"A CLUB YOU DON'T WANNA JOIN"
Tom Brennan - THE IKE DAVIS CLUB
Ike Davis is classic Mets stuff.
He gets drafted in the first round, has a great rookie season with nice power and glove in 2010, and in 2011, comes out of the gate like a house of fire...36 games, .302/.383/.543. Wow.
If you were like me, you felt this guy...just...might...be...a perennial All Star in the making.
Then came that pop up...the "pop up moment" that comes all too often to too many Mets players.
Sure, it isn't a pop up that does it every time, but that POP UP MOMENT arrives often, don't it?
Wright and Ike converge on said little pop up, Wright steps on Ike, Ike falls down, no big deal, we all think it is a little bump, but it is not, then they put him in a walking boot (can Amed Rosario get one of those?) by mistake, and an innocent micro-collision wipes out Ike's 2011.
Think of all the hard player collisions into the boards in hockey - then think of the little bump that ended Ike's season. Very Mets Stuff, wouldn't you say?
Ike's 2012 starts abysmally, but in mid-season, Ike suddenly starts blasting homers like Dave Kingman or Aaron Judge (take your pick) and he ends up with 32 dingers. Our perennial All Star is BACK, folks. That 2011 nightmare is in the rear view mirror. After 27 homers in about a half season, could Ike be a perennial 40 homer guy?
Well, no, this is the Mets.
Ike instead has a miserable 2013, starts 2014 the same way, is traded to the Bucs, never gets the bat untracked, tries a baseball career switch to pitcher in 2017, and in 2018 at age 31, is out of baseball.
Ike joins the Ike Davis Club. Where Misery Loves Company.
Who else is in, or about to join, the Ike Davis Club?
All you have to do to join is come up to the majors with great promise, looking like a star or superstar, then have weird crap happen, and become barely a major leaguer, if one at all.
Most clubs? Maybe one guy like that every decade.
The Mets?
How about:
Matt Harvey - DFA
Zach Wheeler - not OK
Steve Matz - Oy Vey
Michael Conforto - mysterious like Ike after bizarre injury
Travis d'Arnaud - medical case study
Bobby Parnell - 100 MPH pitcher, left just as fast
Wheeler, Matz, and Conforto might soon show that any thoughts of joining the elite and prestigious Ike Davis Club were premature.
They may pull out of their utterly unexpected doldrums after their own bizarre injury crap and be just fine.
But this is, after all, the Mets. Where truly promising careers often go to die. And this Club beckons many to come join.
Only club qualification?
Fans at one point visualing Citifield stardom for you. And a bizarre and/or lengthy injury or injuries.
And - think expansion - they are thinking of opening up not one, but two, new wings to the Ike Davis Club.
One is THE IMPORT WING, for a guy like Duaner Sanchez who was not originally with the Mets in the big leagues, but after a terrific season's start one year, gets injured in a cab collision and is never the same. Oh yeah, his club membership was unanimously approved!! Jason Bay just applied too - he was promised quick turaround time.
The other? THE NEOPHYTE WING.
Hopefully not, but maybe Dom Smith enters that wing - after all, he makes his weak 2017 debut, but even so, realistically, a hot spring and the 1B job is his - but he promptly gets hurt in his first game, misses the rest of spring training, and is off to at best mediocre start in Las Vegas.
Reese Havens and Sean Ratliff want in, too.
Their chances are excellent, wouldn't you say?
Dominic Smith's Ike Davis Club membership invitation letter just showed up in the mail. My advice? DON'T OPEN IT!
5 comments:
Tom -
This is not a good time to be a Met.
I have a funny feeling that we may have seen the best of Michael Conforto. People told me when he went down that this injury was career threatening. It may turn out to be that way.
One thing for sure... he is currently lost with a bat in his hand. The pitchers know it.
I don't think the shoulder injury on its own has anything to do with Conforto's 2018 struggles.
What we see from Conforto is a pattern of inconsistency season to season in which he mightily struggles. He struggles within seasons such as #1 and #3 despite solid stats.
He had poor season in year #2.
This is year #4 and may have another season like #2.
It's very possible this is who he is, a career .250 hitter with too many K's, and prone to long swing.
Where the Mets are at fault this season is allowing him to return too soon after surgery with far to few spring games.
Right now it seems to me he needs to make adjustments in his stance and also ditch the long swing. He looks to me off balance.
Send him back to the minors.
Regarding Ike Davis - he was bound to fail from his stubborn insistence of retaining that massive hitch. The opposition figured out how to exploit that and became career killer.
Players who need to change but fail to do so become their own worst enemies like Ike and Harvey.
I hear you about Ike's hitch - but prior to the infamous bump incident, he was quite good. After it, he was terrible, great for a half year, then terrible again. Quite a roller coaster.
Mack, I would send Conforto down to AA, let him hit in front of Alonso, get lots of good pitches. Until we drop out of pennant contention, we can't afford a non-functioning bat trying to find itself when we've already got that at catcher. If we wait thru 2 more weeks of struggle, the season could be cooked.
Mack: Interesting also is that Guillorme (hot and up to .277) walked twice as any times in the minors as Rosario per plate appearance. I would switch them for a while, bring up Luis and send Amed back to AAA to hone the strike zone. Luis is more apt to get on base.
It does seem like the Mets are "snake bitten" at times, doesn't it?
Mike, replace your "at times" with "most years" and that about sums it up.
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