Mets Savior Hector Santiago Is Here
Every so often, you hear a quote in a press conference which causes you to snap to attention so quickly you risk paralysis. You have to go back on multiple occasions just to make sure you heard it correctly because you cannot possibly believe it was said. Yesterday, Brodie Van Wagenen had one of those gems:
Van Wagenen, “I will be the one, along with the rest of the front office team, that will continue to make improvements to this roster as we go forward like we have today with the purchase of Hector Santiago’s contract.”
— Michael Mayer (@mikemayer22) May 20, 2019
On a day where the Mets were starting Wilmer Font, announced Seth Lugo was heading to the IL, and Yoenis Cespedes broke his ankle ending his already tenuous ability to return this season, Brodie Van Wagenen stood up there and said he improved the roster by adding Hector Santiago to the roster.
Hector Santiago.
We shouldn’t be too sure to dismiss this as a mistake. After all, in February, Van Wagenen said, “Hector Santiago is an All-Star at the major-league level.” (Matt Ehalt, Yahoo).
You can spin this however you want. You can say this is part of his sales job as the General Manager. After all, he did say the Mets were the team to beat despite not having a fifth starter or starting center fielder. You could say this was meant to say Santiago is an upgrade over what was already there. However, his comments do jive with what he said during Spring Training.
No matter how you look at it, Van Wagenen is once again over-selling us on a below replacement level player. He is doing it while the Mets are paying Santiago a pro rated $3 million instead of say using that money on Gio Gonzalez as the fifth starter. Of course, the Mets couldn’t do that because they’d have to guarantee him a spot in the rotation over Jason Vargas, and we know he can’t do that to a former client even if it meant improving the club.
In any event, maybe Van Wagenen was right. After all, the Mets are now 1-0 in the Hector Santiago era.
Earnest, over at Gotham he has another J.D. Davis hate article. There’s a reason he doesn’t get many responses on his own blog. You and I know. people sow bad reputations which are then hard to shake.
I’ve learned never trust his articles for accuracy of facts and stats. Aside biased analysis, he’s typically makes factual errors wherever he posts. I warn people on MMO and point out the errors. I just don’t get why someone doesn’t care about accuracy, nor bothers fact-checking before posting.
I sometimes also take screen shots of my comments on this blog as hedge against his deletion of them which has happened. but I visit this site less and less.
I think in the future I am going to try to write for MMO and start my own blog. I’ve been a webmaster of multiple websites over the years with emphasis on common sense, quality, fairness and accuracy. There’s no need to attention seek by writing stupid stuff to get clicks.
I’ve only deleted comments when they’re duplicative, post content from another source, or are particularly hateful with abusive and foul language.
But you keep those screen shots.