Oh, right: Hurricane afoot, Giants win World Series
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Lost in all the Melky Cabrera talk this morning was the news that the Giants swept the Tigers in the World Series and a massive, massively hyped hurricane is advancing on the Tri-State area. Hope your hatches are battened down. Here’s what the Giants looked like:
Our mayor recommends you stay inside and have a sandwich.
Melky Cabrera: Why not?
Cabrera not only failed a drug test, at least one associate tried to create a fake website for a supplement company to contrive a cover story that Cabrera’s positive results were from a tainted supplement. So teams definitely will investigate him in a significant way. Still, morality will not stand in the way of most clubs adding offense, especially if the offense is a bargain.
After the All-Star Game, there was talk Cabrera, a 28-year-old switch-hitter, would command a five-year contract worth as much as $75 million, maybe more. But in the group of executives with whom I spoke, one thought Cabrera could get two years at $10 million to $12 million, another said one year at $8 million to $10 million. But the large majority saw Cabrera having to take a one-year deal in the $2 million-to-$5 million range. He will have to use 2013 as a forum to prove he is a quality player.
Well, presumably you know why not: Cabrera tested positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs in 2012, then had someone set up that fake supplement company. If those are the types of behaviors that could forever prevent you from wanting to watch a guy play baseball, that’s your right, but there’s nothing for you below.
My sense of right and wrong often extends right up to what the Mets need to do to win more games. And while I think breaking the rules of a sport to be better at it (and make more money in it) certainly falls on the darker side of the moral grayscale, it’s a decision I am apparently willing to abide — especially in cases like Melky’s, since he served his league-mandated punishment and will now be financially penalized, as Sherman’s article notes. Plus, I have no idea how other free-agent outfielders spend their free time, so I can’t even say for certain that Melky’s indiscretions are in any way more depraved than the daily endeavors of Cody Ross. I try not to use ballplayers as compasses for anything other than how to play ball. Cabrera’s decision seems like a stupid one, but it’s hard to even say that for sure without knowing how many guys get away with the same.
And if you look at the stats on baseball players suspended for steroid use, it’s hard to discern any atypical pattern of decline after a player’s been caught and (presumably) stopped juicing. (That could mean they just took up steroids again, of course.) Cabrera’s offensive explosion in 2011 may look a bit suspicious with the information we now have, but also came in his age-26 season — an age at which he should be expected to improve. His inflated batting average in 2012 seems to have come more from a flukishly high batting average on balls in play than from a needle, and Cabrera likely won’t repeat that. But even if he regresses to his 2011 totals, he’d be a steal at less than $5 million for one year.
The Mets need outfielders, you’ll remember, and they’re not going to have a lot of money to spend pursuing them. Dumpster diving requires some open-mindedness. Cabrera hits from both sides of the plate with no massive platoon split and can capably field a corner.
The biggest concerns with Cabrera, as far as I can see, are that on a one-year deal he wouldn’t doing anything to help the Mets’ future and that he doesn’t walk enough. The former might even be worth addressing with a club option for 2014 — even if it meant a slightly higher guaranteed salary in 2013. The latter means he could be in for a long season if his BABIP normalizes, a problem that would inevitably be made all the more frustrating when it was chalked up to his lack of steroids. But if Dave Hudgens could help Ronny Cedeno to a serviceable on-base percentage than there’s probably no task too great, and it’s not like the Mets can afford to be too choosy right now.
Friday Q&A, pt. 2: Food stuff and randos
https://twitter.com/_houses/status/261825514224881664
Well, I’ve traveled to 41 of the 50 states and enjoyed barbecue in many of them, including Missouri, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas. Sample-size caveats obviously apply: I’ve only sampled barbecue from a couple of places in most of the heralded barbecue hotspots.
But at the same time, I’ve done plenty of barbecue experimentation myself in my home smoker and enough exploration of New York City’s ample barbecue circuit to assert with some confidence that Kansas City offers this nation’s preeminent barbecue style. That’s not to say delicious barbecue cannot be found elsewhere, of course, but Kansas City’s focus on pork and its sauce’s blend of sweet, spicy and tangy flavor make that city’s version the best. It’s also the standard when we think of typical barbecue, but some things become standard for good reasons.
