MLB

David Stearns & The Process

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As days go in New York Mets history, the Mets losing on consecutive days Edwin Diaz and Pete Alonso via free agency is just another day in the neighborhood. Nothing to watch here. Move along.

In the history of the Mets, only two prominent players have spent their entire careers in the orange and blue: Ed Kranepool and David Wright.

Eddie Kranepool

That’s it.

Through different owners and various decision-makers in the front office, the Mets have repeatedly demonstrated a completely unsentimental attachment to homegrown players.

Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso were homegrown talents. Each grew up and achieved success as a Met. Nimmo and Alonso could handle the pressure and bright lights of the big city and perform at a high level. That should never be undervalued in the hardball locales of the Accela Corridor. Playing on the East Coast is different.

Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns viewed the results of the 2025 campaign and deemed that changes needed to be made. A course correction was needed. (I’m with him on that.)

Here’s what fascinating about Stearns’s purge of the Mets: Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz all thrived in 2025. They weren’t the reasons for the team’s collapse. This trio of talent delivered.

  • Brandon Nimmo (5.8 WAR ranked 8th amongst MLB’s Left Fielders)
  • Pete Alonso (5.6 WAR ranked 6th amongnst MLB’s First Basemen)
  • Edwin Diaz (2.0 WAR ranked 9th amongst MLB’s Relief Pitchers)

(* WAR Rankings by FanGraphs)

Stearns would correctly point out that each of the three above players is the wrong side of thirty. That each of these Mets fan favorites is approaching the age of diminishing returns. Stearns was able to pass on Nimmo’s long-term deal, which runs to 2030, to the Texas Rangers for second baseman Marcus Semien (6.4 WAR ranked 5th amongst MLB’s Second Basemen). It appears Edwin Diaz desired to take his talents to the Dodgers, but Mets owner Steve Cohen possesses the ability to change minds with his deep pockets. And David Stearns allowed Pete Alonso to walk away with little to no interest in bringing the Polar Bear back to Flushing.

Folks have characterized Stearns’s moves or lack of moves as being unsentimental. But he did sign an old friend from his Milwaukee days, Devin Williams, to a three-year. $51 million contract to replace Diaz in the bullpen.

David & Devin meeting with the press to explain how Devin drunkenly injured himsef by punching a wall after the Brew Crew clinched the NL Central title versus the Mets in 2021.

As I’ve written previously, the deteriorating results in 2025 were the end product of a suspect pitching staff and a poorly constructed roster. These were both assembled by Stearns. In his end of the year press conference, Stearns repeatedly focused on the subject of run prevention. Run prevention starts with your pitching staff. A subpar defensive first baseman, such as Pete Alonso, and a left fielder who has lost a step in Brandon Nimmo were not the reasons for the Mets agonizing descent to as confusing a season as any in Mets history.

No one ever wants to use this dirty word when it comes to New York sports, but David Stearns is in the midst of a: REBUILD

What was that?

It’s a REBUILD.

The Mets are dangling their most consistent starting pitcher in 2005, David Peterson, as being available in trade talks. Peterson’s struggles in the second half of the season did not help the Mets’ playoff push. There is no secret that the idiosyncratic Kodai Senga is another starting pitcher the Mets have interest in moving. Senga was so messed up and confused with his mechanics (Senga is nearly always on a quest to “find” his mechanics.) that the Mets exiled him to the minors in September, where he continued to pitch like Hideki Irabu. Stearns has young arms on the rise (Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong and Brandon Sproat) and wants to make sure there is room for them on the major league roster.

Stearns cobbled together a bullpen that struggled for most of the year. His trade deadline acquisitions were mostly busts. An offensive abyss in center field plagued the Mets. Carrying Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio — players who possess very similar skill sets and play nearly identical positions – was a questionable way to construct the roster.

The David Stearns solution is to purge the coaching staff and the players that were the nucleus of this team. The 2025 season has allowed Stearns to emphatically place his imprimatur on the Mets.

ALL HAIL, KING DAVID!

The Stearns & Soto LLC

Nimmo, Diaz and Alonso were not Stearns’s guys. Juan Soto is a Stearns guy. And now we will see who else is a Stearns guy as he makes further moves this offseason.

In the midst of the 2025 season, Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow showed the baseball world that Rafael Devers wasn’t his guy by trading him to the San Francisco Giants. For the remainder of the year, the Red Sox DH by committee did not approach the offensive production of Devers, but Breslow finessed that fact by stating the lack of a full-time DH allowed every day players a day to rest and provided at-bats to keep role players fresh. Breslow was able to shed Devers’ long-term contract that his predecessor, Chaim Bloom, offered after being blindsided by Xander Bogaerts’ defection to San Diego. Breslow was able to cast aside Bloom’s mega deal to Devers.

All of these heads of baseball operations ultimately want their guys and their vision of the roster to manifest itself. Using nearly the same metrics and formulas, there is a groupthink at work to assembling a baseball roster. According to David Stearns, the Mets’ trade deadline acquistions were not failures because they were products of the vaunted process. Ultimately, the process will prevail though it took a lot of L’s in 2025.

Jorge Polanco — A Product of The Process

As I’m writing this, Seattle Mariners playoff stud, Jorge Polanco, has reportedly signed a two-year contract for $40 million to play mostly DH and first base for the Mets. The thirty-one year old Polanco put up a torrid second half of the season for the Mariners, but struggled in 2023 and 2024.

