Dan Lewis, like myself a New York Mets fan, made a series of posts last night detailing the downfall of the Mets through the prism of Steve Phillips's tenure as General Manager -- a tenure that ended yesterday. Start here, then go here, and finish up here to get the posts in the correct chronological order. I'm in agreement with much of what Dan writes, but there's one loss that's been felt more deeply than all others.
The loss of John Olerud to free agency after the 1999 season, though unavoidable (his wife wanted out of New York and back to Seattle so their infant son could grow up near family), was disastrous. Looking at Todd Zeile's production in a traditional sense, plugging him in as Olerud's replacement doesn't seem like much of a downgrade. But the fact is that Olerud is a much more patient hitter whose demeanor at the plate, and his willingness to take a walk (125 in 1999 vs. 75 in 2000 for Zeile), set the tone for the rest of the team. Once he was gone, the Mets became a much less patient team at the plate. Their walks plummeted (on the average of about 1 less per game), strikeouts rose noticeably, and run production gradually ground to a halt.
Sure, the Mets were able to make it to the World Series in 2000 without Olerud. But you can't help but notice that while the Mets scored 853 runs in 1999, that production dropped to 807 in 2000, and 642 in 2001.
Further, it shouldn't be too tough to recall that 1999 was the year the Mets infield was touted as perhaps the best ever in the history of the game. That stopped the day Olerud and his family left for the Pacific Northwest. Zeile, while not the absolute dog Mo Vaughn is on defense, simply isn't Olerud's match with the glove. As good as Ventura, Rey Ordonez, and Alfonzo were (can it be that they're really all gone?), it's clear that they threw across the diamond with confidence because they knew Olerud was going to come up with any throw that might have bounced in the dirt. The move to Zeile in 2000 was just the start of a slide down the mountain that led to Mo Vaughn.
Put it all together, and you have the literal linchpin of the Mets collapse.
