Why is it, out of literally everyone in the entire baseball industry, everyone in sports media, maybe even everyone in the news community, and as evidenced by the hundreds and hundreds, arguably thousands, of internet messages in social media panning the moves, no one can fully understand or justify why David Stearns felt compelled to allow Pete Alonso to leave the Mets as a free agent, and short change Edwin Diaz into joining a new team?
What on Earth did Stearns say to team owner Steve Cohen that sold him these were good ideas?
Stearns is on a one-man island, although he does have a certain number of employed constituents who have done their best to try to make chicken soup out of chicken – well, you know what comes next.
Yes, I’m here to again complain that a saboteur named David Stearns is doing more to chase away Mets fans than reign them in, and even when he adds players that he thinks will comprise a championship caliber ballclub, it will take a truckload of Gorilla Glue to fix the broken lamp, and even then, the cracks will likely show.
To add insult to injury, Stearns now brings in Jorge Polanco, a 32-year-old infielder for positions the team already is bloated with – middle infielders. Stearns somehow had $20 million per season for Polanco when he couldn’t stretch the budget an extra couple of mil for one of the game’s best closers?
Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay, on his afternoon ESPN radio program, keeps questioning the many callers to his show that they are giving up on the Mets after many years and even decades of rooting for the team. “As Jerry Seinfeld says, we root for the laundry.”
He keeps comparing the loss of Alonzo, Diaz, and Nimmo to when Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden left the club. Or even as far back to when the Mets stupidly traded Tom Seaver, or perhaps departing ways with other popular players.
What Kay doesn’t fully understand is that the difference to then from now is Cohen’s checkbook. Baseball’s richest owner should not lose any player they covet due to money. Despite the Dodgers’ war chest monopolizing baseball’s best players, Cohen’s legions should be able to stand wallet to wallet, and not play second fiddle for the game’s finest.
Alas, we can’t put the genie back in the lamp as Alonso is already endearing himself to Orioles fans. The Mets have gifted Baltimore with their next Boog Powell, their popular first baseman from the ‘60s and ‘70s who anchored World Championship teams during that era.
Frankly, I’m a little surprised that, as long as Alonso was never even tendered an offer from the Mets, that the Red Sox didn’t scoop him up. They never should have let him leave their meeting in Orlando at the Winter Meetings without a signed contract. Alonso would have been denting the Green Monster on a daily basis and conceivably would have challenged the league’s home run records annually.
Speaking of scoops, enough with questioning Alonso’s defense. Yes, not the most fleet of foot, and arguably not the best range rider, but Alonso led ALL major league basemen in “scoops,” a stat that measures how many times a first baseman scoops balls out of the dirt from his infielder’s errant throws. By 20 scoops over any other first baseman! Vlad Guerrero JR was second.
That’s 20 errors prevented. Twenty unearned runs saved. Stearns likes to talk about run prevention. Scoops is the epitome of run prevention for first basemen.
Don’t get me started, but perhaps another great comparison to how Mets fans are feeling right now is when the Dodgers left Brooklyn. There still are old Dodgers fans in Brooklyn and wherever they subsequently moved who have never gotten over that Western migration. Yes, ironically, many converted to becoming Mets fans, but they still speak reverently about the Dodgers, their Dodgers, not the LA variety.
Seems Stearns may have broken a lot of Mets hearts on a similar level.
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