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9/13/18

Mike Freire - Fleeting Thoughts



Good Morning, Mets fans!

I sit here at work on this fine Florida morning and I have to shake my head at what the Mets' 2018 season has looked like.  First we had the 11-1 start which predictably had the fan base riled up about a possible championship season (whatever ghost possessed the team for the first twelve games must have jumped into the Red Sox for the rest of the season).  Then, you had the "sharp downturn" which caused the fan base to run in the opposite direction and call for everyone's head on a spike.

Now, with the team well out of contention, they have been playing pretty decent baseball of late, which gives you a small glimmer of hope for next year.  Sort of like a really bad golfer who regularly shoots in the 100's, but hits a great shot towards the end of their round and it convinces him/her that things are turning around!  It is enough to get you back out onto the course for another attempt,  or in our case, back in our seats for the 2019 season.

I have always been a bit of a dreamer, so why not? 

Let's get on with the rest of this article before I come up with more analogies!

1.  Speaking of the 2019 season, there are a ton of question marks that need to be answered and the most important one is who will be in charge of the team?  Yeah, I am aware that some folks think that Jeff Wilpon is in charge and that the GM is simply a figurehead.  That may or may not be true, but the team still needs to find a replacement for Sandy Alderson.

I am holding out hope that the team goes outside of the organization for it's next "leader" and I also hope that the next GM comes from a team that wins on a consistent basis.  The rest of the team's decisions all hinge on that selection, so it needs to happen fairly soon, right?

Side note, I hope that Sandy is doing well, despite the lack of information on the subject.

2.  It is hard not to get excited over what Amed Rosario has been able to do over the past six weeks, or so.  Once the calendar turned over from July to August, Amed has been on FIRE!

Consider his last thirty games played, which is roughly 20% of a full season;

.318/.350/.473  (.823 OPS)

3 HR/15 RBI/8 SB and 24 R

***Plus he is drawing more walks (look at his OBP) and hitting for some power, to include a bunch of triples.  Better yet, if you project a full season's worth of stats off his current pace, how does 15 HR/75 RBI/40 SB and 120 R sound?

Hoping that he holds onto most of his recent gains, he is starting to look more like a piece of the future and less like an over matched prospect.  In my world, he is the future at third base once Andres Gimenez is ready for Short Stop and Jeff McNeil settles in at Second Base.

3.  Feel free to call me a bit petty or even shallow,  but I am enjoying the slow motion melt down of the Washington Nationals.  That team has been the "favorites" in our division for what seems like an eternity.  Of course, that is what you get when the "hype machine" (i.e. ESPN) takes a liking to your squad and one overrated player in particular.

That team is as cocky as any squad in baseball, despite the fact that they haven't accomplished much outside of the NL East.  They have gone through more excuses and managers then most teams, and despite having a talented roster, they continue to underachieve.  It couldn't happen to a "nicer" bunch of players, I tell you.

Hey Bryce, have you found your "ring" yet?

4.  On a much more serious and relevant topic, I hope that any of you in the general path of Hurricane Florence are taking the storm seriously while protecting your loved ones and your possessions from possible harm.  I know that the media is really good at making "mountains out of mole hills", but strong hurricanes like this one are no joke.

Last year, we were fortunate that Hurricane Irma chose to drive up the middle of our State, instead of staying out in the Gulf of Mexico and hitting our area as a Category 4 or 5 storm.  Even in her weakened state (Category 1), the wind, the rain and the flooding were an eye opener. 

This storm has the potential to inflict serious damage to the mid-Atlantic region, so take it seriously.  It is better to be over prepared when you don't need to be, as opposed to getting caught under prepared and suffering the consequences.

Well, that's it until next time.

Stay safe, Mets' fans.

12 comments:

  1. This team is tempting Met fans to dream again. And that ain't just a bag of wind.

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  2. After today's DH, Red Sox, Phillies, and Nationals. Fasten your seatbelts.

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  3. Thoughts -

    1. I don't see any chance of a new GM changing the way that the Wilpons have a strangle hold on this team. I once worked for guys like this. I thought I could change them. They never change.

