Last season, the Mets trading for Tyler Clippard was the first sign that the Mets were all-in on the 2015 season. The Mets gave up a very promising prospect in Casey Meisner for three months of a middle reliever.
When Clippard came to the Mets, he immediately locked down the eighth inning. When the division was still in doubt, from July 28th to September 16th, he pitched 26.1 innings in 26 appearances with a 2.73 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP. He limited batter to a .182/.257/.364 batting line. He combined with Jeurys Familia to make Mets games seven inning games. Combined with the Mets starting pitching, you have a 20-8 August and the Mets putting away the Nationals and the NL East.
With that, Clippard completed his goal of “chasing down [his] old teammates there in Washington.” He wanted bragging rights over his old teammates, and he got them.
Unfortunately, Clippard suffered a back injury. His production fell off significantly. He wasn’t the shut down reliever he was when he first joined the Mets. That Clippard was missed in the World Series. He was the loser in Game Four, which was probably the turning point in that series. After that the Mets apparently felt he didn’t deserve the two-year deal they gave Antonio Bastardo.
Personally, I thought with the offseason, Clippard would’ve had time to heal and become that eighth inning option again. I’m still surprised the Mets thought he was worth a potential ace, saw him perform well, and now think he’s not worth a two year deal. Well now, the Mets loss is the Diamondbacks gain. Now, Clippard is an ex-Met after him doing everything he could do to help the team win the NL East. He leaves with those bragging rights.
The Mets now have bragging rights over everyone in the National League. With that, we all owe him a small debt of gratitude. When he comes out of that bullpen door come this August, he deserves to be cheered. He deserves that much.
Thank you Tyler Clippard.
I’m not going to criticize Cam Newton and his performance at the post-Super Bowl press conference:
He was sullen and depressed from losing the biggest game of his life. In the background, you can hear a Bronco player bragging about how they shut down Cam Newton and the Panthers. He was literally asked the same question over and over again. Do you really expect him to be ecstatic and loquacious?
Of course not. The narrative will be either how he didn’t play well or how he was shut down. He has a long flight ahead of him. He’s 3,000 miles away from the Panther fans. It’s just a terrible situation.
Juxtapose that with the Mets losing the World Series. The team lost three games in which they had a lead with their seemingly invincible closer on the mound. Perhaps the cruelest defeat was Game Five when the Mets arguably had their ace carry a shutout into the ninth. They had a lead from two homeruns from their future superstar leftfielder. They blew the game like they blew the rest of the series. They lost in front of their home fans.
Cam Newton had to hear how he got beat. He got asked the same question repeatedly. Here’s the treatment the Mets players received:
The setting allowed the fans and team to celebrate a great season together. Yes, it would’ve been different had the Mets been on the road. Conversely, the passionate fans would then have a chance to celebrate their teams World Series title:
Did you hear or see any of the exuberance yesterday? No. That’s the effect of playing a game at a neutral site. There’s no rejoicing when your team wins. There’s no celebrating a season that fell just short. In short, there’s no shared experience.
In the end, baseball is about a journey. It’s a shared journey between the team and their fans. Football ignores their fans and leaves their players out to dry. It’s why baseball will always be superior.
For some reason when they built my home, they put no cable on the main floor. No idea why. I didn’t realize it or care when I purchased the house. There’s cable in the bedrooms. I have a great set-up in the basement. It wasn’t an issue until my son was born.
Having a baby changes your life forever. What was once a great set-up becomes a death trap. It used to be no big deal running up and down two flights of stairs. We weren’t doing that with our son, especially as an infant. You’re too tired to do that. You really watch less and less TV. However, as a fan, you still don’t want to miss the big events. As such, I put a TV on the first floor, and I got a Roku stick.
Last night, the Super Bowl was streamed on the CBS Sports App. I watched the entire game on it. I saw the same plays you saw. I saw the same commercials you did. Judging from Twitter, there was a palatable 5-10 second delay from TV. At halftime, I gave my son a bath and put him to bed. I went back downstairs and watched the end of the game. Overall, it was great, but it did raise one important question. Why doesn’t Major League Baseball do this? Honestly, I can’t think of one justifiable reason.
