Let's talk about the 2019 Mets: Buck Showalter, Joe Torre, Chili Davis, and Robinson Cano.

"Robinson Cano is 36 years old now and coming off a suspension that took half of a season away from him, damaged his reputation and effectively finished his career with the Seattle Mariners, who had once given him a 10-year contract worth $240 million. Now, he is back in New York, where it all began for him with the Yankees, playing second base for the Mets. Just by showing up, even at his age and even with what happened to him last year, it is worth noting that he is as good of a pure hitter as the Mets have ever had."

He's "pure," alright.

As the driven snow.


" 'Situational hitting,' is what Chili Davis calls it, and what Cano has always done with smart hitting his whole career, until he did so much dumb and lasting damage to his reputation last year."

What was that, Mr. Lupica?

What dumb thing did he do?

You still haven't mentioned what he was suspended for.

0-for-11 start for Gardner.

So much for the "prove his critics wrong out of the gate" narrative.

If a little league catcher said this, you would laugh.

" 'On that play, we were actually set to throw to third base," Sanchez said via the team’s Spanish translator. 'But the runner got a really big jump there and I noticed that the opportunity to make an out there, it was to go to second base. I’ve made that throw many times before. I felt that if I make an accurate throw we have a chance to get that guy out.

Unfortunately, I felt that I pulled on the ball a little bit and I bounced that throw.'
 

He took the blame.

'That’s my fault,' said Sanchez, who went 1-for-4 and nearly hit two home runs — one ball went foul, the other was a long fly out to center field."

Congrats on the warning track fly ball, though.

Ten Things

If all of these "key" things have to occur for the Yankees to win the World Series, then we can all delay ordering the ticker tape.

I am not a big fan of Boone.

"Look around the American League and tell me which projected playoff manager you’d take Boone over in an October series.

Boston’s Alex Cora? No way. Been there, done that.

Cleveland’s Terry Francona? The future Hall of Famer was out-managed by Boone’s predecessor, Joe Girardi, in 2017. It’ll be surprising if we can say the same about the current Yankees skipper this year.

Houston’s A.J. Hinch? No one would seriously take Boone over one of the best in the game right now.

Tampa Bay’s (my pick to get there as the second AL Wild Card) Kevin Cash? Watch the two teams play, and try to make a sound case for Boone."

I'm surprised Tampa is listed as a projected playoff team, but I suppose they are. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the AL has a lot of bad teams.

As for Boone, I guess I'm still a fan of Girardi. He may not cost the team a playoff series, but there's no reason to think he offers a competitive advantage.

I thought for sure it was the strikeout record. Or the GIDP record.

You know why nobody cares about this record?

The Yankees offense wasn't historically great by any means.

It was good, of course ... second in runs behind the Red Sox ... but we've seen 850 runs plenty of times before.

I love HRs. They're great. They're the best thing a batter can do. But they're not the only thing.

The Yankees were 7th in on-base%, 27th in stolen bases, twice as many strikeouts as walks.

So if they hit 300 HRs, 250 of them are Mark Teixeira solo jobs, and they can't hit with RISP, and every batter strikes out 150 times ... who cares?

Tyler Wade is fast and he's a good fielder.

His lifetime batting average in the major leagues is .161 in 124 at-bats.

He also doesn't hit very well in the minors.

So he had a good Spring Training and expected to make the squad.

But he didn't.

Why are we talking about Tyler Wade again?"

"He wasn’t the only one. Because there is no timeline for Hicks’ return at this point, Tauchman will make the Opening Day roster, which led to Tyler Wade being optioned to Triple-A. Wade was vocally upset Sunday. When asked if he was pissed off, Wade replied, 'very.' "

Boone said Monday he was not upset about Wade’s comments to the media Sunday.

'Guys are allowed to be upset, guys are allowed to be frustrated. If ever there is a point where it’s unhealthy or a distraction then conversations happen,' Boone said. 'But Tyler Wade came in here and I think continued to make strides in his game every which way and was probably set to make our roster. I get the disappointment, I get the frustration and that’s OK. I expect that. We’re playing for a lot. These guys put a lot into their craft. I am OK with that. Now channeling the frustration in the right way becomes very important.' "

In the micro-world of Yankee Opening Day Roster, this is what I predicted the whole time.

