Welcome to the doldrums. It’s early January, which means a number of things for the baseball/sports fan. The General Managers’ and Winter Meetings have come and gone. The Holidays are now officially over, the College football championship has been decided – how ‘bout ‘dem ‘Noles?!? — and the Super Bowl is still four weeks away. It’ll be shortly after that that we’ll be warmed by the arrival of pitchers and catchers at spring training camps scattered around Florida and Arizona. There’s nothing to do but wait…and talk. So my friend Brian Joura and I started talking.
Brian Joura: Are people making too much out of Chris Young [the outfielder] being only a platoon player? An injury really hurt him in 2012 when he got off to a great start, then last year he had two separate injuries and when he came back, he got caught up in the platoon system Oakland had running all over the place. I think if he adapts to playing in a corner, he should be playing every day.
Charlie Hangley: I see Young as one of the lynchpins – along with Travis d’Arnaud – of 2014’s offense. I think they are the “wild cards” if you will, because nobody really has any kind of clue as to what kind of production either of them will provide. That, of course, assumes that the Ike Davis situation is resolved by Opening Day.
BJ: Speaking of Davis, where do you see him on Opening Day? It seems the trade market has dried up for him as teams wait for the Mets to just cut him. I don’t see that happening. I see a spring training battle between him and Lucas Duda for the starting first base job. Whoever wins would get the majority of starts.
CH: I think Davis might benefit most from a change of scenery, but I have a hard time getting behind Duda – aka “Kevin Maas, Jr.” – as the full-timer at first base. Now there’s some rumbling in the blogosphere of the Mets pulling Davis off the market and pedaling Duda and Daniel Murphy instead. Also, David Lennon in today’s New York Post suggests the Mets may have to lower their price for Davis if they really want to move him. I’m loathe to trade him just for the sake of trading him. We need look no further than the infamous Nolan Ryan deal of 1971 to see how something that works out.
BJ: I just don’t see a full-blown platoon. Josh Satin will get chances against left-handed pitchers, but I still see the winner of Davis/Duda getting shots against lefties…
The talk has just started. Let’s hope it makes the cold fly.
Follow me on Twitter @CharlieHangley
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Great point about Young, BJ. I think people are down on him because he’s essentially trying to rebuild value, but being paid more than someone in that position. If he signed for $3 million, I doubt we’d hear the grumbling so much. He has the potential to make even $7.25 look pretty damn good, though. Also, I don’t see Daniel Murphy brining back anything with more value than he already provides.