Fun-sized Twix bars. Here at the office, we have free snacks in the kitchen area, including fun-sized candy bars. Whenever it’s restocked, the candy disappears in this order: Twix, then Butterfinger, then Snickers, then Milky Way, then Three Musketeers. (The Starbursts go: red then pink then orange, and then there’s always a big pile of yellow still leftover by the next time they’re restocked.)
So based on that research, I’d say Twix bars will most satisfy your trick-or-treaters. Also, based on empirical evidence, they are delicious. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are also cool.
https://twitter.com/ryankelly/status/261828678701436928
Honestly, I don’t love Tabasco. I prefer a saucier hot sauce like Cholula, Sriracha or Frank’s. But because I generally employ hot sauce when it’s made available to me, I’ve sampled every variety of Tabasco except their Buffalo and Sweet and Spicy flavors. Off the top of my head, I’d rank them as follows: Chipotle, Habanero, Green Jalapeno, Garlic Pepper, Traditional.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t know that anyone has yet truly nailed the Garlic-Pepper sauce, a shame because it’d be crazy useful if someone could.
Oddly, my wife might be the only person I’ve ever known who does not seem to think I’m that weird. Maybe she’s just too used to me by now. But I mentioned a few weeks ago in conversation how people usually think I’m a pretty weird guy, and she seemed absolutely baffled by it. I think I look pretty normal, so perhaps that throws her. I don’t know; it’s not like I’m trying to be weird.
As for the Taco Bell and the sandwiches: She tolerates the former and appreciates the latter. She’ll go for a Cheesy Gordita Crunch now and then but she doesn’t love Taco Bell in the same giddy way I do. But she frequently benefits from my sandwich experimentation and exploration in the kitchen and around the city, so she’s fully on board with that. She even knew me in my deli-man days, and I’m fairly certain I finally won her over on the strength of my sandwiches. I made really good sandwiches.
https://twitter.com/bagelsNrahtz/status/261847519473061889
Milanos, obviously.
https://twitter.com/JeffSposato/status/261869316406915072
Oddly, I no longer listen to most of the bands I listened to in the 90s, and many of the bands I do listen to now were active in the 90s but not particularly popular then. So for their popularity during the decade, their close association with the music of the decade, the way their music from that decade has held up over time, and their general awesomeness, I’m going with Soundgarden. And for a variety of reasons, I’m choosing to ignore that Soundgarden recently got back together and made an album. Lalalala, I can’t hear you, etc.
It’s funny to me, in retrospect, how I sort of lumped all grunge-rock together at the time when now I listen to it and all the bands sound so completely different. I guess it was a scene, and they all wore plaid shirts and ripped jeans and everything. Anyway, Soundgarden ruled. And look at how thoroughly 90s-ish this video was:
Phil Coke on striking out Miguel Cabrera
Phil Coke is funny. Via Dustin Parkes:
Friday Q&A, pt. 1: Mets stuff
https://twitter.com/RayBendici/status/261826033974652928
You know, Cousin Ray? That’s a good question, and one I hadn’t really considered. And I suppose we’re not counting Todd Hundley and Howard Johnson as outfielders here, for obvious reasons.
I suspect it’s a combination of some bad luck and the rarity of power-hitting outfielders as good as Darryl Strawberry. In the time since the Mets started playing in 1962, the Braves have developed two outfielders who hit more home runs for them than Strawberry did for the Mets: Andruw Jones and Dale Murphy (though some dude named Hank Aaron was already playing for the Braves in 1962 and hit 480 homers for them from that date forward). Pat Burrell finished his Phillies career with 251 home runs, one short of Straw’s total with the Mets and in a better offensive era.
No outfielder — and no one at all — in the history of the Nationals/Expos or the Marlins franchises has hit as many home runs for the club as Strawberry did for the Mets. Andre Dawson and Vlad Guerrero both finished about one strong season shy of the Straw Man, though, and certainly Giancarlo Stanton and Bryce Harper appear to be on promising trajectories.
