Big Ben Tuesday: The Ranch Accident and Bleak Outlook for the Mets

Wrangling up paychecks

Flushing, Toilet: I’m back from a hockey weekend in Nashville where my mighty beer league team managed one tie in three games. After a brutal travel day with delays and broken airplane air conditioners, I rushed home to catch a disappointing Game of Thrones finale. I should have stayed there. But here I am on Monday night, trying to throw something together and the low hanging fruit is the train wreck in Queens.

Wrangling up paychecks

The Ranch Accident

I managed to catch The Preakness while I was in Music City, and like millions of others, I found myself Googling “can a horse win without his jockey?” after the race. It turns out you can’t. But I had no idea until I got home that the jockey was the New York Mets’ disability check collector, Yoenis Cespedes.

Maybe he didn’t fall off a horse, maybe he did. But I think the Knicks are in a better position than the Mets at this point. From George Foster to Bobby Bonilla to Jason Bay to David Wright to Yoenis Cespedes – has there ever been a team who gave big money to the wrong guys like the Mets?

I know the Mets are getting insurance money here, but what a colossal bust he’s been since signing the big deal. He could end up collecting $110 million dollars without even playing one season’s worth of games. Ouch.

The de Grom Decision

Instead of trading deGrom and Syndergaard for the mother load of prospects, they patched some holes with guys like Robinson Cano and Jed Lowrie and put unrealistic hopes on a bunch of B and C level prospects. They had a decent April and Mets’ fans got fired up.

But in a development that would be considered predictable to even a Game of Thrones writer, the Mets’ bandwagon came apart before it even broke 70 degrees in New York.

Situation: Bleak

So where we at? The farm system is ranked in the bottom third of the league. They’re already considering sending Mickey Callaway packing. And Brodie Vee Dubs is surely missing the yacht club by now.

Instead of making the hard choices and stripping the broken car for parts, they tried to patch up the worst holes, put on a new coat of paint and jump in the race. They have Cano signed at $24 million per until 2023, Cespedes gets $29 million for sitting out this year and another $29 for next year. Jed Lowrie hasn’t earned one cent of his two year $20 million deal and don’t forget Jeurys Familia, who sports an ERA of over 5 and a half and is owed another $23 million over the next two years.

Things are not looking good. It doesn’t help that the Yankees are in first place with half of their triple A team. The Mets got sentimental in extending deGrom and it’s looking like a bad call.

Come back tomorrow for an Angry Ward, who didn’t bother to stay up to watch the Blazers choke again. Follow us on Twitter at @BenWhit8, @MeetTheMatts, @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram @MeetTheMatts and like our Facebook page, Meet The Matts.

 

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About Ben Whitney 400 Articles
Ben Whitney comes from journalistic stock. Aside from his brothers, rumor has that his great-great grandfather was the youngest brother of Eli Whitney and covered the earliest "rounders" games. Big Ben is also another New York Rugby Club player/pal of Different Matt, Short Matt and Junoir Blaber. He likes film noir discussions, has twin girls and took up ice hockey after retiring from rugby.