Terry Collins decided to pull Pelfrey from the game and go with Frank Francisco in the ninth inning, less than 24 hours after the Mets' closer was defeated by the Giants in the team's 4-3, 10-inning loss.

Maybe Mike Pelfrey couldn't go much more than 100 pitches so early in the season.  Maybe Frank Francisco was brought into the game to get on the right track after his poor performance the previous night.  Maybe Fred Wilpon needed to sell more hot dogs so he called the dugout to get Collins to slow the game down as much as possible.

But no.  Those weren't the reasons why Pelfrey was removed from the game.  According to Zach Berman in the New York Times, Collins would have sent Pelfrey to the mound in the ninth inning had there not been a save situation intact for Francisco.  But with a three-run lead, Collins made up his mind to send his starter to the showers and his closer to get rained upon.

Francisco faced four batters, retiring one of them.  He allowed a walk and two hits, with the second hit driving in a run.  That was all for Francisco, who wasn't in the dugout to watch the misplayed fly ball by Kirk Nieuwenhuis, which caused his ERA to balloon to 8.53.  Although the Mets did rally to win the game in the bottom of the ninth, Terry Collins' words still resonated many hours later.  Let me repeat them.

He didn't allow Pelfrey, a pitcher who had dominated the Giants all day, to pitch a complete game because the rulebook said it was a save situation.  Therefore, he chose to send in his erratic closer, who was great in the season-opening sweep of Atlanta, but has since been quite hittable.

Over his last three appearances, Francisco has faced 16 batters, allowing nine of them to reach base.  He also has an astronomical 23.14 ERA over those three appearances, earning a loss and a near-loss in the process.

In 2011, Terry Collins said that he didn't care about Francisco Rodriguez's 55-games-finished clause in his contract; he was going to use him every time a save could be had.  Apparently, the same goes for Frank Francisco, even if his starter would be a much more viable option.  Can you imagine what he'd do if a starting pitcher was one inning away from throwing the team's first no-hitter, but had already surpassed 100 pitches and was in a one-run game?  Wait, you don't have to imagine that, as Collins was already quoted as saying he would have pulled Jonathon Niese from a game earlier this season in which Niese took a no-hitter into the seventh inning.

There is such a thing as "going by the book".  But there is also such a thing as "going with your gut".  Terry Collins should have gone with his gut on Saturday.  Instead, his decision-making almost cost the team a victory that seemed inevitable after Pelfrey came back to the dugout in the eighth inning.  Collins will have to return that book that he keeps going by before it becomes overdue, because once it does, both he and the team might be suffering the consequences of a long, lost season.

Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Acclimatize

Greetings, salutations and any other polysyllablic words that can serve as a synonym for hello.  Some time has passed since our last Dickeypedia entry, but we thought that now was a perfect time for our virtual tome to receive an update.

As many of you are aware, (and if you're not, where have you been?) R.A. Dickey is in the process of climbing to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.  At 19,341 feet, it is the tallest mountain on the African continent and the tallest freestanding mountain in the world.  Dickey is not doing this for fun or because there's a secret Stormtrooper reunion waiting for him at the summit.  Rather, he is climbing the mountain to raise awareness for the Bombay Teen Challenge, which is an organization that rescues and treats sexually abused and exploited girls in Mumbai, India.

(Editor's note: If you would like to make a donation to support R.A. Dickey and the Bombay Teen Challenge, please click here to be taken to the donation page.)

Our fav'rit knuckleballer and wordsmith has been writing reports of his climb for the "Bats" blog in the New York Times.  Earlier today, amongst the plethora of Bilbo Baggins references, Dickey used a word that would even confound J.R.R. Tolkien.

In discussing his ascent to the next camp on the mountain, Dickey cooked up this delicious piece of verbal fondue:

"Tomorrow we will have only a short hike to Shira 2 camp to continue to acclimatize.  After that, the real test begins."

