There are a lot of people out of work and I’m sure some of them are qualified to run operations for the New York Mets. That I could root for a team that tolerates the crap that Bernazard had been handing out makes me sick. I mean, it’s the Yanks who are the Evil Empire, right?
Well, apparently not. It looks like Bernazard had run the Mets farm system like a bad warden in a Turkish prison. And a NY Daily News reporter blew the whistle on him, forcing a very unwilling Mets hand to fire Bernazard. So they decided to turn a little heat back on the reporter, alleging some kind of inappropriate behavior by the News’s Rubin.
Although I have to admit the whole affair was vastly amusing, Minaya’s handling of his press conference convened to fire Tony Bernazard was as bad as I could imagine, and I have a pretty vivid imagination. To go after the press anytime under any circumstances is pretty stupid, but to go after the guy who just blew the whistle on you is even worse.
I’m sure it made Minaya feel better. The sad thing is that Wilpon probably thought it was a good idea too. Knowing Wilpon is a very hands-on type of owner, it probably irked him quite a bit to have to fire one of his chief lieutenants. And he thought he could give Rubin some of the stuff he had been handing out. You could see the two of them, Wilpon and Minaya, putting their heads together and saying, “Yeah, let’s give that SOB some of his own medicine.”
While I can understand them feeling that way, I can’t understand them actually thinking it was the appropriate thing to do. This is New York, fellas. This is the good ol’ USA. I think these guys have lost touch with reality.
As a long-time Mets fan, I feel embarrassed. For my being so stupid over the years. For my thinking the Mets were the good guys all this time. For my thinking the Mets ran an organization that put some emphasis on baseball as a real game, a game that should be fun.
Now that I’m otherwise informed, I say get rid of the whole lot of them. I don’t want to root for Minaya anymore. And while I don’t think any amount of pressure would force the sale of the team, I say get rid of the Wilpons too. I don’t go for this feudal baron type of ownership. This is 20th Century America.
What the whole affair says to me is this. “We own the Mets and we’ll run it any way we want. There’s nothing you can do about it, and if you try, we’ll come after you.” Who wants to root for these guys? Even Steinbrenner didn’t do anything like this.
All they had to do was fire Bernazard and get out of Dodge. Case closed. Goodbye everybody. We’re sorry we run the Island of Doctor X. We’ll hire somebody better.
But no.
It’s a damned shame too because things are starting to look a lot better on the field. Our sorry team on the field has won its last three. After looking so very bad against the worst team in the league, the Nationals, the Mets totally turned things around against two good teams, Houston and Colorado.
And they did it in a big way. They pitched and they hit. First it was a starter from the farm system, Jonathan Niese, who went 7 innings and gave up just one run. Then Livan went out and pitched 7 innings more, giving up just 3 runs in a horrible first inning. Then crazy Ollie Perez managed to give up just 3 runs over 5 full innings. Meanwhile, the feisty Mets batters managed to score 25 runs in the three games. Unbelievable and totally unpredictable.
It sure has made my week though. Seeing Francoeur knocking in runs has been great. Everybody but Cora hit in the 10-3 win. In the 8-3 win, even Cora joined the attack and in the 7-3 win, the new core of the lineup, Castillo, Murphy, Wright and Francoeur, did the hitting while Fernando Tatis finished things with a grand slam.
The relief corps performed too. The only runs given up by relievers over the three wins were the two given up by their best reliever, K-Rod. Sean Green, Pedro Feliciano and Brian Stokes were outstanding.
So things are rosy in Mets-land, just about everywhere but in the front office. While the management tear themselves up, the players have been great and on-the-field manager Jerry Manuel hasn’t done anything to deter them. Maybe those crazy guys in the front office have unwittingly provided the only thing that could drive off all the team detractors….fresh meat.
But things won’t get easier. While the Mets feasted on some questionable pitchers in their little winning streak, they’ll now face Jason Marquis, a good young pitcher named Hamel and then a very good and hot hurler in Jorge DeLaRosa. The Rockies didn’t get to be a wildcard contender without pitching.
