It's not losses in October or September or April through August that try Mets fans' souls. It's what goes down in the offseason. It's Lastings Milledge for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church and all the rationalizing one is forced into when it happens.
Hey, Schneider's a pretty good defensive catcher. He gives us strength up the middle. He can handle a pitching staff. And Church? He sprayed doubles all over RFK last year. Get him in a less cavernous setting and who knows what kind of power numbers he'll put up? Also, he was probably naïve and didn't mean anything offensive when he said the one thing anybody remembers him ever saying.
Yup — nothing like a steady diet of chicken salad and lemonade to get you through the winter.
My crystal ball is completely fogged up so I can't tell you how much, how little or how not at all we will regret the departure of Lastings Milledge. He could be as multifaceted and dynamic as his flashes of brilliance have suggested or he could be a hopeless head case forever baffled by the intricacies of the curveball and the niceties of clubhouse decorum. There is ample anecdotal evidence to support either possibility. Don't know and won't find out with the Mets. I suspect a little of each is probably what the Nationals will get.
I would have liked to have found out here, though. I would have liked to have watched a 23-year-old rightfielder who we've seen dash around first and hit into gaps and make circus catches and throw out baserunners try to do a little more of that on a fulltime basis. I would have liked to have discovered how jaunty his home run homages would have become…or observed how he toned them down as he grew older. But I would have liked to have seen the home runs. What I don't like is that a kid, yes a kid, with as much talent as he's shown has been shown the door based on personality — probably the simple misdeed of having one.
Know your place, rook, indeed.
That's gotta be why Lastings Milledge is a Washington National. It's not because two partial-season auditions didn't yield Rookie of the Year stats or automatically secure a corner outfield job. It's not because of a couple of complex handshakes. It's not because “his stock has dropped” as a performer. Who can tell what his stock is at 22? He had his ups, he had his downs, but he still has his future. He couldn't bring you the mythical frontline starter just now? That means he had to bring you two middlebodies instead of perhaps developing into the kind of player others call you to obtain? You give him up for a catcher and an outfielder whom, intuition suggests if they were such hot stuff, would have been picked off by a smart team that saw their value long ago or deemed building blocks by the Nats and thus stubbornly maintained? Without having at hand the transcripts of every dialogue every GM has been having with Jim Bowden, I can't say for sure that no other team went looking for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church. But I wouldn't bet there was a huge market and I would bet recent top prospects weren't offered in exchange.
Listening to Omar explain the heretofore hidden desirable attributes (perfect Met fits, it turns out) of Schneider and Church on Friday was more painful than cramping up at Twister. Schneider is gonna give us that strength up the middle we've been so yearning for…though I don't remember “strength up the middle” even once entering the conversation as a dire need to be addressed in the past two years. And Church? He's a gem — a gem! — Omar tells us. He's just what we were looking for and we didn't even know it.
What's that old bromide about baseball general managers, lying and lips moving? I don't expect Omar to come out and declare “somebody didn't like Lastings Milledge, thought he was a bad seed, decided he was never gonna grow out of it and we had to get rid of him pronto à la Carl Everett for John Hudek; Schneider and Church were who I could come up with on short notice, and it turns out they play positions where we have holes at the moment, know what I'm sayin'?” But the lines weren't that tough to read between. Unless this was a trade made on perceived merit, in which case…Brian Schneider and Ryan Church in exchange for a tooled-up outfielder who in no way had played himself out of further consideration and who will not be 23 until April?
Come now, Mr. Minaya.
With the caveat that this offseason has been rife with making cases for or against infielders and catchers who aren't or were never going to be 2008 Mets, thus maybe we ought not take any projections involving Church or Schneider too seriously, what's done is done. If we wanted to root for a team that had no chance of giving up on young talent for older mediocrities, we should have devoted ourselves to fantasy baseball. Otherwise, our club (any club) will occasionally bring you players you weren't seeking, give away players you anticipated enjoying and engineer trades that make you miserable at worst, rationalize at best. The gamest among us can Google VORPs and whatnot to detect the positives in Chruch's production or suddenly remember the time Schneider nailed Reyes at second when it appeared Jose had the base stolen cold. The rest of us can stew, brace for the genius move coming next and take not a little solace in the knowledge that we've been known to be plenty wrong about plenty of trades before.