So, this is David Stearns’s answer to partially replacing the offensive production of Pete Alonso: Jorge Polanco

Polanco is now a Stearns guy — for two years. Polanco represents both roster flexibilty and payroll flexibility. Stearns must be orgasmic right now — unless Polanco hits like he did in 2023 and 2024. If that is the case, Stearns will bear a legacy with Mets fans of attempting to replace Pete Alonso with the up and down Jorge Polanco.

Stearns has definitively announced the Mets are now his team and it is his process at work.

Good luck with that, David.

The Purge Continues: Mets Deal Brandon Nimmo to Rangers for Marcus Semien

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Brandon Nimmo will be joining Jacob deGrom in Texas.

The purge in Flushing continues with David Stearns sending the longest-tenured Met, left fielder Brandon Nimmo and cash to the Texas Rangers for Gold Glove second baseman Marcus Semien.

After laying waste to the 2025 Mets coaching staff, Stearns has turned his axe to an underperforming 2025 roster that earned through months of poor play its designation as baseball’s most disappointing team. One cannot overstate how dismal and pathetic the Mets’ descent to playoff purgatory was and how it showcased the need for changes to be made to a core group that had challenged the Dodgers in the 2024 NLCS.

Why move Brandon Nimmo?

The most obvious reason is that Nimmo could bring back something of value.

Based on Fangraphs’ WAR, the thirty-two-year-old Nimmo was 109th in baseball with a Wins Above Replacement of 3.0. Nimmo played in 155 games, hit.262, had 154 hits, 92 RBI, 25 home runs and an OPS+ of 114 in 2025. Nimmo had a very good year at the plate. The Society of American Baseball Research’s Defensive Index, which is employed to determine Gold Glove awards, has Nimmo ranked fifth in the National League with a 1.6 SABR Defensive Index. The National League’s leader in left field and Gold Glove winner was Chicago Cub Ian Happ with a 9.1 SABR Defensive Index.

Nimmo has lost a step and never possesssed a strong throwing arm, but he is average or slightly above average in comparison to other left fielders in the National League. Nimmo wasn’t hurting the Mets in left field. But having an outfield with Brandon Nimmo and Juan Soto at the corners isn’t going to help in David Stearns’ quest for run prevention.

Stearns identified Nimmo as an asset that still held value, but was going to depreciate through the length of his current contract that ends in 2030. To receive back anything of value, Nimmo was a logical choice to be traded and Stearns didn’t need to increase Nimmo’s trade value with a package of accompanying players.

Mets fans like to put together trade packages that have no basis in reality. The deals I have seen for the Mets to acquire Tigers ace Tarik Skubal are something an eleven-year-old would concoct in his family’s fantasy baseball league. These fantastical trades always seem to include some members of this group: Jeff McNeil, Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, Ronny Mauricio and Luis Angel Acuna. All of these Mets represent huge question marks.

Is Jeff McNeil a .240 hitter or a .300 hitter?

Was Brett Baty’s second half of 2025 a prelude to a big 2026 or was it an aberration?

Will we see 2024 Mark Vientos (Impressive.) or 2025 Mark Vientos (Not so impressive.) in 2026?

And Ronnie Mauricio and Luis Angel Acuna are fringe major leaguers.

David Stearns took his most valuable positional player chip — not named Soto or Lindor — and addressed a pressing Mets need: Infield Defense

Marcus Semien’s Declining Offense

Marcus Semien

In his thirst for a second baseman that has plus range and perhaps could make an accurate throw to home plate (The Mets struggled with that in 2025.), David Stearns signed up to take on a 35-year-old Gold Glove second baseman whose best offensive years appear to be in the rearview mirror.

The thirty-five-year-old Marcus Semien has regressed offensively in both of the last two seasons. Before a foot injury ended his 2025 season prematurely, Semien had cobbled together a .669 OPS. You might want to gulp down a shot of Eagle Rare before you read the next factoid. Semien’s .669 OPS was the 10th-lowest amongst leaguewide qualified hitters. Gulp.

(I have visions of Felix Millan and Doug Flynn running through my head right now.)

Felix Millan

Semien isn’t Felix Milan or Doug Flynn, but Stearns will undoubtedly need to find a bat to replace Nimmo’s production in the lineup. Will the Mets attempt to reunite Clay Bellinger and Juan Soto in Citi Field’s outfield?

The other component of acquiring Semien is that there are only three years remaining on the 35-year-old’s contract. In comparison, Nimmo is signed through the 2030 season. And let’s remember that David Stearns did not give Brandon Nimmo an eight-year, $162 million dollar contract. Nimmo is not a Stearns guy.

In Semien, the Mets will be acquiring a ballplayer. The collective baseball IQ of the Mets will be raised with this addition and Stearns is not wrong in addressing that need.

Change

David Stearns realized that change was needed and that it would be professionally criminal to run it back with the same group in 2026. Nimmo is the first domino to be moved and we will likely see more in the next few weeks.

The Mets now need a first baseman, a closer, a starting pitcher, a center fielder, a left fielder and some bullpen arms. But second base is likely covered through 2028. And does the acquisition of Semien mean that the #3 Mets minor league prospect Jett Williams will be moved this offseason?

Changes are a coming.

162 Games Played

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A major league baseball season consists of 162 games. 81 games played at home and 81 games played on the road.

