The World Series ended on November 4th and immediately our thoughts turned to the off-season. We can’t wait for Hot Stove baseball to start. We just have to wait fifteen days, which is the period of time each club has to offer contracts to and sign their own free agents. Those two weeks crawl by slowly as nothing is going on.
At midnight on the appointed day, November 19th, the fun will begin. I hope you didn’t wait up because nothing happened, and very little will happen over the next two additional weeks. That’s because, teams have until December 2nd to offer their free agents arbitration. We twiddle our thumbs, check out MLB Trade Rumors, Mets Blog, and MMO. We refresh our browsers every few minutes and each time there is no new news.
December 2nd arrives and passes. Finally we will get some real action that we can salivate over. Sorry, not yet. The prognosticating experts are spinning, tweeting, and putting out false rumors, so as to sell newspapers, and get more listeners and viewers. Every so often there is a signing or a trade. No matter how insignificant it may be, it is trumpeted as breaking news.
That’s enough! I’m burnt out. Please, don’t wake me until after Christmas. Or maybe I’ll sleep until pitchers and catchers report.
How many different ways can you argue the point about which starting pitchers and left fielder the Mets need. Should Murphy be our first baseman? So you state your opinion on MMO and the next thing you know you are beaten with a large stick of verbal abuse from those who think they know everything about baseball.
The incessant repetition of the same subject over and over again weakens my resolve. It reminds me of why I don’t listen to Mike Francesa – a ten minute monologue and then 5 hours and 20 minutes of rehashing the boring minutiae of each and every rumor, each and every day.
There’s not a player on the Mets that hasn’t been criticized. Poor Daniel Murphy. He’d be better off shipped out to Kansas City or somewhere like that where he will have an above average career. But as a Met, that’s not good enough. We want a star at every position. Reyes and Wright are bums, losers and chokers. Castillo is the worst player ever, even with an OBP of .380. Let’s sign Carlos Delgado. And then boo him on opening day when he goes hitless.
Trade for Adrian Gonzalez. Give the Padres whatever they want. Just get it done. Or let’s steal Prince Fielder for two unproven starting pitchers. Let’s take a big gamble on mediocre pitchers so as to compound our past errors with new errors.
We fans are purely amateurs at this game of player personnel. Omar has done a reasonably good job. He’s made some good signings and acquisitions. All his moves haven’t worked out as planned. No one gives him credit for trading for Johan Santana – he fell into his lap. Or for signing Carlos Beltran – he just outbid everyone. If we’re going to beat him up for the bad moves, we must give him credit him for the good moves.
Unfortunately, his communication skills are so pathetically weak, and this trait will eventually get him fired.
I’ll say it again. The only way the Mets can successfully compete in 2010 is if Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana are healthy, and David Wright finds his groove again. Otherwise no off season moves will make us contenders. One big free agent like Holliday, Bay or Lackey. Then a bunch of Plan B type moves. And we are in the hunt. That’s all it will take.
I’ll probably wake up at the end of next week, get something to eat, and see what has transpired. I’ll check out the MMO comments and the chat room to see who’s calling whom a moron.
And then I’ll go back to sleep.
Pitchers and catchers report on February 17th. Opening Day is Monday April 5th at CitiField against the Marlins. I’ll be there awake and ready to go.
