Feb 19 2019 01:51 PM
It's odd that I got the job. It really is. I'm surprised I mean, after years of fans and media blaming my former boss Ray Ramirez (or more generally, "the training staff," which included me) for so much of the Mets media woes, the Mets finally took the message to heart for whatever reason, and cut Ramirez loose. Right? Wrong? Who knows? But they made the decision.
But then they offer the job to me. If they're firing him for cause or something, it makes sense to promote me. But if they're trying to break with his philosophy and techniques, you'd think that I'd go with him.
But here I am. Now, I don't know if I have a particularly different philosophy, or have studied and trained with more up-to-date information, because I'm not even writing this, but rather some douchebag on a fan forum. I do know that there wasn't a lot more happiness with the injury rate of the team under my training skillz than under Ray's. But hey, our two biggest offensive assets spent most of the year off the field, but that can all be attributed to pre-existing conditions. IT CAN! No, it's NOT an excuse!
On the other side, we didn't get a lot of debilitating pitcher injuries, with notable exceptions of Jason Vargas, who got hurt during spring training, and Anthony Swarzak, who also went down early. They were coming in from outside the organization, and so hadn't yet fully taken in the CHICKLO WAY.
Ok, THAT'S an excuse.
I think it's fair if people are pissed that Michael Conforto came back too quickly, but I'm not sure that was my call, because, again, I'm not typing this.
Obviously, more is going to be on me this year. There's probably not a team in the league about whom you can't say, "They'll win a lot of games, if they stay healthy."
Healthy. That's my job. How'm I gonna do in 2019?