Explanation

I have been in the midst of a family emergency for some weeks now; not a bad one, but one requiring of my undue attention. That is why the blog has been inactive. Will post very soon concerning many things, but I had to hop on and chip in on this:

I have supported Omar Minaya from the get go, but right now I hate his miserable guts for making this team considerably worse. Milledge for Church and Schneider?

Lesser Awards

IMAGE: LITLNEMO FROM FLICKR

I love David Wright as much as any other Met fan. He's a great guy, a great player, and a solid ambassador for this team. He also makes the occasional dazzling play at third base, but he is nowhere near deserving of the Gold Glove, an award that has become just laughable. There were 8 third basemen in the National League last year with higher fielding percentages, 7 with a higher range factor, and 6 with a higher zone rating. These, in my opinion, being the most telling yet accessible fielding statistics, Wright got real lucky, and won the award on popularity. The award has become a joke. Derek Jeter had won three in a row before this year, and he is the epitome of a slightly above average SS. There is a profound laziness apparently involved in the voting process these days; sometimes it appears that if there is no blatant choice at any given position, or an annual lock, a la Greg Maddux, the voters don't bother to research; they just pick the most popular guy with the biggest bat who isn't known for being a bad defensive player. For the love of God, the Colorado Rockies set Major League record for team FP, and didn't manage a single Gold Glove. Sorry, J-Roll, but Troy Tulowitzki was far and away the best defensive SS in baseball this year, not just the NL. The award needs a reworking, or needs to be eliminated otherwise, because when it becomes an offensive award, or some offensive prowess is a requirement, it is a useless thing. Mark Belanger of the '70s Orioles hit .228 with 20 total HR over an 18-year career and won a mountain of Gold Gloves. In this day and age, that just wouldn't happen. Maybe there needs to be a BCS type computer that determines Gold Gloves.

I guess congrats to Wright anyway, and more so to Carlos Beltran, who deserved his, and congrats to both of them for the Silver Sluggers, which they both deserved.

And despite my agreement with his overall point, it's not his place, and Larry Jones can shut his mouth. Credit to Metsblog for providing me with that story/link.

Kazmir Redux?

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Plainly, no. Reports have surfaced that the Rays may be open to shopping the left-handed 6-letter word, Scott Kazmir. Since the exhaustingly bemoaned dealing of Kazmir to Tampa in exchange for Victor Zambrano, the 23 year-old starter has gone 35-29 with a 3.64 era and 617 k's in 570.2 innings pitched on a horrendous team in the strongest offensive division the Majors have seen in some time. (Zambrano, for the record, was not fixed in 15 minutes...) Often I have wondered what things would look like had that deal never been made,and generally the scenarios I envision are pleasant.

But there are distinct reasons that this Met fan is certain that this ain't going down.

For one, I doubt the chips are there to go and get him. The right deal just doesn't seem to exist. There are plenty of deals for mid-range SP that make sense, along the Milledge-Blanton kind of line (Though I wouldn't support that particular deal), as well as absolute top-flite deals that seem feasible and worth it, i.e., the whole damn farm for Johan Santana. Problem with Kazmir is that Pelfrey and Humber probably isn't enough, while Pelfrey, Humber and anyone else of significant value might be too much, and less of a fit to Tampa's needs than what others may offer. I don't see it.

Beyond that, anything that were to be sacrificed in order to get Kazmir would seem almost like further spiritual jabs in the spine from Jim Duquette and Steve Phillips. Kinda like trading in a nice car for a lemon, building another nice car of your own, and trading that one in for the old one. You could have had it all. It just wouldn't feel right.

As in all cases involving the potential acquisitions of elite players by the Mets, if they worked something out magically, I guess I couldn't really complain all that much, but a good deal is hard to find.

Ha. Just as I peer up to my TV before hitting the button to publish this post, there's Duquette's mentor Steve Phillips on ESPN talking about the Dodgers.

Phew.

