Curits Granderson

Bad Sports Year Ending

For me, I’m a Mets, Giants, Rangers, and Knicks fans.  As you can tell, 2017 was not the best of years for me.

Mets

The season unofficially ended when Noah Syndergaard refused to get an MRI.  Along with Thor, we saw Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, and Zack Wheeler go on extended disabled list stints.  It came to a point where Rafael Montero was a feasible rotation option.  By the way, that speaks more about the rotation than Montero.

On the offensive side, we saw Jay Bruce, Lucas Duda, and Curtis Granderson go for pennies on the dollar.  Yoenis Cespedes and Neil Walker missed a ton of time, which meant Walker joined the aforementioned players and Addison Reed in fetching a group of minor league right-handed relievers that didn’t bowl anyone over.

Worst of all, Michael Conforto suffered a season ending and possibly career altering shoulder injury.  He suffered that injury on a swing and a miss.  If that isn’t the perfect euphemism for the Mets season, I don’t know what is.

But don’t worry.  The Mets are cutting payroll, so we wont have to face the Mets failing to meet expectations again.

Giants

The year started with the wide receiving core not showing up after they all made sure to attend a boat party.  The end result was the Giants missing a big opportunity to make a deep postseason run.

Expectations were high after that with the Giants being labeled Super Bowl contenders.  As it turns out, you can’t be that without an offensive line and an over-matched head coach.  The season slowly became a 2-13 embarasment that saw McAdoo sit Eli so he could find out if Geno Smith was his starter for next season, and the Giants to fire McAdoo for mishandling that and everything else.

To make matters worse, Eli Apple has gone from being a guy who was supposed to take the next leap to being benched to being called a cancer to announcing to reporters he had to go to the bathroom.  Much like the Apple, the Giants season went from promising and quickly down the drain.

Rangers

The Rangers were lucky and got to face the Atlantic side of the draw for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  The Rangers beat the Canadiens, and then they blew a golden opportunity against the Ottawa Senators.

Due to salary cup constraints, the Rangers then traded away Stepan and Raanta for what was perceived to be an underwhelming return.  The team overdrafted Anderson, and they got lucky with Chytil.  They were also able to nab a promising young defenseman in Antony DeAngelo.

Well, Vingeault has once again done his best Terry Collins impersonation by benching the younger players, not letting them play, and giving the veterans enough rope to hang the entire Rangers season.  The Rangers are currently in playoff contention, but they would likely be in better position if their head coach showed a modicum of interest in developing younger players.

Knicks

Well, last season was a disaster leading to the team trading Melo for much less than they ever thought he could fetch in a trade.  Still, the return has been palatable because Enes Kanter is a leader who gives the Knicks toughness.  This would all be better except for the fact that KP still has issues staying on the floor, the Hardaway signing ate up a ton of cap space, and a favorable early schedule will likely lead to the Knicks falling apart in January.

So yeah, hopefully, 2018 will go much better because how could it not with Mickey Callaway and a new Giants head coach in place.  Hopefully, the Rangers will as well.  There’s also the hope Seton Hall rebounds from a March exit last year on an egregious intentional fall call.  Hopefully, their making a deep run will be the start of a great 2018.

If the Mets continue to refuse to spend, maybe it will be the sole highlight of the year.
Mi