If you’re the sort that never purges your RSS feeds of defunct sites, please note Section 528 has moved. You’ll find very little there now, but more later.
And it won’t limit itself to Mets baseball, the Mets, or even baseball. If you can follow that.
Find the new site at http://omniality.tumblr.com.
(My thanks to MLBlogs for giving me a home for awhile. Much appreciated.)
Some quite random and disorganized thoughts while I enjoy a quiet hour alone, undisturbed, and with some whiskey a friend today called “proddy garbage” (it’s Bushmill’s, and I’m drinking it because it was cheap and the only thing left in the liquor store on Christmas Eve):
–Jason Bay can hit home runs. It’s proven he can hit home runs. I don’t know how many home runs he’ll hit in 2010 for the Mets, if all goes well and he DOES sign, but as of yesterday the Mets didn’t have a guy in left field who could hit home runs. Now it seems as though they might.
Good.
–Sixteen million dollars is a lot of money. Sixty-six million dollars is a lot of money. Eighty million dollars is a lot of money. The interest earned on a three-month CD purchased at $16 million could retire my debt, my parents’ debt, and leave money for season tickets.
–I should come up with a novel way to make seven thousand dollars. Like that guy who traded up from a paperclip and wound up with a house.
–Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” might be underrated.
–Humble Pie’s version of “I Can’t Stand The Rain” is mesmerizing.
–What kind of season will 2010 be if Jose Reyes clocks in 2007 numbers, and David Wright, Carlos Beltran, and Jason Bay manage to hit one hundred homers between them?
–Oliver Perez is still a Met. Goddamn it.
–I’m glad I was back-breakingly equivocal about free agent pitchers. Lackey? Gone. Halladay? Gone. Marquis? Gone. Garland? …Hold on… Nope, still free.
–I’ve been away QUITE awhile. Next year, I purposefully go dark in the off-season so as to avoid the guilt of dropping off the planet.
–I need to know more people in high finance. Honestly. If anyone out there lives in the New York City area, has three to five years of managerial experience in the realm of finance and administration, and is interested in a non-profit career, email me. Great pay, better benefits. And you get me as an underling. Exciting, nay? Email me at omniality@gmail.com. This is one hundred percent legit.
Think of how cool it’d be that we have that going for us. “How’d you find your new gig, [Director of Finance and Admin]?” “I was reading a blog about the Mets, and I was intrigued.”
–I’m a desperate, desperate man. And we just started the search yesterday. Christ.
–The Mets are still missing massive production from first base. There was a time when Beltran and Wright were chasing 30/30 seasons, Moises Alou seemed to have found an endless supply of cartoon spinach, Jose Reyes was stealing underwear without taking off peoples’ pants, AND Carlos Delgado was crushing the ball to a reasonable degree.
Can Daniel Murphy manage twenty-four home runs in a season? Can Jason Bay manage more than thirteen, and an OPS over .900 at once?
–Can Jason Bay stay healthy enough to play at least 150 games?
–Jason Bay’s not one of those outfielders that doesn’t give a damn about pesky things like stats, is he? I mean, not like the guy out in right.
–I miss shouting, “Hit the ball, Chowdah!” at Jeff Francoeur. Baseball’s been gone far too long.
–Even so, you wouldn’t catch me out at Citi Field tonight on a bet. It’s FREEZING out. And I know from freezing.
–No; Jason Bay’s a solid guy. His numbers last year are quite solid. An all-star, for Chrissakes.
–That voting for all-stars is beyond reproach, too. Also the plural isn’t “hanging chads.” It’s “hanging chad.”
–Most people named Chad seem to be cruisin’ for a hangin’.
**
Credit where it’s due: the format of this post is inspired by “Jenna Is Awkward”‘s blog, The Art Of Awkward, which is refreshed most every Wednesday with a stream-of-consciousness assault on the rude, the oblivious, the downright creepy, and the obnoxiously entitled. She also enjoys alcohol and keeps clear of children, and that speaks to me. Furthermore, she’s a Mets fan. Give her all the traffic you can by going to http://artofawkward.com.
The Wife is in town until the 12th, and as I may have suggested, I’m a little inundated with work that’s not Mets-related. As much as I hoped I could get back to a normal schedule, I don’t really see that happening for awhile. I will post as often as I can, but that will be really sporadic. Fortunately, the forecast calls for things to ease up right around the start of the season.
So as Mets business heats up and I spend more time in front of the television or at games, I’ll post more. Have yourselves a safe and great new year. Pray for Oliver Perez, and by extension the Mets, in 2010.