For many readers, including a particular former Met (more on him later), the real test would involve defining the word "acclimatize".  It's not a word that's used in everyday language and it's certainly not a word that's sprinkled liberally in a baseball clubhouse.  Looks like it's high time to dust off our Dickeypedia to find the definition:

acclimatize:

• 1. to become acclimated or adapted.
• 2. to adapt (oneself), especially to environmental or climactic changes.

Clearly, Dickey was referring to the second definition of the word, as he and his climbing team are going to have to adjust to the obvious changes in air pressure and temperature as they continue to scale the mountain.  But not everyone believes that's the proper definition of the word.

We asked former Met killer (and former Met) Mike Scott to use the word in a sentence.  As you may recall, Scott did not do very well for the Mets during his four years in New York, making 60 starts and finishing his Mets career with a 14-27 record.  (By comparison, it only took R.A. Dickey 39 starts to win his 14th game as a Met.)  However, once he left New York for Houston, Scott scuffed his way to a no-hitter, a Cy Young Award and 110 more victories.

Considering Scott's uncanny ability to deceive all those who came into contact with him, we thought he would be the perfect choice to use acclimatize in a sentence.  After doing a few pre-definition stretches and sharpening his fingernails for a few moments, Scott tackled the challenge head on, saying:

"In 1986, Gary Carter was adamant that I was scuffing the baseball.  But I think when Carter was behind the plate, he was asking Sid Fernandez to do the same thing.  Carter claimed my pitches would sink unnaturally to the left and right when I threw them.  Sid Fernandez?  His pitches would leave his hand and acclimatize through the strike zone.  It takes one to know one, Gary!"

Mike Scott and his Rainbow Brite uniform have been out of baseball since 1989, but he still has a way to make people scratch their heads when he takes center stage.  He failed miserably as a Met, had to cheat to become a success, and is now stretching the boundaries of the English language as wide as Mount Kilimanjaro is high.

If Mike Scott wanted his balls to flutter legally, perhaps he should have learned how to throw the knuckleball like R.A. Dickey has.  Instead, he had to scuff his way to the top.  I guess he couldn't acclimatize to failure.


You can follow R.A. Dickey on Twitter by clicking here.  You can also follow Dickey's blog posts for the New York Times by clicking here.  For more vocabulary assistance, please read the following Dickeypedia entries:

February 22, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Narrative
February 25, 2011: A Double Dose of Dickeypedia (Rudiments, Vernacular)
March 10, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Syntax
April 2, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Asphyxiation
May 15, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Fortitude
August 14, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Fodder
September 3, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Hyperbole

Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Asphyxiation

After not being heard from in a few weeks, R.A. Dickey has provided us with another nugget that required the use of Dickeypedia to decipher.

According to a recent New York Times article by David Waldstein, Dickey revealed that he plans to scale Mount Kilimanjaro during the off-season. The knuckler (who is donating money to charity with this endeavor) claimed that his inspiration for the climb was the Ernest Hemingway book, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", which he read as a junior in high school.

Dickey is aware that the Mets might not want their recently re-signed starter to perform such a dangerous activity, but also noted that there is no specific clause in his contract that prevents him from climbing a nearly 20,000 foot mountain.

“There is some risk involved that we won’t summit. There is oxygen asphyxiation, there can be rock avalanches, boulders falling. Someone could fall and break a wrist. All of those are attributable factors for why people don’t summit. But I don’t anticipate those will be problems for us.”

There is no language in Dickey's contract that would disallow him from attempting his climb. There is also no language to define Dickey's language in the above quote. But with one quick check of Dickeypedia, we came up with the definition to "asphyxiation":

asphyxiation:

• 1. the condition of being deprived of oxygen (as by having breathing stopped).
• 2. killing by depriving of oxygen.

Well, that's something different. In the past, Mets pitchers have sometimes caused their fans to stop breathing. Now R.A. Dickey is willing to do something that could cause him to do the same.

