Hey there Steve. You don’t know me. I’ve been a Mets fan since 1974. I started watching on my own. My parents didn’t watch baseball. I was adopted and found out it is in my blood although my birthmother and all of my sisters on her side are Yankees fans. Me, I’m a Mets fan. I taught myself baseball by watching the games and learning the rules. My Dad was happy to take me to games and got into baseball through me. His mother had been a Brooklyn Dodgers fan who abandoned the sport when they left New York. I saw Tom Seaver pitch a one-hitter as a Met in April of 1977. I went to games in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the wins were pretty sparse. There were still plenty of players to admire at the time.

We’re all disappointed this year. I’m not one of those who thinks everyone should be traded or specific players are problems. I’m seeing something wrong overall. I saw it last year too. I had a hunch then I knew what it was, but the team was doing fairly well, so I ignored my gut.

Moneyball is a great philosophy for building a team. Beane really hit on something with the stat guys when building a team, and I think it’s still right. However, in the day-to-day managing of a team, it really doesn’t have a place. These guys are not machines. They are not stocks where you can predict what they are going to do on any given day.

Ditch the sabermetrics for the games themselves. Beg Buck Showalter to come back, or another manager in his style that manages by knowing the players, not looking at statistics. Mendoza might be able to do it, but either way, lose the sabermetrics. A player having a good hitting streak shouldn’t be benched (Showalter let it slip that he was told to do that). That’s when they are in a groove and need to be playing. Let the manager make the lineups, not the sabermetric guys. You are dealing with human beings who are not predictable.

Some of the damage is already done, but I still think the team has great players who can produce. You just have to let them play without focusing on statistics. Empower your manager and coaches to build lineups and know what players are in a groove and those who aren’t.

I’ll be a fan forever, no matter what. It’s just disappointing to see a player like Francisco Lindor grow tired of losing. I don’t blame him, really, if he wants to leave. I don’t know that you should let him, though. He wants to win. Pete Alonso wants to win. All of the payers want to win.

In 1986, there was magic. You could feel it on the team that year. There was a chemistry among the players that worked and they played off of each other. Davey Johnson could feel that chemistry as well and read it. The sabermetrics guys back in their offices can’t feel that chemistry; that magic.

The season isn’t even half over yet. The team can still pull off anything. Ya gotta believe!