I think it speaks to Favre’s legacy that the verb “to Brett Favre” no longer means, “to scramble around then chuck up a 50-yard interception to a defender that’s nowhere near any of your receivers downfield.” Now it either means “to pretend to retire then unretire” or “to text message photos of your junk.”
Two things you should read about closers: 1) Eno Sarris’ plan for how the Mets could use K-Rod effectively without having his $17.5 million option for 2012 vest.
2) Cliff Corcoran’s analysis of just how good Mariano Rivera has been compared to every other relief pitcher ever.
I’ve long held that the one-inning closer role should be retired with Rivera. The telling stat is this one: In the 20 years before Tony La Russa popularized the one-inning closer, teams entering the ninth inning with a lead won the same percentage of games as they did in the 20 years after. There has got to be a better way to construct a bullpen than wildly overpaying one guy to throw 60-some innings.
The Yankees announced that Luis Sojo is returning to fold as manager of their Single-A team in Tampa. This means that now Rancid’s “Ruby Soho” is stuck in my head, as happens every single time I hear the name “Luis Sojo.”
I’ve got Christmas shopping and an upcoming vacation on the mind, and I’m struggling a bit to come up with anything to write about. But I’m vain enough to reprint things I’ve already published, and I figured revisiting the year via a selection of my own Tweets would make for a decent year-in-review post. Problem is, I can’t find a way to see any Twitter before May 26. So indulge me in a partial year in Tweets:
May 26: Oh thank god. I was concerned Fernando Nieve wouldn’t get in this game. #youhavetwomopupguysforjustthissituation
June 1: I am embarrassed and terrified by how few of NY Mag’s 101 Best Sandwiches in NY I’ve had. Looks like I’ve got a long night ahead.
June 3: ROBBLE ROBBLE ROBBLE JIM JOYCE!
June 4: An A-ball team is now calling batting practice “hitting rehearsal” to avoid calling it “BP.” That’ll teach ’em.
June 7: Prediction: Some guys drafted tonight will turn out good and others will suck.
June 11: You can scold Lady Gaga for wearing a bikini bottom to the Mets game, but you’re just jealous she can get away with never wearing pants.
June 15: Painter Thomas Kinkade was arrested for DUI Friday on an idyllic cobblestone road by the charming old lighthouse at dusk.
June 18: Campbell’s is recalling 15 million pounds of SpaghettiO’s. In a related story, there are 15 million pounds of SpaghettiO’s.
June 24: Obviously Johan Santana sucks now because he had extramarital sex with a woman on a golf course eight months ago.
June 30: Me, after filming five intros: “Does being introduced as ‘Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner’ ever get old?” Kiner: “How could that ever get old?”
July 4: Jeff Francoeur, who has a .718 OPS, said all the Mets OFs deserve playing time upon Beltran’s return since none is “flat-out sucking.”
July 8: Funniest outcome: LeBron James announces he’s signing with Olympiacos then suffers career-threatening finger injury while flipping everyone off.
July 16: Source: The Yanks would like to have Joakim Soria, distinguising them from all those teams that would not like to have Joakim Soria.
July 20: When managing an MLB roster, the most important thing to know is never, ever risk losing Fernando Nieve on waivers. Too risky!
July 23: Jason Bay has struggled all season, presumably because of something Carlos Beltran did.
July 29: Source: Adam Dunn is lazy, but won’t DH because he hates baseball so much he wants to torment it with terrible defense.
Aug. 5: Are we discounting the possibility that Brett Favre’s photos were actually aimed for his wife and intercepted?
Aug. 6: Why do crappy baseball teams lack the confidence that the good ones have? The world may never know.
Aug. 9: According to Alex Cora, if a team is committed to winning now, it should hang on to Alex Cora.
Aug. 12: Heath Bell leads the National League in saves, but he’s dead last in old men beaten up.
Aug. 16: Jerseyites always get all dodgy when you ask them about Taylor Ham, a local meat product. Be honest, Jersey: Is it people?
Aug. 21: I saw Wyclef Jean in concert once. It was awful. I left thinking, “I hope that man is never a head of state.” #votepras
Aug. 25: Look I know Jeff Francoeur hasn’t had a hit in two months, but please, give him credit: He’s had some really long at-bats.
Aug. 31: Will the media hordes follow Jeff Francoeur and his pursuit of 100 home runs to Texas?