To play in all 162 games, a player has to be better than merely good. This player has to be a proven linchpin to his team’s success. You want this bad man in your lineup every goddamn day. You need this soldier in your lineup every day.

To these 162 men of iron, posting up is what they do. They show up at the ballpark every day knowing their name is going to be in the lineup. There are no days off. Days off are for chumps — not champs. These guys are heroes – not zeros.

For the 2025 season, only six players showed up every day, laced up their spikes and hunkered down at home plate to take their hacks. Six. (One of the six actually played in 163 games.) These guys didn’t take a night off because they went on a bender in South Beach and ended the night at Tootsie’s. They didn’t see Tarik Skubal scheduled as the next day’s starter and ask for the day off. These guys buckled up and showed out.

Here are 2025’s Iron Men:

  1. Rafael Devers (163 Games Played)
  2. Pete Alonso
  3. Elly De La Cruz
  4. Matt Olson
  5. Brett Rooker
  6. Kyle Schwarber

You might be asking yourself, how did Rafael Devers play in 163 games? After being traded from the Boston Red Sox to the San Francisco Giants, on June 15th, Devers picked up an extra game.

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Devers Aside: When the Chief Baseball Officer (Who makes up these titles in baseball? Is this a Tom Werner production?) of the Boston Red Sox, Craig Breslow, realized his relationship with Rafael Devers had cratered to the point of a JLo marriage counseling session, Devers was shipped to San Francisco for the mercurial flamethrowing reliever/failed starter Jordan Hicks, starting pitcher Kyle Harrison, minor league outfielder James Tibbs III since moved to the Dodgers for the rental of Tormund Giantsbane wannabe Dustin May, and minor league pitcher Jose Bello.

Before Devers’ plane could leave town, he was hit with the usual crap of not being a good teammate, he was lazy — out of shape. The guy only played in 163 games. 1-6-3!

And if Devers’ replacement at third base, Alex Bregman, decides that he’s not a Dunkin’ type of guy — the Red Sox will again be looking to fill a void at third base. I’ll allow Alex Bregman’s uber agent Scott Boras to explain how that works:

“In Boston, we learned a lot about Bregman in ‘25,” Boras said at last week’s GM Meetings in Las Vegas. “Because in Boston prior to ’25 they had a lot of lineup donut holes and certainly prior to ’25, Boston has been kind of a club that has dunkin’ well below the playoff line. So I think it was a bad roast in Beantown. Give the owners credit in ’25. They went out, spent some Starbucks to bring in a Bregman blend that led them to the playoffs. I’m sure the Boston fans don’t want this to be just a cup of coffee and no one wants a Brexit.”

Who knew that Boras was a former hack ad agency copywriter? Twelve-year-olds come up with better shit on TikTok.

Red Sox/Liverpool FC/Pittsburgh Penguins/RFK Racing/Boston Common Golf fans will revel in their schadenfreude at the fact that Devers was the only 2025 Iron Man not to be named an All-Star.

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All of this is mere artifice to get to my main point, which is; how do the Mets or the Phillies allow Pete Alonso or Kyle Schwarber to depart via free agency? These guys don’t grow on Pedro Martinez’s mango tree in the Dominican Republic?

Quick Elly De La Cruz Hug: But Elly De La Cruz did grow up in the Dominican Republic — not sure he ever sat under Pedro’s mango tree. De La Cruz played 162 games — almost exclusively at shortstop — and is the first Cincinnati Red to play 162 games since Joey Votto in 2017. De La Cruz played through the death of his sister and a nagging quad injury. Stole 37 bags. Absolute stud.

If you haven’t been paying attention at home because you’re mourning the death of Alice Glick, I write this stuff through the perspective of a Mets fan. And maybe this outsized passion and commitment to the Mets sometimes makes folks think I am an agoraphobic loser — not that agoraphobics are losers — but I do watch a lot of Mets games. In a Mets fan survey on The Athletic, one of the questions was: How many Mets games did you watch in 2025? I answered 100. Sounds about right — maybe a little more — but that feels like the number. For the folks who watched 140 or more games, that is sick. Also, it makes me think; is a baseball incel a subset of the larger incel populace?

All of this has been a touch of smoke and mirrors to get to this salient point: The Mets need to re-sign Pete Alonso.

The ability to post up and play every day is undervalued. Staying healthy is a talent and the ability to play through pain and minor dings should not be overlooked.

David Stearns bring back the Polar Bear. Changes are needed. But I’m not sure the right move is to move on from Pete Alonso. Yes, Alonso has defensive shortcomings but when did first base evolve into a defense first position? You want a guy who can bash the ball at first.

When you add it up all six of 2025’s Iron Men bring value to their teams. Can their true value be quantified? Does an opposing pitcher want to see A’s right fielder Brent Rooker step into the box or a guy that has been working the Sacramento and Las Vegas Aviators shuttle? Presence alone can make or break a lineup on a particular day. Pitching to Juan Soto and then having to face Pete Alonso ain’t no walk in the park.

Iron men are valuable. It goes beyond the stats.

(I forgot to give any love to Matt Olson. With all due respect, fuck the Braves.)

Run Prevention with the New York Mets

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I routinely have a chuckle or outright laugh at the lexicon used by the decision-makers that rule major league baseball. Possessed with MBA’s and Ivy League degrees, these stewards of the game have made a conversation about hardball into an ongoing symposium regarding the ecosystem of major league baseball and the market forces that impact the game.

