One thing you guys do not give me enough credit for is my ability to see 40 years down field. If you’d like a major example, here’s one from FEBRUARY 4 2020.
I hate to be right so often, and I hope to be wrong about this next one.
But when Jacob deGrom has a sore arm in the third week of April 2021, let us remember how foolish the Mets were to let him throw 100 in spring training.
“If I knew how to keep increasing it, I think I would keep trying to increase it even more,” a smiling deGrom said on Saturday after his outing. (via NY Post)
No no no no no no no no no! Where is Tom Seaver’s ghost when you need him? Ghost of Tom please visit Jake in the middle of the night and remind him about pitching vs. throwing?
The Mets should grab him right now and tell him to dial it back, especially in March against other teams’ minor leaguers.
No good ever comes of throwing 100 in the spring.
I know I am stupid and cranky and old so let me refer you to the New York Times. Perhaps this headline will garner your respect.
For the second year in a row, Syndergaard throws a harder fastball than any other starter in baseball: 98.2 miles per hour. Only now, he cannot pitch at all, because he tore his right latissimus muscle on Sunday when he came out firing at 100 m.p.h. in Washington. Officially, he is on the 10-day disabled list. But the Mets acknowledged he will miss weeks, not days.
“It’s really sad to see,” Kaat said. “You get a guy like Syndergaard and so many other young pitchers — they’re so much more talented and gifted than we were.”
They know how to pitch, too. Half of Syndergaard’s pitches this season have been sliders, curveballs and changeups. He has an impressive repertoire and seems to enjoy the craft, not just the brute force, of pitching, which makes his fixation on velocity such a shame.
Syndergaard bought so thoroughly into his Thor persona last winter that he should have just carried a hammer to spring training. He was jacked, unapologetically so. Why did the hardest-throwing starter in the majors — 98 miles per hour last season, according to FanGraphs — need to bulk up and throw even harder?
“I want to set goals, not necessarily throw harder, but just make the game easier,” he said this spring. “Just never become complacent and try to maintain anything, because once you start maintaining, you ultimately lose.” (via New York Times)
All of this has happened before and will happen again.
I don’t understand how year after year the Mets make the same mistakes. Regimes come and go and sometimes return and it’s the same mistakes over and over.
Why is the smartest guy in a room always me?
