I’ve beaten my head against the wall until I’m no longer
sure I can write a coherent sentence but the only thing I can conclude is that
the Wilpons and Sandy Alderson have decided their best bet for prolonged
success is to finish in last place in order to get the highest draft picks
possible. How else can you explain:
- You extended the contract of Terry Collins after his team got worse each year instead of better
- You rushed ahead of the, ahem, crowd to get to sign Chris Young for what it cost to sign Nelson Cruz
- You had to choose between two left handed first basemen. They chose neither and created a circus atmosphere
- After proclaiming OBP was of utmost importance, you signed a pair of potentially 200 strikeout-per-year whiff specialists in Chris Young and Curtis Granderson
- You signed another collection of retreads and has beens for your bullpen including putting people into roles they’ve never before experienced (John Lannan and Daisuke Matsuzaka come to mind)
- You promote a .340 hitting Eric Campbell from AAA to play all around the diamond and he’s lucky to get into a game a week, stuck behind the below replacement level efforts of the Youngs, Abreu and Nieuwenhuis
- You’re last in nearly every offensive category yet you insist on playing Ruben Tejada who has hit .219 over his last 162 games over Wilmer Flores who has hit .321/28/143 over the same period in AAA
- You go with six outfielders and no backup shortstop in order to keep Bobby Abreu, Chris Young and Kirk Nieuwenhuis on a major league roster
- When the trade deadline arrived you could be either buyers or sellers. You chose to be neither
- You see a major turn-around from Matt den Dekker who is on fire in Las Vegas, hitting .324 with a .395 OBP and striking out in just 19% of his ABs, so when you finally come to your senses and kick Abreu to the curb, you promote Nieuwenhuis who for his 434 AB major league career has struck out 35% of the time while hitting a paltry .237 with an OBP of just .306
(The saddest part of that last one is that .237 is actually
better than 50% of Terry Collins’ preferred starting lineup!)
Well, if the plan is to aim for the bottom to build for the
future, then you’re succeeding at it big time.
You just averaged 4 hits per game over a 4 game span. Making Kirk Nieuwenhuis part of the offensive
attack should reinforce that downhill trend nicely.
3 comments:
As Ross Perot once said " that suckin' sound you hear..." is in play here. Decisions to be as "unoffensive" as possible have left many of us offended. Call up Dekker and Brown to platoon in left, cut both Youngs, play Flores every day and maybe a bad offense can become mediocre.
Well Reese you pretty much nailed it across the board. I agree that it's all about securing the protected draft pick while "pretending" to be competitive. I really don't understand the Granderson signing now either. Why sign a streaky mid-30s OF to play LF for a team that probably won't contend until that OF and his contract becomes an immoveable object holding back both the team and a better, younger player. He's played well 2 1/2 mo. of the season and been abysmal otherwise. While he's hot they should move Lagares back to the top of the line-up.
@D Whit -- tomorrow's column is specifically about Curtis Granderson and how his performance parallels a similar contract.
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