Opening the Vault

In Sunday's post I wrote about my hopes that perhaps Japanese pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano would sign with the Mets this week. Upon hearing that "their focus is elsewhere", I found myself disappointed although, in fairness, I have no real fact-based opinion on the man's chances of being effective in MLB competition. It would have just been a relief for something concrete to finally happen and for the 2021 roster to inch a little closer to taking shape. Instead, the weird inertia of the 2020-2021 offseason continues to frustrate the desire of myself and many of my fellow Mets fans to have something to get excited about.

Watching Paint Dry

The holidays are past us now, and I really do expect that we'll be seeing some free agents signings in the next couple of weeks. Then again, I thought that things were going to pick up after the non-tender deadline back at the beginning of December, and that just didn't happen. Perhaps there's no real sense of urgency for MLB teams who are betting on some sort of delay for the 2021 season. Or, another possible reason for the slowness that's been bandied about is that player agents are unhappy with the small number of teams that are interested in their clients and keep hoping that some teams will reconsider and jump into the bidding. That would certainly make sense on their part. Whatever the cause, this hot stove season is moving slower than my friend Tony does when he's reaching for his wallet, and trust me, that's pretty damn slow. At times I've seen cobwebs form between his hand and his pocket during this maneuver.