Cheers.
This one’s too brilliant not to give over in full, and for that, my apologies to the Times and Mr. Wakefield, whose words are reproduced wholesale, here.
But generally, if you’re not going to the paper’s site every Monday to check out the “Metropolitan Diary,” you’re missing out. Find the rest of this week’s here.
For those who’ll get to it later, however:
Dear Diary:
Flash back 40 years. The world champion Amazin’ Mets were the toast of the town.
My wife worked on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and I was always assigned a volunteer job of meeting a
limousine early Thanksgiving morning at my Chelsea apartment building,
and then picking up a celebrity for one of the floats.
That year, two limousines were dispatched; we went to Shea Stadium in a convoy, and picked up six Mets for a key float. Three of them were Tug McGraw,
Ron Swoboda and Ed Charles; I can’t remember who the other three were.
After dropping them off at the staging area on Broadway at 79th Street,
I hopped a subway to Herald Square and went to an upper floor, where
coffee and maybe a little Irish whiskey awaited.
When the parade
reached its final destination, some of the Mets joined workers and
Macy’s employees and their families for drinks and snacks. The son of a
Macy’s employee was observing his 9th birthday, and he told the Mets
that.
Without so much as a word, but cackling, Swoboda picked him
up, turned him upside down, and McGraw smacked his bottom nine times. I
have never seen a 9-year-old with bigger eyes.
Dean M. Wakefield
Fan-bloody-tastic.
I posted more recently than twenty-eight days ago, but talking about Chip Caray doesn’t count.
So what’d I miss? Plenty. And nothing.
Luis Castillo is gone. No, he isn’t. Yes, he is. No, he isn’t. Roy Halladay will be a Met. No, he won’t. Yes, he will. Not unless the Mets pick up and move to the West Coast, and take their Dodger-esque ball park with them. John Lackey’s a bigger wild card than It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Charlie Kelly. (The preceding link is intended only for mature audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.)
Alex Cora signed and Elmer Dessens either has or will very soon. Brian Schneider, who was not on the radar, is completely off the radar, and Chris Coste is a Met, but he barely registered when he wasn’t, and I’m fine with keeping our relationship at that level.
So there. That’s what’s transpired, it seems. And a lot of maybes, coulds, and possiblies. Enough to make me glad I’m not a sports journalist. Not enough to make me stop daydreaming about it when I’m trying to calculate a company’s overhead, but enough nonetheless.
There’s vitriol, here. Not seething; not yet. But looking at my notes for the free agent starting pitchers posts that I either bailed on or got shanghaied away from (you choose your perspective), I’m dismayed by the prospects. Todd Wellemeyer? I was going to try and make a case for Todd Wellemeyer?
There’s more. Oh, believe me, there’s more.
Ben Sheets’ only definitive, demonstrable use at this point would be as a prognosticator of rain delays. Pay the man a token for his elbow, stick that by the home run apple in center, and designate the $10MM or $12MM that would’ve gone for the rest of him, for something else.
Hey, you know who’s a bajillion million trillion years old? Bartolo Colon.
If Braden “Blooper” Looper, a former Met reliever, is considered for a spot in the team’s rotation, then I imagine Aaron Heilman’s head will explode. And that might be reason alone to do it. In an odd bit of confluence, Looper told Sporting News (you’ll click here for the report via Yahoo! Sports) that he’d be cool with signing with the Cubs.
And speaking of Cubs both potential and former, word is the Texas Rangers just paid $7.5 million for a year of Rich Harden. Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times‘s Mariners Blog shows a northwesterner’s measured equanimity
in discussing the Mariners’ fortunes, in light of their NOT getting
their man. I have a friend who called me up as the news was breaking.
She sounded ready to throw a chair.
I don’t know. I’m with Baker. Name a season in which Rich Harden’s thrown more than two hundred innings one hundred fifty innings. …
An out below one hundred ninety in 2004. He gave up five runs in one inning to the 2004 Reds, and Griffey had nothing to do with it. Positively Perez-ish.
And speaking of that game? Justin Duchscherer replaced Harden during that inning. Jerry Crasnick’s report from back in August may jog your memory re: Duchscherer. I’m not pointing that out to say the guy couldn’t take the heat in New York or should have a strike against him as a result of his condition–far from it. He’s either a competitor and should want to play where he can show he’s the best, or he should stop playing the game and do something else, which would be fine and great. But he can’t come to the Mets after the Mets’ 2009 season, unless he’s literally made of steel. Heavy-gauge steel. Non-corrosive… you get the point. A hip injury will lead to some kind of metal eventually, but certainly not now, and not in time to be a reasonable and inexpensive option.