If you talk about cable money, keep in mind other companies have figured it out. In order to stream ESPN, HBO, Showtime, etc., you have to log in through your cable provider. In essence, you can’t watch without establishing you already pay for the service. I have no idea why SNY, or even YES for that matter, doesn’t do the same.
If you want to argue that you can never watch a game on a mobile device, you’re wrong. I have the Optimum App on my phone and other devices. I can walk around my home with the Mets game on my phone. However, I can’t sit down and watch a game using the Roku (unless you have Time Warner cable).
Now, I can watch games on the MLB app. However, I can only stream out of market games. Even if I could stream a Mets game, I would need to purchase a MLB subscription for a service I already paid good money to watch. It’s time for MLB to stop these arcane practices and allow their games to be streamed in local markets.
I’m tired of Major League Baseball lagging behind the NFL. It needs to stop.
Families and friends will gather around the TV tonight to watch the Super Bowl tonight. Some gather for the game. Some gather for the commercials. With some Mets already at Spring Training, I’m sure they’ll get together to watch the game.
One person we know who will not be there is Juan Uribe. No, not because he’s a free agent. He’s not watching because he really hates football. He only wants to watch baseball. If he was there tonight, he’d probably tell David Wright to turn on the baseball game. Unfortunately for Uribe, there’s no baseball games being televised during the Super Bowl tomorrow. No, not even on the MLB Network.
So who knows? Maybe Uribe breaks down and watches the Super Bowl tonight. If it’ll help him to know that Cam Newton loves baseball or that his former teammate Todd Helton was a former teammate of Peyton Manning at Tennessee.
In any event, after tonight, it’s all about baseball just like Juan Uribe wants it to be.
My favorite Mets jerseys are the ’86 Mets jerseys. I love the orange and blue racing stripes along the sides of the jerseys. Now that the Mets are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the ’86 World Series title, the jersey is coming back:
Mets will wear '86 uniforms multiple times throughout the season as an alternate — not just during weekend honoring 30th anniversary.
— Adam Rubin (@AdamRubinMedia) February 3, 2016
At first, I was ecstatic. I never thought the Mets should’ve gotten rid of those jerseys. I love seeing them out on the field. It reminds me of a time when the Mets were great. It reminds me of when the Mets once owned New York. Those days are long past. The Mets have moved on from that time.
First, it was the black jerseys. They had a good run through the 90’s. Then it was a transitional period where we saw less of the black, more of the snow white jerseys, and variations of the pinstriped jerseys.
Now, the Mets have settled on a new group of uniforms. It’s a mixture between the simpler old-style uniforms and the nice alternate blue uniforms.
These are new uniforms for a new generation of Mets baseball. While I agree the Mets should be wearing the ’86 jerseys to celebrate the last Mets World Series championship team, I do not agree they should be worn throughout the season. Instead, I’d like to see the Mets update the patch the Mets wore on the ’86 jerseys.
Recreate this patch with the years 1986 and 2016 for the 30th anniversary. Put these on the new Mets uniforms. The uniforms that belong to the ’16 Mets. Let these Mets wear their own uniforms.
Hopefully, they will be the same uniforms another Mets team will wear 30 years from now.
Last year, the Mets were carried by their pitching. It helped them sustain an anemic offense until the Mets got healthy and made trades. It helped carry them to the World Series. It’s the promise for the future.
That future first comes into question around 2019. That is the year that Matt Harvey becomes a free agent. Zack Wheeler could become a free agent the same year or the subsequent year. Two years later Jacob deGrom becomes a free agent. After that, the Mets will have to address the free agent case of Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz. Naturally, this prompts the discussion of who the Mets should extend and when they should do it.
When these discussions take place, I find everyone to be extremely short-sided. Yes, it’s important to make a decision on the Mets starters, especially on Harvey, deGrom, and Syndergaard. However, I find that these discussions ignore Jeurys Familia. Like Harvey, Familia will be a free agent in 2019.
Familia was an exceedingly important part of the 2015 Mets. He was the stabilizing force at the back-end of a beleaguered bullpen. During 2015, Familia had the fifth most appearances. Of players who were strictly relievers, he had the third most innings pitched. He lead the league in games finished. He tied the Mets single season record for saves.