This was all about 2008. Which is why Milledge's present value trumped his possible future value. Cerrone reports that the Wilpons turned down Omar's request for a contract extension. His contract runs through 2009. Omar, like Willie, is up against the wall in 2008. If Mets had gone to the Series in 2006 or 2007, Milledge would likely still be here.
I saw that, and if Ryan and Brian are truly the keys to imminent victory, then hats off to Omar.
if you listened to Omar on Mike & Mad Dog Friday, you would have no faith whatsoever. Fear and fear in flushing. He was st st st st studdering like a nervous 3rd grader. The smooth guy that turned the franchise around… dead.
Schneider, Church, or both may be pieces to another deal. Maybe just Church if Estrada is non-tendered.
I'm not writing Omar's Met obituary – yet. I sang his praises through 2006. But Mets drafting continues to suck under Omar. It's really showing this trading season. No one wants our stuff.
I'm still trying to figure out Brian Stokes. Are we going to package him for… a dozen bats and a bag of balls?
(PS: John Hudek… *shudder*.)
As for the kid…
At first, I was like “um, why don't I see the supposed downside of this kid?” Then I was like “um… OK. Now I kind of see it…” THEN I was like “Downside, schmownside. I'll take it.”
And that's where I stayed until the end. Which was, I think, a few years earlier than it should have been. But we'll see. He still has the capacity to implode, and quickly become known as “Lastings Being Lastings.” And if that happens, we'll all be glad we dumped him before it came to that. However, until I see otherwise, I'm leaning toward WTF?!
I've yet to come across an idiotic move I can't rationalize. What kills me is never knowing what's *really* behind the trade — say, threats of firing from the front office.
And even if he did develop into a “Lastings Being Lastings,” type player, which I would argue is by no means a forgone conclusion, look at Manny and the freakin' Red Sox. Manny and Milledge, maybe not comparable in anyway except they were rumored members of a trade, but Manny's a nut and look important he is to the soul of that Red Sox team.
And, furthermore, I wish this team would give some more of its young talent a chance to really become Mets for the long haul. Wright and Reyes–okay, that's good, as long as we don't dump Reyes like has been rumored, but I want more.
We talk about wanting to win now. Yeah, veteran acquisitions help, but the teams that really do win, tend to owe it a lot to the young guys who step up, not the holes they shrewdly fill (or rationalize away) in December.
Finally, mis-steps and all, I could get excited about Lastings Milledge, he had a spark, sometimes a misguided and overstated one, but a spark nonetheless. I'm having trouble mustering anything like that for the likes of Ryan Church and Brian Schneider. And I get the feeling it's not just because they're Nationals.
It's the early 90's all over again. We're dumping the “problem” personalities for smilie faces and lousy talent. I'm reminded of the David Cone trade in 1992. While Lastings is NOT Coney, I keep asking myself, “there's 29 other GMs out there and you settled for WHO?! Did you even ask the other 28?!”
The headline should have read: METS TRADE PROSPECTED OF LASTINGS MILLEDGE FOR C/OF JACK SHIT
MLB-Rumors suggests that the Mets are close to acquiring Erik Bedard for Phillip Humber, Aaron Heilman, Ryan Church, and a player to be named later.
I could live with this. Especially since I was worrying that salary laden Miguel Tejada for Jose Reyes might be part of it.
If it happens, Ryan Church is a quick flip.
Guys, can you believe that we just acquire one quarter of the Washington Nationals, apparently to be in our starting lineup? And not even the good quarter of the Nationals!
Now we have to pray that Milledge implodes horribly. Isn't that weird? I liked Milledge, and I was looking forward to rooting for him, but the idea that he might be an NL East Kazmir in our faces 20 games a year is too much for me to handle.
So long Lastings. Have a horrible, horrible career and vindicate Omar.
This is why I hate the Mets. It's just like the destruction of the late-80's team–get rid of a good player who's a character and replace him with a nothing who has “character.” Every time we get one of these goddamn “winners” (or whatever we're calling them this year) the team dogs it and sinks in the standings like a stone. And now we get an anti-semitic one, to boot. Oh happy effing day.