Sept. 1: Don’t forget: Tommy Hanson and his longtime family friends will deny it, but he’s totally cousins with the band Hanson.
Sept. 5: Mets steaming as clubhouse cancer Mike Pelfrey draws ire for fantasy football grandstanding. “Thinks he’s John Madden,” grumbles one.
Sept. 5: My biggest regret is that I lived nearly 30 years without knowing about the sandwich I just ate. Holy hell. Everything is different now.
Sept. 10: Carlos Beltran should not have torn Johan Santana’s left anterior shoulder capsule.
Sept. 13: Paraphrasing Daily News: Jets should not have objectified this extremely sexy bombshell reporter. WITH SEXY PHOTOS!
Sept. 15: Pretty sure every single person at Citi Field is on the line at Shake Shack.
Sept. 20: I’d like to score a role as the drunk in an action movie who sees something crazy then looks at his drink like, “whoa, that’s good stuff.”
Sept. 27: Jets overcome injuries, penalties, widespread charges of moral turpitude to beat Dolphins, 31-23.
Oct. 3: Not sure why people are so fired up about Dickey pitching here. Doesn’t crack the top 1000 dumbest Mets moves this season.
Oct. 6: I think maybe Cee Lo Green is going to unify the planet in utopian harmony the way we thought Wyld Stallyns would.
Oct. 9: Knowing that Mariano Rivera has been to Taco Bell is like knowing that the Beatles met Muhammad Ali. Historic confluence of awesome.
Oct. 13: An errant dart just struck an unopened soda can and sent a stream of ginger ale shooting across the office. It was awesome.
Oct. 16: Jeff Francoeur’s rocking a historically great 3:1 FA:PT in the ALCS. That’s feature articles:pitches taken.
Oct. 18: Fox vs. Cablevision is like the Yankees-Phillies World Series of corporate disputes.
Oct. 19: Listening to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver guarantees you’ll appreciate the broadcast you hear next. It’s like taking the donut off the bat.
Oct. 28: ALERT: Man in suit proceeding south on 5th ave. on a Segway.
Nov. 1: Will Tim Lincecum’s performance tonight help sway the vote on Prop 19?
Nov. 8: Even though the Giants debunked Moneyball, the Mets have hired Paul DePodesta.
Nov. 16: Charlie Samuels fired today? Dammit, I had Nov. 16 in the pool. Wait – noooooooo!
Nov. 17: It’s laughable that Bud Selig still thinks Abner Doubleday invented baseball. Everyone knows it was Wally Backman.
Nov. 21: Mets hire manager at 3 a.m. Pakistan Standard Time.
Nov. 22: It’s bizarre to me that many Mets fans who argued that Wally Backman has changed seem certain that Terry Collins cannot.
Nov. 28: What kind of party is it, exactly, that could prompt a man to defile the mashed potatoes?
Nov. 29: Apparently a WEEI caller today suggested that the Red Sox pay Derek Jeter $20 mil and bench him behind Marco Scutaro.
Dec. 3: In Colonial Williamsburg, everyone wore tight, tapered knickers and stayed ironically detached from the whole revolution thing.
Dec.6: OK Jets fans, this is awful. But we need to remember one thing: Tom Brady wears man-UGGs.
Dec. 7: Heard this: A mystery team has made a bid for an unspecified player. Terms not disclosed.
Dec. 9: To me, what the Mets are doing this offseason *is* exciting. Extremely so. I could hardly care less what makes headlines.
Dec. 13: Sandy Alderson is so much cooler than Mike Francesa.
Dec. 14: From the Internet today you’d get the impression that the Phillies won’t lose a single game in 2011. C’mon. They’ll lose at least 5.
Dec. 15: Most amazing thing about tonight’s Knicks game: I’ve now watched three straight Knicks games.
The Yanks are reportedly on the verge of signing Pedro Feliciano to a two-year, $8 million deal. Feliciano’s a Type B free agent, so he’ll net the Mets a delicious sandwich-round pick in the June draft.