And while I’m complaining about people with extended stays on the DL, I remain unconvinced that paying Erik Bedard anything more than a year, a plane ticket, and room and board is a good idea. Bringing us back to the Seattle Times and Geoff Baker: word is he’ll already miss part of 2010.
Joel Piniero seems like a trap. And Jayson Stark (as I read from Matt Cerrone’s redesigned Metsblog) is saying Piniero’s agent is worth more than a three-year, $10 million deal. Expensive trap for a guy that just recently seemed to figure things out, at the Mets’ expense.
Noah Lowry hasn’t been right since 2007, and recently had a rib removed to help relieve a syndrome I’ve never even heard of. And I once spent sixteen hours with Wikipedia, the complete Talking Heads discography, and a bottle of whiskey (a blizzard knocked out my cable).
Jarrod Washburn? Uninspiring.
And the only good thing about Brett Tomko, since at least 2005, has been Julia Schultz.
I can see Jon Garland as that aforementioned reasonable option in a typical off-season, but the dearth of real, electric talent means an inflated market for guys like Garland. You don’t need me to tell you this; everyone’s shouting about it and, in this rare instance, it bears the rasp of scrutiny. So Jon Garland’s $6.25 million in 2009 becomes 2010’s $10 million, or $6.25MM a year for multiple years, because the guy’s gotten tired of seeing his reaction to bad news caught by game cameras.
And that’s the thing. There are two free agents out there who I’d hate to say anything bad about. And I’ve had a rough four weeks, so I’m looking to say a bad word about any- and everyone I can. And they will cost scads of cash. SCADS, I tells ya.
First guy is Jason Marquis. He’ll ask for A.J. Burnett numbers in cash if not years, and if you look at his 2009 quick line and Burnett’s 2009 quick line, they’re nearly identical (Marquis’s BAA is twenty points higher and his WHIP is two points lower). So I think he’d have a solid case.
Mostly, though, whenever I watch Jason Marquis pitch, I don’t get that knot in my stomach like I do when I watch A.J. Burnett. Marquis doesn’t worry me. I know his stats show a Romo-esque knack for fading down the stretch, but he doesn’t worry me.
So much of the conversation surrounding the 2010 Mets is going to be about peace of mind. In the rotation, whoever follows Johan Santana has to inspire confidence. That guy’s going to have to be a master craftsman, or a bulldog.
Or both, as the case may be.
I’ve made my feelings on John Lackey plain, at one point using the phrase “out of your gourd” to explain the mess that the 2010 rotation would look like given the numbers that were, then, kicking around about the man. Five years, $80 million. Six years, $100 million? Who’s to say, besides his agent?
I forgot to mention that I’m writing not from the Winter Meetings in Indianapolis, but from my exceedingly cold bedroom. I have no idea what Garland, Marquis, or Lackey are asking for, cash or years-wise. The trend appears to be richer contracts for lesser talent.
Brinkmanship is another trend, one that’s come together as I’ve read snippets of, and heard on the radio, and watched while putting up my Christmas tree and repainting walls has been alarming. Seems as though everybody’s screwed, and have pushed their clubs to the limit in fear of being caught as last guy screwed.
Despite talk of restraint prior to the meetings, there’s been no restraint. (Picking through Ken Rosenthal’s reports here.) Three years and $15 million for Brandon Lyon does not constitute restraint. Neither does the aforementioned Harden deal, some $9 million for the wisdom of Kevin Millwood, nearly $12 million for Andy Pettitte (that’s just galling), or three years and $30 million for Randy Wolf. This, good people, is King Midas in reverse.
Does not bode well. Maybe I’ve had my nose in projected budgets and vendors’ insurance quotes for too long recently to see any sign of brightness in people throwing money, like confetti, out the figurative window, but I don’t think so. I’m quite concerned that those three guys–Garland, Marquis, and Lackey–will slip to a team with a GM even battier than Omar Minaya, and we’ll be watching a Spring Training full of Kelvim Escobars and Lenny DiNardo retreads.
On that unhappy note, I’m going to bed.
Chip Caray is as well, but at present, only one of us is gainfully employed.
If you haven’t heard, read the news from the Times’ Richard Sandomir here. I, for one, will miss the repeated use of the term “fisted,” but I’ll get over it in time to puzzle over that pointless “9 feet” graphic TBS applies off first base.
