Saturday Seasons: For 2004, a Wright Move and Some Very Wrong Ones

The 2004 season was eventful for the New York Mets, not all of it in a good way.

               The season saw the arrival of a pitching guru whose self-confidence would, in the end, hurt the team; the major league debut of an iconic third baseman who would make it to the Mets’ (if not MLB’s) Hall of Fame; a flurry of deadline deals, including one that would haunt the team for years; and a Mets-signature second half collapse that would cost both the manager and the general manager their jobs.

               All that in a year that produced a 71-91 fourth place finish that came nowhere close toward fulfilling owner Fred Wilpon’s spring training prediction that the team would be playing meaningful games in September (a proclamation that was still years away from becoming tired).

               The journey began on Nov. 5, 2003, when the team hired Rick Peterson as its pitching coach, following by a year manager Art Howe from the Oakland A’s. Peterson’s resume included developing 20-game winners Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Muldur and his methods were state-of-the-art high tech. He spoke of teaching the science of pitching, in which pitching motions are analyzed with sensors and video to increase efficiency and decrease the risk of injury, and in the psychology of pitching, in which a pitcher's mental approach is sharpened.

And in announcing the hire, general manager Jim Duquette made it clear Peterson would be able to dictate how pitchers were coached throughout the organization. ''We expect him to have the leeway to implement his system from the top down,'' Duquette was quoted as saying in the New York Times.

For Peterson, the job’s attraction was as much geography as autonomy, as the New Jersey resident was looking to be able to spend more time with his wife and three sons, then aged 16, 12 and 10, and not having to buy a home in California.  ''I think when it came time to put the for-sale sign in the front yard, it didn't make any sense,'' Peterson said in a conference call announcing his hiring.

For his part, Howe was happy the A’s let Peterson out of his contract, albeit a year late. ''He was someone I wanted to bring with me originally,'' Howe said in the same conference call.

With the coaching staff finalized early, Duquette set about trying to upgrade the roster. He signed Shane Spencer to play the outfield and brought back Todd Zeile to alternate with Mike Piazza at first base and also spend time at third. He signed Japanese shortstop Kazuo Matsui to play shortstop, moving Jose Reyes to second. And he inked Mike Cameron to roam center field. Duquette signed Braden Looper to be the closer, having traded Armando Benitez to the Yankees in mid-2003.

But the understandable preseason optimism quickly faded as the team got off to a slow start: a 9-14 April, before turning it around some and going 15-12 in May. And the team hit its high point in early July, sweeping the Yankees at Shea Stadium July 2-4, and entering the all-star break at 44-43, just two games behind a playoff spot. That they stayed close despite losing Reyes for more than two months with a fractured tibia and with Cliff Floyd and Al Leiter also spending time on the IL, led Duquette to believe that with the right additions, the Mets could make a serious playoff run.

In particular, Duquette felt the Mets needed to add punch to a batting order whose lack of production had prompted the firing of hitting coach Denny Walling.

The first move had already come on June 17, when Duquette sent reliever David Weathers and minor league prospect Jeremy Griffiths to the Astros for Richard Hidalgo, a power hitting outfielder who got off to a fast start, but who had slumped mightily in Houston. Hidalgo would hit only .228 for the Mets, but he did slug 21 homers in a little more than half a season.

Meanwhile, the Mets’ number one prospect, David Wright, was tearing up the minor leagues, hitting .363 with 10 home runs and 40 RBI at AA Binghamton before being promoted to AAA Norfolk, where hit .322 with six homers and 12 RBI going into the Major League Futures Game. Suddenly, Ty Wigginton, 2003’s surprise rookie, seemed very expendable as a trade chip for a starting pitcher with Wright apparently ready to man third base.

Wright made his major league debut on July 21. He went 0-for-4 in his first game, but hit his stride after that, batting .293 with 14 homers and 40 RBI in 69 games on his way to being named Rookie of the Year.

The Mets hit their high point a couple of days after the all-star break, getting to two games over .500 and one game away from a playoff spot. With the batting order fortified, Duquette turned to bolstering the starting rotation.

And that’s when things started going south.

Duquette traded for, and then traded, Jose Bautista, in a package that also sent Wigginton to Pittsburgh in return for Pirates starter Kris Benson. Baseball pundits considered it something of a coup at the time – Benson, a pending free agent, was viewed as top pitcher available and the Mets’ chances of signing him were considered favorable because of the career possibilities New York would provide for Benson’s wife, Anna.