In a nutshell, most heads of Baseball Operations sound like McKinsey consultants giving a Ted Talk on the “The Urge To Play is Greater Than the Urge To Fight.”

At the end of the Mets appreciably forlorn 2025 campaign, which saw the Mets slowly and heartbreakingly descend to a position in the standings where they would be playoff spectators, Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns mentioned in his post-mortem remarks that the Mets needed to improve their “run prevention” or to translate for the less erudite: Pitching & Defense.

At the age of 40, the Harvard-educated David Stearns has been labeled a baseball savant. Possessing a seemingly uncanny ability to sift through the reports of promising young talents and the flotsam and jetsam of journeymen pitchers, Stearns was able to construct a consistently competitive group with the Milwaukee Brewers. Enticed by the financial largesse of the deep-pocketed Steve Cohen, Stearns returned to his New York City roots to run his childhood team, the New York Mets.

It makes you a little verklempt. It’s a nice story.

But when I heard Stearns illustrate that the Mets need to improve in the area of run prevention, I did a double-take. El Presidente, you’re the baseball guru that assembled a 2025 roster that featured suspect starting pitching and a major league roster that had three players ( Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio.), who share very similar skill sets. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was handed a roster that had very little positional flexibilty and directly influnced the Mets’ efforts at run prevention.

The Mets headed into 2025 with a starting pitching staff composed of these mostly off-Broadway performers:

Sean Manaea

Kodai Senga

David Peterson

Clay Holmes

Griffin Canning

Tylor Megill

Frankie Montas

Paul Blackburn

There was no way anyone thought this collection of pitchers was going to be capable of positioning the Mets as an elite team, but for the first two months of the season, the quintet of Senga, Peterson, Holmes, Canning and Megill did exactly that. They struggled to go deep into games, which eventually decimated the effectiveness and health of the Mets’ bullpen arms, but this ragtag and ever-evolving roll call of starting pitchers worked until it unraveled and became a weight that slowly dragged the Mets out of the playoff picture and into the abyss.

Stearns assembled this group. He had to understand the chance he was taking with this group. If your desire is to win the World Series, this group was never going to achieve that. Did the analytics and forecasting models remotely suggest that this collection of arms was somehow going to supersede the run prevention constructs of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies? Both of these NL rivals headed into the 2025 season with a collection of arms superior to the Mets.

Stearns chose to enter the season with a starting pitching staff riddled with question marks. He was taking a gamble and that gamble failed miserably.

So, that’s the first part of the run prevention saga of the 2025 Mets. Now, here’s where the run prevention problem of 2025 could possibly further impact the Mets in 2026.

Sifting through Stearns’ run prevention comments, some observers have taken it as a possible sign that the Mets may be reluctant to re-sign Pete Alonso because of his defensive inadequacies. The Polar Bear is adept at picking errant throws out of the dirt, but Alonso has limited range and has a little bit of Steve Sax in him when he is asked to throw the ball. For the 2025 season, Alonso ranked 30 of 30 in defensive runs saved among first basemen and 29 of 30 in Statcast’s outs above average and fielding run value. Alonso’s defensive inadequacies should be mitigated by the fact that Alonso possesses a potent bat (.272/.347/.524), posts up every day — EVERY DAMN DAY — and has shown the ability to excel in New York.

@nypostsports

“I just zooted a routine play.” Pete Alonso reacted to his throwing errors this year on WFAN’s Evan and Tiki last week. ⚾️🐻‍❄️

♬ original sound – New York Post Sports

The run prevention issue facing David Stearns is real. The Mets need to improve their starting pitching, the Mets may lose lights out closer Edwin Diaz to free agency, and the Mets starting lineup is littered with subpar defenders such as corner outfielders Juan Soto and Brandon Nimmo.

David Stearns has a mess on his hands, but the run prevention problem is not going to be solved by seeing Pete Alonso play elsewhere in 2026. However, it appears it may involve Brandon Nimmo or Jeff McNeil playing elsewhere in 2026.

The 2026 Mets are not going to look like the 2025 Mets.

2025 MLB Opening Day

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Baseball’s Opening Day is upon us at the end of March, which might be a tad early, but with the Trump administration’s commitment to transforming the EPA into a government agency that eliminates bothersome and nitpicking environmental regulations, MLB will eventually be able to start the season in February utilizing the maximum benefits of climate change.

As the Trump administration uses the Hot Tub Time Machine to recreate the halcyon days of William McKinley’s presidency, in the late 1890s, baseball embarks on another season. Another 162 games.

162 games to deflect from what is a stumbling and bumbling Trump administration that takes to a commercial messaging app, Signal, to discuss a military strike after inadvertently including a journalist in the group. These clowns couldn’t organize a clandestine boys weekend to Vegas without letting the whole world know. Ferris Bueller had more spycraft skills than this bunch.

I write this sippng RFK Jr. recommended cod liver oil to “innoculate” myself from the resurgence of measles that is affecting parts of the country. I’m also considering making some eye of newt soup. Why not?

If you’re asking, is this a piece on baseball? It is, but I would be remiss not to mention contextually where we are as a nation. We are living in a time where seemingly every norm is being attacked — except the pursuit of money. That is being championed with an unbridled zeal, but at the cost and detriment to middle-class Americans.

