Baseball's Right Around the Bend

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jeremy Lin, omigosh!

I hate being so cynical. I can’t even stand myself. Furthermore, I’m probably as happy as anyone over our new point guard’s prowess on the court. Just to recap his game for the un-Lin-itiated, he dribbles, he sees the court, he drives and he scores. Let’s see…what else is there? Oh, he steals the ball a bit too.

But is it possible that all this hoopla won’t go to the man’s head? And can we just let things happen instead of predicting what kind of legacy he’ll have before his career is over? How great will he be? Why did everybody pass on him? Is he like or unlike Tebow? Will Carmelo’s return surely doom our local heroes?

Give the guy a break. Let him just play. Things are hard enough. After all, it took the man an awfully long time to get here. He shouldn’t be burdened by all these predictions. Besides, there are some other Knicks playing very well too and the ink runs out before anybody gets to them. And this is a team game after all. Just ask Carmelo.

Okay, this wasn’t meant to be all about the Knicks but what else is there?

Well, it’s hot stove season but I think all the cooking is pretty much done by now. Baseball will resume in a few weeks in Florida and Arizona and it looks as if the Yanks, Rangers and Angels and Phillies and even the Marlins are going to be much better. My Metsies are going to need a lot of luck. The waste of resources known as our legal system will pretty much make sure that the Mets will be in limbo for ages.

The saddest part of this off-season to me is that Justin Turner, the only Met who could drive in runs when it counted, and a guy who ably manned both second and third bases, is no longer being mentioned at second base. Nothing makes me sadder than a guy who outperforms expectations and then is seemingly punished for it. Turner is currently listed as the backup third baseman behind David Wright. Geez, maybe they really will trade David.

On the Yankees front, I hated to see them trade Montero. While I realize that the pitcher they picked up, Michael Pineda, is one of the best young pitchers out there, Montero could’ve hit 40 homers at Yankee Stadium. They seem to be getting away from their Bronx Bombers persona. It looks as if it’ll be still one more year of the pitcher. I can’t say it makes me happy.

All baseball needs to do to end this ridiculous pitchers dominance is enforce the strike zone. As long as the worst umpires in the world are allowed to call strikes 6-inches outside the corner of the plate, the pitching dominance will continue. And all the Jamie Moyers of the world (43-44 years old)will keep getting contracts.

I’ll be making my spring training pilgrimage once again so the Mets will be hearing from me early and often. I may even wear my Johan Santana shirt. If Santana can come back as strong as ever, the Mets might even contend.

One good thing, by the way, about the Mets failure to offer Jose Reyes a contract is that Jose can never be blamed for leaving New York because of money. Jose will always be a hero at Citifield. And I can imagine some big, big performances from Jose each and every time the Marlins face the Mets. In 18 games, Jose will hit ten triples and steal 20 bases. And he’ll be gunning down Mets baserunners with regularity.

We can look forward to loving and hating Bobby Valentine in Boston. We can root for Joba to come back from the knife and throw the way he used to. And yeah, Santana will make some headlines one way or another. Jason Bay might finally relax. I wonder if Granderson and Cano can do what they’ve done once again.

Yeah, I know, it’s just baseball. You have to admit though, that it’s a pretty interesting game. And it’s perfect for television. There are natural breaks between innings for commercials, ample time to pick up a bag of chips and a Coke, and some ice in a nice tall glass.

And there’re games going on every day. There’s no need to build up the next game as in football. Before you can say “Jackie Robinson”, the next game is upon you. If you play fantasy baseball, you’ll have something to look forward to every day, and, inevitably, some regrets for that bonehead pitching move that not only didn’t get you the win but also lost you the battle for ERA and WHIP.

So, while most New Yorkers are probably thinking about Jeremy Lin, and rightfully so, this fellow wil be thinking about baseball and, more specifically, the Mets. Having just heard Francesa’s interview with Sandy Alderson, I’m even more psyched up. With any luck at all, the Mets should be better. The starters will be more experienced, the relief acquisitions should help and the lineup should have a good deal of power.

And Sandy hasn’t forgotten about Justin Turner after all. But he is a little worried about defense. Some of the better hitters on the squad may be giving some runs back somewhere along the line. The pitching depth isn’t where he’d like it to be but he is hopeful of picking up some quality as spring training moves along.

If you would have told me last year that we needed to just worry about pitching depth, I think I would have danced a jig, or maybe even a salsa, as just one more honorarium to Victor Cruz. But that’s where the Mets are today.

Yeah, the Giants were great…. and lucky too. And the Knicks may be the most exciting team in basketball. But I’ll feel a whole lot better when April rolls around, spring is in the air and baseball is right around the bend.

