So generally, nerdy baseball fans like me put Rangers GM Jon Daniels on the type of pedestal reserved for gentlemen like Theo Epstein and Billy Beane and Brian Cashman. One of us, we say, and we defend even his questionable moves.
His acquisition of Jeff Francoeur, even, is defensible. Through Frenchy was the worst regular right fielder in baseball, Daniels doesn’t intend to use him as an everyday right fielder, which cuts to the core of the difference between the Rangers and Mets. I’m not convinced Frenchy is the absolute best right-handed bench bat out there, but he’s got some value in that role. Just like Alex Cora’s got some value as a scrap-heap middle infield contingency plan, and decidedly not as a multi-million dollar free-agent signing.
But I will also allow another possibility: Daniels grew up a Mets fan in Queens. So I’m open to the slim chance that he manages his Rangers like a business but still secretly roots for the Mets like a WFAN-calling, David Wright-booing fan who worships Cora’s leadership and thinks Frenchy’s got all the potential in the world and is finally going to turn it around soon now that he’s got a new approach.
So when he is faced with the opportunity to acquire one of those players, he is unable to suppress the Mets fan inside. He saddles his team with Alex Cora and Jeff Francoeur because he has spent the last two years convincing himself that they’re winning players, gritty hustlers who will lead the Mets to greatness.
The funny thing is the Mets somehow brought in a player that makes Frenchy look like Nick Johnson, but at least he’s a middle infielder.
They also called up Lucas Duda and Jenrry Mejia today, so that means there’s more roster shuffling to come. I imagine the Luis Hernandez Era in Flushing is over (note: see update), but some pitcher’s got to go. Pat Misch is losing his spot in the rotation so he seems a likely candidate. Obviously it should be Oliver Perez, but that would be too much happy news in one day. Got to space it out so Twitter doesn’t erupt.
Hopefully Jerry Manuel gives Duda a chance to show what his ridiculous Triple-A performance was all about. Apparently he’s not much of an outfielder, but if he can put up the .880 OPS his Major League equivalency suggests, then he’s a massive improvement over Frenchy even if he’s Benny Agbayani out there. I assume Angel Pagan will play right field mostly the rest of the way with Duda and Chris Carter splitting time in left, but then guessing how Jerry Manuel is going to divvy up playing time is a fool’s errand.
As for Frenchy, well, I wish I could say he will be missed. Like I said earlier, the whole thing was just growing tiresome in every way. It wasn’t even fun to troll Francoeur fans anymore. Here’s hoping he comes to accept his role as a righty bench bat and fourth outfielder. And hey, maybe if he keeps working on his plate discipline every single offseason, it will click one of these years.
He does seem like a damn decent dude, for what it’s worth, and there’s obviously a reason the beat writers are so enamored of him. Of course, the whole “team guy” thing doesn’t really hold up when you start making play-me-or-trade-me demands despite being the worst regular right fielder in baseball. But I imagine I will find him much more entertaining to watch now that he’s not playing for the team I want to win.
UPDATE: I didn’t realize it’s September already. Good call by garik16 below — Luis Hernandez doesn’t have to go anywhere, nor do any pitchers.
There’s at least a chance Jeff Francoeur could be spending his last day as a New York Met.
Two MLB sources told ESPNNewYork.com that the Texas Rangers are looking for a right-handed-hitting outfielder for the bench and are considering Francoeur.
“His name has definitely been talked about,” one source said.
Wait, you mean considering him, like, unironically? His name has been “talked about” and not talked about like, “Let’s get a right-handed hitting outfielder but definitely not Jeff Francoeur”?
In all seriousness — and as I’ve mentioned here before — if you wanted Frenchy to use him exclusively as a righty bench bat and replacement outifelder, meaning he’d never face right-handed pitchers, he wouldn’t be the worst choice in the world. He has a career .820 OPS against southpaws and a .767 mark this season.
I hope it happens. I’d like to see some fresh blood in the outfield, and I’ve grown sick of the whole Francoeur thing. I’m basically mailing in my Francoeur jokes at this point. It’s just tiresome.
The discoverers reported on Monday that the dinosaur, the size of a gigantic turkey, was a meat-eating creature that lived more than 65 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period. They named it Balaur bondoc, which means “stocky dragon.”
Romanian scientists and other experts said that Balaur is the first reasonably complete skeleton of a predatory dinosaur from Europe at that time. Of perhaps surpassing importance, they said, the discovery may provide insights into the development of dinosaurs and other animals in a long-ago European ecosystem much different from that of today.