So it’ll be Marquis vs Pelfrey, Santana against Hamel and then Mr. Niese again vs. DeLaRosa. Even with Santana coming off a bad outing, it’s hard to think our local fellas won’t take at least one of these three. That would give them a split with the Rockies, which isn’t too shabby, especially given the prospect of having some of the injured return soon.
Given these front-office gaffes, maybe it helps explain the seemingly long stints on the DL for Beltran, Reyes and Delgado. Maybe there’s no real motivation to kill yourself for a bunch of bad guys. I hope that’s not true but the rumor has been that Beltran at least was not happy over the team’s handling of his bone bruise.
As a fan, my wish would be that we could go back to a time just before Omar put his foot in it.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Reflections in a Lost Season
It’s another day for day-games, the travel day for the Yanks, Orioles, Cubs and Phillies at the very least. Just my luck, the Phils are down 5-3 just now as Feliz drives in a couple. Looks like Zambrano, my fantasy opponent pitcher, is, as we used to say “blowing up”.
I can’t watch the Yankees-Orioles, it’s too uneven a match. The O’s still haven’t scored and it doesn’t look as if they’re going to. Burnett is just wacking them down and he doesn’t look troubled by the prospect of continuing. My fantasy opponent, though, is playing Roberts so maybe I’ll just root against him.
What is with this necklace on Burnett. I preferred the days when men didn’t wear jewelry. Me, I don’t even like the wedding band, and not because I have any bad intentions. If you want jewelry, wear a watch. You know, the thing you don’t need anymore because the time is staring you in the face from your cell phone, Blackberry, i-phone, and every electronic device in your house.
Hey-hey, the O’s finally scored two, and on a wild pitch too, but I’d rather blame Posada, one of my Yankee kicking-boys this season. The pitch wasn’t that bad, Jorge just missed it. Nice to make this thing competitive though for the 8th and 9th.
Over in Philadelphia, the Phils are getting thrashed by the Cubs. It’s 7-3 now and did you really expect much from Moyer? I think that if you want to pay a 43-year old guy to take the mound every 5th day or so, you deserve what you get.
For many baseball fans, though, the actual playing of the game has become secondary, even the watching of the actual game. But I have to admit, some of the peripheral action is pretty interesting…who’ll get Halladay (nobody), who’ll get Holliday (nobody), and who’s a buyer, who’s a seller, yada yada.
My beloved Metsies, alas, seem to be racing towards the seller side of things. Give them an opportunity to lose and most times they’ll take it. But one constant in the games they lose in awful fashion is the absence of pitching. In the games that are competitive, about every other game, they get good pitching. Let’s check the game log….
In the last 10 games, going back to the last game at LA, they lost two, then Santana pitched a beautiful game against Cincinnati and the Mets won 4-0. Then they won again with Pelfrey allowing only 3 runs over 7 innings. They won that one 9-7, so the relief pitching was horrible, but as the Mets decided to hit that day, it didn’t matter.
Then against the Braves, things started to unravel. They lost a tough 5-3 decision after Perez had turned in a good performance for him, and the Mets relievers couldn’t hold those pesky Braves off, giving up two runs in the last three innings. Pelfrey was awful the next day and the Mets got killed 11-0.
Then it was Santana’s turn. The Mets won 5-1. Getting my drift here? Then it was Nieve’s turn and he immediately got hurt so he could watch Tim Redding get blasted. The Mets lost and it wasn’t very close. But, behind a very creditable performance from Livan Hernandez in the Washington opener, the Mets won. Then Ollie the crazy man Perez turned in a clunker so the Mets lost again.
As bad as all this sounds, the Mets finished that ten-game stretch 4-6. Two wins from Santana, and one each from Pelfrey and Hernandez. Perez really wasn’t that bad, giving up 7 runs in 12 innings in his two starts. The relief pitching has been dreadful except for the rock, K-Rod.
