Mets Wave The White Flag

Recent Mets trades show the Mets are waving the surrender flag for the season

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, I hope you're ready foran utterly ridiculous show. This is for
the Love of Sports on Fox Sportseighty ninety five point nine FM, as
well as the free iHeartRadio app.Think you for tuning in, however you
may be tuning in on a beautifulSunday. I'm your host, Zach Harris,
joined by my producer who's not runningthe board today. Zach and I

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know you understood that pun about anutterly ridiculous show. Yeah, you're really
milking this. I'm really melking thisbecause it is Serenity's fourth birthday party today.
I am dressed theme casual in acow outfit, yes, but not
an actual cow, just a shirtthat has cowpurn on it. Is that

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as cool as leopard print? Like, you know how the women wear leopard
prink and cow print? Be thatcool? Oh? Absolutely? You know
you're rocking it right now. Thankyou. I appreciate that. I know
you're really melking these puns. Overhere. We're gonna steer clear for the
rest of the show on We're gonnasteer clear the rest of the show.
All right, This is for theLove of Sports on Fox Sports eighty ninety
five point nine FM, so bringingon a Mets fan. Big trade yesterday

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broke a lot of Mets fans heartsthe floor is your Zach with a K?
How are you feeling about the season? How are you feeling about that
trade? How are you feeling aboutgetting rid of David Robinson? Like all
of it, it's it's just thebig question of where did all go wrong?
This was a year where they werespending hundreds more millions of dollars.
You know, you have our sharesare in Verland, are both on like

(01:23):
forty five million dollar contracts each.We were wondering what the final outcome was
going to be. And then whenthe pitching was on, the batters were
quiet. We had times where thebullpen would just go out and blow games.
From the time the few times thatthe starting pitching would come out strong.
You had Alonzo, who was kindof carrying the the RBI scene for

(01:45):
a long time, on pace tohit like sixty something homers and then got
hit on the hand and the batwent silent. The home run stopped.
Guys like Alvarez tried to pick itup the best they could, but you
could never just piece it together fullyas a team. And then you saw
robertson go and that was kind ofthe first inclination that there wasn't going to

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be something that happens here. Scherzergets traded and all we can say is
the white flag is up and noweverything is fair game. Pete Alonso said
it best he goes if a guywith a no trade clause can be traded,
everyone's fair game. Now you askedme off air, and I'm gonna
bring this question to you on air. So where do we go from here?
Is it a reset or a restart? And for me, it personally

(02:31):
figured out what are you gonna dowith your guys like Lindor Jeff McNeil.
Pete Alonzo's got an extension coming up? Do you trade him? The answer
for me is no. If youhave Lindor and you got McNeil, you
both signed him recently, you gottago with the big deal. You gotta
retool, is what I'm gonna say. Best. You gotta retool, and

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I think getting rid of some ofthese veteran players that you don't think are
going to be here for the longterm. Obviously, when you're forty years
old and you got a two yeardeal, you're not going to be here
for the long term, but otherguys like you know, Darren Ruff maybe
and Tommy fam and markna. Ithink those are guys that are reasonably on
the market for good reason. Andthen bring up some of the younger guys

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and maybe push McNeil to play outfieldwhat you did the other day, and
get some more of your younger guysup and going and get them some experience
and plates plate appearances. Yeah,And I think that's kind of the way
they're heading right now. It seemslike we're going more towards a refresh,
a retooling of what this organization wantsto be. These trades haven't been for
major league players. They've been forminor league players. They're trying to flush

(03:38):
out the farm system and kind ofdeveloped that to an extent that they didn't
think it was at prior. AndI think that that could be an interesting
dilemma going into the offseason, becauseeither that means you're gonna have to do
free agent signings to try and fillin those gaps that you're gonna have at
the major league level, or goinginto the season you're gonna have to bring
up more minor league guys to fillthose spots that you now have opened.