With lots of ball-busting:
Look at that sprite. Here is a very smart man in a very stupid outfit:
The idea that New York would be especially bad for someone with Social Anxiety Disorder seems to me completely unfounded. Depression and anxiety are internal matters; they may be triggered to a greater or lesser extent by external factors, but an otherwise healthy isn’t likely to become clinically depressed because New York features a lot of media attention, while S.A.D. is a disorder precisely because its feelings of anxiety are not reflective of reality. Greinke might find New York stressful or he might not, might like it or not, but it’s unlikely that external factors would determine his mental health. I know plenty of people who deal with anxiety and depression and who find New York much easier to thrive in than their smaller hometowns.
Besides — though this may less true among athletes and sports fans than in the city’s larger culture — few places on earth are more accepting of psychiatry. Not to turn this post into a Woody Allen riff, but our shrink per capita ratio is off the charts, and New Yorkers talk about their therapists about as frequently as they discuss the weather (granted my view is probably a little warped from working in publishing and journalism, where psychotherapy is essentially mandatory).
Great points abound. Thanks to reports in the Daily News and elsewhere, I was operating under the assumption that Greinke wanted no part of pitching in New York. As Emma points out, that might very well be true, but it’s unfair for us to assume it’s the case just because he has suffered from social anxiety disorder.
Your move, Sandy Alderson.
With a 2010 salary of $11.5 million, Javier Vazquez qualified as a major disappointment this last season with the Yankees. However, the free agent didn’t have to wait too long to find a new home, as the 34-year-old righty starting pitcher has signed a one-year contract with the Marlins.
The contract will be worth $7 million, and comes with a full no-trade clause. It also has a built-in clause that the Marlins can’t offer Vazquez arbitration after the year, which will help to make him more desirable next winter. Vazquez is signing with Florida in large part so he can re-establish some of the value he lost with New York.
– Jeff Sullivan, SBNation.com.
OK, a couple of interesting things here. For one, I was hoping the Mets might make a run at Vazquez. Just based on the back of his baseball card alone he looks like a solid candidate to bounce back — last season was his first real clunker in years, plus he’s perpetually healthy. Also, pitching in the National League East — and in a pitcher’s park — would likely help him.
As Eric Simon pointed out, though, Vazquez’s average fastball velocity took a pretty steep hit last season, falling from 91.1 MPH in 2009 to 88.7. That’s a bit unnerving.
If Vazquez returns to anywhere near his 2009 form — or even his less-spectacular 2008 form — he should be worth way beyond the $7 million the Marlins will pay him. Pitchers that can reliably throw over 200 decent innings do not grow on trees.
But that he cost so much should be at least marginally interesting to Mets fans, since starting pitching seems like the team’s most obvious place for an upgrade this offseason. The innings-eater types — Vazquez, Jon Garland, Ted Lilly, Jake Westbrook, Hiroki Kuroda — have been flying off the shelves this offseason, and not exactly at discount prices.
If the reports about the Mets’ very-limited payroll flexibility are true, then it seems entirely possible they’ll be priced out of the mid-level starting pitcher market and enter 2011 without another reliable starter on the staff. By my count, the only non-Cliff Lee free agent starters who have proven capable of racking up lots of innings over the past few years are Carl Pavano, Kevin Millwood, Dave Bush and Braden Looper.
None of those options is particularly inspiring, for a variety of reasons. (Of course, for the same reasons, none besides Pavano seems likely to command that much money.) Perhaps one slips through the cracks and is available at a big discount later in the winter, but at this point, none seems like a big enough upgrade over Pat Misch and Dillon Gee to be worth paying him nearly all of the Mets’ offseason resources.
Right now, it appears as if the Mets’ best option will be to pick up a couple of upside guys coming off injuries. Joe Janish put together a good list of candidates at Mets Today over the weekend. At first look, lefties Jeremy Bonderman and Chris Capuano seem like decent options, though obviously the cost and the Mets’ scouting assessments are paramount.
The other part of Vazquez’s contract that’s of interest to Mets fans — and all fans, really — is the no-arbitration clause. That was presumably included so that if Vazquez does bounce back and becomes a Type A free agent next offseason, whatever team signs him next will not be forced to surrender a first-round pick to the Marlins. Carlos Beltran’s contract includes the same clause.
It stands to reason that the clause is a byproduct of the league-wide emphasis on the draft, and if that type of contract becomes a trend it will ultimately benefit a big-market club like the Mets. Since the Mets are likely to be big spenders again in the not-too-distant future, they will stand to gain from being able to pursue free agents without risking first-round draft picks.
Tedquarters 