Mike's Mets - Please Move the WBC to the Fall

 

By Mike Steffanos

Feel free to care or not care about the World Baseball Classic. Just move the damn thing to after the baseball season, please.

I remember writing about the World Baseball Classic during my original blogging run. The first tournament was played in 2006, when the Mets looked like a real competitor for a title for the first time in half a decade. The idea of players ramping it up to play a tournament in March seemed absolutely insane to me then, and my attitude hasn't changed over the years since.

The counterargument is that players get hurt in spring training games, also. And of course they do. It happens just about every spring. Competing athletically, even in exhibition games, involves some inherent risk. But the risk is ramped up once you put the stress of competing for their countries onto athletes and ask them to ramp up so quickly to do this at a time of year when that stress is a complete break from normal routines. The WBC simply has to be moved to a different time of year, preferably at the end of the season when a team who has invested heavily in an athlete has the least chance of seeing an injury cost them the services of that athlete during games that count.

This was the first time a WBC occurred in a year when the Mets looked to be a top competitor since the inaugural 2006 event. Yeah, I know the 2017 event took place the spring after the Mets had qualified for the Wildcard Game, but I was somewhat skeptical of their chances that year, even before their vaunted pitchers and key offensive players started dropping like flies.

What is most frustrating here is that Steve Cohen made a very large investment to keep closer Edwin Díaz because his value to the club was irreplaceable. Now the Mets will face an entire season without their closer anyway. And I'm running across several pieces, like this one from Tom Verducci on SI.com and this from Brittany Ghiroli in The Athletic, lecturing me the WBC is not to blame for what happened to Edwin. Yeah, whatever.

I don't love the WBC. I barely watch any of the games, occasionally flipping one on for a few minutes and finding it no more exciting than any exhibition game. I love baseball, but I come at it from having a deep, longstanding rooting interest in what happens to the New York Mets. This was not ideal for many years, but now that Tweedledee and his son Tweedledum have been forced to sell to someone with spare cash and a vision for the franchise, I want to see my club compete for a title. No matter how you frame it, a player lost for the season in an exhibition tournament is unacceptable. So, spare me the lectures on me not loving baseball enough because I don't love the WBC and come up with a solution we all can live with.

I know some fans love this thing, particularly fans with Latin American roots who care what happens when their home country competes. I understand that players love playing for their home country. I don't begrudge any of them what they love. Just please, move the damn thing to November, when I don't have to worry about losing a Mets player for an entire season, as happened with Edwin Díaz. The people who love watching the tournament and the players who love playing in it can get what they want. Seems like a win-win situation. If this thing had taken place in November and Díaz got hurt, at least Mets fans could be hopeful of hearing the sound of trumpets again in July or August.

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