Just reading through Macks Mets today
and had a few quick thoughts along the moot super highway.
We need to remember this 2017 season,
that what a player accomplishes in Spring Training means almost nothing at all
beyond making the final cut and being on the 25-man roster. What I am simply
saying here, is that Spring Training is really just an opportunity, a testing
ground to experiment with one's overall ability, and to try new things outs.
It's a place to hopefully grow. So, just because a pitcher (or field player)
who prior has demonstrated talent and professional consistency then has a
stretch during Spring Training where that all seems to have somehow
disappeared, does not mean that he has lost his skill set and no longer can be
depended upon going forward into the real season. The reason for this obvious
talent slippage of sorts tends to be simply due to his
"experimentation", and that really is what Spring Training is best
used for. Plus, each player may have been given a few things that management
wants most to see them working on during the course of Spring Training. Cutting
to the chase here, we need not be too critical of everything that goes on
during Spring Training. Wait until the bell rings and the season begins, may be
sound advice here.
On the incessant Tim Tebow criticism...
Baseball's bottom-line is business.
Professional baseball is about winning games, and playing the best players at
each position regardless of the time spent coming up through a team's system.
Choosing which players to start, or play the most, is about who actually is
better and most deserves that opportunity. It is not about, well, this player
has been here since forever and deserves to start ahead of all the other
players who have less time in here, just because he has this "seniority
thing." Look at Wilmer Flores (as an example) on this current NY Mets
team. I think that these NY Mets drafted him when he was like fifteen years
old, or something. By this supposed rule of seniority, Wilmer Flores should
then be starting with this NY Mets team at any position he would basically like
to start at since only Mr. Met has been here longer on this team. In short,
it's about talent, talent potential, and also what the team needs most to win
ball games with their current roster.
Tim Tebow does have name recognition,
but he also has what could turn out to be dramatic homerun ability once he gets
used to professional pitching. This is what (I think) most of us see here with
Tim. And this NY Mets minor league system does not seem to have so many of
these power hitters anywhere within their minor league ranks, that I can find.
The 2017 NY Mets season will (for me)
all come down to just how healthy their 25-man roster can stay all season long.
If the team can somehow stay healthy, then they will be in the playoff hunt for
certain. If not, maybe we will see some Mets AAA minor league players up here
come September 1st. Either way, this should be a fun and interesting season for
everyone!
Get ready Mets fans.
3 comments:
I agree, as Mack and others know, on Tebow. The system is low on homer power, and he has at least the potential of developing in that regard. Enough on him.
Spring training may be a time to work on things for guys either secure in spots on the 25 man roster or for guys not close to the bigs, but if you are a Phil Evans or a Paul Sewald or a Travis Taijeron, you better bring your "A" game in the spring when playing, because if you experiment and your results stink, it still looks like a failure during your "audition." Taijeron, for instance, has historically struck out way too much, and just 6 times in his last 40 plate appearances, which does not go unnoticed. Only so many auditions before the trash heap if you fail them.
Let me make a little touchy/feely comment about Tim Tebow. There's not a one of us who didn't grow up dreaming of becoming a major league ballplayer, and we carried that dream with us. Now along comes this slightly older guy, who could start in the minors and make it at an age that was considered impossible before. Aren't there a lot of guys, (sightly older, up to the age where you have a hard time remembering the dream) where the dream gets rekindled when they hear about this 29-year-old guy who's going to low A?
And baseball's all about dreaming.
Who knows whether Tim will make it or not, but hey, who here didn't love The Natural?
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