The advanced statistics also loved Familia’s 2015 season. He had an ERA+ of 200, which is astounding. It was the best amongst Mets pitchers. In fact, it’s a tick below Mariano Rivera‘s career 205 mark, which is the best in major league history. Familia’s FIP was 2.74, which, unsurprisingly, rates him as an excellent pitcher. Mariano’s career mark was 2.76. In essence, Familia’s 2015 was Riveraesque.
Keep in mind, Collins initially deployed Familia like Rivera. When it came time to close out the NLDS, Familia pitched two shutout innings. In the whole postseason, Familia had 12 appearances, and of those 12 appearances, he pitched more than one inning five times. He pitched 14.2 innings in those 12 appearances. Yes, he blew three saves in the World Series, but he only allowed one earned run the entire postseason. In reality, the blown saves were not on Familia but the Mets team as a whole.
Its important to lock-up some starting pitchers. If Harvey, deGrom, or Syndergaard leave, the Mets have other starters to keep having a strong rotation. If Familia were to leave, the Mets do not appear to have another reliever to take Familia’s spot. This makes extending Familia absolutely imperative.
So when it comes down to which Mets pitcher I would extend first, my answer is Jeurys Familia.
Editor’s Note: this article also appeared on metsmerizedonline.com
One of the many blurbs that have surfaced from Yoenis Cespedes press conference is the Mets believe they can keep this young rotation together:
While Sandy said he thinks team could sign all starters, realistically just hard to envision a team doing that unless payroll is $200m.
— Matt Ehalt (@MattEhalt) February 3, 2016
Now, the $200 million is conjecture. To be fair, if you polled most Mets fans, or really anyone for that matter, they would agree with this assessment. Rather than take it at face value, I figured it would be better to actually try to figure out if it’s possible.
Of all of the Mets pitchers, Matt Harvey has reached the arbitration stage of his career, and he agreed to $4.325 million to play in 2016. He will be a free agent in 2019. That’s the key timeframe because that’s the point when these starting pitchers will start receiving large free agent deals.
Right now, the Mets payroll stands around $140 million. Before figuring out how much these pitchers will cost, we should figure out which of the players on the payroll whose contracts will expire by the time Harvey first reaches free agency along with their 2016 salaries:
- Yoenis Cespedes $27.5 million (free agent 2019)
- Curtis Granderson $16 million (free agent 2018)
- Neil Walker $10.55 million (free agent 2017)
- Asdrubal Cabrera $8.25 million (free agent 2018)
- Bartolo Colon $7.25 million (free agent 2017)
- Addison Reed $5.3 million (free agent 2018)
- Antonio Bastardo $5.375 million (free agent 2018)
- Jeurys Familia $4.1 million (free agent 2019)
- Jerry Blevins $4 million (free agent 2017)
- Lucas Duda $6.725 million (free agent 2018)
- Jenrry Mejia $2.47 million* (free agent 2019)
- Ruben Tejada $3 million (free agent 2018)
Before proceeding, it should be noted the Mets only owe Mejia a pro-rated portion of the $2.47 million due to his suspension. Mejia served 62 games of his 162 game suspension last year meaning the Mets will owe him roughly $945,000 next year.
Without factoring in arbitration increases and the like, the Mets payroll will decrease by $98,995,000. That means the Mets payroll obligations would be around $41 million. When you look at David Wright‘s salary, it will actually decrease by an additional $5 million to reduce obligations to $36 million. On the other side of that coin, Juan Lagares‘ $2.5 million 2016 salary jumps to $9.0 million in 2019. That’s a $6.5 million increase. As a result, the Mets 2019 payroll obligations will be $42.5 million.
If payroll remains stagnant, that means the Mets will have $97.5 million to fill out their roster and pay their starting pitchers.
Part two will analyze how much of this money will be attributed towards position players.
This is a whole new generation. When I was growing up, we had candy cigarettes (gone) and Big League Chew (still around). While playing baseball, we used to have the candy cigarettes so we could smoke like Keith Hernandez, or we would shove a ton of Big League Chew in our mouths to look like Lenny Dykstra. Dykstra was such a legendary chewer that he was said to have stained the AstroTurf at the old Vet.
As kids, we used this stuff because we thought it was cool to look like ballplayers. Did we try to real stuff? Well, not as kids. It’s s good thing too because it would’ve been like that scene in The Sandlot:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CAxuXNxsNMk
Personally, I never really had any interest. Part of the reason was my parents. Another part was I was a catcher. I’ve seen catchers who have used chewing tobacco, but to me that was a pain. I tried seeds, which is similar in principle, but it annoyed me. So I went without any of it for most of my baseball life.