For those wondering where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing with myself, feel free to email me. I’m friendly yet somewhat careful about what I mention in open forums. Besides, this is a baseball blog, and non-baseball items are to be used here only as opening or closing tangents, or in the service of some bizarre analogy.
I go now to finish my fifth call in search of a MetLife broker, and then to apply phosphoric acid–which is a key ingredient in colas–to my rusted medicine cabinet. I’ll make no posting promises; I’ve regularly fisted those foul.
Fisted!
That slow roll-out of improvements (as I see them, anyway) has begun.
Sidebar links (what one might call a blog roll, I suppose), have been tidied up a bit. You’ll have to endure an extra click to get to Mets-based MLBlogs, but it won’t all look so ragged there.
Most change-ified: the “Contact” tab to the left side of the page, which follows one as one reads. MLBlogs is fairly tight-fisted when it comes to its contact and comment policies–people essentially have to email me to speak on a topic, if they don’t have an MLB.com login. So they should now just click the tab, and fill out the form. It’ll do a mild sort of verification as well. Because it also holds my Twitter account information on it, I’ve removed that section from the sidebar. If I see an uptick in comments as a result, I’ll spring for the five bucks a month to remove the logo and the ads for “Filipina singles” and “Email templates.”
My thanks to A Bite Off The Big Apple for the unsuspecting assist. I note that it works effectively on Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer 8, which are the top three platforms for viewing this blog, by far (unless you’re all hiding yourselves from my StatCounter cookie). If the tab’s all broken and junk for you, email me at omniality [at] gmail [dot] com and let me know:
I may just send a mea culpa; if you’re still using IE 5 and have everything but text and hyperlink colors turned off, the blog’s going to look absolutely atrocious anyway. Like driving a car with your feet.
Like driving a car with your feet.
More and more subtle changes to come, as soon as I can determine how to get them done.
The exercise was to visit Cot’s Baseball Contracts
website, take a look at each position need, and determine who’s worth
spending time and energy on. The assumption here is that
everyone who’s on the Mets’ case for having deep pockets and a shallow
farm pool are correct, and that it would be better to spend money than
trade prospects.
Better Know A First Baseman: Chad Tracy
There should be a term of art for guys like Tracy in the off-season. Something like “ripcord.”
Tracy has been regressing since 2006, when he was off his career high for homers but managed an slight increase in doubles and, as one thing follows the other, RBIs.
How bad was Chad Tracy last year? He managed a .695 OPS: that’s a .306 OBP and a heart-stopping .389 SLG. He was part of a merry go-round last year that included Josh Whitesell and Tony Clark–and I lost track of Tony Clark when I started making my own lunches (that includes his stint with the Mets in 2003). He stole one base in 2009, upping his career total to ELEVEN. Delgado managed to steal three when he was 29.
The Mets have no business picking up this Chad Tracy.
However, Tracy’s three years removed from a full year’s workload. He’s spent his entire playing career in Arizona. And at his worst, he’s still good for more runs than Nomar Garciaparra.
He’s a ripcord guy. If the Mets lock in a star left-fielder and manage to pick up another stud pitcher, yet botch the first-base need and find Daniel Murphy’s decided to drop baseball for champion figure skating (there’s an image), you see about what it would take to give Tracy a shot.
He’s younger than most. He’ll definitely be cheaper than most, not just because it’ll only cost cash to get him, but because he screwed the pooch so magnificently on $4.75 million this year. Additionally, he’s been what I’m sure can be more craftily described as “not injury-averse”; most recently, he was hampered by a right oblique strain. Fan-tastic. I’ve heard that before.
Maybe he needs a change of scenery. Maybe he needs a wee dose of the HoJo. Maybe he needs a team to need him.
Maybe none of these things should matter to a team with a giant payroll, abused fan base, and tortured expectations.
But the man plays third and left, and once upon a time, he was more than serviceable. If the above ripcord scenario happens, and if he plays any sort of winter ball or is willing to come in for just a look in February and March, I say the Mets check to see if payment due exceeds accounts received.
Yes, I’m closing with a Janis Ian reference. I’m married; I don’t gotta prove nothin’.
The exercise was to visit Cot’s Baseball Contracts
website, take a look at each position need, and determine who’s worth
spending time and energy on. The assumption here is that
everyone who’s on the Mets’ case for having deep pockets and a shallow
farm pool are correct, and that it would be better to spend money than
trade prospects.
