The Morning Report – December 9 – Gil Hodges, Curtis Granderson, Chris Taylor, Jeff Francoeur

There was never anyone bigger in baseball, in my life, than Gil Hodges.

I grew up in a neighborhood of Brooklyn Dodgers fans and lived only one block off of Atlantic Avenue, where you could take the bus all the way down to Bedford Avenue and Ebbets Field.

I also went to J.H.S. 171 for the 7^th and 9^th grade (I skipped the 8^th grade) and a few of us would go straight from school to the stadium when there were home day games. By then, there would be no one standing at the entrances so we could sneak in for the last two or three innings of the game.

The Dodgers were something special to all of us in my household but Hodges and Duke Snider held a special place, ‘The Duke’ was my brother’s favorite player and we would go hours discussing which one was a better player and which one would make it to the Hall of Fame first. My brother won that discussion in 1980.

We thought these guys would never get old and be around forever. Hell, we thought we’d never get old, but all of us did.

On the way there, Hodges became the manager of my next-favorite team, the Mets, which was just bonus time for me.

Hodges died in the arms of one of his coaches, Joe Pignatano, during a golf outing in 1972. He was a lifelong chain smoker and the coroner ruled he had a massive heart attack while riding in the car back to his hotel room that day.

It really never mattered to me that he wasn’t voted into the Hall. I remember to this day that, at the time of his retirement, he was ranked 11^th in all-time home runs as a right handed hitter.

Like I said, it didn’t matter to me because he always will be my starting first baseman.

Andy Martino[i] had an interesting idea:

Here’s one idea: Try to move Granderson, clearing payroll and an outfield spot for a Kemp or Upton. Maybe get a third-team involved; there’s a lot of talk about three-way deals lately. In a market starving for offense, the Mets would probably be able to drum up some value for a corner outfielder who managed 20 home runs last year, his first at Citi Field. Then, they could allocate some of the money saved to other hitters.

Hey, look, we’re sick of talking about Niese, Colon, Gee and Daniel Murphy on an endless loop.

Mack – Let’s face it… Martino is probably just trying to invent a new spin until something comes along.

In my opinion, this would take a 3-way trade with someone that could better address the Dodgers need. Is Kemp and his contract better than, let’s say, Granderson and Rafael Montero?   

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According to Rotoworld[ii], the Mets continue to look for a new shortstop even though Sandy Alderson keeps telling the New York press that he’s ready to start the season with Wilmer Flores playing there.

This time it’s the Seattle Mariners and either Chris Taylor or Brad Miller:

“Taylor, 24, batted .287/.347/.346 over 47 games as a rookie in 2014. Big things were expected from Miller going into the spring, but he ended up batting just .221 with a .653 OPS while losing his grip on the starting shortstop job” – . 



     Do you want to be a beat reporter? Eno Sarris[i] wrote a great article on this:

So you say you want to be a beat reporter. Do you know what the life is really like?

Are you ready to travel? You’ll have to travel like you never have.

Prepare to spend more than 120 nights in a hotel in your average work year. Prepare to get really used to sleeping in an unfamiliar bed in each of those nights. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s C. Trent Rosecrans was surprised to find he sleeps better in a double on the road despite having a king at home, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Hank Schulman has always had insomnia issues, but “they get worse on the road because of sleeping in different beds.”

A very interesting article on the origin of the draft written by Dyan Perry[ii]

However, the manner in which teams acquired free agents was very different in those early years. Vested parties concocted a system called the "re-entry draft," which was designed to prevent certain well-heeled teams from hoarding free agents. In essence, teams could "draft" the right to negotiate with a certain number of players (a number tied to the total number of free agents in a given year, a max of two for that first draft). Free agents, in that first year, could negotiate with no more than 12 teams (source: BizOfBaseball.com), and those teams obviously must have chosen the free agent in question during the re-entry draft. Like most drafts, teams were ordered in reverse order of the standings. A coin toss gave the NL's Expos the top pick rather than the AL's reigning worst team, the White Sox.

This is pretty sad. Joel Sherman reported that one of the reasons ex-Met Jeff Francoeur agreed to a minor league contract with the Philadelphia Phillies was to work on his swing and try and rekindle his career. I know things like this sound pretty pathetic but let’s try to remember what the money is like in this game even at sub-par levels like this. What if Francoeur could wind up with a job here eventually being paid $1mil a year. What other industry is going to pay him a mil a year? A ballplayer’s last contract could wind up being ten times more than anyone ever paid you or I for what we have done all our lives.

I wish Francoeur well. I remember what a positive influence he was in the spring training clubhouse.

  

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[i] http://www.hardballtimes.com/so-you-want-to-be-a-beat-writer.../

[ii] http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24874540

               

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[i] http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/baseballinsider/yankees-mets-winter-meetings-interesting-blog-entry-1.2037227

[ii] http://www.rotoworld.com/player/mlb/7703/chris-taylor?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter