According to Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk, citing a source, Kelvim Escobar may be seriously injured. I’m a little bit skeptical, as I normally am about stories coming from anonymous sources, but since Escobar’s spent the better part of the last two seasons seriously injured, it just would not be that surprising.
Awesome.
If Escobar’s as hurt as Calcaterra’s source suggests, people will look back and slam the Mets for signing him to the one-year, $1.5 million contract they gave him in December.
And then other people will slam those people, and say, “well how come you didn’t criticize them for it at the time?”
But those who did not criticize the Mets for the Escobar deal at the time — and count me among those — probably didn’t realize how limited the Mets’ offseason budget was. Nor would they have realized that the $1.25 million shelled out to a high-risk pickup in Escobar would have theoretically made the difference in acquiring Joel Pineiro, or probably been used to sign Felipe Lopez to play second base.
That’s not going to happen, of course, because the Mets have $8 million committed to that position in Luis Castillo and Alex Cora and appear to hate copping to sunk costs.
Whatever. If Kelvim Escobar’s really seriously hurt, it won’t sink the Mets in 2010. He was slated to be a setup man, a guy who wouldn’t throw more than 70 innings anyway. I know we keep hearing “eighth inning, eighth inning, eighth inning,” like it’s some elusive and insurmountable hurdle, but A) there’s no rule that says a team should only have one eighth-inning guy and B) it shouldn’t be too hard to find that guy anyway.
It’s just bad news, is all, and a bad way to kick off what should be a beautiful, uplifting time: pitchers and catchers.
Tedquarters 
One thing I’d like to know is how the hell the Mets have a “limited payroll this offseason” especially after signing Bay to a backloaded deal. They should have had more flexibility this offseason. Considering that there’s not much money coming off next year I’d say that getting anyone out of that rich FA class next year may be difficult.
Hey Ted, re: Wang comment section . . . what did you teach, out of curiosity?
When I think back on it, tons of things, though I’m not actually a certified teacher. I worked in a high school for two years — first as a sub, then a special-ed inclusion TA, JV football coach and teaching after-school American history review classes to kids in danger of failing the Regents.
But on top of that, the resume includes:
– Community college writing workshops
– tutoring (way, way too many hours) for the SATs
– teaching SAT prep courses for a company in DC
– teaching summer-school music classes to elementary school kids (my first paying job ever)
I’m pretty sure there are a few former JV football players who read the blog, so maybe they can chime in on my skills. I’m pretty sure I was viewed as a nice guy who could easily be taken advantage of because he didn’t care enough to get kids in trouble.
That last sentence basically sums up my entire substitute teaching career.
Kelvim, you had a nice run, enjoy the 1.5. Maybe his injury will open the door for a guy like Everts to make the team. But I think by June Maine will be in the pen and Niese or Figgy or both will be in the rotation.
Yeah I wonder about Maine in the bullpen, too. Since his bugaboo has always been the stamina, on a very cursory level it seems like it might be a good fit. I imagine if Maine could add a couple of ticks to his fastball — as converted starters often do when they move to the pen — he could be pretty devastating.
Our bullpen is a complete joke.