Better Know A First Baseman: Adam LaRoche
“You know, here at Sports Night, we get a lot of mail. Most of it goes something like this: ‘Casey, Dan, you two obviously know a lot about sports. But what can you tell us about legendary Italian song stylist Tony Orlando?’ Well, you should know that Tony Orlando is not Italian, and if you guessed that the man was of Latin decent, you’d be incorrect as well. Mr Tony Orlando hails from Greece, and we thought you should know that.”
—Dan Rydell, Sports Night, “The Head Coach, Dinner And The Morning Mail”
David Adam LaRoche is Mexican. I did not know that.
LaRoche played for three teams last year: the Pirates, the Red Sox, and the Braves, and in a spot of misfortune for the Sox, went 5-for-19 in Boston, prompting Paperbacknovel.com to sponsor Adam’s Baseball Reference page by writing the following:
“Only a pawn in the Red Sox game. What a screw up by Boy Genius Theo Epstein — trading LaRoche for Casey Kotchman. LaRoche finishes with a bang-up end of season for Atlanta — one of their key hitters down the stretch, while Kotchman was a dud.”
(Odd thing about LaRoche’s year: he had twelve home runs, forty RBIs, and a triple for Pittsburgh. Upon returning to Atlanta, he notched twelve home runs, forty RBIs, and a triple.
No, it doesn’t mean much. It’s just weird, is all.)
I gotta think LaRoche wouldn’t be too happy to note the vitriol on a page bearing his stats, even if it’s not directed at him. Comments captured by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Dejan Kovacevic, after Carlos Beltran got his Jimmy Rollins-on, show that LaRoche will call a man out for disrespecting him.
Of course, Beltran rarely says things he doesn’t mean, so he doubled down the following day (as captured by the Adam Rubin of the Daily News).
As unnecessary as the dust-up was, Rodriguez-Bruney it wasn’t. And if Adam LaRoche could manage to work as a Met, I’m sure he and Beltran would have their talk and that’d be the end of that. Would it make sense to even bother?
LaRoche’s fielding is defense was above reproach in 2009, after a less-than-exemplary 2008 that saw six ground- or fly-ball errors out of eight total (between Luis Castillo and The Ole! Kid Daniel Murphy, such things cannot be ignored).
But this is about production. And without trying to predict a trend, LaRoche has consistently performed better than the league average in OPS. After a breakout 2006, the lefty’s found some consistency in home run hitting, naturally slamming right-handed pitching at a rate of three-to-one. Assuming the sky doesn’t fall on the man or he doesn’t hit Renaissance II: Electric Boogaloo, one can assume a 25-home run, 85-RBI season. For comparison, joyous days were when Beltran and David Wright were pushing for 30/100 seasons. That happened, if you recall. Two men on the Mets combined for more than a handful of home runs.
LaRoche’s value would be more apparent on a team looking to “get ’em on, get ’em over, get ’em in,” as is so annoyingly presented as the Mets’ bread-and-butter. Last year, he drove in the runner from third with less than two out fifty-three percent of the time in 34 opportunities. By comparison, Russell Branyan did it forty-six percent of the time in 2009 in a similar number (35) of opportunities. Carlos Delgado did it fifty-eight percent of the time in 2008, with 43 chances.
By the way, feel me on this annoyance with “get ’em on, get ’em over, get ’em in,” I plead with you. It’s remarkable, exciting baseball, but holding it up as a recipe for success is like me declaring I’ll come out on top this year because I’ve decided to wear pants full-time. It’s the same thing with the curveball drill held at Mets 2009 Spring Training. Of course they should be able to hit curveballs. Of course they should be able to drive runners in. That’s the job description. They should also be able to knock tomato cans out of the game by taking meatballs served and whacking the bean out of the house.
(As of this writing, it’s 3a and I find my dinner left me wanting.)
So he’s gotta crush it. He’s gotta crush it against the Braves and Marlins (who are righty-heavy), the Phillies (who are not), and the Nationals (who knows at this point).
My question is whether he’ll do it at less than $7 million a year, which is what he earned in 2009 as he bounced about. My guess is no, seeing as how he’s a competent thirty year-old first-baseman who’s had all of a slight hamstring issue and a sore back in five years of service. He’s not setting the world on fire, but players have signed for more and brought less.
Any multi-year deal for LaRoche at $7 million or more per is where I get off the bus. Daniel Murphy reached somewhat near LaRoche’s RBI total in a hideous year for him and the Mets in general, and managed to drive runners in at about the same (two points higher) percentage. And I get the idea that Murphy will spend at least some of the peanuts he’ll earn next year upgrading the stereo on his ’02 Honda Civic.