IMAGE: SMSHEPARD FROM FLICKR
So that was that. Two friends and I hopped in to my Jeep and drove out to Denver for games 3 and 4 of the 2007 world series. We returned to New York, however, in a rented Ford with Missouri plates, thanks to an errant spare tire, rim and all, that placed itself conveniently smack dab in the middle of the left lane on I-70 somewhere near Mizzou. Needless to say, I was thrilled with the outcome of the series, despite my admiration for the Troy Tulowitzki chant. At the risk of being unoriginal, I will say that Jonathan Papelbon should have been the MVP of that series, having sucked the thin mountain air out of any Rockies hope that was left after the Game 1 schellacking. Down as I was to see an Amazin-free postseason, I enjoyed the hell out of the Red Sox ride.

But what's done is done, and it's now the offseason, as Scott Boras so politely reminded us somewhere around the 7th inning of Game 4. With regards to A-Rod: COUNT ME IN! I can't begin to fathom why any fan of any team wouldn't want the best player in the game. I couldn't care less about his alleged baggage, with the strippers and what not; I couldn't care less about the slapped glove or the "HA" in Toronto. He hits 45+ home runs regularly. For the love of God how can anyone complain? And the postseason failure? I really don't buy that someone who is capable of putting up the sorts of numbers he has put up year after year, most notably this past year, under a lot of pressure in the biggest market, somehow always has and always will lose it in October. He's still hit .279 in 10 career postseason games with 7 hr. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes the whole can/can't get it done when it counts thing is a crock. Remember Barry Bonds not hitting in the playoffs, and the October he put together in '02? How about John Elway, after all? Or Captain Clutch Jeter and his .179 lds batting average, hitting into double plays like there was no tomorrow? At the end of the day, the playoffs can be so brief, in any major sport, that it can be very hard to judge how clutch a player is or not. (Again, there are some notable exceptions. I think Josh Beckett has shown us as much.)

So let me back off from all the controversy with Mr. Rodriguez for a minute and make a case. For one, see above. He's just an incredible baseball player. Period. Then factor in the PR generated by A-Rod coming to Shea. Admit it or not, it is every Met fan's dream to outright steal the back pages from the Yankees, and a move like this, the imminent arrival of Citi Field and some October ball in Queens, coupled with the current Yankee face-lift that could verge on rebuilding, would go a long way towards doing just that. Next, if an A-Rod jump across town did work out it would make for a hell of a story, considering the treatment he's received from those millions of people from New Jersey and Westchester who call themselves Yankee fans. I truly believe that Met fans would embrace him until he really blew it, and if he made good with New York on his childhood team his rep would be saved. Finally:
Reyes
Wright
A-Rod
Beltran
Even Philly couldn't hang with that.

But would he do it? Would the Mets do it?
As for the former, he'll go wherever on earth the money is, and would probably have some extra incentive to succeed in NYC, on the team he apparently rooted for when he was young.
Would the Mets do it? Why not? I honestly see them as a front-runner in all of this, if not only because they probably have more money to burn than anyone involved, especially because of the potential extra revenue A-Rod could generate. The New York market is essentially unlimited, while other markets can top out. Wright seems amenable to playing wherever management wants him to, even though I'd rather see him stay at 3B and see Alex slotted in elsewhere, such as first. Delgado and a lot of cash for some pitching help, anyone? The Red Sox have a very cohesive team right now, and I don't see a John Henry whose hedge fund is losing money by the day messing with that by taking on another 30 mil a year in one ballplayer fresh off winning a series with the guys he's got. The Cubs don't even truly know who their owner is, and that kind of investment could get dicey. Arte Moreno and Bill Stoneman in Anaheim haven't pulled the trigger on a huge bat to join Vlad yet, so who's to say they'd do it now? I see the Dodgers as the major contender here, and they flat out don't have the kind of money the Mets do, nor the balls that Omar has. Go get him, dammit. Now.