OK first of all, it’s funny to say something is “about the size of a gigantic turkey.” Why not say it’s the size of a small rhea or a tiny ostrich or a freakishly large chicken?
Second, it’s described as something of “a kickboxer” later in the article, so it’s good to know there was European precedent for Jean Claude Van Damme.
The dinosaur scientists maintain that this is a new breed of predator, different from any they have previously identified, but then they’re probably reserving the right to do a complete 180 and announce that this is discovery is complete B.S. and the Balaur bondoc is exactly the same as some other dinosaur we’ve already known about for years, because that’s something dinosaur scientists do sometimes.
They’re also using the discovery to make reasonably interesting extrapolations about dinosaur evolution in isolation, but those seem like pretty bold claims considering how much we all know about how little we really know about dinosaurs.
And I mean no disrespect, dinosaur scientists. Seriously. But make with the cloning or stop acting like you’ve got dinosaurs all figured out.
Man, this gets my ire up. You know what I’d like, just once? I’d like to root for a team that doesn’t worry about what type of market it’s in and instead concerns itself only with putting together a winning ballclub.
I wish I could run an experiment. Me and another GM get identical teams in identical cities with identical situations. The other GM has to worry about selling tickets in the particular market, pleasing the press and appeasing the offseason whims of the fan base. Me, I just focus on putting the best possible baseball team on the field.
Who do you think sells more tickets in the end? Whose network gets better ratings? Whose ballpark ads yield more money? Which GM then has more revenue to invest back in the team, in free agents, the farm system, the draft and international scouting?
So Jenrry Mejia went ahead and had his way with the Syracuse Chiefs last night, allowing five hits, one run and one walk and whiffing nine over eight innings. Apparently he yielded mostly ground balls, too, like he did in most of his starts in Binghamton. Electric stuff, they say.
And word is the Mets are thinking of calling him up to start Saturday’s game in Chicago, which I will be attending. So that’s awesome.
Let’s put aside for a moment the silly bullpen experiment that nearly everyone on the Internet knew was a terrible idea from the outset and instead think of how much brighter the future will look if the Mets get a few decent starts out of Mejia in the waning days of this weird, crummy and often stupid season.
And then let’s stop, take a deep breath and remember that Mejia’s still a baby in baseball terms, and that entering 2011 counting on him as a member of the rotation — no matter how well he performs in an audition this year — with no contingency plan would be foolhardy.
I’m getting ahead of myself. This is really an offseason concern. But then there’s not much left to talk about outside of the Mets’ epic middling. So here’s this: Regardless of what happens in September the Mets would be wise to bring in a solid starter in the winter.
I’ve still got my concerns over whether Mejia’s ready for Major League competition, and no 35 1/3 Minor League innings and four or five September starts are likely to change that.
And it seems like the Mets might be best served bringing him along slowly at first next year in Triple-A, giving him more time to hone his secondary offerings and limiting his innings, then unleashing him on the big leagues midseason or something. I don’t know; I’m no expert and I kind of hope he proves me wrong because as a fan I’m excited as anything for him. But I’m trying to remain patient.
I don’t think there’s any particular harm in a September audition, mind you, and I’m obviously interested to see how Mejia performs. I just don’t think it’ll be enough of a sample to show us anything meaningful.
I hoped to write a cohesive review of The Expendables today but I got real busy. Plus I realized it would be more in keeping with the film, thematically, to haphazardly list all the points I want to make — with bullets, no less — rather than try to carefully make sense of them all. So here we go:
• For some reason, I thought this was going to be a sort of meta action film, like in the way Zombieland was a zombie movie or even the way Drag Me To Hell was a horror movie. It wasn’t. It was wholly unironic.
I really appreciated both those movies, the way they both toyed with their genre conventions but still played up their best points, but I also very much respected that The Expendables just all out went for it. It was like Sylvester Stallone was bellowing, “Film is not dead!” Except you couldn’t really make out what he was saying, because, well, you know.
• My main concern was that there wouldn’t be enough Jason Statham. I’ve got all the respect in the world for Sylvester Stallone but I don’t want to sit through two hours of an old-ass man pretending he can still kick ass like Jason Statham can. No offense, dad. Luckily, there was sufficient Statham.
• Someone is going to write an awesome college paper someday about the way video games have influenced film. Aw, what am I talking about? Probably that college paper has already been written millions of times. I feel like Statham movies in particular tend to draw on video games, but I guess most modern action movies do. Anyway, there’s a lot of BFG action in this movie.
