Tony Plate - NY Mets into second round of GM search

The New York Mets general manager search has reached the second round of interviews. The two favorites for the position are agent Brodie Van Wagenen who held preliminary talks with the Mets this past week and Doug Melvin the senior adviser of the Milwaukee Brewers. Van Wagenen who has experience in contract negotiation is the co-head of the baseball division at CAA sports. Two of his clients are Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard. Melvin who has baseball operations experience was the Brewer’s general manager from 2002-15. The Brewers made the playoffs in 2008 and 2011. He was also a former general manager of the Texas Rangers who made the playoffs several times in the 1990’s under his guidance.

As for the Major League Baseball Championship Series the Boston Red Sox eliminated the Houston Astros 4-1 and the Los Angeles Dodgers eliminated the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 setting up a Boston vs Los Angeles World Series. The Brewer- Dodger series could have gone either way, but in the end the playoff experience of the Dodgers prevailed over the Brewers. Even though the Astros had injuries to a few key players I was still surprised that the defending world champion Astros did not put up much of a fight against the Red Sox. I thought the series would go seven games especially since the Astros had an easy time defeating the Cleveland Indians and their brilliant starting pitching staff.  In my opinion that controversial non-home run call in which the two-run homer was taken away from the Astros really took the fire out of the them.

David Price was brilliant in game five and pitched six scoreless innings, striking out nine to pick up his first career postseason win as a starter. This is a matchup that does not thrill New York Yankee fans since the Red Sox are their arch rivals and the Dodgers used to play in the New York area. The two cities have a long NBA history between each other and their teams have been great rivals. Both cities have good knowledgeable sports fans. The last time these two teams met in the world series was back in 1916 when the Dodgers were known as the Brooklyn Robins and the Red Sox won that series 4-1. The great Babe Ruth was the winning pitcher in game two and that fact makes a great trivia question. Both the Dodgers and Red Sox are very competitive teams. I think it will be a good world series and may the better team win.