As we have witnessed with baseball, our American institutions are resilient. They have the ability to withstand body blows, haymakers and regain their feet after a standing eight count. Democracy will ultimately prevail.

And 162 games of baseball is a great diversion from the Trump & Musk show.

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Going Yard

In Hollywood, the Los Angeles Dodgers have made every other big league club resemble The Bad News Bears Go To Japan. The Dodgers are THE baseball colossus perched on a tectonic plate and accruing talent with the ease of a Hollywood madam. Baseball has not seen a repeat World Series champion since the 1999 and 2000 New York Yankees.

Mr. Mookie Betts

The Juan Soto era commences in Flushing, NY. Stevie Cohen took out his big boy credit card and made Juan Soto and Scott Boras extremely happy. The Mets will score runs, but their starting pitching staff won’t remind anyone of Seaver, Koosman and Matlack.

Jon Matlack, Jerry Koosman & Tom Seaver

The New York Yankees took a huge hit with the loss of their ace, Gerrit Cole, to season-ending Tommy John surgery. For those who believe the Yankees’ pursuit of a World Series title is over, the trade deadline could bring another ace to the Boogie Down. The subtractions of Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo have exponentially increased the Bronx Bombers’ collective baseball IQ.

With Gerrit Cole gone in Gotham, Red Sox fans are starting to have fantasies of winning the AL East. Red Sox skipper Alex Cora has newly-acquired free agent Alex Bregman to boost the intensity in the clubhouse. Garrett Crochet gives the Old Towne Team an ace. The trio of Kristian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony are reminding regulars at The Sausage Guy cart of when Betts, Bogaerts, Bradley Jr. and Benintendi broke into the bigs. I would still advise folks not to to use Bucky Dent or Jeter Downs in the same sentence at the Cask & Flagon.

Bucky “Bleeping” Dent

Can the Chicago White Sox lose less than 100 games? I would take the over.

The St. Louis Cardinals have Chaim Bloom waiting in the wings to take over from John Mozeliak as President of Baseball Operations. Ask Chaim about Jeter Downs. I have a feeling Alex Cora doesn’t miss Mr. Bloom in Boston.

The Rays and A’s are both playing at minor leage parks. Will the beer prices be minor league?

The Chicago Cubs should win the NL Central. I’ll take Kyle Tucker over Cody Bellinger.

The kick change is the new pitch.

The Minnesota Twins are going to score runs like an Edina slow pitch softball team.

Jose Altuve has moved to left field for the Astros. Mookie Betts is the shortstop at Dodger Stadium. And Rafael Devers has been moved off third base by the addition of Alex Bregman at The House That Dave Roberts Built.

Without question, the Yankees were woefully inept at the fundamentals in 2024. The World Series showcased that.

Will Baltimore’s Tyler O’Neill continue his Opening Game home run streak? The streak stands at five.

Corbin Burnes makes the D’Backs legit.

Opening Day Premier Pitching Matchup: Skenes going against Alcantara in Miami.

Bug in a rug, Bloop or Ballantine Blast!

Mets vs. Royals: Fatal Flaw

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Being a sports fan is allowing one’s self to indulge in childhood frovility; it’s being Peter Pan in a world where people lean in to glean bon mots regarding Presbyterianism and the mystery of being a Seventh Day Adventist from Donald Trump; and in the next few days, the New York Mets will allow this middle-aged man to recapture a little bit of his youth as the Metropolitans play country hardball versus the Kansas City Royals.

Mets Fan?

The New York Mets will enter baseball’s Fall Classic with a team that was significantly upgraded at Major League Baseball’s trading deadline. Previous to the trading deadline, the Mets were impotent offensively. Their flaccid bats were in need of a powerful injection and the Mets’ front office found that in the Cuban slugger, Yoenis Cespedes.

Hammering all those crab legs could be the reason Cespedes has a sore shoulder.

Thirteen minutes before the trading deadline, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson sent two minor league pitchers to the Detroit Tigers and acquired an explosive bat that Mets manager Terry Collins could pencil into the cleanup position for the remainder of the season. Of course, the Mets were on the hook for the remainder of Cespedes’ contract, which was a prorated portion of the $3.7 million that Tigers owner Mike Illitch owed to Cespedes and eminently affordable to a New York Mets ownership that had been nearly financially-ruined by making major financial investments with Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme.

According to author Steve Kettmann and his book released in the spring of 2015: Baseball Maverick: How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets, Alderson had somehow already revived a moribund Mets organization despite ignoring the fact that the Mets had last made the playoffs in 2006 under the direction of former general manager, Omar Minaya.

Sheridan’s Recommended Reading List for any Self-Respecting Mets Fan:

  1. Can’t Anybody Play This Game? The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets’ First Year by Jimmy Breslin 
  2. The Worst Team Money Could Buy by Bob Klapisch and John Harper
  3. The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid and the Rest of the … Put on a New York Uniform–and Maybe the Best by Jeff Pearlman
  4. High and Tight: The Rise and Fall of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry by Bob Klapisch 
  5. Baseball Maverick: How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets 

Prior to baseball’s July 31st trading deadline and the addition of Cespedes, the Mets held the unwanted distinction of being the most inept offensive team in the National League. The 2015 Mets are the first team in Major League Baseball history to enter the World Series after averaging the fewest runs per game through Opening Day to July 31st. Alderson’s deal had very little to do with revolutionizing baseball, but was the product of desperation and need: The Mets needed a bat in the middle of the order. Any bat.