Musings of the Fall

Okay, the Week 2 NFL action is over and now we have additional perspective, but, if we had absolutely no perspective after Week 1, does one more game played qualify as an event worthy of contributing true perspective? I would say NOT!

Take the Giants, for example, please. They looked awful in their Week 1 loss vs. the Skins, a team I had termed “low so many years”. Then the Rams came to town after having had a fairly successful (for them) opener against the Eagles. (Well, it had been close for most of three quarters anyway). It wouldn’t have been surprising under those circumstances if the Rams had managed to beat the Giants.

Of course they didn’t. The Rams fielded what was perhaps the worst set of receivers I had ever seen on any field anywhere. In fact, I could expand my meaning somewhat to say that kids in the street playing “association” football have better hands. They played some of the worst football I’ve ever seen.

So, in the face of such great incompetence, you could have expected the G-Men to have looked pretty good. But they really didn’t. They just managed to survive against an incredibly inept team, one riddled with injuries and woefully short on talent seemingly everywhere.

So what does that tell us? Well, it tells me that the Giants still can stink out the joint, against anybody. They did manage to run the ball a bit. That was somewhat heartening, I guess. In truth though, the only truly good thing was their pass rush. Their secondary still seems clueless and their passing game was only just good enough to enable them to run the ball.

The Jints probably won’t face Michael Vick next week, a very good thing, but it hardly matters. The Eagles can beat the Giants with Vince Young or Mike Kafka at QB. The Eagles are chomping at the bit. The Giants spit the bit in Week 1 and haven’t grabbed hold of it since. That’s what happens to a team that doesn’t sign its best players.

As good as GM Reese had been in his first season, that’s as bad as he did this year. Losing Kevin Boss and Steve Smith to free agency was just unconscionable. Losing Eli’s center (and friend) was almost as bad. Their replacements just haven’t got it. Those guys couldn’t really be replaced. Talk about penny-wise and pound foolish.

But why belabor a point. The Giants stink. Coughlin stinks. Reese really stinks and even good ol’ Eli stinks. Who woulda thunk it?

Now the Jets are a much happier story. They signed everybody they needed. When the Giants abandoned Plaxico, the Jets came up with a contract for him. The Jets worst receiver is better than the Giants best, at least this past Sunday. The Jets have already won a game they should have lost. The Giants can only relax when that clock strikes zero.

But no team I’ve seen so far can say they have all their bases covered. The Eagles, for example, managed to lose to the Falcons Sunday despite their 10-point lead when Vick went to the sidelines. They’re supposed to be a dream team. If that’s true, it’s a bad dream indeed.

Ok, so I forgot about the Pats. Actually, I’d love to forget about the Pats. They may have some weak spots too but, if so, they’re not so immediately obvious. Unless you can call a two tight end offense a weakness, the Pats seem awesome.

But all of the above is based on two weeks performance. The only things I’m really sure of are that the Jets will be happy as clams and the Giants will look like the smiley face upside down.

Baseball fans can be happy that the wildcard races in both leagues have become true races. As this is written, our Mets are trying to put a damper on the Cardinals post-season hopes. And not only that but Cohen and Darling are interviewing GM Sandy Alderson as to the future of the franchise. Most notable from that talk was that October will be dedicated towards keeping Jose Reyes.

But the Cards and Giants are catching the Braves and the Rays are doing likewise with the Red Sox. With just about 8 or 9 games to go, these wildcard races will be going to the wire. The Rays, however, have much the worst of the schedule (and are now losing to the Yankees 5-0), but the Red Sox’s decline seems to just keep going of its own momentum despite the opponent.

If pitching truly does determine pennant winners, the Rays have a real shot but the Braves can pitch with the best of them, albeit not lately. The Cards may be the toughest of the National League bunch with Pujols and Berkman in the lineup and the best fans anywhere. The Cards just pulled ahead of the Mets in tonight’s game in their bid to remain just 3 games back of Atlanta who won tonight.

It always makes me a little sad when the baseball season winds down. It may be because it’s a harbinger of worse things to come, colder weather, the end of summer, barbecues and the Jersey shore. But it also marks the end of daily games in a sport that is played out day after day for 162 games. The NFL plays 16 games in 17 weeks and that’s all she wrote. We look forward to hype only for 6 days out of every 7.

All that inactivity would be broken up in normal years by NBA basketball. This year of course will be anything but normal as the owners and players dig in their heels. So it’ll be college basketball only and, if you’re a Seton Hall or Rutgers fan, there just won’t be much to think about. That’s assuming the Big East remains unchanged, a highly unlikely prospect right now.

