How Should Mets Fans Take the Cespedes Deal?

1/23/2016

Cespedes was doubled off first to end Game 4 of World Series.

While we were sleeping Friday night, wondering if we would lose power in the storm, the Mets were signing Yoenis Cespedes for one, or three, or five years, depending on how it goes.

Some people think it’s a good financial deal, compared to what some teams have overpaid for sluggers over 30.

But having witnessed Cespedes in the World Series last fall, when he batted .150, I’m just not convinced.

He played at half speed, his brain and will apparently turned off, looking like musical “Damn Yankees,” when Joe Hardy reverts to a stumbling middle-aged man.

Was he hurt? Was he comatose? Or was his sudden reversal the reason he had passed through three teams in four seasons since leaving Cuba?

Then again, I had been comparing his power and agility to Willie Mays after Cespedes shockingly arrived with the Mets in August. He carried the Mets to the World Series as pitchers suddenly had to revise the way they approached the Mets’ lineup. He made every hitter better.

But he regressed in the National League series, coming up with a sore shoulder after being spotted playing golf in Chicago on the day of the fourth game. He was doubled off first base – way too far, way too lethargic – for the last out of the fourth game of the World Series. And he was stumbling around in the outfield.

That performance undoubtedly cost Cespedes a lot of money. The Mets’ front office played it well, waiting, waiting, until other teams had spent on other players, and Cespedes seemed to be hanging back, wanting to return to New York.

Early Saturday morning, Mets’ buff David Wachter sent me a message:

Yoenis Cespedes $75 for three - $57m more for last three years 2019, 2020, 2021.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/14629430/yoenis-cespedes-agrees-deal-new-york-mets
2006, 2007, 2008 Jason Giambi was paid $60m.
Cespedes sought $132/6 - $75/3 $57.
Mark Teixeira's contract last three years up to age 35?
2014, 2015, 2016: $69,375,000.
$57,000,000 - 2019,2020,2021.... How many tools did those Yanked first baseman have?
Could they be a late inning substitution in left or right, a pinch runner?
No one offered that money ....
As a Met fan I feel like a miracle happened....
And you?

Miracle? Good poker by Sandy Alderson? Admirable decision by Cespedes?
Depends who the Mets get – Willie Mays or Joe Hardy.
Your thoughts?

Ed Martin

1/23/2016 02:56:13 pm

I am afraid to speculate, after all, I am a Mets fan. I do think he will be better than their choice in 1989 of Juan Samuels, second baseman for the Phillies, who they put in centerfield after getting rid of Lennie Dystra and Mookie Wilson. (Admittedly, Lennie had his off-field problems.) Samuels was lucky not to be killed by falling baseballs, hit a blistering 220 or so and lasted less than 100 games.

Viva Cespedes! (for now.)

Josh Rubin

1/23/2016 06:08:16 pm

Two thoughts: 1. The Mets are a better team with Cespedes than they are with the same roster minus Cespedes. Whether they overpaid for him seems irrelevant since they are a fairly low budget roster in general. I worry that, as good a hitter as he is, he is easy to solve. He will still beat you if you make a mistake, but he won't be able to surprise NL pitchers this year. Still, an upgrade.

2. Alderson is a patient hunter. He does not panic or overcommit. He follows a strategy, then lays in wait and pounces. Before signing Cespedes, he put together a roster for 2016 that was better than the roster he started 2015 with. He left room for a move lie this, whether now or mid-season. Quite shrewd.

The poker analogy is apt. To switch sports, I thought Donnie Walsh was playing a good hand of poker to try to get Melo from the Nuggets without giving up too, too much. There is no leverage unless you make a convincing case that you are willing to walk away. Unfortunately, his bluff fooled his boss, who panicked and traded away two too many players to get the deal done. So I am all for Alderson keeping his cards close.

Roy Edelsack

1/24/2016 08:20:49 am

How will Cespedes do? I'm a Mets fan so this is easy. If he signed with the Nationals he'd hit .305 with 33 homers and 120 RBI. But since he signed with us it'll be more like .270/21/89. I guess this meets Josh's definition of better with him than without him but in a negative way. Did I mention I'm a Mets fan?

Ed's mention of Juan Samuel reminds us of something else to worry about: The-curse-of -the-hard-hitting-secondbaseman-who-comes-to- the-Mets-and-inexplicably-stops-hitting. Is Neil Walker an upgrade to Daniel Murphy or is he Carlos Baerga?

bruce

1/24/2016 02:46:52 pm

George,

i'm pleased YOU compared him to willie mays and not i.

the really big news this weekend is that kotoshogiku became the first Japanese rikishi (sumo wrestler) to win a basho (tournament) in exactly 10 years--sixty tournaments. 58 won by Mongolians, one by an Estonia and another by a Bulgarian.

emperor heisei must be weeping tears of joy.

bruce

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

How Should Mets Fans Take the Cespedes Deal?

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