The Ghosts of Flushing

Upon news breaking of Jose Reyes signing his six-year $106 million contract with the (Miami) Marlins, a beleaguered Mets fan whose face I can almost picture in my mind, wailed something like this: "it is a dark day.  Perhaps the most exciting player in Mets history gone, without the Wilpons ever really trying to sign him long-term."  This I could sort of roll along with, though you can read my thoughts on Jose Reyes and his long-term benefits here.  But then he added, with not insufficient poutiness, "I think I'm following Bobby V to the BoSox.  The Mets have nothing for me."  Boston fans should take note, that despite the Red Sox epic 2011 collapse and the ensuing circus of sandbox foolishness, there remain baseball fans who lust for your lot.  Surely this Mets fan was indulging in histrionics; he is, after all, a Mets fan.  But to help ease the pain of waving goodbye to "the most exciting player in Mets history", I will offer a helping hand in the art of patience.  And as a Cubs fan, I know a bit about it.  After all, the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are in eerily similar positions.

Manager of the Moment

Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr.

Manager of the Year is the most tenuous of baseball awards, relying almost solely on the gut instincts and distanced observation of a select group of baseball writers.  The end-of-year awards provide great opportunity for argument, even when there are irrefutable statistics that should eliminate such jabbering.  As the MVP and Cy Young award voting continues to illustrate, these statistics are still taken with a grain of salt.  This year's Cy Young winners both dominated in voting, Justin Verlander winning unanimously and Clayton Kershaw taking 27 of 32 first place votes, though a quick perusal of the most telling pitching stats point to Roy Halladay being the best NL pitcher and CC Sabathia at least being good enough to garner a substantial number of first place votes (instead he finished 4th in voting).  While baseball writers still struggle to evolve toward more accurate measures of baseball greatness, the Manager of the Year vote will always allow them to indulge in those tried and not-so-true indicators: the gut and wins.  Advanced statistics don't exist in the evaluation of managers.  Yet.  However, in the short history of the award, wins don't seem to play too great a roll in deciding a winner either.