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1/5/21

Mets360 - Casey Stengel and trying to thread the needle with free agents

 


By Brian Joura January 5, 2021

Casey Stengel was a baseball lifer but because of his theatrics and quotability, he doesn’t seem to get credit for his baseball smarts. There’s hardly a situation in baseball where you can’t find a Stengel quote that fits or explains the issue, even if it’s not remotely what Stengel had in mind when he initially said the words. Thinking about the dance that free agents and clubs are going through – George Springer wants more than $150 million?!? – brought to mind this Stengel classic:

Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.

Maybe it’s not clear who’s the ballplayer and who’s the woman in the comparison to the current free agent dance. But it doesn’t take long for January to turn into February, which has got to be the equivalent of staying up all night. The Mets went home early with Trevor May and James McCann, although neither would be considered the best-looking woman at Club Relief Pitcher or The Catcher’s Lounge.

A Twitter user asked Steve Cohen if McCann would be the biggest catch this offseason for the Mets. Cohen reminded the user that he wasn’t out there trying to get by with smooth pick-up lines.

May and McCann took Cohen’s money, for sure. FanGraphs had its annual crowdsourcing column on free agents and the median contract estimate for May was 2/$10 and for McCann it was 2/$12. May ended up getting 2/$15.5 while McCann pulled in 4/$40.6. With that as our backdrop, is it really surprising that Springer is asking for more than $30 million per year?

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