The above might all sound schizophrenic, but here it is in abstract: Adam LaRoche is not a bad guy. He speaks his mind and goes where he’s told, and seems to be settling into a good life as a slightly above-average producer and defender at first base. He’ll make some team looking for a solid citizen very happy someday soon.
If he should happen to fall to the Mets, and be somewhat desperate, and that power production is supplemented elsewhere in the Mets line-up, AND the Mets decide to rid themselves of Murphy or don’t think he’s ready, worse things could happen than signing him. But not for years and years, as looks like might happen elsewhere, and not at money that could be spent on trying to cash in on Delgado one last time, or roll the dice with Branyan.
He’s also not Greek, like Tony Orlando is (actually just of Greek descent). But that’s beside the point.
Greg Prince of Faith And Fear In Flushing points out:
Hi Paul,
Further investigation has revealed Keith’s photographer at Yankee
Stadium the other night was Sean Hannity, not Bill O’Reilly. The
principle holds, however. Ballparks make strange batfellows.
Cheers to Greg for catching my gaffe; it’s now corrected in the original post. At this point in my blog development, I’d imagined a crack research squad at my beck and call. Or, at the very least, that I’d be able to tell the difference between Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. I’d like to chalk it up to sleep deprivation or the blessed lack of exposure to either O’Reilly or Hannity, but while both are true, I just loused up.
Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays. Oprah, Uma. Guinness, Smithwick’s.
If you don’t read Faith And Fear In Flushing often, you should, and if you’re thinking about it now and have come to the conclusion that you really can’t spare the time, read this latest post by Greg’s blogmate, Jason Fry: it’s hilarity I tried hard to work in a reference to yesterday, but couldn’t. So just read. Their work is stellar and I have them to thank for making me feel that I’m not doing this in a vacuum. Truly important when the chips are down and the choice is develop/write a piece, or sleep. I’d always rather the Mets than sleep.
To that end, I don’t know who got some people all a-flutter on my piece re: a Mets museum (hello to folks out in Los Angeles, California; St. Louis, Missouri; Narragansett, Rhode Island; and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts in Toronto), but thanks for the push on that one over the weekend. I worked hard on it, and I think it’d be important for someone to do. Anyway, from your eyes to the Wilpons’ ears, I guess.
Two entries left in Better Know A First Baseman, and then we move on. I think I’m in Stage Three of baseball withdrawal, wherein I consider again trying to rediscover my love for basketball, just to fill in the hours. That’ll pass.
But between Stage Three and Stage Whatever, a pause for thorough acknowledgment that I should be more careful, and a gracious thank you to Mr. Prince for catching my slip-ups. Greg, thanks for the kind words; I owe you an email.
The exercise was to visit Cot’s Baseball Contracts
website, take a look at each position need, and determine who’s worth
spending time and energy on. The assumption here is that
everyone who’s on the Mets’ case for having deep pockets and a shallow
farm pool are correct, and that it would be better to spend money than
trade prospects.
Better Know A First Baseman: Nomar Garciaparra
Nomar Garciaparra? There must be some mistake.
Oh, indeed there is.
I’d intended to place Garciaparra on the list of “first baseman” who’d have to ship me to Abu Dhabi before I’d accept them as a productive member of the Mets. I jotted the list down last Sunday night, and I suppose in my addled state missed Garciaparra. I didn’t think about it on Monday; I was too busy trying–and failing–to reconstruct the Ross Gload trade from memory, while being jostled by my subway seatmate with the large bags and bad perfume.
When I took my usual ten-minute bagel break at work, I wrapped up the Gload business, formatted the post, and threw it up.
Speaking of ten minutes and throwing up: I attempted just now to talk myself into Nomar Garciaparra the way I successfully talked myself into Carlos Delgado and, to a somewhat lesser extent, talked myself into Russell Branyan.
Not happening.
Garciaparra’s not had more than two hundred plate appearances in two seasons. He’s three full seasons removed from his renaissance in Los Angeles. He shows no home run consistency–and if you flash back to the Branyan discussion, home runs are really the point here. He didn’t record an error last year… in the sixteen games he played at first base.
Yes.
Here are some things I’d rather see happen than Nomar Garciaparra signing with the Mets:
I think that’s about all the time I’ll waste on that. I’m hungry, and Nomar’s gotta start looking for next-phase baseball jobs: coaching; scouting; lawn trimming.
omniality
Section Five Twenty-Eight 