• About 45 minutes deep, I grew really concerned that there would be way too much talking in the movie. I thought, man, it’s about time Jason Statham threw a knife in someone’s head. And then, sure enough, Jason Statham threw a knife in someone’s head and from there on out it was pretty much awesome.
• But I should make this clear: This movie wasn’t just about a team of mercenaries with an arsenal of amazing weapons overthrowing the government of a small Caribbean island nation. It was about salvaging the last surviving vestiges of Sylvester Stallone’s battered soul so he wouldn’t go dead inside like Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eric Roberts all did. Apparently in The Expendables‘ world there’s some dimmer switch on every man’s soul that only women have access to, and once it goes all the way off it can never come back on.
• Jet Li is getting old. Turns out he’s 48. He was mostly used for comic relief in this movie, which was sad considering all the awesome things I’ve seen Jet Li do.
• Put The Expendables down on the list with every other movie ever made (except possibly Idiocracy) under the heading “Films that have underutilized Terry Crews.”
Don’t get me wrong, Crews was awesome in The Expendables, but there should have been way more of him. This man is a towering talent who needs a better vehicle. I’m not kidding. I watched every episode of Everybody Hates Chris only because of how amazing he was in it. He took a mediocre sitcom, put it on his giant shoulders and carried it into hilarity.
I feel like because he’s a huge, jacked black guy, Crews is doomed to get typecast in Tommy “Tiny” Lister Jr. roles. But he is clearly capable of so much more than that. I would go see Eat Pray Love on opening night if Terry Crews played the romantic male lead. Or the Julia Roberts part. Whatever. Dude is unbelievable.
• Schwarzenegger’s cameo is awful. It’s during the boring, talking part of the movie, but even considering that it kills the whole pace of the thing. I mean screeching-halt bad. I guess it’s cool that the governor of California was in the movie, but he didn’t even kick any asses. I could’ve done without the whole part. Plus that was the only part of the movie that broke the fourth wall in the meta wink-wink way I referred to earlier, and it just came off as lame and forced.
An accomplished 13-year-old motorcycle racer died Sunday after he fell off his bike and was run over by another motorcycle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The racer, Peter Lenz of Vancouver, Wash., was pronounced dead by the Marion County coroner, who said Lenz had sustained “traumatic injuries.” Lenz crashed on a warm-up lap before his race and was struck by 12-year-old Xavier Zayat, who was uninjured.
Yikes. Look: I’m not one to make sweeping value judgments, especially when it comes to parenting. And any way you look at it, that’s an awful, awful tragedy.
But holy crap, what the hell? 13-year-olds and 12-year-olds racing motorcycles at 100 miles an hour? Who thinks that’s a good idea?
I’m sorry. Just… I’m sorry. The AP story mentions that the accident may “fuel a debate about how young is too young for racers to be competing,” and I’ll go ahead and say 12 is too young. Have you seen a 12-year-old lately? That’s a child.
And don’t get me wrong, I was doing plenty of stuff that put my life in danger when I was 12 — most of it involving fire. But that’s exactly the point: 12-year-olds have terrible judgment. If someone said to 12-year-old me, “hey kid, you wanna go race 100-mile-an-hour motorcycles?” I’d be all, “Hell yes I do!” Now, at 29, I’d think about it more.
Just seems like a situation where some responsible party has to step in. The state, the sport’s governing body, someone.
Terrible things happen all the time and no amount of governing will prevent every tragedy. But to me it seems like a good idea to at least take kids out of harm’s way.
1. Soak chicken in buttermilk
2. Dredge chicken in flour
3. Fry chicken
4. Eat chicken
Actually it wasn’t quite that simple — I added some herbs and spices to the buttermilk and the flour dredge because Colonel Sanders is a hero of mine. Plus I heated the oil a little high the first time through, which is why the wing (on the back part of the plate) appears a little burnt.
It was all pretty delicious, though. Plus I’m proud to be among the chicken-fryers. Living the suburbs and owning a smoker and deep fryer has really widened my array of things-I-can-do.
Blow up the team and start over. Forget about the Core Four. The core is rotten. Reyes keeps breaking down. Beltran has arthritic knees. David Wright hasn’t been right since he was beaned in the head last year, and he hasn’t ever truly gotten comfortable at Citi Field or stepped up as a vocal leader in the clubhouse.
You ask, “What will the Mets do about a power hitter and a major league quality shortstop?” How far has it gotten them in the last four years? What has this group done? Come up short in the NLCS, gotten overtaken with a seven-game lead in the division with 17 games to play, fallen out of the money for four straight years. The only untouchable — and that would be the case anyway because of his salary — is Santana.
