Eric Simon at SB Nation’s Amazin’ Avenue has a thorough evaluation of Jerry Manuel’s performance in the three areas in which managers can have the most “real impact” on a team — game strategy, personnel management, player development.
Why the Mets Need to Fire Jerry Manuel and Re-Hire Bobby Valentine
↵Simon concludes, not surprisingly, that Manuel is good at none of these, and clearly bad at one of them (game strategy). So, the solution:
↵↵The Mets need to fire Jerry Manuel and hire Bobby Valentine. Mets fans love Valentine; in a recent fake poll that nobody actually conducted and I in fact just made up, 94% of Mets fans surveyed would happily punch a baby in the face if it meant Valentine would return to their team.
↵Not only will Valentine divert many eyes away from the minor body work being done to the Mets this offseason, he’s probably even a good manager to boot. His in-game decision making is far more congruent with the right way than the old-fashioned way, and his passion for coaching young players can only help the big league transitions of Fernando Martinez, Jon Niese, and Josh Thole, among others.
↵↵The only problem with this solution, as Simon points out, is that the Mets would have to pay Valentine about $4 million more than they’re paying Manuel. Probably worth it though to have a manager who makes decisions based on logic and stats rather than his gut.
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