    2. No one ever talks about Sandy anymore. It is sad, almost spooky. And no one has ever discussed what kind of cancer he has or the Stage it is in. What I have been told my multiple sources is that this is a game breaker and we will not see him again in an active role.

    3. I too am thrilled with the growth by Rosario, but I look more forward to 12 months past this when Gimenez takes over at short, moving Amed to second and McNeil to third.

    4. I like 32 miles off the coast of Hilton Head, SC. We look like we will dodge a bullet but we have hunkered down with my pug, my WiFi, and PB&J sandwiches. The storm now projects to turn south over Charlotte, head to the Columbia area, and head out Georgia into Kentucky.

    I want to say one more thing.

    The addition of Jeff McNeil and resurgence of Zack Wheeler is showing us just how close we could have come this season.

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  4. On the latter point, that was something no one saw coming. On the former, when Frazier was hurt why we were giving 3B assignments to the likes of Jose Bautista when McNeil was tearing it up, I'll never know.

    Regarding the GM, my bet is still on Ricco because they tend to hire the familiar and go the lazy route. One exception was the minimum wage priced Mickey Callaway. However, that was the exception.

    One of the reason I chose to move to the desert here is the absence of natural disasters. It gets windy, sometimes even dust storms, but thankfully hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes and the like are what I get in exchange for giving up major league sports live and ethnic restaurants beyond Mexican :)

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  5. Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches make any storm fun.

    Reese also gets scorpions and rattlers, which he failed to mention!

    But, yes, had they called up McNeil earlier and stopped playing a little known IF guy named Jose, and we did not trade Familia, we might have found ourselves in a playoff hunt. Between Reyes and Bautista? No way, Jose!

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  6. Quik story.

    When I left ownership, I tok a job as GM or 2 radio stations in Austin Texas. I reported to GE Capital and I was told to get the station to a break even point and then sell the bad paper.

    I fired 22 native Texans in 2 days and the newspapers had a field day on this 'New Yawker'.

    Anyway, I kept my home on Hilton Head and built one on Austin. Bother were protected by The Homestead Act so my money (what I had left of it) was safe there. My bank that financed me eventually took everything else I had.

    Anyway... I was sitting one day in Austin... lonely because my wife and daughter was back in South Carolina... when my wife called and said that our cat was sick and she might have to put it down. In the backgorund was local Austin newscast reporting that they had to close Barton Creek down because of the Feces content in the water, and the local bars on downtown 6th street were organizing a revolt in hopes of overturning the new rule that you couldn't buy a drink in their bar and walk down the street with it, a tradition in Austin.

    I picked up a pencil and paper, wrote this blues song in Em, picked up my D-18, and played it...

    Carolina Blues

    Woke up in Texas
    No Caroline
    No alligators
    Scorpions all the time
    Wild turkeys in my backyard
    Fire ants bitin' at my door
    I'm so unhappy
    Just crying on the floor....

    CHORUS

    I'm stuck in west Texas kind of blues
    Goin back to Carolina... God knows I paid my dues

    Verse 2

    Pretty sick of fajitas
    Chimichangas too
    Rivers always risin'
    Cat's got the flu
    Pollen's always maxed out
    There's feces in the creeek
    Can't drink no more on sixth street
    Whole place simply stinks...

    Repeat chorus

    SOLO

    Repeat first verse

    Repeat chorus


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  7. Interesting song, Mack.....very "Clapton-esque"!

    Even though we disagree (slightly) on where McNeil and Rosario will end up, it would be quite nice to see a 2020 Opening Day lineup that had McNeil, Gimenez, Rosario and Alonso manning the infield, wouldn't it?

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  8. Mike

    That is where we heading if everyone is patient enough to wait it out and let it happen.

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  9. Why did the Mets miss the playoffs> One reason: the Joses.

    Joses Reyes and Bautista are 92 for 457 (.201) this year as Mets - that is the kind of ugly that flushes playoff pretenders.

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  10. Losing what Yo was supposed to bring to the table was a factor, too.

    What to do with that guy??

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