September Call up

Finally, thanks to September call ups, I’m back writing articles and entertaining the masses with my useless information and further useless opinions but hey, that’s why the internet is such a beautiful thing (heavy Eye-talian made guy accent).

So what is there to write about? Well clearly I would not have been brought up had I not had much to say and much to opine about and let’s start first with the Mets and our favorite topic of discussion: the bullpen. Stop rolling your eyes Met fans, I know this is about as easy to talk about as your last visit to the proctologist. I’m not going to say anything that makes you jump off your seat in amazement, but here’s the truth that any GM can tell you: building a solid, reliable bullpen is the most difficult task there is and it’s a crapshoot every year.

Listen there are three very important things you need to know about bullpens:
1. A Mariano Rivera, or a Trevor Hoffman come along once in a generation so no matter how touted your young reliever that’s being called up is, don’t expect greatness immediately.

2. Ask any pitcher, about 95% of them want to be a starting pitcher. Jonathan Papelbon isn’t even supposed to be a reliever at this point, he opted for that role because the Sox were in such a bind prior to last season.

3. Finally, the make up of a reliever, especially a closer is special. Those that excel in this role have to understand that they will blow a game a few times in their career, and when they do they will be unjustly booed by fans who don’t understand the enormous responsibility they carry. But they must be able to wake up the next morning with the kind of short term memory of a “Dory” from “Finding Nemo”.

Met fans shouldn’t expect a consistently great bullpen, because it doesn’t exist. Every year you try and obtain guys who throw hard and have a very effective offspeed pitch to balance out the speed. That’s why starting pitchers who only show effectiveness with a fastball and a change up are converted into relievers because of the lack of a third or fourth pitch.

That is why there was such a strong movement for Joba Chamberlain to be put into the rotation. Because of his ability to throw four pitches effectively; it was counter productive to be limiting his use to just one inning or maybe 5 hitters at the most.

Which is why when a few years ago guys like Chad Bradford were leaving the Mets and getting 3 year deals it was considered ludicrous because relievers are not in the market (unless you’re a closer) for long term contracts because how perilous a path they walk. They usually come into bad situations with about an inch of room to work with, they are basically put into a lose- lose situation.

But the phenomenon with the Mets bullpen has been that they have been giving up 3 and 4 run leads while coming into games at the beginning of the inning thereby losing games that their starters have pitched well enough to win. Which is why Met fans have been losing more than just sleep and hair over this problem. Will this September call up cure what ails them? Who knows. But one thing we do know is that there is no exact science to this bullpen configuring every season. You pay them and then you pray for them.

From the unknown to the known. What we do know about the NFL preseason is that its ludicrous on several levels. Not only do the games not mean anything to the fans as much as it does to the coaches who are evaluating them, not only will they most likely only see their favorite players in minimal action (and by minimal I mean by the time you go to get a hot dog and a beer you probably will have missed them), you will have to pay regular season prices for it.

Can you believe it? For a family of four, you will be shelling out more than 500 dollars for parking passes, food, beverages and tickets. Its amazing that the public hasn’t been more resentful of this unfair practice by the owners as the NFL is clearly a very valuable and profitable outfit to afford to lower prices during games that mean nothing to the average fan.

But let’s be honest, most fans might use the excuse of “well I’m not there to see our present as much as we are there to see our future and possible stars that may come out of camp.” Ok fine. But if you’re a fan of the Giants with Osi Umeniyora going down for the season with injury, would you want your star defensive end lining up across from a guy who possibly is fighting for a job? Who’s going to work harder and who’s more desperate to make a play?

I don’t blame Osi for going only 75% on every snap during the preseason because we know what we have in Umi, but when lined up across from a guy who’s fighting for a job, he’s working harder than Osi is and the risk for injury is just too high. But as is customary for teams, they make their starters go atleast a half in the third preseason game which means your starters are out there for longer and the longer they are out there, the higher the chance that in a meaningless game they go down.

So again, what exactly is the point of having 4 preseason games? Evaluating talent against competition is definitely necessary and I’m in no way saying that there is no need for a preseason because that would just be dumb. But the point I’m making is that perhaps there needs to be a change in ideologies pertaining to how much playing time definite starters are playing as it relates to the fan experience. If your making them pay regular season prices then you should be assuming they are paying to watch Osi Umeniyora and Brett Favre instead of Renaldo Wynn and Brett Ratliff. But if your from the get go giving them maybe-roster-add-ons then you shouldn’t charge the average fan who can barely afford a ticket already (get ready for PSL’s Giant/Jet fans) full price. Just a measure of human decency on the owner’s part. They are getting enough money already.

The Commissioner wants to combat this problem by suggesting a longer season would be a solution for this problem but again the problem is that teams who have locked up post season spots prior to the last two weekends usually don’t play their best rosters in fear that they will get an injury. So fans who purchase week 16 and 17 games buy them with the asterisk that they may only be seeing their B-Squad. I can understand the fear of losing a player on a game that doesn’t matter much in the long run but I can’t understand charging the fans the same price for a week 17 game in a very important regular season for a week 3 game in a very meaningless pre season.

If the Commissioner has his way then there would be one less week in the preseason (which is a good thing) but then the Super Bowl would be in mid February. Really for me, the date of the Super Bowl matters little but it comes across as a way for the big corporation that the NFL is to maximize its profit potential. I get why they would want to do it and it matters little with the preseason problem that we had discussed, and I understand what it looks like from a broad sense to the hardcore fan: an extra game to sink their teeth into. But when you look further, its just another game which opens it up to the discussion that if perhaps 17 isn’t enough, why not 18 and further and further along the road we go. At that rate, we could be seeing an April Superbowl by 2020 and that, even to a guy who loves football, would be ridiculous. Remember the great thing about football is that it’s a one game a week kind of thing. People love football because it gives Sundays on cold days that you can’t spend outside, some purpose other than the afternoon nap. What I say is: don’t fix something that aint broke with the schedule. Fix what is, and that’s to cut prices for preseason games. BE FAIR, NFL. Show us you care!