Trivia Friday: Mets Roberto Clemente Award Winners
This year, we have seen the Mets step up both on and off the field. Todd Frazier donated $50,000 to help build a special needs baseball field in his hometown of Toms River, New Jersey. Through his foundation Conforto Cares, Michael Conforto visits pediatric cancer patients in the hospital, and he hosts the kids at Citi Field. Steven Matz‘s Tru32 has events and fundraisers for first responders.
Overall, this is a very good group of people on the Mets, and each of one them and many more are worthy candidates for the Roberto Clemente Award. If any of these players are nominated and win, they will become the fifth Mets player to win the award. Can you name the four who have won the award? Good luck!
One Reply to “Trivia Friday: Mets Roberto Clemente Award Winners”
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Has to be Carter and Granderson. In between, though…
And wasn’t Reyes a Mets nominee one year?
Between his running catch the other day and then the throw tonight to get Dickerson at the plate it’s increasingly clear JD has the raw skills to squeak by in LF, and the ability to back up 3B in a pinch helps on a 2020 Met team that might not have a full time 3Bman.
Say Nimmo comes back close to full strength, as does Dom. (And forgetting about Cespedes.) That gives the 2020 Mets:
McNeil LF
Nimmo CF
Conforto RF
Davis and Dom on the bench. That’s 5 OFers, none of whom can really play CF. (Nimmo may come back, but the neck injury won’t have improved the chance he’ll be successful in CF.) They’ll surely need an actual CFer, even if it’s only in the role of 7th inning on defensive replacement. Include a backup C and Lowrie on the roster and there’s no legit replacement at SS
Nimmo CF
Ramos C
McNeil LF
Alonso 1B
Conforto RF
JD Davis 3B (using him as their primary 3Bman really costs the Mets, though. They’ll probably be better off on D with Davis in LF
and McNeil at 3B)
Cano (sadly) 2B
Rosario SS
Bench: Nido, Smith, backup CFer, Lowrie. (That means nothing resembling a real backup SS. And given the Mets play guys acc to salary, it’ll probably be McNeil in LF, Lowrie at 3B, and JD getting games here and there.)
This might be another example of a Mets team that’s better off with a 5 man bench and a 7 man pen.
The proximity of Syracuse makes that a reasonable configuration. Still, it’s an awkward roster.
Will they deal Conforto and try to save about 7m that way, and go w an OF of Davis/Smith–Nimmo–McNeil ? That’s risky. Even though he never broke out Conforto’s still a prime years, 3 win player with a bit of upside. Trusting some combination of Davis and Smith (with less than one good year’s worth of PAs between them, not to mention their weak defense) to provide close to Conforto’s production could bite them.
Still, the Mets have too many guys with not enough flexibility. Conforto, Nimmo, McNeil, Davis, Smith, Lowrie, Cano… That’s 7 ballplayers for what should really only be RF, LF, 3B, and 2B. They’ll also have the problem of not really knowing if Lowrie can come back, and if he can really play 3B any longer. Do you hope one of Cano and Lowrie can handle 2B, hope that one of Davis and Smith can handle LF, that McNeil can compensate for any disasters at 2B if neither Cano and Lowrie can still play, and fake it as a team in CF for most of the season with Nimmo and Conforto?
If you’re the GM you should already be shuffling the pieces around on your roster gameboard, seeing how to handle all the scenarios and figuring out whether you can package Smith and Davis for the talent-equivalent in the form of a borderline starting CFer who’s still pre-arb.