My contention had been that the Mets could still contend if they got their big guns back soon. That was based on the schedule too, which didn’t seem daunting, but the Braves were one team the Mets should have split with, and they only took one of four. They have to do better than that. They did take 2 of 3 from the Reds though, and they’ve split with Washington so far. This last game against the Nats will show me a lot about the Mets, and whether they should be buyers or sellers thereafter.
The Mets will have Pelfrey going on his fifth day. Stammen is the Nats pitcher and he’s nothing to write home about. And I’d think, as Pelfrey is the team’s union representative, that the Mets will try hard to get him the win. The Mets have to win this game, if, for nothing else, my stick-to-it-iveness.
If they can’t beat Washington with their number 2 starter, they’re in really terrible shape as a team. Then I’d say they should be sellers. But Beltran and Reyes are both coming off injuries, minimizing their current market value and who really wants them to go anyway? Beltran had been one of the “rocks” before getting hurt and Reyes is Reyes after all, which is to say, alternately good and bad. Make that very good and bad, quite a distinction actually.
Until Beltran and Reyes get well, there’s really no point in dealing. That goes for Delgado too. But the needs are very clear in the long run, at least a reliever or two and a legitimate starter.
Of their two big relief acquisitions Green has been a real bust, for the most part, and Putz is an unknown after shoulder surgery. That’s a lot of money tied up in two relievers who haven’t been able to perform up to expectations. The Mets must hope that those two come back strong, thus mitigating their relief situation.
The more it’s analyzed, the more depressing it gets. The only logical thing to do is stay pat for now and hope that a Niese or somebody else from the minors will fill that 5th starter position. The relief will just have to get better with experience.
Next year is the best time to deal.
I can’t watch the Yankees-Orioles, it’s too uneven a match. The O’s still haven’t scored and it doesn’t look as if they’re going to. Burnett is just wacking them down and he doesn’t look troubled by the prospect of continuing. My fantasy opponent, though, is playing Roberts so maybe I’ll just root against him.
What is with this necklace on Burnett. I preferred the days when men didn’t wear jewelry. Me, I don’t even like the wedding band, and not because I have any bad intentions. If you want jewelry, wear a watch. You know, the thing you don’t need anymore because the time is staring you in the face from your cell phone, Blackberry, i-phone, and every electronic device in your house.
Hey-hey, the O’s finally scored two, and on a wild pitch too, but I’d rather blame Posada, one of my Yankee kicking-boys this season. The pitch wasn’t that bad, Jorge just missed it. Nice to make this thing competitive though for the 8th and 9th.
Over in Philadelphia, the Phils are getting thrashed by the Cubs. It’s 7-3 now and did you really expect much from Moyer? I think that if you want to pay a 43-year old guy to take the mound every 5th day or so, you deserve what you get.
For many baseball fans, though, the actual playing of the game has become secondary, even the watching of the actual game. But I have to admit, some of the peripheral action is pretty interesting…who’ll get Halladay (nobody), who’ll get Holliday (nobody), and who’s a buyer, who’s a seller, yada yada.
My beloved Metsies, alas, seem to be racing towards the seller side of things. Give them an opportunity to lose and most times they’ll take it. But one constant in the games they lose in awful fashion is the absence of pitching. In the games that are competitive, about every other game, they get good pitching. Let’s check the game log….
In the last 10 games, going back to the last game at LA, they lost two, then Santana pitched a beautiful game against Cincinnati and the Mets won 4-0. Then they won again with Pelfrey allowing only 3 runs over 7 innings. They won that one 9-7, so the relief pitching was horrible, but as the Mets decided to hit that day, it didn’t matter.
Then against the Braves, things started to unravel. They lost a tough 5-3 decision after Perez had turned in a good performance for him, and the Mets relievers couldn’t hold those pesky Braves off, giving up two runs in the last three innings. Pelfrey was awful the next day and the Mets got killed 11-0.