OK, exhale. I’ve really been working hard — and succeeding, I think — to not make this site a Daily News watchdog blog. But upon receiving my third or fourth reader email from about this particular column this weekend, I figured I should tackle its thesis. Plus, this way I’ll have something in the bag to link to for the inevitable onslaught of “BLOW UP THE CORE” columns to come in the offseason.
Smith’s effort is more or less a compendium of the nonsense typically bandied about regarding the Mets, some of it accurate, some of less so. He writes that their front office seems to have no plan, which often appears true. He also blusters about players tossing Frisbees in the outfield before a game — precisely the type of thing that earns a winning team labels like “carefree” and “fun-loving,” and something plenty of teams do that seems like just as good a way to stretch out the legs as any.
Smith then asserts that the Mets cut Alex Cora for financial reasons rather than general scrubbiness, that Carlos Beltran and Luis Castillo ruined the clubhouse chemistry, and that — this is the best part — Francisco Rodriguez was reacting to the front office’s lack of strategy when he punched his girlfriend’s father in the face.
Finally he comes to the conclusion that it’s time to “forget about the Core Four.” This is fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the label “Core Four.” I thought that was a Yankee thing. Who knew? Apparently in the Mets’ case the Core Four I am to forget about refers to David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana.
The particular suggestion is problematic because it reflects something akin to an underpants-gnome approach to sports analysis. David Wright and Jose Reyes are the best players on the Mets this year. The Mets will not win a World Series this year. Thus, the Mets will not win a World Series with David Wright and Jose Reyes as their best players.
That’s perhaps an oversimplification, but the fundamental lapse in logic is the same.
The problem has never been that the Mets are building around “rotten” players, but that they’ve done a rotten job building around good players. The Mets have gotten the second-worst production in the National League out of their first basemen in 2010, the worst out of their second basemen and the worst out of their right fielders.
And you’re telling me the problems are with the guys that can actually play? The young guys under reasonable contracts, no less?
I’ve put aside Beltran for the sake of this argument because his situation is entirely different from Reyes’ and Wright’s. He’s older and he’s playing poorly, and he’s got a bone-on-bone condition in his knee that isn’t going anywhere and an $18.5 million deal for next season.
We’ve still only seen a very small sample of Beltran this season, and who knows what time, strength and more rehab will bring. But the Mets almost certainly will try to trade Beltran, very likely in vain, even if he’s got that whole no-trade thing. Arguing to trade him, though, is a very different thing than arguing to “blow up the core.”
Ugh. I don’t even know why I’m bothering with this. There’s really nothing more pointless than impassioned missives to trade players for the sake of trading them with no set target in mind. It’s the worst type of radio gaga, the type of nonsense I shouldn’t even indulge. Look: Trade Reyes for Felix Hernandez? Yeah, sign me up. That one probably isn’t on the table, though.
Here’s the thing: It’s really, really hard to win the World Series. It’s hard to make the playoffs even. I’m not saying the Mets do a good job of it, or even do a good job of working towards it.
But a great step in that direction — the best step, even — is having excellent players in their primes. That’s really the whole idea. Trading excellent players in their primes only because you’ve been thus far unable to capitalize on the primes of those excellent players is not a good way to run a baseball team. Decidedly not.
David Wright and Jose Reyes are excellent players in their primes. Trading them for other excellent players in their primes in the right deal might be reasonable.
Trading them for the sake of trading them would be stupid.
His acquisition of Jeff Francoeur, even, is defensible. Through Frenchy was the worst regular right fielder in baseball, Daniels doesn’t intend to use him as an everyday right fielder, which cuts to the core of the difference between the Rangers and Mets. I’m not convinced Frenchy is the absolute best right-handed bench bat out there, but he’s got some value in that role. Just like Alex Cora’s got some value as a scrap-heap middle infield contingency plan, and decidedly not as a multi-million dollar free-agent signing.
And word is the Mets are thinking of calling him up to start Saturday’s game in Chicago, which I will be attending. So that’s awesome.
• For some reason, I thought this was going to be a sort of meta action film, like in the way Zombieland was a zombie movie or even the way Drag Me To Hell was a horror movie. It wasn’t. It was wholly unironic.
re or less a compendium of the nonsense typically bandied about regarding the Mets, some of it accurate, some of less so. He writes that their front office seems to have no plan, which often appears true. He also blusters about players tossing Frisbees in the outfield before a game — precisely the type of thing that earns a winning team labels like “carefree” and “fun-loving,” and something plenty of teams do that seems like just as good a way to stretch out the legs as any.
Tedquarters 