"First base (2): Greg Bird, Luke Voit
What changed? General manager Brian Cashman said earlier this month that he did not envision carrying both first basemen, but that was before Aaron Hicks' lingering lower back injury. Bird and Voit both had impactful springs at the plate, and both should see playing time in the early going, though Boone believes Bird has the defensive edge."

I think Voit might be a better defender.

I don't know why anyone thinks Bird is a better defender than Voit.

Bird may still mature into a good MLB player. He isn't yet. It just seems that he gets the benefit of the doubt because he looks like a good MLB player.

Frazier has not earned the benefit of the doubt.

"Frazier had a terrible spring, hitting just .130 with no homers and five RBI in 14 games. His 46 at-bats were tied for the most on the team with third baseman Miguel Andujar. He struck out 15 times and drew four walks."

His major league stats are no good.

His minor league stats are quite good.

No reason to give up on him, but also no reason to give him a roster spot.

His advisory role with the Yankees is no longer in effect? Huh.

Slow death during the metaphorical rebirth symbolized by Spring Training.

We all feel so past our prime. Thanks for reminding me, Mike Lupica:

"For this one season, even with a won-loss record of 10-9, deGrom was to Mets fans what Tom Seaver once was. In what became a lost season after the team's 11-1 start, deGrom felt like The Franchise. Because when deGrom had the ball last season, the Mets' season still mattered. He became one of 11 qualified starters in the last 100 years to have an ERA of 1.70 or lower. Since the mound was lowered by Major League Baseball in 1969, deGrom became one of just three pitchers -- Dwight Gooden and Zack Greinke were the others -- to have at least 30 starts and 210 innings pitched and have an ERA of 1.70 or lower.

In the end, deGrom would finish his dazzling season with 29 straight starts of giving up three earned runs or fewer. He finished the season with 24 straight quality starts. These are all numbers that give off a beam of light, and always will. Seaver and Gooden pitched like this for the Mets once."

We know. He won the Cy Young Award and everything.


“ 'Watching him last year was like watching Doc [Gooden] in ’85,' John Franco said at Roger Dean Stadium on Tuesday, watching deGrom begin to stretch himself out for his Opening Day start with five innings against the Marlins.

In 1985, of course, Gooden was 24-4 for the Mets, with an ERA of 1.53, and looked like a right-handed Sandy Koufax. But that Mets team, a year away from a World Series championship, chased the Cardinals in the National League East all the way to a rousing three-game series at old Busch Stadium in September. They had Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter and other young starters. The Mets had other young starters in 2018. Mostly all they had was deGrom."

Dwight Gooden?

Keith Hernandez?

Gary Carter?

Is this your annual Spring Training "NY is really a Mets town" article?


"Matt Harvey was supposed to be the next Seaver once. He was the Dark Knight of Gotham City. Then Noah Syndergaard, known as Thor, became the new comic book pitching hero. Syndergaard won more games than deGrom did last year, but deGrom was still the one. Every five days, he made you watch Mets games, and care, and showed you how much he cared even when his team couldn’t buy or steal him enough runs. deGrom beat out Max Scherzer for the NL Cy Young Award. He beat them all. He was that good."

Other than some typical examples dubious "supposed tos," there is nothing here that everyone doesn't already know.


"Franco is a Brooklyn kid. He was 9 years old when Seaver was 25-7 in 1969 and the Mets became the Miracle Mets. Franco grew up to become a closer for the Reds, and then with the Mets after that. Franco has always loved talking about pitching. Now here he was in a seat on the first-base side of Roger Dean Stadium watching deGrom work, on a day when he didn’t nearly have his best stuff but who was, when he was at his best, still something to see.

'He has it all and does it all,' Franco said. 'He comes at you with the same motion, and the same arm angle. He works both sides of the plate. He changes your eye angle when he wants to. And when he wants to dial it up in the high 90s, he dials it up. Watching him pitch like this is a beautiful thing.' "

Maybe Buck Showalter wasn't available to really get things cooking, but this is what we've gotten so far:

- Mike Lupica sat next to John Franco at a Spring Training game.

- John Franco is from Brooklyn.

- John Franco, along with every other person who follows baseball, thinks Jacob deGrom is a great pitcher.


Then the rest is a recap of a Spring Training game that no one cares about and in which deGrom didn't even pitch well.

So maybe this is worthy of a tweet? A 100 character limit post on Instagram?

Tebow is a brand.

