Major League Ballplayers Wanted, Enquire Within

While it was gratifying watching the New York Mets win last night, it felt more like a temporary reprieve than the start of something big. Bad news about Noah Syndergaard and J.D. Davis offset some of the thrill of victory. Also, for a very well-pitched game by Jacob deGrom, Miguel Castro, Trevor May, and Edwin Díaz, it didn't feel as if it was safely in the books until about five minutes after the last out was recorded. And this was against a Colorado Rockies team that had only managed two measly road victories coming into the series. The Rockies are in the discussion for the "worst team in baseball" honors, but they're still hard to beat when you're fielding a team of Triple-A ballplayers.

I'm a James McCann Fan Already

I remember over the winter when the New York Mets elected to sign James McCann to a surprisingly large 4-year deal rather than wait out J.T. Realmuto. As the offseason got underway, McCann was basically seen as the consolation prize for a team that didn't sign Realmuto. While Realmuto was arguably the top free-agent position player and a lock for a 9-figure contract, the speculation was that a team could get McCann on a 2-, maybe 3-year deal. In actuality, it took a 4-year deal to lock down the catcher who will celebrate his 31st birthday in June. The Mets will be paying McCann $12 million for the final year of the deal — his age 34 season when presumably he won't be the Mets starting catcher.

Mets off to a Promising Start Despite the Interruptions

The New York Mets won another game yesterday behind a strong performance from Marcus Stroman. A storyline that has taken a backseat given all of the postponements so far in April is the spring training injury to Carlos Carrasco and the worries of how the New Yorkers would hold their rotation together until he returned. Thanks to Stroman, Taijuan Walker, and David Peterson, the Mets are surviving Carrasco's absence quite well. Unlike 2020, Jacob deGrom doesn't find himself a one-man show in the rotation. Seriously, if I told you before the series in Colorado that the Mets would score 4, 2, and 2 runs in the three games, how many would you have expected them to win?

Whatever Happened to Spring?

Well, you win some, you lose some. The New York Mets did both yesterday. They finally won a game for Jacob deGrom in the opener, then lost a real snoozer of a contest in the second game. The Mets offense still seems quite out of synch, despite the late-game heroics in deGrom's start. The second game was a reversion back to the early season struggles. The two runs they scored exactly matched the number of hits they accrued. The only thing likely to get this offense humming is playing regularly and maybe a bit less wintry weather.

Solutions in Search of a Problem

No, not that
Double Hook

As I await the start of the New York Mets scheduled doubleheader vs. the Colorado Rockies, I feel a strong urge to write about something besides the horrible weather and the pathetic boy's club the Mets organization was in dying years of the Wilpon regime. I'm confident the weather will do whatever it wants regardless of my feelings on the matter, and The Athletic will surely have more follow-ups on their story while they continue to ignore the culture of 29 other MLB franchises.

Early in the week, while I was preoccupied with Lisa being in the hospital again, there was reporting on a pair of gimmicks that MLB would try out in the independent Atlantic League this summer. Both of them are pitching-related.

We've Been Here Before

Turns out that the Mets won't be playing baseball in the snow tonight in Denver. Tonight's game has been canceled. They'll be playing a doubleheader tomorrow instead. The forecast for tomorrow isn't calling for snow, but the high temperature will only be around 40°, with the low dropping into the 20s. But that's okay, right? They'll do the smart thing and schedule the doubleheader for the afternoon and miss the worst of the weather... no, what am I thinking? A 3 PM start local time will ensure that the temperature will be below freezing before both games complete. I honestly don't get it. At this point, the best that we can hope for is that all three games are played this weekend, the Mets won't be forced to go back out to Colorado again later in the season, and no one gets hurt.

Baseball Weather

When I last wrote in this space, I reacted to some things I was reading in the local and national media about the Mets and Phillies. Hot takes abounded that Philadelphia "fixed" its bullpen problems from last year, while the Mets were still struggling to plate baserunners. Could the Phillies indeed be a more successful team than the Mets in 2021? 

Three games and another rainout later, those hot takes have cooled down considerably. At 5-3, the Mets have looked a bit stronger in the three games they were able to play, while the Phillies bullpen hasn't been quite as invincible as they were at the start of the season.

I've Got Those Small Sample Size Blues

We waited months for baseball to come back. Now that it has, we've been rewarded with 5 whole games in the first 12 days of the season. I've done the third-grade math. If things were to continue at the current pace, it would take just under 389 days to complete the full 162-game season. That seems somehow untenable to me, but what do I know?