Alderson’s deal to acquire Cespedes wasn’t rooted in the algorithms of Big Data Baseball or enhanced analytics, but was rooted in a basic premise familiar to Mets fans throughout the years, the Mets offense was incapable of scoring even a meager amount of runs. The Mets were squandering superior starting pitching – and wins – that could easily carry the team to the post-season with an offensive attack that was worthy of a team in the Single A New York-Penn League.

The acquisition of Cespedes was triggered by Alderson backing out of a deal for Milwaukee Brewers slugger, Carlos Gomez, when it was revealed that Gomez was suffering from an injured hip that somewhat plagued him through Houston’s playoff run. In the Gomez deal, the Mets were willing to part with shortstop Wilmer Flores and starting pitcher Zack Wheeler, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery. In acquiring Gomez, the Mets would have held his rights through the 2016 season, but Cespedes will be eligible for free agency after the World Series, where he will be able to demonstrate to his Cuban brethren the power of Yanqui capitalism.

Both the Astros and Mets benefited from their respective trade deadline deals, but Cespedes went on a tear at the plate that forced the prognosticators and pundits to reconsider the Mets. Cespedes’ performance, and his ability to carry a team on his back, was reminiscent of what New York’s iconic slugger, Darryl Strawberry, was capable of in his prime. Alderson’s accidental acquisition of Cespedes coupled with the continuing emergence of a trio of starting pitcher power arms, in the likes of Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard, catapulted the Mets to the top of the National League East.

The Straw Man

Cespedes’ intimidating presence in the four hole, hitting behind Daniel Murphy, has allowed Murphy to wage an assault on the postseason record books, with a combined seven home runs clouted in the NLDS and NLCS and a streak of six consecutive games with a homer. The last two Big Apple second basemen to enjoy such postseason success were Billy Martin and Brian Doyle, who wore pinstripes for the Bronx Bombers.

Billy “The Kid” Martin

For those Mets fans who are planning a social media campaign to convince Sandy Alderson and Paul DePodesta to throw around big bucks and sign Cespedes, here is a cautionary tale that may temper your enthusiasm. Cespedes has a lot of dog in him, and that is likely only going to get worse when he receives a contract that will make him one of Cuba’s richest citizens. Through Mets history, there has been a rich tradition of under performing free agent outfielders who were cancers in the clubhouse.

  1. Bobby Bonilla
  2. Vince Coleman – (Played for both the Mets and the Royals. 105 players in Major League Baseball history have played for both teams.)
  3. George Foster

Major League Baseball is no longer a simple affair, where preseason prognostications can reasonably predict the teams that will play on into October. At or near this year’s trading deadline, three teams (Mets, Rangers and Blue Jays) were able to significantly re-tool their rosters by adding impact players, and enter the last 60 games with teams pumped-up and prepared for postseason hardball.

The Mets and Royals are similar yet starkly different. The Royals rely on a lockdown bullpen to safeguard any lead. The Mets’ success will be based on their starting pitchers’ ability to pitch deep into the seventh or eighth inning. Each team has a reliever that could be considered a fatal flaw. The Royals have Ryan Madson ready to puke on the mound, and the Mets have Tyler Clippard who looks at every batter as if they’re the Son of Sam serial killer. Madson and Clippard are poised to join the pantheon of bullpen buffoonery, where they will find company with Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams, Calvin Schiraldi, Bob Stanley and Byung-hyun Kim.

The Royals have the best positional team in baseball, but their starting pitching cannot compare to the Mets, and it is starting pitching that will carry the Mets to a World Series title. The Mets cannot manufacture runs relying on aggressive base running and team speed like the Royals are able to do. The Mets have a starting shortstop, Wilmer Flores, who lacks range going into the hole and runs the bases as if he is wearing concrete footwear provided by former New York gangster and enforcer, Andrew “The Squint” Sheridan. The Mets won’t be able to run on Royals catcher Salvador Perez like they were versus Cubs catcher, Miguel Montero.

At this time of year, there are no secrets. The baseball gods will bless one team and curse another. Two fan bases, who have been tortured and betrayed by incompetent ownership, will look to return to greatness that was last experienced in the 1980s.

The 1986 New York Mets are, and probably will be forever, the team that makes me thankful that I ever had a dad, a mom and grandparents who inculcated in me the legend of Cleon Jones. My early childhood obsession with Cleon Jones would lead to a 1986 fascination with Mookie and Lenny. In my experience as a fan, there has never been a team that I rooted for, which I thought was destined for greatness other than the 1986 Mets. I never found the Buckner game to be miraculous, because the 1986 Mets won in improbable ways throughout the season.

If this 2015 edition of the Mets wins the World Series, it will not compare to the championship of 1986, and that’s a shame, but adulthood robs you of youthful obsessions and fanboy devotion. Oh, I still desperately want the Mets to win, but this team does not consume my life and define me.

I don’t believe the possibility of getting into a fistfight over the defensive prowess of Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer and Mets first baseman Lucas Duda is in the fall forecast, but some things don’t completely change or do they?

PREDICTION: Mets in 7.

