GDT 9/9/18 Philadelphia Phillies (Velasquez) @ New York Mets (deGrom)

[Austinfan]

You pretentious egghead, you probably believe that policy should be based on evidence of efficacy, such as well designed statistical analysis.

Me, I go with my gut, my decisions depend on whatever I had for lunch!

[EastFallowfield]

Mets blew a chance to get DeGrom a win yesterday, which would probably help his Cy Young campaigh, even though all their media states over and over that the Cy Young award is now the Best ERA Award and he probably has that wrapped u.

[ButlerBulldog]

I have to add that calling Klentak an "egghead" suggests an anti-intellectual bias. This is very (read: too) common in the United States of America, and one of the things that contributes to our chronic inability to address serious problems before they become crises, our relatively poor performance in educating our children, our skepticism (or often hostility) toward those who actually have expert knowledge, etc.

I agree with this. I look much younger than my age (36) and have frequently been labeled as someone who’s “spent his entire life going to school” by people who mistake me for younger man. It’s as though they think getting an education is a bad thing. Whatever one might think of Klentak’s methods, calling him names isn’t appropriate. His expertise may be different than that of other MLB executives, but that doesn’t make it any less legitimate.

[allentown]

Whatever one might think of Klentak’s methods, calling him names isn’t appropriate. His expertise may be different than that of other MLB executives, but that doesn’t make it any less legitimate.

If we had no-practical-baseball-knowledge GMs in recent years, they were named Giles and Wade. Giles was awful, Wade not nearly as bad as claimed and in many ways good, especially given the ownership at time. RAJ wasn't super experienced. Gillick had THE baseball resume. Klentak certainly doesn't stand out as lacking in that group.

I think those hoping to see either Klentak or Kapler replaced after this year are destined for disappointment. This organization has already had too much management churning and you don't clean house after your team's best season since 2011. We are still a re-building team, although this winter it has to be mainly with money, since not a big immediate pipeline from the minors, although we might see breakthroughs from Kingery, Crawford, and Quinn. This is an off-season for deciding which parts of the new philosophy have worked and which haven't and why, and then decide on necessary adjustments. We will sign FAs, but let's not surrender draft picks. That gives a big plus to Machado over Harper, as does the future wiring of Trout to Philly. There are multiple non-comp FAs who will help.

[julio]

Me, I go with my gut, my decisions depend on whatever I had for lunch!

...an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato.

[Jeff05]

I knew what was implied, Julio. I've been on the receiving end of such remarks. For various reasons, such bias is common elsewhere around the world.

By any reasonable measure, the season has been a success.

[allentown]

By any reasonable measure, the season has been a success

It truly has. It would be better to simply call Klentak inexperienced. If he is as intelligent as he appears to be, he will analyze the situation and do (even) better in future, as will Kapler, who also is an out-of-the-box thinker. The stat guys will also learn, get a better handle on what really works, and develop more usable stats. Relative to many teams, our stats department is in its infancy, which sometimes gives the impression of mindlessly chasing the latest baseball fads. I feel the team does have a very pressing need to stop the organizational churn and move forward in the consistent, correct direction across the org. They have just a few months before off-season action is in full swing to decide what that correct direction is and get everyone in management pulling together. The setting of the 40-man roster, the FA signings, and trades are likely going to be a lot more important than in the recent past. We're already at the time of deciding what to teach in FIL.

[zambonir]

People on the internet tend to be binary. it is possible to think the season was a success and think the GM and manager are extremely promising and still be deeply disappointed with how they executed certain things, and some of their decisions.

But, no matter what kind of brass you have, their impact on the field is greatly overstated. Players play. If a few more of them had lived up to or exceeded their potential more consistently they'd still be in the thick of it And if they'd done so less consistently we wouldn't have anything to be disappointed by. The management gets credit for both of those things but not that much, really.

And I think Klentak and Kapler's mission was to experiment and develop while waiting to go big in the 2019 off-season. It if it had really been to go for it in a weak NL East we would have seen more dramatic moves at the deadline (and we know what they could have been). If Middleton wanted them to change course presumably they would have done that; it's unlikely they aren't on the same page, or that he's dissatisfied with anybody's job performance except in a normal, evaluative, what do we do next year kind of way.