Then it was Santana’s turn. The Mets won 5-1. Getting my drift here? Then it was Nieve’s turn and he immediately got hurt so he could watch Tim Redding get blasted. The Mets lost and it wasn’t very close. But, behind a very creditable performance from Livan Hernandez in the Washington opener, the Mets won. Then Ollie the crazy man Perez turned in a clunker so the Mets lost again.
As bad as all this sounds, the Mets finished that ten-game stretch 4-6. Two wins from Santana, and one each from Pelfrey and Hernandez. Perez really wasn’t that bad, giving up 7 runs in 12 innings in his two starts. The relief pitching has been dreadful except for the rock, K-Rod.
My contention had been that the Mets could still contend if they got their big guns back soon. That was based on the schedule too, which didn’t seem daunting, but the Braves were one team the Mets should have split with, and they only took one of four. They have to do better than that. They did take 2 of 3 from the Reds though, and they’ve split with Washington so far. This last game against the Nats will show me a lot about the Mets, and whether they should be buyers or sellers thereafter.
The Mets will have Pelfrey going on his fifth day. Stammen is the Nats pitcher and he’s nothing to write home about. And I’d think, as Pelfrey is the team’s union representative, that the Mets will try hard to get him the win. The Mets have to win this game, if, for nothing else, my stick-to-it-iveness.
If they can’t beat Washington with their number 2 starter, they’re in really terrible shape as a team. Then I’d say they should be sellers. But Beltran and Reyes are both coming off injuries, minimizing their current market value and who really wants them to go anyway? Beltran had been one of the “rocks” before getting hurt and Reyes is Reyes after all, which is to say, alternately good and bad. Make that very good and bad, quite a distinction actually.
Until Beltran and Reyes get well, there’s really no point in dealing. That goes for Delgado too. But the needs are very clear in the long run, at least a reliever or two and a legitimate starter.
Of their two big relief acquisitions Green has been a real bust, for the most part, and Putz is an unknown after shoulder surgery. That’s a lot of money tied up in two relievers who haven’t been able to perform up to expectations. The Mets must hope that those two come back strong, thus mitigating their relief situation.
The more it’s analyzed, the more depressing it gets. The only logical thing to do is stay pat for now and hope that a Niese or somebody else from the minors will fill that 5th starter position. The relief will just have to get better with experience.
Next year is the best time to deal.
Monday, July 20, 2009
On Joba and Yankee Idiots
“Snake-bit” doesn’t really cover it, y’know. Not unless it’s a really big snake, more like that Harry Potter’s basilisk. This Mets team just can’t get a break. When their starting pitcher, Fernando Nieve, went down to injury early in yesterday’s game, it seemed just too much.
As small as it may have seemed, losing a journeyman pitcher, it proved to be big. The Mets filled in with a guy they’re soon either sending down or releasing, Tim Redding, and then looked lifeless for nine long innings. In the face of such disaster, why even try? The gods of baseball had already decided their fate, this day and most days in this horrible 2009 injury-fest.
It’s difficult to watch, of course, so you wind up turning the game off. Almost anything would be more interesting, say, a reality show featuring celebrities watching grass grow. Did they do that one yet?
Of course, there is an alternative, but it’s a bad one. Watching the hated Yankees. Yesterday they even had Joba going, and it’s really difficult not to like Joba, even if he is on the wrong team. Joba was great yesterday, and the announcer only mentioned pitch counts maybe 63 or 64 times in the game.
But there’s an even better alternative…two actually, but one is turning off the TV altogether, unthinkable for a baseball fan of limited means. After all, the weekly fantasy baseball contests wind up on Sunday. The other alternative is watching the MLB channel when they’re covering things live.
I had wanted to re-acquire Joba in my fantasy league on Saturday night. I was tied in wins and losses with my weekly opponent and only slightly ahead in ERA and WHIP and strikeouts. Plus, he had three pitchers going, three pretty fair pitchers, Matt Cain probably the least of them, but I had been afraid that if Joba turned in another clunker, I’d lose the advantages I had.