Then I got older, got big, and was moved out from behind the plate. Part of “rookie” hazing was getting them to throw in a dip and watch the hilarity ensue. It wasn’t pleasant.
In any event, I found myself playing that dreaded DH position more and more, which means you spend a lot of time on the bench. Many of those guys throw one in, so you usually do as well. You practice that finger motion with your index finger so you can pack it better and tighter. One day, it all becomes second nature.
When I was in college, it was great. There were a couple of nights, it helped me get through the all-nighters. Also, there were some bars in the area where if you didn’t throw one in, you were out of place. Honestly, I wasn’t so much addicted to it as I loved doing it.
A good friend of mine and me used to love dipping while watching baseball games. We would not only watch the games, but we would also keep an eye out for who was dipping. You would see the finger going in the dugout. The circle shape in the player’s uniform pants. That ever so slight bump in the bottom lip. If you ever saw it in the top lip, you knew that guy was having real problems. Looking at the Mets now, I can tell you who does and who doesn’t dip. I can do that for any team if I watch them long enough.
Eventually, I quit. It really is a nasty habit. More importantly, it’s dangerous. We saw Tony Gwynn die too young because of it. We saw Curt Schilling battle cancer. As much as I enjoyed it, it really wasn’t worth it.
The strange part is I never would’ve started had it not been part of baseball’s culture. No sport is as associated with smokeless tobacco than baseball. I thought about all of this when I saw Tim Rohan’s New York Times article about New York City looking to ban smokeless tobacco from being used in places like Citi Field and Yankee Stadium.
There’s a lively debate to be had here about whether this law is a good idea or not. It’s a debate that should occur. However, at the end of the day, I’m more concerned for that two year old of mine that loves baseball. I realize that NYC can put every law in place they want, but it won’t matter. It doesn’t matter because the problem is baseball.
The city bans smoking, but we hear about Yoenis Cespedes smoking between innings. We see players using smokeless tobacco all over the field. As we see with Cespedes, a player will find a work-around. You should hear how they work around smokeless tobacco bans and stigmas in other sports. Overall, players will always find a way to do it.
If that’s the case, it’ll always be associated with baseball, and that’s not a good thing. Baseball needs to help find a reasonable solution to this because what they have so far isn’t working. They need to figure it out because one day that Big League Chew becomes Skoal or Red Man. That needs to stop before another generation of players starts using it.
I don’t want to see another Tony Gwynn.
In 2016, the Mets are defending their fifth National League crown. Do you know how the Mets finished their season in their other four attempts? Good luck.
Well, I didn’t quite make it to work today. There’s a simple reason. My son did his best Linda Blair impersonation. I heard him say, “Uh oh” and then vomit all over. I mean all over. He even hit me. It was on my shirt, in my hair. Everywhere.
Worse yet, I was woefully unprepared for it. Like an idiot, I thought these days were done. When my son was a baby, we were always prepared for vomits and blowouts. Now that he’s a toddler? We’re mostly prepared for spilled milk and the like. Well today, I put the provisions back in place, which are:
- Liter of bottle of water
- Dawn paper towels
- Clorox wipes
- Garbage bag
- Paper towels
Seriously, I cannot stress enough the need for the Dawn paper towels. Once you get them wet, it permits you to scrub whatever surface of your car, or child’s clothing with soap and water (the liter that’s in your car). Keep in mind, you don’t need a lot. A little goes a long way. Most of the time, I’ve been able to clean whatever issue was present with the Dawn paper towels. More importantly, you’re going to reduce the smell in the car for when you’re finally going to get back on the road.
The Clorox wipes are to wipe down any toys and the like that are salvageable. I threw away two coloring books today, but I was able to wipe down some toy cars.
Before you depart, you don’t want to leave everything soapy. Use the remaining water and rinse the areas that had to be cleaned with the Clorox paper towels. You want to get rid of a the soap, and you want to make sure you got everything.
It should go without saying, all of the aforementioned steps come AFTER you’ve cleaned off your child.
Overall, I’ve found this kit helps really well. I only wish I had it with me today. I hope now you’ll have it with you.