Buck Showalter gives no headlines, but he knows the story
Mets manager Buck Showalter talks to the press at spring training on Tuesday in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Buck Showalter doesn’t speak in neatly-packaged sound bites, and it’s no accident. So when he’s asked about the unique pressure of a $373 million payroll or the residual effect of last year’s 101-win season, Showalter starts off on topic but then goes careening in any number of different directions, rather than give “people something to lead their paragraphs with.”
After two decades as a manager, for five different teams, Showalter knows newspapering almost as well as his day job. And maybe he just realized that you can order Chipotle on your phone -- “I got one of the clubbies to do it for me,” he said Tuesday -- but Showalter surely understands the forces surrounding him as he begins Year 2 at the helm for the Mets.
That didn’t mean, however, Showalter was going to stir them all up during Tuesday’s opening news conference at Clover Park, a spring-training ritual where someone in his position tries to avoid sitting still in the media crosshairs. His body didn’t move, but his dialogue was fidgety from word one of the 40-minute session, and the result was a small army of TV cameras powering down without as much as a tease for the 6 p.m. broadcast.
Showalter was able to bob and weave by going to his spider monkey stories from his stint in Baltimore, as well as express his excitement for the upcoming Mets’ talent show -- the shorter spring killed it a year ago -- but there’s no outrunning his resume at the start of his sophomore season in Flushing. After picking up his fourth Manager of the Year award two weeks ago, Showalter is now faced with everyone asking him what he can do for an encore. Which in the Mets’ case, is demanding to do better.
Truth is, Showalter had reached 100 wins only once before, with the Diamondbacks in 1999, then plunged to 85 the following season, his last in Arizona. He surpassed 90 wins twice with the Orioles, in 2014 (96) and ’12 (93), but again came up empty in October. And with the Astros’ Dusty Baker finally hoisting that long-elusive World Series trophy last October, Showalter -- the 19th-winningest manager all-time -- remains stuck with Gene Mauch as the only two in the top 24 of that list without leading a team to the title.
The Mets’ stunning swan dive to end last season, first getting swept in Atlanta to spit up the NL East followed by the three-game loss to the Padres in the Wild Card Series, was something that Showalter didn’t feel like reliving Tuesday -- or even suggesting it as motivation for his returning team. Whatever sting is left all these months later, Showalter was more interested in looking forward.
“It’s one of those things that’s silent -- you don’t talk about it,” Showalter said. “One of those looks without saying anything. They know. Who in here likes talking about unpleasant things? Nobody likes to. It’s one of those things you know about, but why keep bringing it up? That’s what they’d say to me.
“But you can’t fast forward to September and October. You can’t do that. There’s too many bridges to cross. We won a lot of games last year we shouldn’t have won on paper. We lost some, too. It works both ways.”
Showalter has a few advantages with the Mets this time. For one, his boss Steve Cohen has made money no object when it comes to providing the manager with what he needs. His $482 million spree this winter included replacing Jacob deGrom with the AL’s reigning Cy Young winner in Justin Verlander ($86.7M) and grabbing Japan’s most coveted free-agent pitcher Kodai Senga ($75M). Not to mention keeping last year’s most dominant closer by giving Edwin Diaz a record $102 million deal and retaining Brandon Nimmo with a market-busting $162 million contract.
Another plus: Showalter doesn’t have to hit the ground running as he did in his first year when the 99-day lockout ended, forcing camps to hastily convene for a compressed spring-training schedule. The Mets are financed by Cohen’s billions, but Showalter has another chance to mold the on-field product, even if he does have some new hurdles to clear over the next six weeks.
With this year’s rule changes, and teams being chopped up by the WBC, it helps to have a manager that’s detail-obsessed like Showalter. He mentioned Tuesday that he’s already had the team’s sliding pit shortened to reflect the bigger bases being implemented this season, then challenged reporters to find the 20 new things about the Mets’ complex (a list he’s evidently very proud of).
We knew from the minute Showalter first became a candidate that he was the right person for the Mets’ job, and regardless how October played out, it’s tough to take issue with 101 wins. And given what’s on their plate for the Mets this season, Showalter should be an even greater asset, as the uber-competitive NL East is likely to be won somewhere in the margins against the NL champ Phillies and Atlanta, which edged the Mets for the division title on a tiebreaker.
Just don’t press Showalter to craft your next headline or a back page. You’ll wind up hearing about some burrito drama at Chipotle instead.
Buck Showalter has managed 3,231 regular-season games but has yet to lead his team to a World Series. His postseason won-loss record by team:
Yankees 2-3
Diamondbacks 1-3
Orioles 6-8
Mets 1-2
Total 10-16
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