Oh well, at least Curtis Granderson may still get MVP.

The Happy Mets Fan

Before I get distracted by one more thing, let me get started here. It’s a rainy day, second day in a row actually, and I’ve had “alls I can stands” from indoor projects that I don’t even know how to do. And I’d really like to talk about, you guessed it, the Mets.

Okay, first an overview. The Mets are about a quarter way through the season (along with everyone else) and, beginning now, nobody can still say, “it’s early” and get away with it. I mean, before you know it, it’ll be June. That’s not early. The Mets are 19-21. The Yanks are 20-18, so they’re two games back of the Yankees. That’s not too shabby.

All the hitting I expected from this team in pre-season has arrived. Reyes and Beltran are tearing up the league. Wright and Bay are doing their plodding along but still pack some punch in a lineup. Ike Davis is hurt now but had been doing his best Carlos Delgado impersonation, without the smile and the notepad.

Who am I missing? Well, let’s see, the number 2 hitter is now Justin Turner and, since he knocked in 5 runs yesterday against the Astros, I really can’t pick on him too much. Josh Thole will spell him in the number two spot against righties and that’s all good too. Both these guys make contact, a la Luis Castillo, but with more power and much better timing as to just when they poke something.

The omnipresent Daniel Murphy is all over the place on the right side of the infield, spelling Davis now but also had looked pretty darned good at second, at least, better than everybody had once thought. And he’s at least nominally productive, scoring or driving in a run about 26% of the time. This stat, one of my favorites, just totals runs and ribbies divided by at-bats. Wright’s percentage is just 28% while Reyes’s average is only 22 ½ %, surprisingly enough. Since Reyes is batting at .310 with a .831 OPS and 14 steals though, his low production percentage can only be attributed to some pretty poor production both behind and in front of him.

Overall though, the Mets are 10th in runs scored which puts them in the top third of the entire league. Their pitching has held up admirably, especially in the relief category. Statistics for the season don’t really reflect that though as their poor start has mired them at just 24th in the league in ERA. It also reflects the poor starting pitching in general balanced only by really fine relief pitching.

It surprised me to find that the team leader in strikeouts and ERA is Chris Capuano at 34 and 4.78 respectively. Pelfrey is the leader in wins but with just three to his credit. Without getting too far into it, all the starters have been relatively bad, except for Chris Young, who’ll be out for the rest of the year.

But that doesn’t deter me from being optimistic. Except for Dickey, the starters are all beginning to come around. Ask yourself which starter makes you feel that the team has no chance that day. Pelfrey, Niese, Dillon Gee, Capuano and Dickey, I’ll take that rotation any day of the week. They’re all capable of at least keeping the team in the game.

With K-Rod closing, Isringhausen setting him up and Taylor Bucholz finishing up games, the Mets hitters have been paying attention for the entire game. I don’t have the stats on it but these Mets hitters seem to get better as the game wears on. I’m beginning to think the most important component of a team may very well be the quality of the relief pitching.

There’s nothing more demoralizing than losing games late because your relievers stink. That Houston team is the perfect example. They just wilt down the stretch. The Mets never seem to think they’re out of it, all of which makes it very easy to watch the entire game.

I won’t let myself get too excited about Santana’s return to the rotation though. I won’t let myself think too seriously about their chances for a wildcard either. As all one ever hears is that the Mets will be trading Beltran, Reyes and Wright away by the break, why should I let myself in for a letdown?

The Mets minor leagues are depleted of any real talent though. If Alderson and company think it’ll be necessary to trade any or all of them, Beltran, Reyes or Wright, I could very well live with the decision. What I don’t want to see is trading Wright and keeping Reyes or vice-versa. They should either both stay or both go.

Wright and Reyes have been the heart and soul of the Mets. It’d be too painful to split them up. In the back of my mind too, I can’t help thinking that they are both as responsible as anyone for the team’s frustrations these many years. Both have been spotty players overall, Reyes mostly because of injuries and Wright because of his failures to drive in runs in big spots. Wright gives every indication of being a head case. Who’s more erratic than David Wright?

As I’ve been a Mets fan as long as they’ve been in existence, I do think about the future too. It’d surely be nice to beef up the entire organization with young talent, especially in the pitching area. Each one of their trade candidates is marketable enough to garner some real talent in return. I’ll sacrifice 2011 for a team with a bright young future.

I’m pretty sure now that Sandy Alderson’s entire management team has been really professional. They’ve made prudent decisions on player acquisitions and don’t fill the news with scandal. The same can’t be said for their counterparts in the AL East.

And, speaking of the Yanks, it must be hard for Posada not to link himself with Jeter and Mariano, transferring their talents to himself.