ATLANTA – Moe, Larry and Curly made generations of people laugh. Mo, Jeromy and Robbie are making Met executives cry.
After Steve Phillips traded for Mo Vaughn, Jeromy Burnitz and Robbie Alomar, he found himself buried in an avalanche of praise, from Mets fans to sportswriters to talk-show hosts. He was a genius, a master roster manipulator, a modern day Branch Rickey.
Sure, Phillips was only able to pull off these coups because ownership approved an expansion of the payroll. Still, so many were convinced, it took a man of keen baseball acumen to make so many changes so quickly to a stagnant lineup.
It looked too good to be true, so naturally it was.
Phillips, who also pulled the trigger on a lucrative free-agent deal for left fielder Roger Cedeno, managed to take a bad offense, infuse it with tons of cash, and make it worse.
He brought the Mets names. Period.
The key to making smart baseball acquisitions lies in reading the future, not the back of baseball cards that speak only to the past. The idea is to get players who are on the verge of career years. Phillips traded for a trio of players in the midst of career-worst seasons.
After all the changes and all the dough, the Mets had a familiar old face batting in the coveted third spot in the lineup for Sunday’s series finale against the Marlins: Timo Perez.
Met ownership didn’t spend $102 million on this team to see a guy who bunts with a man on second bat in the No. 3 hole, even on a day Mike Piazza was resting.
Until one of the winter saviors gets it going, Bobby Valentine will continue trying wild things such as having a man who on most teams would be a fifth outfielder bat third.
In terms of easing the pressure on themselves and boosting the morale of a team that hasn’t come together on the field, there couldn’t be a better time for the four newcomers to break from their season-long fogs than during a four-game series against the Braves that got under way last night at Turner Field.
A look at what has gone wrong with the four big-money acquisitions:
* ALOMAR: He seems to have shaken his early season jitters in the field, but he remains unproductive at the plate.
Alomar never had a living arrangement that suited him better than when he played for the Blue Jays and lived at the hotel ballpark. He’s as close to all-baseball, all-the-time as any one player can get, and during those times, he would wake up, look out his window and see the diamond he called home. He didn’t have to deal with the outside world and had no distractions from his central passion, playing winning baseball.
The environment in which he’s now living couldn’t be more different. He lives in the city, forever is recognized, and hasn’t gotten into a comfortable routine.
* VAUGHN: He’s adjusting to far more than just a new league. He’s also adjusting to facing major-league pitching after a year off, and it’s not going well. That Kevin Appier is off to such a strong start for the Angels only complicates matters, supplying ammunition to the hecklers.
Vaughn clogs the basepaths as few others, and though he’s a better fielder than advertised, he must bring power to justify a spot in the lineup. Thus far he hasn’t brought it.
* CEDENO: He’s doing better at reading the ball off the bat, as he predicted he would once he had more experience as a left fielder, but he had an unacceptable seven stolen bases going into the Brave series. He was acquired to ignite the Met offense, but he hasn’t hit enough to justify a spot at the top of the order.
* BURNITZ: Never has tailored an at-bat or even a swing to a situation. It’s all or nothing for Burnitz, and so far it’s mostly been nothing. As a hitter, either he’s on a hot streak, carrying a team, or he’s useless. The Mets are waiting for a hot streak. All-or-nothing hitters tend to be best suited to teams that play their home games in launching pads. Shea is a pitcher’s park.
More than one-third of the way into the season, Phillips is batting 0-for-4 on hitters.