This is the last of these, unless we find more original Kiner’s Korner footage. Incidentally, if you have any original Kiner’s Korner footage, please email me. We’ll send an intern to your house or something.
Cliff Lee was spectacular last night. As advertised, really. Master of puppets, pulling strings, twisting minds, smashing dreams, the whole thing.
It’s awesome to watch, especially when it happens on a big stage against an excellent Yankee lineup. But it still doesn’t mean the Mets should pursue Lee this offseason.
I’ve long held that signing Lee to a long-term, big-money deal would ultimately do the Mets more harm than good, seeing as he’s a 32-year-old pitcher likely to require a contract that takes him deep into his 30s. In the comments section here recently, though, Metropolyglot made a good point that made me briefly reconsider my position:
Lee is the best free agent pitcher available for quite awhile. Look around the league — teams have made a habit of locking up young elite pitchers (Jimenez, J. Johnson, Lincecum, Hernandez, Price). Furthermore, they’re all more or less signed to team-friendly deals. The only reasonable get is probably Zack Greinke and that’s not until 2013. If you’re serious about contending in 2012, you have to sign Cliff Lee, or prepare to rape the farm system.
It’s a reasonable thing to consider, especially with rumors spreading that Greinke wants a trade but no part of big-market baseball and word coming down that Yu Darvish is staying in Japan for now.
But I still say signing Lee — at least to the type of deal he’s expected to get — would amount to a mistake for a team with finite resources. The odds just seem so long that he’ll be worth anything like the type of money he’ll be earning three and four years into the new contract.
That means, like Metropolyglot suggests, that the Mets likely won’t be finding an ace on the open market for a reasonable cost anytime soon. To that I say a couple of things:
First, who knows what happens from here? It’s easy and reasonable to look around the league at all the great pitchers, see that they’re mostly locked up and conclude that the Mets will never have a great pitcher, but things change in weird ways all the time in baseball. Hell, look at Lee’s emergence in the 2008 season. Or, for a perhaps more reasonable, less miraculous-seeming example, look at the way Dan Haren became available at the deadline this year.
Second — and something that comes up here a lot — there’s no hard and fast rule that you need a true, branded ace to contend. Don’t get me wrong: It helps. Having great players is an excellent step toward having a great team. But a strong, deep pitching staff combined with a potent lineup can make a pennant run too. Plus there’s enough regular fluctuation in baseball that if you have a few good, healthy pitchers in your rotation there’s some reasonable chance one can pitch like an ace over the course of 32 games.
And the best way to find an ace is still to develop one. Right now Jenrry Mejia appears to be the Mets’ best shot at one — and that’s at least a couple of years down the road. Plus I suppose there’s some chance Jon Niese goes all Cliff Lee and turns into an ace.
But investing in scouting, overslot draft picks and international free agents would go a long way to assuring that the Mets find a frontline starter eventually, or at least the right pieces to trade for one.
Jeff Francoeur beat out an infield hit last night, and you know what that means: No. 7! A pretty standard roundup of Frenchy fare from the Journal News, my local paper.
Keep in mind that for the purposes of the Frenchy Tracker, we’re only counting stories about Francoeur in New York-area newspapers, though I am trying to keep track of all the Internet features and Dallas-area newspaper interviews as well.
I’m actually a little disappointed that the New York papers didn’t seize Franceour’s gritty hit as a way to push the needle up toward pre-series the over-under of 20, and that goal is now looking a bit long. But I suppose Francoeur could get a big hit or make a big play or say something hilarious about football after his Game 5 start to garner a lot of attention.
Also, I’d be a poor Frenchy ombudsman if I didn’t mention this appearance on this network’s Wheelhouse last night, meaning he can boast at least as many appearances on SNY as hits thus far in the ALCS. And to Francoeur’s credit, he’s characteristically charming:
If so, come hang out at the Village Pourhouse at 64 3rd Ave. in Manhattan on Wednesday to join me and Toby Hyde as we watch playoff baseball and enjoy beverages.
And even if you don’t like beer, come down anyway. It’s a reasonably accessible location and there are a ton of huge TVs.
Toby says he’ll be there by 4 p.m. for the start of the Yankee game. I’ll likely join him around 5 or so because I have work and stuff, and I imagine I’ll be there at least until the second game stops being interesting.
Two more Jeff Francoeur stories in area papers, bringing the total to six thus far. If you’re playing at home, that’s three articles for every plate appearance Frenchy’s had in the ALCS, and nearly an article per pitch he’s seen. Even in a rough outing, it took CC Sabathia all of seven pitches to retire Francoeur twice last night. Frenchy swung at five of them.