New York Mets: This Time It’s For Real

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The Amazin’ Mets have jumped out to an early two-game lead versus Theo Epstein’s Chicago Cubs, and no Big Apple hardball devotee should feel supremely confident of a Mets 2015 NLCS victory. Unless you’re Pedro Martinez, who has decreed the series a forgone conclusion for the squad from Flushing.

For any self-respecting, long-suffering and resigned to endless mediocrity (That’s being polite.) Mets fan, the fall of 2015 will forever be remembered as the age of Daniel Murphy. Daniel Murphy has conjured and communicated with the spectral world and has gained strength from Shea Stadium ghosts named Donn Clendenon, Tommie Agee and Tug McGraw. Murphy has transcended the world most of us humans live in and is operating in a realm that is not quantifiable or familiar to the rest of us.

Daniel Murphy is morphing into an October play-off baseball god. Reggie Jackson will forever be known as Mr. October. Derek Jeter is Mr. November. And The Murph is what?

Daniel Murphy has always been a good professional hitter, but did anyone see Murphy as a force of nature repeatedly able to change the course of a baseball game with a flick of his wrists?

Being in the zone is something most of us are not familiar with or capable of comprehending. I thought I was once in the zone on a playground in Brighton, Massachusetts, located behind a ramshackle Friendly’s, where my jump shot refused to miss on rims that had more shake than a body double for Jennifer Lopez. I could not miss, but I wasn’t playing before 45,000 rabid Mets fans cheering for a dream that only months ago seemed beyond all reach; I was playing on a cracked asphalt playground hoops court, and no one cared too much and that included the guys playing in the game.

Daniel Murphy is for real.

Jacob de Grom is for real.

And all of a sudden, it feels pretty damn good to be a Mets fan. It’s nice to know that Yankee fans are watching our team in the play-offs.

Living in Massachusetts, I am the stranger in a strange land. No one cares that the Mets are creating magic in October. No one gives me a thumb’s up, or a confident and conspiratorial head nod when I wear my Mets sweatshirt.

I am alone in a foreign land. I watch the games solo and my fellow celebrants are diehard Mets fans scattered throughout this great land.

I have no compassion or empathy for long-suffering Cubs fans. I want to gain entry to the World Series this year. The Second City Cubs can wait for a second chance. With deGrom, Matz, Harvey and Syndergaard clamoring to grab the ball from Terry Collins’ hand, this feels for real.

This isn’t Kenny Rogers, there is no Billy Wagner blown save on the horizon, and it is physically impossible for former Met and current Yankee, Carlos Beltran, to look at a called third strike and end this NLCS for the Mets.

This time it’s for real.

When The Mets Win, Let’s All Go To The Bar!

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“Only Dodgers fans go to heaven.” – Tommy Lasorda 

Former Los Angeles Dodgers skipper, Tommy Lasorda, believes in Frank Sinatra, Fernandomania and that God will only allow Dodgers fans to walk through St. Peter’s Pearly Gates; but a rail thin, hirsute 26-year-old fire-balling Met phenom, Jacob deGrom, is aiming to tear down the Temple of Baseball that Walter O’Malley built in the City of Angels and demonstrate to all that Jesus hates Chase Utley and that Chavez Ravine idolaters believe in a band of false prophets.

Jacob deGrom

Tonight’s win or go home Game 5 of the NLDS between the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers is where East meets West. This is where one team will earn the right to play the young and fearless Chicago Cubs, who have made Cubs fans believe that Steve Bartman can find redemption and that Theo Epstein’s rebuilding process is faster than Donald Trump’s fuzzy plan to Make America Great Again.

The Dodgers will answer deGrom with their own version of a starting pitcher savant: Zack Greinke. The 31-year-old, Greinke, possesses the laconic air of a character plucked from a Richard Linklater film and his shoulder-length blonde locks could be an homage to Linklater’s Dazed & Confused character, Mitch.

Zack “Mitch” Greinke

deGrom is angular and electric. Greinke is slow rollin’ and SoCal.

The Dodgers embody SoCal, and the Mets are now the caretakers of the Dodgers former Holy Land of Brooklyn. With O’Malley orchestrating and leading the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants exodus to the Land of Kardashian and TMZ, the Mets are the custodians of National League hardball in the five boroughs. This game is where the Mets can shed the elusive ghosts of Duke Snider, Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson and allow Mets fans to celebrate their own Ya Gotta Believe magic and mystique of Mookie Wilson, Tug McGraw and Tom Seaver.

Praise The Lord, Sister!

After I conduct a practice with my youth soccer team, where I play the role of Morris Buttermaker, and have my patience tested by a bunch of eight and nine-year-old boys who make Tanner, Ahmad and Timmy Lupus look like a bunch of well-mannered Bad News Bears Boy Scouts; I will watch this game and attempt to ignore the pounding headache caused by this band of chronically ill-behaved and athletically-challenged youths.

Buttermaker 

It’s been alleged that sports are an opiate for the masses, but only a Mets victory will relieve the pain inflicted by these eight and nine-year old boys. With a Dodgers victory, I will not genuflect to the Big Dodger in the Sky, but I will head to the bar where salvation can be held and quantifiably measured in a magical concoction of amber liquid. The visages of Mary Hart and Larry King will not haunt me, as I peer into a glass, that is full of lost hope and bad baseball karma.

