Reese Kaplan -- The Josh McCown Mets

A parallel to the New York Jets began to form in my mind this week with the continuing purge of high priced players, yet rather than seeing if anyone in the organization might help in the future, the club is punting the season by handing the reins over to a 38 year old journeyman with a 2-20 record as a starter since 2014.  Yet somehow they think magically they will catch lightning in a bottle.  Where have I seen this script play out before…a team concedes it needs to go in a new direction yet inexplicably hands critical assignments to people who are not or should not be part of their future?

I offer a tip of the cap to Sandy Alderson for conducting a fire sale of high priced veterans.  The job wasn’t done particularly well and he gets an incomplete for keeping Asdrubal Cabrera around, but the theory was that by moving high priced free-agents-to-be the Mets would be able to view more of their role players and minor league players in regular playing time in order to gauge how they do given the opportunity. 

Of course, in a rare moment of candor from Sandy Alderson, he confessed he was only able to secure the budget that he had with the promise that if the team tanked he would do a sell-off.  That might explain why the returns were so sub-par given his motivation was trying to honor a commitment to his boss as opposed to trying to build a winning team.

So the new era began with a flourish with Amed Rosario in at shortstop almost every day.  Dom Smith has been penciled in against nearly all right handed pitching but benched against lefties.  (Why is it that lefties are protected from lefties but righties aren’t protected from righties…hmmn…)

With the dual injuries this past week on consecutive days to Michael Conforto and Yoenis Cespedes, it pretty much guaranteed playing time every day for Brandon Nimmo AND for Juan Lagares.  They did choose to promote Travis Taijeron to play some outfield, but I have a feeling his days are already numbered as he’s started off on a major schneid resulting in getting the hook for a pinch hitter in a critical part of Sunday’s game. 

Terry Collins' Ideal Starting Core

The Mets version of playing Josh McCown are the assignments handed out to Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera, Tommy Milone and others at the expense of guys like Gavin Cecchini, Matt Reynolds and Kevin Plawecki.  Why isn’t Corey Oswalt up here just as Chris Flexen was promoted after succeeding in AA?  What about some bullpen help from the minors?  How about getting Plawecki in at 1B if you insist on platooning Smith so that you get more looks at the bats of both he and Travis d’Arnaud?

Don’t even get me started on why Wilmer Flores still must fight for a position and playing time despite hitting as many home runs as the $27.5 million dollar left fielder and exceeding him in RBI production.  Combined Cabrera and Reyes have 19 HRs to Flores’ paltry 17 despite having a combined additional 450 ABs to get those two extra dingers.  Stick him at 3B and leave him there for the rest of the year.  See if his offense makes up for his defense.  You’ll never know when you jerk him all over the diamond, in and out of the lineup.

Then there's the idiocy of rushing Matt Harvey back to play on Friday with news that Noah Syndergaard may be barking at his heels.  Hey, if they can come back and be productive again that's wonderful, but it's a lost season and there is no reason to push them to do so in such haste.  Let them each get a game in during the final week of September to allow them to spend the winter knowing how it felt to be back out there again.  Why risk further injury on September 1st when there's no bearing on the standings?

So which is it – are the Mets banking on has beens and never was types as they allegedly build for the future or are they honestly going to give opportunities to players who have something to prove and probably a greater desire to do so than fading journeymen or over-the-hill veterans?  Salary should not dictate playing time.