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:
Read the story here:
Here’s how he showed up to accept his Scream Award on Saturday night:
No word on how he got through security wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
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.
Well that’s going to make it a lot more difficult for me to hate Louisville basketball, even as a fan and alumnus of a competing Big East school. If they called it the Taco Bell Yum! Center, I might have been forced to switch allegiances.
John’s from GiantsFootballBlog.com.
I have another managerial candidate for you: Tim Bogar. Here are his records from ’04-’07 in his four years as a Minor League manager; 41-26, 82-57, 87-55, 80-62. Finished first every season and was manger of the year three times. And that is the Astros and the Indians affiliates so not like he was managing all stars. Throw in the fact that he spent the last two years on the Red Sox staff and started his playing career as a Met and you got a candidate, no?
– Paul, via email.
Well there’s an interesting name. I liked Bogar when he was with the Mets, and I remember watching when he went 4-for-5 with two doubles and two home runs, the second of which was an inside-the-parker on which he injured his wrist, ending his season. I’ve always found it a little funny that Bogar probably would have been more lauded for that performance had he stopped at first on one of the doubles and stopped at third on the final home run, and would have reaped the added benefit of remaining uninjured to continue his rookie campaign.
Bogar interviewed for the Blue Jays’ manager position but is reportedly no longer a candidate for the job in Toronto. Like Paul wrote, he had a lot of success in the Minors. He earned league manager-of-the-year nods in three of his four seasons and was named the Eastern League’s “Best Manager Prospect” by Baseball America in 2006.
Bogar joined the Rays in 2008 in an interesting role: He served both as a coach and as a liaison between the scouting department and the club. He became Boston’s first-base coach before the 2009 campaign.
Obviously the next GM is the more pressing and more important hire, and I don’t know much about Bogar’s demeanor. But he seems to have a plenty lengthy resume, the existing Met connection and ties to a couple of well-run teams. So I think a good call by Paul.
Tedquarters 