Speaking of not being able to breathe, the recently released Oliver Perez (We haven't heard from him on Studious Metsimus in at least an hour. What's wrong with us?) was asked if he could use the word "asphyxiation" in a sentence. Surprisingly enough, Ollie said yes to this request, but only when we assured him that it was not a fancy term for "minor league re-assignment", which he most certainly would have declined. Take it away, Ollie!

"When I was a child, I had a pet donkey. But my family was concerned because they thought she would give birth to many donkey babies. We tried taking her to our family doctor, but he said he couldn't fix animals. Therefore, to get her fixed, we had to take her to a donkey doctor, where he performed the asphyxiation."

There you have it, Mets fans. Oliver Perez couldn't fix his career by throwing strikes, but apparently, he thinks "asphyxiation" will fix his ass.

Hey, at least when R.A. Dickey attempts to climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro after the season ends, if he needs a donkey to carry his provisions, Oliver Perez has one that won't get pregnant along the way. It looks like Oliver Perez might finally be of use to the Mets' starting staff after all!

David Wright Would Like A PB & J With Extra Power, Hold The Ks

When David Wright signed his six-year, $55 million contract during the 2006 season, he could afford to have the finest filet mignon for every meal and still have millions coming out of his hoo-hah.

So what does he choose to eat whenever hunger strikes? How about a nice peanut butter, honey and jelly sandwich?

According to an article by David Waldstein in the New York Times, that's exactly what the Mets' third baseman eats...constantly.

It appears that when David Wright watched Sesame Street as a child (particularly the episodes sponsored by the number "5" and the letter "K"), he took special interest to the segments featuring the magic of The Amazing Mumford. As a young Mets fan watching Sesame Street during the heyday of the Amazin' 80s teams, he enjoyed that there was a Sesame Street character with "Amazing" in his name and automatically gravitated towards Mumford. Whenever Mumford performed a magic trick, he'd say the magic words "A La Peanut Butter Sandwich". Unfortunately, something would usually go wrong with the trick, making Mumford as amazing as the '93 Mets.



In watching Mumford's tricks go haywire, his catch phrase seeped into David Wright's mind and he began to crave peanut butter sandwiches. As he got older, jelly was added to the mix (perhaps to use in a trade with classmates for other sandwiches) and then honey was added as the final ingredient.

His friend and teammate, Jeff Francoeur, has noticed that David tends to eat his sandwich of choice quite often (by Wright's own admission, he consumes at least one of these sandwiches approximately 75 to 80% of all days. For non-math geeks, that's between five and six days a week) and offered this tidbit about his observation:

"He eats them non-stop, sometimes even for dinner."

David Wright has said that he spent the off-season lifting weights and developing better eating habits. These eating habits seem to include items from the peanut butter, jelly, honey and bread food groups.

In light of this observation about David Wright's fav'rit sandwich, perhaps this will create an opportunity for a deli or another fine eatery to create the David Wright sandwich, which would be filled with the ingredients originally inspired by The Amazing Mumford.

It did wonders for Mo Vaughn's Met career when the Carnegie Deli named the Mo-Licious sandwich after the rotund former first baseman. Vaughn went on to collect 29 HR and 87 RBI after being honored with his own sandwich at the world-famous deli. Of course, those numbers were collected over his two-year Met career, but who's counting?

I can see the ad campaign right now. A smiling David Wright taking a big bite out of his PB, H & J sandwich, uttering the catch phrase that will go down in history:

"Peanut butter sandwiches filled with other goodies. It's not just for Elvis anymore."

Studious Metsimus is hoping that David Wright can increase his power numbers from his abysmal 2009 levels to the levels we once expected of him. Peanut butter sandwiches or not, he's too good of a talent to continue hitting only ten home runs per season.

Slap on a little extra power and hold the Ks and David Wright can help the Mets go from a pretender to a contender. Then again, any sandwich artist could tell you that.