“Benson’s wife, Anna, seems to be a natural fit for the big-city spotlight with her own website that reads like a modeling portfolio,” one newspaper story noted. (Actually, the Bensons’ biggest highlight would come in the off-season, when Kris dressed as Santa and Anna as a provocative Mrs. Claus at the team’s annual Christmas children’s party).

In hindsight, Duquette should have stopped there. But then, he traded the team’s top pitching prospect, Scott Kazmir, to the Tampa Bay Rays for Victor Zambrano. Acquiring Zambrano seemed to be a particular gamble, since he had led the American league in walks, wild pitches and hit batsmen the year before and was so wild in 2004 that he would lead the AL in walks even after leaving for the NL halfway through the season.

Enter Peterson, who confidently told management he could “fix” Zambrano in a matter of minutes. And the Mets believed that Kazmir was at least a year or two away. “We just felt Zambrano is what a young Kazmir eventually could be and Kazmir is still a ways away,” Duquette was quoted as saying.

In defending the trades, he said, ““We’re still in the hunt, we’re still in the mix, let’s go for it. With these guys, we have a chance to win every night.”

Others were not as sanguine. Newsday’s Ken Davidoff, in picking winners and losers at the trade deadline, had the Mets in the losers column. “An American League source said that in spring training, the Mets could have dealt Jose Reyes and Scott Kazmir to Texas for Alfonso Soriano and Mark Teixeira,” Davidoff wrote. “That seems like a far better deal than Friday’s swap of Kazmir for Tampa Bay’s Victor Zambrano. Rick Peterson is a great pitching coach, but Zambrano will be his greatest challenge.”

Peterson didn’t get much chance to work his magic, at least not in 2004. Zambrano only made three starts for the team before suffering a variety of arm injuries. The Rays had a different assessment of Kazmir’s readiness and called him up a couple of weeks later. He struck out 41 in 33 innings and went on to enjoy a career that lasted well beyond Zambrano’s.

Benson didn’t set the world on fire, either. He went 4-4 with a 4.50 ERA.

The injuries –and the losses – mounted. As August turned into September, the Mets went on an 11-game losing streak. Reports began circulating about dissension in the clubhouse and anonymous criticism of manager Howe. Not helping Howe’s situation was a USA Today article in which former Mets catcher Gary Carter campaigned for Howe’s job – even though it wasn’t vacant. “Put me in the position right now and I think I can handle it.” Carter was quoted as saying in the article.

Mets brass held meetings; the newspapers kept reporting on Howe’s tenuous job security. Finally, Howe forced the issue, asking him to be dismissed immediately if the Mets decided he was gone at season’s end. He learned that was the decision reached the week before. But instead of leaving immediately, he stayed on for the final 17 games, the Mets’ personification of a dead man walking.

“I’m not a quitter,” he told the media. “I’ve never walked away from anything in my life.”

The Wilpons made it clear that dismissing Howe was Duquette’s call – but then, with just five days left in the season – they put Duquette in an equally uncomfortable position by essentially demoting him and hiring as director of baseball operations the man who was running the Montreal Expos for Major League Baseball before that team was sold and moved to Washington, DC.

Omar Minaya had turned down the Mets’ offer a year before to share responsibility for baseball operations with Duquette. By waiting a year, he won the power battle without a fight.

Not that Duquette should have been all that surprised. In 2003, when he was given the general manager’s job, the Mets wrote language into his contract giving them the right to reassign him and reduce his salary after a year.

So Duquette joined Howe in taking the fall for the 71-91 record, five games better than in 2003 but still not what was expected. And it could also be said he paid the price for the Kazmir-for-Zambrano deal that kept on eating at the Wilpons’ craw for years.

So when the Mets limped to the final game of the season, an 8-1 victory at Shea against the soon-to-be-moved-and-renamed Expos, there were some bizarre, bittersweet moments. Todd Zeile, in the final game of his career, started at catcher, his original position before being moved to third base. Zeile homered in his final at-bat. John Franco, also in his final game as a Met (he would pitch briefly and ineffectively for the Astros in 2005), entered to the strains of “Johnny B Goode.”  And Howe made sure to say all his goodbyes – to the players and the media.

“I’m glad I stayed,” he said. “It’s given me a chance to say goodbye to everyone."

How did he want to be remembered as Mets manager? “I was professional. I represented the organization well and I didn’t let tough times change me.”

Pitching coach Peterson put the coda on 2004 as he looked ahead to 2005. “We’re going in the right direction,” he insisted. “It looks like we’re far off. But we’re really not. It’s been a war of attrition and it’s got to go back the other way.”