Mike's Mets - Watching Paint Dry

 

By Mike Steffanos January 3, 2021 

The holidays are past us now, and I really do expect that we'll be seeing some free agents signings in the next couple of weeks. Then again, I thought that things were going to pick up after the nontender deadline back at the beginning of December, and that just didn't happen. Perhaps there's no real sense of urgency for MLB teams who are betting on some sort of delay for the 2021 season. Or, another possible reason for the slowness that's been bandied about is that player agents are unhappy with the small number of teams that are interested in their clients and keep hoping that some teams will reconsider and jump into the bidding. That would certainly make sense on their part. Whatever the cause, this hot stove season is moving slower than my friend Tony does when he's reaching for his wallet, and trust me, that's pretty damn slow. At times I've seen cobwebs form between his hand and his pocket during this maneuver.

I'm trying to maintain a sense of humor about all of this, but I find it all a bit frustrating. I find myself wishing for something significant to occur, just to change the narrative from "hey, when do you think something is going to happen?" As I wrote in my first post of 2021, I've spent so much time waiting for things in the past year that I've exhausted my capacity to wait patiently, which was never a particular strong point for me, anyway.

Most recently, Mets fans find themselves waiting on the decision by Japanese pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano, who the Mets are reportedly one of the teams bidding for his services. Sugano is reportedly weighing offers from the San Francisco Giants and the Blue Jays, among others, along with an offer to stay with his team in Japan:

Despite the opportunity for more money here, Sugano is reportedly considering a return to Japan for at least another year due to our woeful track record in the U.S. of containing COVID-19. The recent government fumbles with distributing the vaccine are just the latest stain on that record. What's even more frustrating about that is that I've been reading that it might take until the fall now before enough people are vaccinated to allow life to go back to close to normal.

Back to Sugano, if he does decide to sign with the Mets, he seemingly will slot in just ahead of or just behind Marcus Stroman, depending on which report you read. Either way, that would give the Mets three solid starters to build the rotation around, with David Peterson, Steven Matz, and the return of Noah Syndergaard also in the mix. Assuming the Mets would still sign at least one more decent starter pitcher, it would mean that Peterson or Matz would have to win a job based on merit, and the Mets would have some real depth in the rotation that we haven't seen in many years.

Or, conversely, Sugano doesn't sign here and we're back to square one. To play here, Sugano has to sign by Thursday at 5 PM, so that's one bit of waiting where a definite end is in sight. I'll drink to that.

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