Somehow, the Wilpons Strike Again

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You gotta give credit to Fred and Jeff Wilpon, the former Mets owner and his failson former Mets COO respectively, for managing to haunt us Met fans from the metaphorical grave. Nearly six years after their long, cheap, inept, meddling tone deaf tenure in charge of the team (along with Saul Katz), their previous decision making is still having a negative impact on the franchise.

We had previously known that Pat Murphy, soon to be three-time NL Manager of the Year for the 2026 pennant winning Milwaukee Brewers, was a candidate to replace Mickey Callaway as manager of the Mets beginning in the 2020 season before the team ultimately went with Carlos Beltrán. Well, late Friday afternoon, Joel Sherman in The New York Post revealed that Murphy was much closer to getting the gig than previously thought. In fact, the General Manager at the time, Brodie Van Wagenen, wanted Murphy for the job over the other finalists, Beltrán and ESPN analyst Eduardo Perez. But Van Wagenen was overruled by the Wilpons. Jeff, via text to Sherman, claimed he does not remember why he and his father went with Beltrán, before he offered that he remembers there was a concern Murphy wouldn’t fit it in in New York. When Beltrán was forced to resign in mid-January 2020 after he was implicated in the 2017 Astros sign stealing scandal, Murphy still was interested in the gig, even though the Mets flew him in the middle seat in coach all three times he came out to interview. Van Wagenen - who is now Pat Murphy’s agent - told Sherman they went with Luis Rojas because it was close to spring training and Rojas, who managed the Binghamton Rumble Ponies and served as Mets quality control coach in 2019, had previous relationships with a lot of Met players. This despite the fact Murphy told Sherman he would have brought Rojas in to serve as his bench coach had he gotten the managerial job. 

There’s a lot to unpack here. Even though Van Wagenen is conveniently making himself and his client look good by telling Joel Sherman he would have chosen Pat Murphy for the job, I 100 percent believe it to be true. For one thing, Jeff Wilpon did not deny Van Wagenen’s version of events. For another, it is very Wilpons for them to ultimately decide on a candidate they are already familiar with (Beltrán of course played for the Mets from 2005-2011.) While some of that instinct is to avoid employing players and coaches that can handle big bad New York City, it tended to come off far more as a general lack of imagination from Fred and Jeff. (Hiring Cleveland pitching coach Mickey Callaway as skipper after the 2017 season was out of character for them - perhaps when he didn’t work out they figured they wouldn’t get burned like that from a stranger again.) 

And of course the Wilpons only paid for a middle seat in coach to fly out Murphy. And it’s not like it showed a lack of interest in the guy, because they did it all three times he interviewed as he got further along in the process. 

I’m not suggesting Pat Murphy would have necessarily made the 2020 and 2021 Mets better than they were, although that wouldn’t have been too hard. Even though Murphy claimed he aced a mock press conference as part of his Mets interview process, who knows if his weird, pocket pancake loving avuncular ass would have “worked” in Queens. I suspect though that the current Brewers manager would have handled himself fine. Murphy is someone who isn’t afraid to show discipline without coming off as a total unlikeable hardass, so not only would I have loved to see how he would have handled the Francisco Lindor-Jeff McNeil clubhouse incident, maybe that would never have happened under his watch. No, Murph isn’t a miracle worker, and he probably would not have kept Jacob deGrom from getting injured halfway through the ‘21 season, but come on, the guy is 293-193 in his three seasons as the Milwaukee skipper. With all due respect to Luis Rojas who had to deal with a lot of crap, I think it’s likely Murphy would have done a better job during those two years. 

There are those who will point out that David Stearns could have hired Murphy instead of Carlos Mendoza in November 2023. I’m not so sure that’s the case - when the Brewers had a vacancy when Craig Counsell left to manage the Cubs instead, Murphy probably became laser focused on succeeding him to stay where he had served as a coach since 2016. (Murphy predictably claimed to Sherman he’s more than fine with how everything worked out.) There are also those on the interwebs who prefer the Wilpons to Steve Cohen as Mets owner. To those I say…nothing, for you are already broken inside. 

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Exactly one week ago, Anthony DiComo wrote the following in an article trying to explain why Freddy Peralta didn’t work out in New York:

According to multiple members of New York’s hierarchy, the types of adjustments Peralta made in Tampa Bay -- moving quicker down the mound to increase his fastball velocity, achieving a higher arm slot, using the upper third of the strike zone more liberally with his fastball, and relying more extensively on his changeup down in the zone -- are the same things the Mets asked him to do.

Peralta, according to DiComo, pushed back on that during a press conference the other day, saying the strategies between the Mets coaching staff and the Rays’ coaching staff were "a little different... it was different, yeah.” 

Who is lying? Possibly nobody. Peralta said it was a “little” different. That leaves the possibility Met coaches tried to tell Fastball Freddy the same things as the Rays coaches did but just didn’t communicate them properly. I’ve talked before about Chelsea Janes’ theory that Mets pitching coach Justin Willard, who just finished his first season as a major league coach, might have been much better at communicating with the young hurlers than the veterans. 

Or Peralta, a pending free agent, is fibbing so he doesn’t come off as someone who doesn’t take notes. Or the Mets coaches’ noses grew when they told DiComo “Uh yeah, we totally told him to do that too!” while trying to cover their collective ass. Or some “members of New York’s hierarchy” were told by the coaching staff they told Peralta the same things when they actually didn’t. 

What’s my theory? I don’t know - I’m exhausted from thinking too much about it. I will say it makes a lot more sense if the Mets and Rays coaches told Peralta different things than if they said the same things, considering the night and day difference in performance with the two teams.

Ron Darling, who turned 66 back in August, admitted to Mike Puma he isn’t sure if he’ll be returning to SNY (or TBS) next season, even though he still has two years left on his contract with both networks. We’ll talk more about this on Wednesday. Needless to say, this is distressing news.

Steve Gelbs conducted an AMA. Not all of the questions were about hot dogs.

On this day in 1998, Mike Piazza signed a seven-year, $91 million contract with the Mets. Piazza hit 220 homers, was a seven-time All-Star, and won five Silver Slugger Awards in his Mets tenure. At the time, the deal was the most lucrative contract in MLB history. How quaint.