Daily Archives: November 3, 2009
Yesterday I promised to provide more thoughts about Daniel Murphy and his role with the Mets moving forward, but I got busy with actual work.
My apologies.
Murphy may have been trumped by Jeff Francoeur as the most divisive Met, but the young first baseman still inspires tons of debate among the Shea Faithful.
Here’s what we know: Murphy did not hit well enough in 2009 to be an everyday first baseman for a competitive Major League team. His .741 OPS was more than 100 points below the National League average, and even as his numbers surged in the second half, his walk rate declined.
Despite a few embarrassing blunders, he acquitted himself nicely at first base after switching positions. At times he appeared a bit lost in the new spot, but he demonstrated good range by both objective and subjective measures.
It seemed, to my eye at least, like Murphy mastered the rhythm of the infield, even if he wasn’t always playing the right notes.
But that’s 2009. That’s gone. What matters is what Murphy can do in 2010 and beyond.
Because that’s the thing about Murph. Whether he’s a blue-collar stud or an overhyped dud, he’s under the Mets’ control and inexpensive for the next several years.
If you’re in the camp that says the Mets are only a piece or two away from a World Series berth in 2010, then you don’t — and probably shouldn’t — care what Murphy is earning. If the Mets are only a piece or two away from contending, they shouldn’t bank on Murphy’s improvement in 2010 and he should be traded away or relegated to a bench role, where he’ll be just some guy earning the Major League minimum.
But if you’re in the camp that says the Mets have many, many question marks beyond the ones surrounding their young first baseman, then you’re in the same camp as me. (We can be camp friends!)
And if that’s the case, then you must recognize that the Mets should stick with Murphy, at least for now.
Sure, there’s plenty to suggest he won’t ever be the player the Mets need him to be. If Murphy doesn’t markedly improve from his 2009 campaign, he will not be an adequate first baseman for a team that aspires to postseason play.
On the other hand, Murphy is 24, and before this season had precisely 135 at-bats above Double-A. It can take a long time for a young player to fully adjust to Major League pitching, and plenty of good hitters have had Age-24 seasons far worse than the one Murph just endured.
If Murphy can become a good hitter, even good enough to be an average first baseman — and that’s a pretty darn good hitter, mind you — he’ll be something immensely valuable: A low-cost everyday player who can free up spending cash for the Mets to use elsewhere.
In short, he could be a guy. Not an Hall of Famer or an All-Star, but also not a value-sapping below-replacement-level scrub like the ones the Mets too frequently trot out. Just a guy, a deserving Major Leaguer.
This has been my whole thing for a while: The Mets need guys. Inexpensive guys. And Murphy can be one of them.
He should be given that opportunity this season. There’s not that much to lose and there’s a ton to gain. At worst, he can hold down the fort until Ike Davis is ready. At best, he can force the oft-rumored move of Davis to right field when Francoeur inevitably regresses to his mean.
It’s about patience. The Mets need to take their time assessing Murphy, Murphy needs to take more pitches at the plate, and Mets fans need to stop taking for granted that the team can piece together a winner without making efforts toward sustainability.
When someone is out in public handing something out to passersby, there’s about a 99.99% chance you don’t want that thing.
It’s a real shame, but it is a very rare occasion that someone is just standing on the corner distributing diamonds or nachos or iPhones.
More likely, he’s handing out flyers for something you’re not at all interested in, like suit sales or palm readers or, terrifyingly, discounted dental work.
In Westchester, by the MTA station in advance of Election Day, lots of people gather to hand out flyers for various political campaigns.
And perhaps the Westchester residents are unaccustomed to my jaded big-city ways, but when I refuse them, they often make snarky comments like, “Well I guess some people just don’t like voting,” or “This is your town we’re talking about.”
Now here’s the thing: I do care about voting, but I would never really want to vote in an election in which I’m not familiar with the issues. Plus, there’s no chance I’d ever vote for someone just based on a flyer handed to me unsolicited at the train station. Also, though it technically is the town I live in, it has not been my town long enough for me to register to vote there, so I’m not someone they should actually be targeting.
Anyway, I was unable to avoid one of them even though I tried my very hardest. But I’m pretty glad I got it, and I’m upset I worked so hard to avoid looking at the guy because it turns out he has an unbelievable and, I presume, unironic mustache:
I have no idea what a highway superintendent does nor whether Peter M. Sciliano is qualified to perform those duties, but I’m certain he has my support. That’s a mustache I want making important decisions.
Every time a media fallacy is exposed, I think, “Maybe this will be the time they get it!”
I hope it’s a teachable moment, to borrow a phrase from my days as an educator, and that sports journalists will recognize the mistakes of their past and learn not to repeat them.
And every time, I’m disappointed.
So now A-Rod is not unclutch anymore. He’s a certified playoff stud, a man who richly deserves the centaur painting he has hanging over his bed. It’s appropriate; he’s that much of a beast.
But you know who is unclutch?
Why, it’s Mark Teixeira of course. The inimitable John Harper:
Let’s be honest, Mark Teixeira is floundering at the plate in his first postseason the way A-Rod did in his pinstriped past. And while the Yankees have survived Teixeira’s struggles so far, you have to ask:
Can they really win a championship with their No. 3 hitter seemingly blinded by the bright lights of October/November?
GARSJKHDA$#@!FKJFGSDKJGH!@#!@
Sorry.
Harper adds brilliant baseball-player quotes from Teixeira that include, “Sometimes you get hits, sometimes you don’t” and mentions that Teixeira — shockingly! — wasn’t doing much to divulge his mental state to the press.
I don’t even feel like finishing. Sample size. Sample size. Sample size.
Mark Teixeira is a Major League Baseball player, and a very good one. He’s enduring a slump that happens to be amplified by a set of short playoff series. Last year — LAST YEAR! — in the bright lights of postseason baseball, he hit .467 with a .550 OBP in the Angels’ ALDS loss to the Sox.
He might actually be the “new A-Rod,” as Harper suggests. He’s just not the new A-Rod for any of the reasons Harper thinks.
In a Daily News column that may have been deemed too dumb to publish online, John Harper explains how the “gritty, gutty” Phillies suddenly “don’t appear to be so tough-minded after all,” which, he notes, is exactly what happened to the similarly gritty and gutty Twins and Angels when they faced a superior Yankee team. Amazing!
(The column, I recognize, is from the early edition of the paper, which is probably why it didn’t get published online. But still.)
In a column that did make the online cut, Bill Madden revels in the trappings of tiny sample sizes.
Troy Smith, not the Heisman winner but the founder of Sonic, has died at 87. One time in college I drove from DC to North Carolina to go to Sonic, which sort of defeated the purpose of fast food. It was still awesome, though.
A part of Kate Gosselin will always love Jon. No part of me will ever care.
This is funny, from The Onion via Deadspin:
