New York Mets: The Mets are the Lakers of the MLB
The New York Mets are enduring a period of dysfunction like the Los Angeles Lakers went through recently, and now it seems like the Mets are turning into the Lakers of the MLB.
Both situations seem very similar, and it all starts off similar as well.
The Lakers signed LeBron James in the off-season to be their franchise star while the Mets extended their star Jacob deGrom and signed All-Star players in the offseason including Jed Lowrie and Wilson Ramos. New York also traded for the best closer in the league at the time in Edwin Diaz and one of the best second basemen in history in Robinson Cano.
Cano has been sidelined a majority of the season and Diaz has struggled as the club’s closer in the first half of the season.
Now let’s get to the season.
The Lakers had a disappointing season and didn’t make the playoffs. LeBron James got hurt and he didn’t play in a lot of the games.
Well, Jed Lowrie hasn’t even played a game yet with the big league team, as he has been sidelined with an injury.
Manager Mickey Callaway entered the season with the possibility to be fired, and Los Angeles head coach Luke Walton was under scrutiny the entire season.
Now here comes the dysfunction of both organizations. They are both alike in terms of the confusion around the coaching staff and front office.
Let’s first look at the Los Angeles Lakers (next page).
Los Angeles Lakers (Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka)
Late in the season, then President of Basketball Operations, Magic Johnson, stepped down as the teams head basketball man.
He mentioned that he didn’t like the “backstabbing” that was going around the front office, but he never gave an answer to who that was.
Well, the people got their answer when Magic went on ESPN’s First Take to tell the whole story of what exactly happened.
Oh, and by the way, it was the same day that the Lakers were introducing their new head coach Frank Vogel.
Los Angeles was unable to lure in Ty Lue to a three-year contract because his camp wanted more security which was a 5-year deal.
Magic told the world that the person backstabbing was General Manager Rob Pelinka.
“I start hearing, ‘Magic, you not working hard enough. Magic’s not in the office.’ So, people around the Lakers office was telling me Rob was saying things and I didn’t like those things being said behind my back that I wasn’t in the office enough and so on and on. So, I started getting calls from my friends outside of basketball saying those things now were said to them outside of basketball. Now, not just in the Lakers office anymore, now it’s in the media and so on.”
He said Pelinka was telling people that Magic was not in the office as much as he should be.
Pelinka has been under fire ever since.
While the Lakers were in great chaos, that occurred at the end of the season, but the Mets is happening right now during the season (next page).
New York Mets (Brodie Van Wagenen and Mickey Callaway)
The Mets had arguably had the best off-season, as they acquired All-Star caliber players like Jed Lowrie, Jeurys Familia, and Wilson Ramos.
They also extended the defending Cy Young award winner Jacob deGrom.
They did all of this with a rookie GM, who was an agent for some of those players a few weeks before.
Meta fans were all riled up for the 2019 season, just like Lakers fans were for their first year with LeBron, but then their offense and pitching has never clicked simultaneously.
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Jacob deGrom struggled in the beginning of the season, as he had a 9.69 ERA in a span of three starts in April.
Edwin Diaz led the league in saves last season with the Seattle Mariners but hasn’t been that same guy this year in Queens.
The team set a plan for him to only pitch the ninth inning, and that plan was fulfilled on Sunday.
That decision started all the chaos that has happened over the last few days.
The Mets fired their respected pitching coach in favor of an 82-year-old minor league coordinator Phil Regan.
The same weekend they fell to Javy Baez and the Chicago Cubs, and the reason they lost fell on the pitching staff.
Now let’s get back to Edwin Diaz. He sat in the bullpen while Baez got a standing ovation at Wrigley Field.
Seth Lugo already threw 40 pitches before Baez cranked a homer to right field off of him.
Mickey Callaway said after the game that he wasn’t going to pitch Edwin Diaz for five outs, but he didn’t realize that he didn’t have to pitch him for five outs, but rather just pitch him for three or four outs just not in the ninth inning.
He would’ve faced the toughest part of the Cubs lineup, and then Callaway could’ve met Gsellman pitch to the bottom of the order.
Of course, Callaway didn’t do that and the New York reporters lit a fuse under Callaway and he snapped.
As I wrote yesterday, Callaway cursed out a reporter after the reporter said “See you tomorrow, Mickey” and Jason Vargas threatened to beat the expletive out of him.
That led to Mickey Callaway being under fire for his actions he privately apologized to Tim Healey (the reporter) but didn’t ever say he was sorry in public.
If the manager of a New York sports team cursing at a reporter wasn’t enough, GM Brodie Van Wagenen had his win problem to deal with.
A report came out by Mike Puma of the New York Post, after the Mets lost to the Phillies, that the general manager was managing games from his couch at home. This specific incident occurred on June 1 while the team was playing the Diamondbacks in Arizona.
The report detailed a source telling Puma that Van Wagenen “communicated with a member of the Mets support staff with an order to remove deGrom from the game. “
Mickey Callaway followed the order and deGrom was visibly upset by the decision. The Mets ace left the game after a hip cramp.
After the game last night, Van Wagenen denied him doing that and virtually said that he communicated with the training staff about an injury and that it is normal protocol.
To sum all of this up, one day the manager of the New York Mets cursed out a reporter, and the next the GM gets caught managing games from his own house.
Next. Players Power Rankings: Top 10 Hitters in Week-12. dark
Mickey Callaway has one foot out the door, but Van Wagenen just might have one as well.