He is not a professional athlete of any renown:

" 'Just so much more experience and opportunity to work every day,' Tebow said. 'And try to perform as well, but I think the learning aspect of it and being able to learn from all the players, from coaches and really take it as a huge opportunity to grow and get better.'
Tebow said he leaned on eight-time All-Star Robinson Cano and hitting coach Chili Davis throughout this year’s Mets camp. He enjoyed picking Cano’s brain and attempting to adapt the second baseman’s mindset."

Cano explained that, if you want success in MLB, you should take lots of PEDs.

I'm coming around to some of these ideas.

"The umpire will be assisted by a radar system that tracks where balls land in the strike zone. Baseball did not elaborate on how the system — called TrackMan — would be used, whether umpires could consult it if they chose, or whether it would overrule calls made by the umpires."

I like it. I'm tired of umps using balls and strikes to mete out justice; every 0-2 pitch is a ball; every 3-0 pitch is a strike.  

"No players or coaches will be allowed to visit the mound unless a pitching change is being made. This move would seem designed to speed games, which can be slowed by frequent conferences at the mound."

Candle sticks are always a good wedding gift, or you can check the registry.

"Pitchers will be required to face a minimum of three batters. This move, which has also been proposed for the major leagues, is designed to speed the game by reducing pitching changes, which have proliferated in the modern game."

I don't know about this one. Is this really designed to speed up the game? Or just to help the offense?

"Defensive shifts will be limited, as teams will be required to have two players on each side of second base. Many fans dislike the elaborate shifting that has come into play in recent years, feeling that infielders’ positioning has become too different from the traditional placements they are used to."

I'm starting to think this is a good idea, though the batters can still solve this problem themselves.

"Time between innings will be reduced to 1 minute 45 seconds from 2:05, another timesaving move."

Easy call. 

"The distance from the pitcher’s rubber to home plate will be increased to 62 feet 6 inches, a two-foot increase. Such a move would be an aid to batters, and would presumably cut down on strikeouts, which have drastically increased in recent years."

This seems nuts and quite possibly a cause of injuries and other unintended consequences.

 

"All the infield bases — first, second and third — will be increased in size, to 18 inches from 15 inches. A larger base would provide more room for both a fielder and a runner to have a part of the bag."

Very good idea.

Not even sure why runners need to touch first base at all. Just cross a line or something.

Another split squad Spring Training ace. For three whole innings.

I give him credit for being ... delusional in his optimistic evaluations of himself:

" 'They love sliders,' Gray sounded off to The Athletic about his Yankees tenure. 'Sliders are a great pitch. The numbers say slider is a good pitch, but you might not realize how many s----- counts you’re getting in while throwing all those sliders. They wanted me to be (Masahiro) Tanaka and I’m way different from him.

In my very last outing against the Red Sox, second-to-last game of the season in New York, I threw two innings out of the pen, all I did was throw cutters,' Gray added. 'I said, "F--- ’em, all I’m going to do is throw cutters today." I just threw 94-mph cutters. … [Pitched well, and] I thought maybe I’ll make the postseason roster here … but I didn’t.' "

It seems a platoon at first base is out.

The game has changed and this is a consequence of carrying 70 bullpen pitchers.

I'm buying it.

"Curry: I’m going to throw Greg Bird at you. … Watching Bird on a daily basis (at spring training), talking to Bird, I think there’s a little bit of a fire in his belly. I think he understands that there’s a competition now, and first base is not his. He’s going to have to win it, and then if he does win it, he’s going to have to continue to produce. … If Greg Bird could kind of be that X-factor, with their right-handed-dominant lineup, having another lefty hitter would be so important for them."

Look at Bird's 162-game average.

.214, 29 HRs, 89 RBIs.

He’s still young and inexpensive.

His injuries may have been holding him back.

So would you take .214, 29, 89? Strikes out too much, yes. Walks too little. Not a good fielder or runner. 

But he can’t platoon with Luke Voit? He can’t put a mistake by any pitcher into the RF porch?

Would you sign up for a prorated .214/29/89 from a platoon first baseman? So he’s not Keith Hernanez after all. He’s Oscar Gamble.

Spring Training. Great Stuff.

Didn't Greg Bird hit, like, .500 in Spring Training before the 2018 season?:

"Steven Matz looked like a pro in his second start of spring Monday, but his final pitching line wouldn’t show it. Matz allowed four earned runs on five hits (one home run) with two walks and two strikeouts over 2.2 innings during the Mets’ 9-3 loss to Boston."

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this could possibly mean.


