Moneyball Effect on The Mets and Jose Reyes

I recently finished Moneyball, and towards the end author Michael Lewis discusses how in 2002, when the Oakland A's acquired Ray Durham, it transformed Durham. Durham, a very aggressive baserunner, used to make single into doubles, doubles into triples, no longer was that aggressive. Durham, who averaged a stolen base every 4.8 games on the White Sox, averaged one stolen base every nine games on the A's. Lewis also noted that current Mets Vice President of player development and scouting, Paul DePodesta ran numbers, on how stealing bases did more harm than good. I began to think to myself, Durham pre-A's sounds a lot like a player we all know and love, Jose Reyes. What effect will the new regime have on Reyes? New Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson's first move was picking up Jose Reyes' option for 2011, at the time Alderson was quoted as saying:  "A long-term deal is not out of the question," Alderson said. "It is something we can certainly discuss at a future date."  But in an interview last week  Alderson said that he would like to first see Reyes play a year before making any decisions. Is that because Alderson & Co. want to see if Reyes can play well in their system?  Do they want to see if Reyes could be more like Hanley Ramirez? More broadly, what will happen to the usually run happy Mets? When Citi Field was first built there were many skeptics wondering about the dimensions of Citi Field, the Wilpons said they built the stadium with pitching, defense speed in mind. At Alderson's press conference he was asked about the dimensions, and said he had no plans in the immediate future to move in the fences. Last week in that interview, Alderson said he wants to see Citi Field for a year, before making any decisions, although ideally he would like it to more a hitters park. Which is it? Does Alderson want to live by the Mets philosophy of pitching, defense and speed, or does he want to do the moneyball approach of on base percentage, and slugging percentage? 

So I decided to do some research on Alderson's A's, DePodesta's Dodgers, and J.P. Ricciardi's(special assistant to the GM) Blue Jays, to see how run happy, or non-run happy they actually were, to help shed some light on the subject. (All stats courtesy of Baseball Reference)

Alderson first:

Keep in mind many of these years were with Rickey Henderson. In 1983, Henderson had 103 stolen bases alone. If we take out 1983, the averages change to 22, 115, 50, and 165 respectively. 

DePodesta:

While a small sample, we still see what DePodesta's philosophy is, which possibly led to his firing at the end of 2005.

Ricciardi: 

If one were to average out Alderson, DePodesta, and Ricciardi's averages, you would get 26 triples, 92 stolen bases, 40 caught stealing's, and 132 total stolen bases attempts.

Now let's compare those numbers with numbers from the Mets last six seasons(from the beginning of the Minaya regime):

As one can clearly see, the philosophy that the new front office's philosophy differs greatly with what we've been used to. I think that's exactly why Alderson is waiting a year before making any drastic moves, he wants to see how this team can play his baseball, in this ballpark(the way it is). While Alderson has not said it straight out, we see clearly from his words and his actions (or lack thereof) that he sees 2011 as a transition year. He wants to see how the New York Mets play Sandy Alderson's style of baseball. Whatever the case is, there is one thing that we know for sure, there will be no more sacrifice bunts in the first inning.

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