PHILADELPHIA — Move over, Jerry Jones. Step aside, Carson Wentz. Make room, Ben Simmons. Keith Hernandez wants a spot on Philly’s Mount Rushmore of hate.
Hernandez just started a war he won’t even bother to attend. Beginning Friday, the Phillies play seven of their next 10 games against the Mets, and Hernandez’s blithe dismissal of a formidable foe has rekindled a rivalry.
Hernandez, in a moment of laziness and ignorance, insulted the Phillies in a Mets broadcast Tuesday night. He said he “hates” to cover Mets/Phillies series because, “As far as fundamentally, [and] defensively, the Phillies have always been just, you know, not up to it.”
As such, Hernandez asked his bosses at SportsNet New York to keep him away from Mets/Phillies contests.
“I’ve expressed to the front office — not the Mets’ front office — our front office at SNY, that I hate doing Philly games. I guess they gave me the series off.”
At this point, he might be wise to never set foot in Citizens Bank Park again.
Hernandez, who played for the Mets after breaking in as a Cardinal, will miss this weekend’s games in Queens because he will attend the Cardinals’ 30-year reunion of the 1982 team that won that World Series. However, he’ll miss next weekend’s four-game set (Saturday day-night doubleheader) simply because he can’t stand to watch the Phillies play baseball.
Admittedly, we’ve all been there.
But Hernandez’s comments dripped of New York arrogance. Big Apple snobbery. Imagine how insufferably elitist he’d have sounded if he’d been a broadcaster for the Yankees. Hernandez announced to the world that he’s too good to have to watch the Phillies play. The Phillies aren’t worth his time.
Incredible? Hardly. We’re talking about a guy who sat out his senior season in high school because he got mad at the coach. He’s a portrait of vanity — a hair-dye pitchman (Reeee-Jected!) who overcame a moment of insecurity in a "Seinfeld" appearance by reflecting, “I’m Keith Hernandez.”
To be fair, pomposity aside, he’s not wrong about the Phillies ... if he’s talking about the Phillies through April and May. Hernandez saw the Mets beat the Phillies in nine of 12 meetings early this season. It was ugly.
Since then, the Phillies have played good defense, practiced sounder fundamentals, and have gone 40-19. They fired Joe Girardi, instituted daily infield practice, sidelined, then cut, shortstop Didi Gregorius and outfielder Odúbel Herrera, and added slick fielder Edmundo Sosa and topflight center fielder Brandon Marsh.
And if Hernandez is using the Mutts as a barometer, consider that his team hasn’t reached the playoffs in five seasons, hasn’t won a playoff series or won the division in six seasons, and ranks behind the Phillies in fielding percentage (fifth vs. eighth).
Hernandez said “always.” Let’s assume “always” means relatively lately, like the last nine seasons, since the Phillies from 2002-2013 were an all-around good ballclub. The Phillies finished with a higher fielding percentage than the Mets in four of those nine seasons. In the past few weeks, the Phillies have been a much cleaner defensive team than the past nine years.
Hernandez gave off “Old man yelling at cloud” vibes with his tone-deaf assertion. Defense and fundamentals have suffered throughout baseball for the last decade.
This is a casualty of Moneyball analytics wonks devaluing contact hitting, base-stealing, and strike-throwing over home runs, walks, and strikeouts. Any era that focuses more on spin rate, launch angle, and infield shifts is doomed to witness the extinction of runners going from first to third on a single or proper execution of a sacrifice bunt.
(OK, I know: Now I’m the old man, yelling at the cloud.)
Hernandez knows what he’s done. He was a stupendously good player at the plate and in the field for some of the best teams in baseball history — two titles, five All-Star games, 11 Gold Gloves — and he might be an even better analyst. He’s succeeded under the brightest lights in the biggest baseball towns, was a wonderful addition to TV’s biggest sitcom, has written five books, and he rocked the sexiest mustache this side of Michael Jack Schmidt.
This sort of comment is beneath him.
Do the Phillies execute defensively with the grace of Baryshnikov? No. Do they run the bases with the style of Roberto Clemente? No.
Yes, Kyle Schwarber looks like he’s stomping roaches when he runs after balls in left field. Yes, Nick Castellanos, when he finishes loping over to fly balls in right, seems to have forgotten why he ran all that way. Yes, third baseman Alec Bohm and first baseman Rhys Hoskins seem as surprised as anyone when they catch the ball.
It’s the first team in Major League Baseball history with four designated hitters.
But they’re all playing better. That’s really not the point.
The point is, according to Hernandez, the Phillies play so badly that their performances act as some sort of Medusa agent that will turn the pure baseball soul of Keith Hernandez to stone.
The best way for the Phillies to prove Hernandez wrong?
Send the Mets home weeping in two weeks.