Bad choice. Even the idiots in the Yankee dugout, not to mention the one behind the plate, couldn’t shake Joba’s confidence yesterday. He pitched into the seventh inning, giving up just a lone home run and 3 hits overall, struck out 8 batters and looked confident until the very end when the idiots finally prevailed. Girardi pulled Joba with two outs and nobody on in the seventh. Much to my delight, the crowd booed lustily, and never was a panning more deserved.
The announcers stressed that it was the right move. Sure it was. The crowd got to watch Coke, Hughes and Rivera finish the Tigers off and Joba got the win. And he got a tremendous ovation from the crowd when they finally stopped jeering.
As I found out later on, Joba went home for the break and forgot about baseball except for a bullpen session with a good friend. He “did not think about baseball one time”. He also said, “I needed that” before resorting to the typical Yankee line, how he loved the place to death yada yada (insert finger down throat).
If he loves the place to death so much, why was it so wonderful to get away? Why did he come back renewed? Why did his fastball attain upper-90’s and where did he finally get all that confidence? In Nebraska, that’s where, well away from the idiots and the corporate atmosphere that is the Yankees.
Joba’s a great pitcher on the wrong team. If he pitched for the Rangers, where Nolan Ryan has loudly excoriated all the crap written about the significance of pitch counts, he’d be much better. If he had a catcher who didn’t drive him crazy, if every pitch and every location wasn’t dictated from the bench, the sky would be the limit on Joba.
But that’s just wishful thinking. Joba won’t go anywhere. They’ll throw money at him when the time comes and wheel out some of the old-timers and that will be that. In a couple of years, they’ll remove the shackles and let him breathe. But until then, you won’t see any complete games from Joba.
You won’t see a fist-pump after striking out an even dozen batters over nine. You won’t see the jubilation achieved only after really having completed something you started. You won’t experience any late-inning buzz, the kind of group near-frenzy that typifies baseball at its finest.
What you’ll get is those corporate guys congratulating themselves after the game, after they’ve counted the daily take from those thrice-over-priced tickets, after the W.B. Mason guys have celebrated still another sighting of a Yankee pop-up sailing over that embarrassingly short wall.
The Yanks are a game out of first and Cashman is already celebrating his acumen. They have a glut of fine talent, Arod and Teixeira, all the rest of the aging Jeters and Pettites and Posadas and now Sabathia and Burnet too. They’ll undoubtedly be there at the end of September, especially if all these old guys can hold on until then.
But at what price? I’m not just talking about the tickets. I’m talking about the cost of a stifling atmosphere in the dugout, the clubhouse and even the broadcast booths, the cost of hearing the same Yankee line from every player and announcer, an announcer who knows nothing about baseball but can tell you only how many strikes and how many balls have been thrown.
This is an emphasis that can only come from above, from that embarrassingly stupid Yankee hierarchy that has only managed to achieve a higher form of mediocrity these last several years, this achieved despite spending double and triple that of virtually every other team in major league baseball.
And while I won’t be seeing any blue and orange in this year’s festivities, the Mets having all gone to the trainer’s room, I’ll take solace in watching those Torre-less guys in pinstripes go down once again, hopefully to a team that still has fun playing baseball, the Red Sox or the Rays, or in a perfect world, the Rangers.
As small as it may have seemed, losing a journeyman pitcher, it proved to be big. The Mets filled in with a guy they’re soon either sending down or releasing, Tim Redding, and then looked lifeless for nine long innings. In the face of such disaster, why even try? The gods of baseball had already decided their fate, this day and most days in this horrible 2009 injury-fest.
It’s difficult to watch, of course, so you wind up turning the game off. Almost anything would be more interesting, say, a reality show featuring celebrities watching grass grow. Did they do that one yet?
Of course, there is an alternative, but it’s a bad one. Watching the hated Yankees. Yesterday they even had Joba going, and it’s really difficult not to like Joba, even if he is on the wrong team. Joba was great yesterday, and the announcer only mentioned pitch counts maybe 63 or 64 times in the game.
