Schedule-making is a jigsaw puzzle. A difficult one, I’m sure. But MLB’s decision to start both the Mets and Yankees at home on the same day is a bad call from the league office.
Today marks the first time ever both the Yanks and Mets will play season openers at home on the same day at the same time. It doesn’t bother me much since I’ll be working but there are a good number of baseball fans in this city who will be torn. This subset of fans (Bill from Brentwood is an example) has a devotion to the game that’s driven largely by the city’s rich baseball history. While often opting to have allegiance to a single team, it’s not unusual for some of the sport’s following in NYC to have an even stronger pull to the notion that watching and following both teams is vital to their fandom. Since a club’s opener is filled with unique pageantry and optimism regardless of whatever obvious deficiencies in the existing roster, it’s a shame they’ll unfold simultaneously. Full attention to each team’s opener is really important to the city’s baseball hardcore historian-type. Certainly MLB could have avoided the conflict.
As it is, Rusty Staub will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the diamond on Willets Points at probably about the same time Sweet Lou Piniella does same at 161st and Jerome Avenue.
Both teams have holes. Serious October baseball in NYC seems unlikely, especially for the Mets who need another season before their blossoming corps of young pitchers emerge together with the rookie catcher acquired in the Dickey deal. Expect grumbling from the impatient types. Not from me.
In the Bronx, the greatest relief pitcher of all time says this season is his last. 43-year-old Mariano Rivera says he’s “one-thousand percent sure” about his decision. Mo says he would have retired at the end of 2012 had his 18th big league season not ended prematurely after the BP tumble in KC. Rivera’s farewell tour this season will be handled with the same grace that he‘s bestowed on the franchise since he got here. Mo’s tutelage of teammates on the ways of the game and his leadership by example has been a major force as the Yanks won five World Series during his career. Mo’s steady improvement doing English-speaking interviews over the years has revealed a wonderful personality and charm. His rehab and return from a ripped-up right knee is typical Rivera. He quietly did serious hard work to regain full capability. Those who watched his most recent spring training outings say his cutter is in peak form and the expectation is that Mo will again be dominant in his swan song season.
The Mets will keep two major-league ready youngsters (Wheeler and D’Arnaud) at triple-A Vegas for at least a month or two to add a full season to the team’s retention rights going forward. The Red Sox faced the same type of service time dilemma with 22-year-old left fielder Jackie Bradley and opted to start the season with him on the big league club.
Another shoulder surgery for Johan Santana means another lost season for the Met ace. As stated on this site back in 2008, responsible payroll management means you can’t commit max going-rate dollars to a starting pitcher beyond a four-year period unless they’re age 25 and younger. In Johan’s case, the Mets gave him $137.5 million over six years just before he turned the age of 29.
Mets fans (and management) place high value on Johan’s 2012 no-no (the first in team history) but there’s no way to view Santana’s return on investment as anything other than a major disappointment. He’ll have missed two complete seasons of the six and was never completely healthy for a full season the other four.