Sandy Alderson is retaining Mike Barwis as the Mets strength and conditioning guru. It goes under the heading of repeating the same actions and expecting different results.
Oops, that’s the definition of insanity.
What we heard from Sandy were excuses. Barwis didn’t work with Thor. He didn’t want Cespedes to make a video doing squats. The bottom line is when you are responsible for the team’s conditioning and they have an unprecedented number of non contact injuries, you haven’t done your job.
Typical Mets. Thor puts on 17 pounds. Refuses an MRI. Misses most of the season. Shouldn’t an organization have more control over one of their greatest assets? Shouldn’t they dispatch their guru to supervise off season workouts or at least approve the regimen?
Maybe it’s not Barwis’ fault. It could be the team hasn’t given him enough authority to ride herd on the players. He certainly knows more about physiology than the fans and me. But we base our conclusions on results, and they are bad. Do we reward corporate execs when they fail the meet quotas? (Actually, we do. Bad example.)
Contrast this with the Yankees. Girardi takes two pitchers out of a tight game, to their annoyance. His answer: I’m trying to win games, not popularity contests with players. In September, you take one for the team.
It’s called accountability. If the area for which you are responsible underperforms dramatically, you haven’t done your job. You may work hard, you may be a nice guy, but a change has to be made. Someone in the Mets organization said that the World Series in 2015 and playoffs in 2016 (one game) may have taken its toll. So success undermines future success? One playoff game ruins the next season? Tell that to the 1995-2012 Yankees. What a crock.
As long as this culture prevails, the Mets will continue to lose. Incompetence is rewarded. Excuse are made. The only one who isn’t giving excuses on a regular basis is the one man most likely to be fired — Terry Collins.