But there’s an even better alternative…two actually, but one is turning off the TV altogether, unthinkable for a baseball fan of limited means. After all, the weekly fantasy baseball contests wind up on Sunday. The other alternative is watching the MLB channel when they’re covering things live.
I had wanted to re-acquire Joba in my fantasy league on Saturday night. I was tied in wins and losses with my weekly opponent and only slightly ahead in ERA and WHIP and strikeouts. Plus, he had three pitchers going, three pretty fair pitchers, Matt Cain probably the least of them, but I had been afraid that if Joba turned in another clunker, I’d lose the advantages I had.
Bad choice. Even the idiots in the Yankee dugout, not to mention the one behind the plate, couldn’t shake Joba’s confidence yesterday. He pitched into the seventh inning, giving up just a lone home run and 3 hits overall, struck out 8 batters and looked confident until the very end when the idiots finally prevailed. Girardi pulled Joba with two outs and nobody on in the seventh. Much to my delight, the crowd booed lustily, and never was a panning more deserved.
The announcers stressed that it was the right move. Sure it was. The crowd got to watch Coke, Hughes and Rivera finish the Tigers off and Joba got the win. And he got a tremendous ovation from the crowd when they finally stopped jeering.
As I found out later on, Joba went home for the break and forgot about baseball except for a bullpen session with a good friend. He “did not think about baseball one time”. He also said, “I needed that” before resorting to the typical Yankee line, how he loved the place to death yada yada (insert finger down throat).
If he loves the place to death so much, why was it so wonderful to get away? Why did he come back renewed? Why did his fastball attain upper-90’s and where did he finally get all that confidence? In Nebraska, that’s where, well away from the idiots and the corporate atmosphere that is the Yankees.
Joba’s a great pitcher on the wrong team. If he pitched for the Rangers, where Nolan Ryan has loudly excoriated all the crap written about the significance of pitch counts, he’d be much better. If he had a catcher who didn’t drive him crazy, if every pitch and every location wasn’t dictated from the bench, the sky would be the limit on Joba.
But that’s just wishful thinking. Joba won’t go anywhere. They’ll throw money at him when the time comes and wheel out some of the old-timers and that will be that. In a couple of years, they’ll remove the shackles and let him breathe. But until then, you won’t see any complete games from Joba.
You won’t see a fist-pump after striking out an even dozen batters over nine. You won’t see the jubilation achieved only after really having completed something you started. You won’t experience any late-inning buzz, the kind of group near-frenzy that typifies baseball at its finest.
What you’ll get is those corporate guys congratulating themselves after the game, after they’ve counted the daily take from those thrice-over-priced tickets, after the W.B. Mason guys have celebrated still another sighting of a Yankee pop-up sailing over that embarrassingly short wall.
The Yanks are a game out of first and Cashman is already celebrating his acumen. They have a glut of fine talent, Arod and Teixeira, all the rest of the aging Jeters and Pettites and Posadas and now Sabathia and Burnet too. They’ll undoubtedly be there at the end of September, especially if all these old guys can hold on until then.
But at what price? I’m not just talking about the tickets. I’m talking about the cost of a stifling atmosphere in the dugout, the clubhouse and even the broadcast booths, the cost of hearing the same Yankee line from every player and announcer, an announcer who knows nothing about baseball but can tell you only how many strikes and how many balls have been thrown.
This is an emphasis that can only come from above, from that embarrassingly stupid Yankee hierarchy that has only managed to achieve a higher form of mediocrity these last several years, this achieved despite spending double and triple that of virtually every other team in major league baseball.
And while I won’t be seeing any blue and orange in this year’s festivities, the Mets having all gone to the trainer’s room, I’ll take solace in watching those Torre-less guys in pinstripes go down once again, hopefully to a team that still has fun playing baseball, the Red Sox or the Rays, or in a perfect world, the Rangers.
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