Kudos should to go Andy McCullough of the Star-Ledger for turning in a balanced Francoeur feature, one that, after swipes at the Mets, mentions Francoeur’s petulance upon losing his job in Flushing and success in a diminished role in Arlington.
The second Francoeur feature comes from Mike Sielksi of the Wall Street Journal, he of the memorable “No Cameras for Francoeur’s Milestone” piece which some have claimed was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. This Francoeur piece is straightforward and rather damning. Sielski calls Francoeur a role player — rightly — and writes that “he needs to understand and acknowledge it.”
But best of all, Sielski includes this stunning tidbit:
Even then, though, Mr. Francoeur couldn’t contain his delusions of grandeur when it came to the money he might command on the open market.
He isn’t eligible for free agency until after next season, but during a conversation before a game in Philadelphia, he referenced Jayson Werth, Ryan Howard and Joe Mauer—three of baseball’s elite players—in talking about the factors that might affect where he played in the years to come.
Wow.
The 1974 NHL Amateur Draft was an example of these tactics coming to a head. The draft was conducted ahead of schedule and via secret conference call in order to prevent leaks. The system, however, had a significant downside — it was tediously slow. And for the first time ever, an NHL team drafted a Japanese player. With the 183rd pick in the draft, George “Punch” Imlach, general manager of the Buffalo Sabres, announced his team’s selection: Taro Tsujimoto, the star center of the Tokyo Kitanas….
A few weeks into training camp, Tsujimoto had still not shown his face in Buffalo. Disgraced by the mocking? Visa troubles? Nope. Tsujimoto hadn’t arrived because Imlach had made him up; the byproduct of a bored general manager frustrated by the league’s cloak and dagger draft.
– Dan Lewis, Now I Know newsletter.
Cool. I think drafting fictional players and hyping them up is something I’d definitely be tempted to do if I were running a professional sports franchise. You need a good endgame, though, because otherwise you’re just going to end up with an empty roster.
Anyway, this tidbit from Lewis’ newsletter reminded me of a couple points: First, late in the 2010 season, Chan Ho Park earned his 124th win to pass Hideo Nomo as the winningest Asian-born pitcher. It’s weird; I think I’ve come to associate Park so closely with his big contract in Texas, his brutal one-start stint with the Mets and his diarrhea kerfuffle from earlier this season that I forget he was actually the first Major Leaguer in the recent wave of imports from the Far East. He actually tossed two innings at the beginning of the 1994 season, a full year before Nomomania set in.
Second, now seems like a good time to pop Lewis’ newsletter, which is awesome. It’s basically one random bit of trivia a day, and it’s a breeze to read. You can subscribe here.
Thanks to all those who hipped me to this New York Times piece, which contains the stunning realization that Jeff Francoeur has yet again found a magical adjustment in his approach that will catapult him into the ranks of the game’s elite hitters and doesn’t mention once that his inflated stats with the Rangers might have something to do with small sample size or enjoying a higher proportion of his at-bats against left-handers.
And thanks to Joe for the heads up on this New York Post feature, which keeps us abreast on the Rangers’ platoon right fielder’s relationship with the Mets’ most recent manager and general manager.
That puts the total at four so far and the ALCS games haven’t even started, so it’s looking good for all those who took the over on 20.
Also, no Francoeur updates yet that I know of from the Bergen Record or the Newark Star-Ledger, which is baffling. How will the people of New Jersey get their latest Jeff Francoeur news?
And don’t quote me on this, but I don’t think any enterprising reporter has yet thought to catch up with Darren Oliver on how he essentially turned his career around with the Mets, or with Darren O’Day on his brief, weird stint in Flushing.
Hat tip to Amber. New pitcher hates Daddy Yankee.
Today on Twitter, I set the over-under on Jeff Francoeur-themed sidebars in New York papers during the ALCS at 20.
So far we’re at two, this epic from the Daily News and this one I can’t read from Newsday.
I will try to stay vigilant, but I’d appreciate all the help I could get in monitoring this situation. So please, if you find a story about Jeff Francoeur in a local paper, please alert me via the comments section or the contact box at the above right.
But I’m not interested in stories that just quote Jeff Francoeur somewhere — that’s basically all of them; they have to be about Jeff Francoeur. Items in notebook/roundup pieces are fine as long as Francoeur gets his own dedicated subhead inside the article.
Why do I care? Because I’m a jackass, primarily. But also because I’m really, really interested in knowing how Jeff Francoeur feels about his first taste of the postseason in New York, what it’s like for him to be back here after leaving so recently, what he thinks about Cliff Lee, how he has fit into the Rangers’ clubhouse, his favorite places to eat in New York, and something about his dogs.
Very quotable episode. Best I’ve seen in a while, though I haven’t watched The Simpsons regularly in ten years.
Tedquarters 