That’s just in the division, though, and the Mets don’t ever seem to benefit from the services of in-house power-hitting outfielders of the Geoff Jenkins and Bobby Higginson ilk, who come up through their system, mash some dingers for a while then fade into the ether. And in the rare instance they do have one of those guys, it seems they tend to trade him away before he does the bulk of his Major League damage.
Near as I can tell, the best power-hitting outfielders the Mets have developed besides Strawberry have been Jeromy Burnitz, Kevin Mitchell and the criminally underrated Ken Singleton. Those three totaled 38 home runs in their first stints with the Mets (Burnitz added 37 more in his second go-round) and hit 720 of them for other teams.
So I guess I’d blame it on some bad luck, some bad choices, a lot of reliance on free-agency once the free-agency era began, and Dallas Green.
https://twitter.com/CatsmeatP_P/status/261827976902103042
This question came up in many different forms, so I’m using our man Catsmeat’s to stand in for all of them because I know for a fact he’s a dedicated Taco Bell lover. And yes, of course it does.
The Mets’ trade of Pagan for Ramon Ramirez and Andres Torres looks pretty awful in retrospect. And for all you’ll read about why it had to be done, fact is — as Patrick Flood pointed out on the podcast yesterday — Pagan suffered a career-low batting average on balls in play in 2011. So did Andres Torres, though, and Torres repeated his low mark in 2012. Plus I don’t think anyone could have expected Ramon Ramirez to struggle like he did.
Anyway, since Pagan would pretty demonstrably not have made the difference for the Mets in 2012 and would now be headed for free agency anyway, I’ll call the deal a net positive for humanity because it ultimately earned us all free tacos. I preferred the promotion when it promised regular Crunchy Tacos, the Doritos Locos Taco’s superior ancestor, but I’ll take any free taco I can get. See you guys at Taco Bell next week.
Damned if I know. Mookie apparently admits he wouldn’t have, and I defer to Mookie always. Maybe if Buckner gets the ball and charges toward the bag, Mookie hesitates at the sight of the lumbering first baseman and twists his ankle. Maybe the Mets win in some equally crazy way in the 12th or the 17th and we have some other great story to tell. Maybe Mookie beats Buckner to the bag and Ray Knight goes too far rounding third and gets thrown out in a rundown. Maybe the top of the 11th was when Suspect Zero planned the FlashForward. What happened, happened, and what happened was awesome. I only wish I was old enough to be conscious of how awesome it was.
For your evening entertainment
Check this out: There’s a railroad overpass in Durham, N.C. that’s just a couple of inches too short for many trucks to clear. The city installed a bunch of signs and flashing lights to warn drivers of the low clearance, but still about one truck a month gets the top of its trailer sliced off by the bridge. Obviously it’s awful for the truck drivers, even if they should have been paying closer attention.
A local filmmaker named Jürgen Henn has spent the last five years documenting the crashes and posting them to his YouTube channel. Now, someone set them to the Rocky theme, and it’s spectacular.
Mostly Mets Podcast presented by Caesars A.C.
With Toby and Patrick:
On iTunes here.
Neil Young FTW
Let’s (not really) make a deal!
‘Tis the season for reckless speculation. Why fight it?
I’ve been plumbing the pages of MLBDepthCharts.com looking for good potential trade partners for the Mets this offseason. The Mets, we know, need position players — especially outfielders. They have some depth in the starting rotation which, while inherently tenuous, likely represents their greatest strength from which to deal.
Let’s start with the obvious: Johan Santana’s contract and recent injury history probably makes him more or less immovable. Perhaps the Mets could find some team willing to take on his salary for the sake of freeing up some payroll, but it’s doubtful they could do so in a way that would immediately make them appreciably better. Dillon Gee, coming off a season-ending injury, doesn’t seem a good candidate for trade either. And I don’t think any human Mets fan could stomach the idea of trading Matt Harvey after what Harvey did in the second half of 2012. Plus Harvey, as a pitcher who could potentially front the Mets’ rotation a couple years down the road, represents the type of player the Mets in their current situation should be bringing in, not sending away.