Only Jacob deGrom can offer sweet relief from a Dodgers win and to achieve that he must shut down a Dodgers offense that revolves around Howie Kendrick, Adrian Gonzalez, Justin Turner and Andre Ethier. deGrom needs to stifle these bats to give the Mets a chance at a Game 5 victory.

Tonight has the makings of a hardball masterpiece. Baseball fans need to take notice. Fuck the NFL’s Saints and and Falcons Thursday night offering. Ignore the NHL’s slate of games scheduled before The Great Pumpkin has had an opportunity to unveil itself.

Rusty “Le Grand Orange” Staub

Give proper respect to October baseball.

Pray for the recovery of Rusty Staub.

And allow the Mets, the goddamn woe begotten, downtrodden, Madoff fucked-over Mets a win.

Just one  … goddamn … fucking …  win!

Unrequited Stanley Cup Dreams

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With the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals starting in a few hours, fans of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Chicago Blackhawks are poised for what should be a six or seven-game series, dreams will appear and then disappear with the maneuvering of a composite stick on vulcanized rubber, and lives and schedules will be rearranged to accommodate this frozen crucible.

Stan Mikita and Coach Billy Reay

But I am still stuck – rigidly and obstinately – on the failure of the New York Rangers to reach the Stanley Cup Finals. The Rangers’ failure has simplified my life: I can continue to slog through Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall that is taking me longer to read than King Henry VIII’s courtship and marriage to Anne Boleyn; there is more time to devote to a sixth grade research paper on uber capitalist pig and then generous philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller; I can watch New York Mets’ rookie fireballer, Noah Syndergaard, record a preposterously weird pitching line of 10 strikeouts, zero walks, and seven earned runs in four innings versus the San Diego Padres and not feel a twinge of guilt that I am cheating on the Rangers; enthusiastically enjoy the Poseidon Adventure that is the Boston Red Sox; and not hear from a nine-year-old boy that I have a strange and puzzling devotion to a hockey team.

From the mouths of babes tumble pearls of wisdom, and perhaps a nine-year-old boy does have a better perspective on the failings of a Manhattan-based hockey team than does a 48-year-old middle-aged man, who falls into a two-hour funk, after witnessing the Tampa Bay Lightning conclude the 2015 Eastern Conference Finals with a 2-0 shutout of the Rangers in Madison Square Garden.

I inhabit a world where pathos is viewed as a luxury. To be down or depressed about a hockey team, which is comprised of millionaires and is owned by the truly loathsome James Dolan, and find there is scant tenderness to salve the bruised feelings of an emotionally stunted middle-aged moron is unvarnished reality. A nine-year-old has no patience for a grown man, with what some could perceive as an unhealthy obsession for a hockey team, which seems to produce more angst than happiness when one could achieve sublime happiness by pulling off the boss of all Pokemon trades. In reality, a well-crafted Pokemon trade takes far more skill than cheering for the Broadway Blueshirts.

I will watch Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Probably. But I’m not sure.

My feelings are somewhat analogous to attending a former girlfriend’s wedding, which I have never experienced nor longed to do, as I don’t believe “Asshole” would be socially acceptable on a table placement card and that no good has ever come out of a situation like this. Chances are the ex-girlfriend is going to look pretty good on her wedding day, lost some weight, bleached her teeth, shares rapturous (real or contrived) looks with her tool of a soon-to-be husband, and for the GODDAMN love of God don’t get caught by your date looking verklempt when there is the exchange of vows because after the reception you will be sharing your hotel room with a white walker. The better scenario is to attend the ex’s wedding and bring Caitlyn Jenner as your date, which is sure to deflect some attention from the bride.

So, I sit here. Pounding on this keyboard, jealous of Blackhawks fans who can root for the irrepressible Jonathan Toews, who is arguably better at his sport than LeBron James is at his sport. Yes, that is the brilliance of Jonathan Toews. And I want the Rangers to have a Jonathan Toews, but there is no else like Jonathan Toews or Caitlyn Jenner. Alex Ovechkin was supposed be Jonathan Toews, but he is merely Alex Ovechkin. Rene Richards was Caitlyn Jenner, but without the extensive Kardashian media machine behind her.

Perhaps the Rangers will return to the Stanley Cup Finals next year, where more than two months of my life will be invested in the pursuit of a freaking cup, but before that occurs, I plan to enjoy the sense of freedom that has returned to me. I won’t have to avoid newspapers for a day or two until I have found the time to watch the latest Rangers’ playoff tilt, I won’t view the making of dinner as an impediment to my playoff viewing schedule, and I won’t have to hear from my favorite Polish American how much she certifiably and unquestionably despises hockey.

My life is returning to what approaches a normal life. I soak tennis balls in ammonia to chase a mother raccoon and her three offspring from their den, because they are destroying the shed that sits above their home. I will coach Little League and hear some 10-year-old punk talking shit to our team’s first base coach, who happens to be me, and then I will respond by sending every base runner to steal second base. We’re playing that kid’s team again on Saturday, and I am all about fucking up his shit, except when the kid catches because he has a cannon of an arm.

The Rangers will become yesterday’s news. I’ll harbor an unhealthy dislike of Rangers’ defenseman and scapegoat, Dan Boyle, and that douche bag 10-year-old. I’ll start coaching a Little League All-Star team. I’ll try not to have the lawn look like napalm has been thrown on it. And I’ll think of what could have been for the Broadway Blueshirts.