Scratch Mookie Betts from your wish list, as the star Red Sox outfielder was dealt to the Dodgers in a collection of at least two deals involving four teams. Earlier this offseason, the Red Sox hired Chaim Bloom from the Rays to run their front office. If Bloom's name sounds familiar, he was one of [...]
On Sunday, we put my preference for people who finish the year strong under the microscope. It didn’t go particularly well. In fact, it was pretty much a failure. But, not willing to admit defeat quite so easily, the decision was made to look at the matter in a different way. And let’s be honest [...]
My preference is for people who finish the year strong, rather than those who start off with a bang and end with a whimper. To the best of my knowledge, there’s no reason to believe this. There’s no credible study that shows if you hoard guys who finished strong in the previous year that you’ll [...]
Friend of the site John Coppinger was among the many who weighed in on the Matt Adams signing yesterday. Here's what he said: The Mets made a curious “Friday news dump” depth signing, as they have added first baseman Matt Adams on a minor league deal. snip So they can stash Smith on the roster [...]
Few will remember the tenure of former Mets manager Mickey Callaway fondly. But one thing that even his strongest detractors will have to grant him is that in the past two seasons, the Mets’ starting pitchers were very healthy. Was that something that Callaway should get credit for or is that something that merely happened [...]
The Mets’ bullpen finished 2019 11th in the National League in WHIP (1.432) and 13th in ERA (4.99) and if we removed Seth Lugo from the equation, the numbers would be significantly worse. The pen was dogged last year by the dreaded combo of injuries and ineffectiveness. But let’s take a minute to dream on [...]
Perhaps no pitcher on the staff has the chance to benefit more from new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner than Noah Syndergaard. Sure, sure – Edwin Diaz' results may be more important to the club. But would Hefner get credit for that or would it be the offseason work with Pedro Martinez that Diaz has supposedly [...]
Very few people would argue against the notion that experience matters. You’re going to have open heart surgery, you want a doctor who’s done the operation 100 times before. You’re getting new brakes done, you want someone who’s not taking the wheels off the car for the first time. You’re being sued you want a [...]
It’s difficult not to be seduced by Robinson Cano. He was on a Hall of Fame trajectory through the end of the 2017 season. And after a miserable start to 2019, he hit like what his supporters hoped he would in the final 25 games of the season. In that stretch, he posted a .338/409/.600 [...]
So, the Mets are in the market for a new manager much sooner than anyone anticipated they would be. They took their time in their first go-round and the result of that deliberate process was a giant failure. Now, with Spring Training less than a month away, there doesn’t seem to be any urgency on [...]
Jacob deGrom won the Cy Young Award last year, which is kind of remarkable given the start that he got off to in 2019. After nine games, deGrom was 3-5 with a 3.98 ERA and hardly resembled the pitcher who was so dominating in 2018. But from that point until the end of the season, [...]
The penalties have been handed down in the Astros’ sign stealing case and opinion is certainly mixed. Manager AJ Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow were both suspended for one year by MLB and the Astros were fined $5 million and forced to surrender their next two first and second-round picks, whenever they may be. [...]