35 Years of Misery & Counting
Honestly, with a new President of Baseball Operations just being hired, Eppier did the right thing in resigning today. But damn if you’re a true Mets fan who thought we would have any chance in 2024 with Eppier at the helm. I mean, the whole Daniel Vogelbach debacle was the final straw for me.
Of course, the way he handled this, going M.I.A. on the team was bad. But I’m not sure that he’s telling the truth about Coronavirus being the reason for opting out. I think his poor start, but moreso his wanting to play the outfield are why he really quit on the team. Anyway, whatever happens next with Cespedes, I’m sure he’ll bounce back with an MVP-like season because we’re talking about the Mets here.
Shocking considering the Mets front office’s past tumultuous relationship with Beltran (and the fans as well). But with Omar Minaya on board as far as the decision-making, the Mets Latino contingent and Beltran having been a star Hispanic player, maybe he can motivate the likes of Cespedes to play a full season, much less get Edwin Diaz back to form, etc. I’m really curious as to who’s going to be Carlos’ bench coach, what with him having zero managerial experience and all.
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Joel Sherman at The New York Post seems to think so. I like Showalter’s many years of experience in the game, he has a few Manager of the Year’s under his belt as well as 3 division tiles and I would damn well prefer Showalter over Tim Bogar, Carlos Beltran or any of the other interviewees left. Yeah, please give Buck a call.
Here we go again, the best manager available on the market and we can’t get him. To make matters worse, he signs with our division rival Phillies. I’ll tell you what: whoever Brodie Van Wagenen does hire, they go up or down together.
Do the Mets have to make everything hard? I mean, Beltran played for us, had some great years as a player, is a borderline HOF’er and seems like an all-around likeable guy who would especially appeal to the Latino players on the club. But like Mickey Callaway did before the Mets hired him, Beltran also has zero managing experience (at least Callaway was a pitching coach) and thus would need someone with a wealth of experience to serve as his bench coach. And I get whole ex-players-with-no-managing-experience-becoming-managers being a trend of late, but when you got the kind of experience, know-how, passion and winning that comes with Joe Girardi, to me should be a no-brainer: hire Girardi already.
Good…now hire Joe Girardi.
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Newsday.com:
Told that he didn’t make the Mets’ major-league club, Devin Mesoraco decided Saturday to leave the team rather than report to minor-league camp.
Mesoraco was among the Mets’ latest spring training cuts. Also reassigned to the minors were infielder Adeiny Hechavarria, outfielders Rajai Davis and Carlos Gomez, and lefthanders Ryan O’Rourke and Hector Santiago.
The Mets said Mesoraco was “reassessing his situation.” But a source familiar with Mesoraco’s thinking said the catcher, who is 30 and has spent more than seven years in the majors, will not go to Triple-A. He remains under contract — a minor-league deal — with the Mets, who are left with a decision: grant Mesoraco his release or put him on the restricted list.
Mesoraco’s disappointment stems from pre-contract conversations with the Mets, which left him under the impression that he had two viable paths to breaking camp with the team: if Travis d’Arnaud (Tommy John surgery) wasn’t ready for the start of the season, or if the Mets carried three catchers. In the end, the Mets prioritized Tomas Nido over Mesoraco, even with d’Arnaud’s fate to be decided.
This makes little sense. Nido can’t hit at all and Mesoraco was not only superb catching Jacob deGrom last season, but the guy is a former All-Star. Plus, with his hapless track record, you just know that Travis d’Arnaud is going to get injured at some point this season, it’s just a matter of when.
T.J. Rivera’s spring training with the Mets never really got started, and Saturday it concluded with the popular infielder receiving his release from the club.
The 30-year-old Rivera had not appeared in the Grapefruit League because of discomfort in his surgically repaired right elbow. Rivera missed all of last season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery.
“I think we started to look at the playing time as we go forward in camp,” general manager Brodie Van Wagenen said. “We also started to realize the number of guys we have playing the infield positions were significant and as we built the roster over the course of this offseason it was clear that some people were going to have to be removed from the equation, not only to compete at the major league level but also to compete for our Triple-A roster.”
Rivera, a Bronx native, had a .304/.335/.445 slash line in 106 games for the Mets in 2016 and 2017. His rehab was shut down last summer because of discomfort in his elbow, on which he had surgery in September 2017.
I was a huge T.J. Rivera fan. So much that I thought for sure that he’d be the starting 2nd baseman for the Mets for a long time. However, the injury bug just caught up to him and considering the length of time he’s been out, I guess the Mets had no choice but to let him go.
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We’ve got less than a month to go until spring training starts, and the two best free agents — Bryce Harper and Manny Machado — on the market this winter still don’t know where they’ll be playing in 2019. We do have some hints as to who some of the final teams might be in both players’ sweepstakes, but you can now definitely count the New York Mets out for both.
On Thursday, Mets Chief Operating Officer Jeff WIlpon and first-year General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen confirmed to the media that they will not be pursuing either of the two superstars.
“I don’t know how many teams have two $30 million players,” Wilpon said when asked why the team won’t pursue Harper or Machado. Wilpon is referring to Robinson Cano, who was acquired from the Seattle Mariners in a blockbuster trade this past December and Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, whose 2018 season was cut short by surgery on both of his heels.
Did anyone really think Bryce Harper or Manny Machado was going to be in the 2019 Mets Opening Day lineup? Certainly not me.
David Wright, 36, is younger than the Mets’ new second baseman, Robinson Cano, but was forced to retire in September because of chronic injuries. He was formally released from the roster on Monday and officially joined the front office as a special adviser to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wilpon and General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen.
Wright assisted the Mets’ contingent at the winter meetings in Las Vegas last month, meeting with free agents and impressing Van Wagenen with his perspective. Wright, who found behind-the-scenes work to be more appealing than coaching or broadcasting, thanked the Mets’ ownership and their fans in a statement on Monday.
“Playing in this city and for this team was a dream come true,” the statement said. “I look forward to contributing and taking on the challenges of this new role.”
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