Sandy Alderson joked Wednesday that he should have sent Jose Reyes a box of chocolates. Forrest Gump's mother compared life to a box of chocolates because you never knew what you were going to get. But with the Mets, we now know what we're going to get. And it's not good.
Earlier today, the David Wright trade speculation was interrupted by a rumor that the Mets were shopping Ike Davis. Are Met faces of the franchise turning into Spinal Tap drummers?
Now Jon Heyman is tweeting that Jon Niese is on the block. If Niese goes, he could set a record for shortest tenure as one of the players pictured at the start of SNY telecasts. (Then again, considering that Jason Bay has also joined the opening montage, maybe SNY should just open their Mets programming with pictures of Shake Shack.)
Last week, ESPN's Keith Law ranked the top 50 players age 25 or under. No Mets made the list. But one Met was mentioned among those who just missed being in the list - Niese.
Supposedly, the Mets are getting younger and building for the future with a focus on pitching. One would think that they would want to hold on to a well-regarded homegrown young lefthander who has already shown that he can pitch in New York.
This is not to say that Niese should be untouchable. But if it turns out that the Mets are trading him for even younger players just to avoid having to go to arbitration with him in a year means the Mets are turning into the Oakland A's, who are desperately trying to trade young pitchers like Gio Gonzalez because they can't afford to keep anybody. Not what we thought we were getting with Moneyball East.
Meanwhile, Matthew Cerrone talked to an agent who speculated that the Marlins would trade Reyes to the Yankees once Derek Jeter's contract is up. And the Post's Kevin Kernan speculated that David Wright could eventually replace Alex Rodriguez at third for the Yankees.
I remember when Met and Yankee fans debated over which team had the best left side of the infield. It would be intolerable to see both Reyes and Wright reunited in the Bronx.
Sure, it's a worst-case scenario, but who would have thought that Darryl and Doc would win more rings with the Yankees than with the Mets?
Despite it all, I'll continue to root for the Mets. But I'm beginning to wonder if that's because, to use another quote from Forrest Gump's mother, stupid is as stupid does.
News out of Mets land this week reminds me of another box of chocolates quote:
ReplyDelete"Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast and the taste is... fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers."
- from "The X-Files" episode Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
I'm prepared to endure some losing while the Mets rebuild/retool or whatever else they want to call it. I refuse to accept losing the way they do it in Pittsburgh, year after year with no end in sight.
A trade of Ike Davis or Jon Niese would suggest to me that's exactly what we're in for.
Of course the Mets are like a box of chocolates. They're full of nuts, and they frequently melt down on you.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if you eat too many chocolates, you'll get cavities. Whereas if you get too much Mets, you'll get ulcers.