"Matz said he wasn’t focusing on the box score and instead just wanted to perfect his curveball, which lost command on Monday. Several of Boston’s hits came on Matz’s 0-2 curveballs because he kept going back to the pitch throughout his outing."

Sounds like he perfected his curveball indeed. A regular Bert Blyleven over here.

"Callaway was impressed with Matz’s ability to make a mid-game change and slow it down on the mound.

'That's unbelievable,' Callaway said. 'He's growing up. He probably wouldn't of done that last year. He would've been worried about the result. Now he’s worried about getting better. Even though he gave up the 0-2 hits, so what. At least he was working on his craft and trying to get better.' "

"Wouldn't of." 

It's a subpar sportswriter dictating the words of a subpar manager describing a subpar pitcher.

Then the Matz portion of the article ends.

The big "unbelievable" to-do is that, even though Steven Matz pitched very poorly, but he did so in a nonchalant manner.

 

By the way, I was wrong about Bird.

It was 2017, not 2018.

The Phillies are going to be good, no?

I think they're going to be good:

"Now that the deed is done and Bryce Harper is officially a $330 million Phillie, it’s worth examining just what happened here, how it happened, and why it may not have near the impact it’s cracked up to be."

Depends on what you mean by "impact."

A great player moved from one NL East team to another.


"Given the fact Harper was coming off a comparatively 'down' season for him (in which he hit just .249 with more strikeouts than hits) and most of the big spending teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers (at first) signaled early on they would not be in the bidding, it was problematic Harper was going to get the kind of barrier-breaking ($400 million?) deal his agent, Scott Boras, had been touting almost since the day he arrived in the big leagues with the Nationals in 2012. So for that, you have to give Boras credit for once again finding the One Dumb Owner who would essentially bid against himself to get the contract over the 10-year/$300 million plateau."

I always do a double-take when I see Bryce Harper's age. He's only 25. He has already hit 184 HRs.

2018 was a relatively down season with a lot of strikeouts. Also, an OPS of .889.


I'll take .250 BA, 34 doubles, 34 HRs, 130 walks ... I mean, jeez, will ya? ... yeah, I agree ... too many strikeouts.

He's not Mike Trout, but he's also on the fast track for Cooperstown, no doubt about it.


"In this case, that would be Phillies owner John Middleton, a nobody on the big league stage up until a couple of years ago when he decided to exercise his majority share-holding clout with the team and push out the longstanding senior management decision makers in Philly, Bill Giles and Dave Montgomery.

Like so many owners before him, going all the way back to George Steinbrenner, Middleton wanted to make a statement by signing one of the biggest free agents of the winter, no matter what the cost."

Gimme a break.


"Harper will thrive in the Phillies’ bandbox Citizens Bank Park, but there is nothing to suggest he is the savior who will lead them to the World Series Promised Land. In his seven years in Washington, the Nationals went to the postseason four times and were bounced in the first round in all of them. Harper’s best postseason was 2014 when he .294 with three homers and four RBI in four games against the Giants. In the other three, he hit .186 with two homers and six RBI in 15 games."

I think the Phillies will win a World Series with Bryce Harper.

But, again ... why are we even talking about winning the World Series as a barometer for success?

Ticket sales, merch, franchise value.

Also, why are you seriously examining his previous playoff appearances?

Who cares?



This is just boilerplate hack garbage: So and so is paid too much and isn't clutch based on a small playoff sample size.


"Finally, this notion the Yankees and Mets should have been in on Harper – the Mets just to keep him away from the Phillies and the Yankees because they’re, well, the Yankees – is utterly ridiculous. Neither team needed him – certainly not at 13 years/$330M. The Yankees are realizing how much they’re going to regret down the road taking on Stanton’s contract, while the Mets need to be spending what it takes to get Jacob deGrom signed longterm."

The Yankees are expecting future mammoth contracts for Judge (and others) and probably can't afford to spend $1 billion in the outfield. $750 million maybe, but not $1 billion.

Stanton had a disappointing 2018, no doubt about it, and he needs to cut down on his strikeouts. Figure something out where he doesn't swing at everything.

But he still hit 38 HRs, scored 100 runs, and drove in 100 runs. I see no reason to think he won't be a premier hitter for a long time. Do it in the playoffs and the Yankees will have no regrets.

As for Jacob deGrom, there is no longterm. He's a 30-year-old pitcher.

Maybe it's Spring Training optimism ...

But I'm expecting .325, 25 HRs, 50 stolen bases.