The same goes to some extent for Jon Niese, a young lefty who pitched well in 2012 and who is signed to a team-friendly deal through 2016 with options for 2017 and 2018. Niese’s name has come up — and will continue to come up — in trade speculation already this fall due to those qualities; he might be the Met who could return the most from a partner. But with the Mets appearing unlikely to contend in 2013 and Niese likely to contribute to whatever team he’s on in 2014 and 2015, he, too, could make an important part of the Mets’ next competitive team.
R.A. Dickey’s situation is less clear. He’ll turn 38 next week, and though many knuckleballers enjoy success well into their 40s, Dickey is not like many knuckleballers. Plus, he’s only under the Mets’ control for one more season, through a very inexpensive $5 million option for his services 2013. And Dickey, you know, is coming off a career year that might net him the NL Cy Young Award. The Mets could try to lock him up for the next several years with an extension, but doing so will be expensive and will come with a significant amount of risk.
Now, look: No one is saying the Mets should trade Dickey for the sake of trading Dickey, least of all me. But if the Mets want to trade from a position of strength to address a weakness and build for the future, he might be the most logical guy to deal. Though due to his age and contract status he’s not likely to bring back as much as Niese, he’s for the same reasons not as likely to continue contributing to the Mets as efficiently — on a price-per-win basis, at least — as Niese moving forward. And Dickey, on the strength of his awesome 2012 season, should look pretty tempting to a team that feels it is one excellent pitcher away from a postseason run in 2013.
Which brings me to the Los Angeles Angels, who finished four games out of the AL Wild Card in 2012. Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson will return to Of Anaheim in 2013, but Zack Greinke is set for free agency and the Angels are expected to buy out 2013 options on Dan Haren and Ervin Santana.
To boot, the Angels have a couple of players that might be expendable that the Mets could definitely use. Owner Arte Moreno has said he’d like to bring back Torii Hunter, which would give the club a very crowded outfield mix. In 2012, due to the presence of Hunter, Mark Trumbo and the unspeakably awesome Mike Trout, young Peter Bourjos was relegated to a part-time role for the first time in his professional career. Bourjos struggled, posting a .606 OPS in 195 plate appearances. But Bourjos is by all accounts one of the best defensive center fielders in the game. He’ll be 26 by Opening Day, he’s locked up through arbitration for the next four seasons, and he enjoyed a strong season as the Angels’ everyday center fielder in 2011. Plus he hits right-handed, as almost none of the Mets’ in-house outfielders not named Jason Bay do.
Shortly after the season, the Angels signed catcher Chris Iannetta to a three-year contract extension. Though the deal is hardly expensive enough to prohibit the Angels from using other catchers, and though they lost backup Bobby Wilson on waivers to the Blue Jays shortly thereafter, if Iannetta’s deal signifies the club’s commitment to the backstop, it could free up former prospect Hank Conger for a trade. Conger, who’ll turn 25 in January, has not hit at all in 252 Major League plate appearances across the last three seasons and suffered through some injury woes in 2012. But beyond his prospect pedigree, Conger bats from both sides of the plate and has always hit well in the Minors.
Tell me if this sounds ridiculous — and keep in mind that it’s early, both in the day and in the offseason: How about R.A. Dickey and Josh Thole for Peter Bourjos and Hank Conger? Would the Mets do that? Would the Angels?
The way I see it, the Mets get weaker in the starting rotation, but gain a righty-hitting starting center fielder and a switch-hitting potential starting catcher that are both under team control through the 2016 season. The Angels add an excellent pitcher to their depleted rotation at a discounted price, plus a lefty-hitting backup to Iannetta that can catch the knuckleball.
And not for nothing, since both Bourjos and Conger are set to make the league minimum and Thole will be eligible for arbitration, the trade would free up enough cash for the Mets to sign a righty-hitting catcher to share time with and act as a hedge for Conger (a Kelly Shoppach type, if not Shoppach himself) and Mike Pelfrey to eat up some of Dickey’s innings (albeit not as well) once he returns from injury in May.
What do you think?
And now, more importantly, try to take off your Mets hat and think like an Angels fan for a moment. Keep in mind that both Bourjos and Conger should have value to a lot of teams on the trade market, not just the Mets.
Tedquarters 