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That's kind of going to show thedirection this organization is heading. If you're
going to keep guys at the minorleague level and bring in major league talent,
that means you're building for the longterm future. If you're going to
try and develop that minor league talentnow try and bring them to the major
league level, that shows that you'removing away from the Steve Cohen idea of
we're going to try and buy wins. We're gonna try and now develop wins

(04:21):
for a more drawn out success train. But this is also an owner who
came into the league and said hewants to win a championship in five years.
We're three years in. This wassupposed to be the team that was
going to do it. If we'renot there now, I'm not sure what
you're going to do in the offseasonthat's going to get you there at this
point. For me, honestly,my take on it is, I like

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a good mixture of young guys thatare too cocky to know any better and
some veteran leaders that have been inthe game long enough to know better,
and you get that kind of mix. It's deadly because you have these young
guys facing these cy young legend typeof pitchers, and they're just too young
and dumb to know any better,and they're going up there like I'm swinging
for the fences and you know,and I think that would be a great

(05:09):
mixture. So maybe dabble a littlebit in the offseason and free agency,
get the right pieces in, mainlywith the pitching and the bullpen. But
really it's all about this year.In giving Francisco Alvarez big shot, Brett
the big shot, we need tosee more Mark and we need to bring
up the other young kid and gethim going involved. Yeah, Mauricio is

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someone who you know, he's ashortstop, and the reason they haven't brought
him up is they said they wantto get am more used to second base
and left field, because those arethe two spots where him and Jeff would
probably be alternating going back and forth. He struggled a bit defensively in the
outfield so far, but he's gota lot of power in his bat and
there's someone that they're hopeful is goingto be a huge slugger coming up probably
next year. Now, one ofthe things that I talked to you a

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lot about is that I would liketo see him play second base, because
whatever McNeil and Lindoor have going on, they have been one of the worst
double play teams the last two threeyears. And we need to change something.
And I'm sorry, you're not goingto move land Or to a different
position, and he's not going toaccept a move to a different position.

(06:12):
So the only option here is removingMcNeil from the equation on occasion. Yeah,
and that's that's kind of been shownalready with the fact of McNeil being
moved much more into a utility guyversus you know, he gets the All
Star in twenty nineteen and then fromthen on he just has seemingly never been
like the second baseman. He's alwaysbeen. Oh he's Jeff McNeil's the utility
guy. Can play outfield, canplay in field, can play third,

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can play second, can play outfieldwherever you need him to, in the
corners usually, And I think that'skind of what we're gonna see a lot
more out of mem I think we'regonna see a lot more of Jeff McNeil
in the outfield because that chemistry hasjust been it's been bad since day one.
I mean, we had what inthe first season that they were paired
up, we had the raccoon incidentwhere they went into the tunnel and we're

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like, oh, yeah, wejust were debating if it was a rat
or a raccoon that we saw,because you know, New York that was
just utterly ridiculous. Yeah, sorry, I had together, oh yeah,
And then it was very quickly broughtup that oh yeah, no, they
had an altercation in the tunnel.We all knew what was going on.
Yeah. So the way that Iwould explain McNeil to an average baseball fan

(07:15):
is you're obviously a little young todeal with us, but you have a
girlfriend that you're comfortable with. Sheknows everything about you, You know everything
about her. You know, youdon't see a bright future. You guys
don't lift each other up, butyou're comfortable. You're there for one another.
That's what it is with McNeil.You're comfortable with McNeil. Well,
the best thing to win games ismake yourself comfortably uncomfortable. Yep. And

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that's kind of what we have tosee this team try and do, whether
that's promoting Mauricio, whether that's justfor the sake of just moving McNeil out
of second base in general, regardlessof who comes up and fills that spot,
you need to be used to gettingMcNeil and Lindor separated because they're obviously
comfortable with being not chemistry and notbonded together in a way that needs to

(08:03):
be productive for you to have adefensively powerful infield. Hence, while you
have one of the bottom third ofdouble plays in baseball. So the other
thing that I wanted to talk aboutwith the trade deadline coming up Tuesday,
Shoheyatani is officially not on the block. That I think might be one of

(08:24):
the biggest mistakes I've seen in MLB, mainly for the fact if you're going
to have a guy who comes outhere and he showed it in the double
header against the Tigers, there's anine inning shutout, one hit given up,
game two, two home runs.We've never seen this kind of dominance
from a single player in any typeof level before, and you're gonna have
him, and at the end ofthis year, it is highly likely that

(08:46):
he walks away from this team andyou get nothing for that return. Yes,
he came in and he brought peopleto your stands. Yes he came
in and put a spotlight on theAngels. But what did that do for
you overall? Yeah, you lookgreat for two years, but you also
want nothing. You've got nowhere.You had two generational talents and Mike Trout

(09:07):
and Show Heyotani, and what didyou do? Nothing? That is what
they're going to be remembered as.And what did you get out of it?
Nothing? Because you didn't trade him. You didn't get it. You
had a host at one point toget five top prospects from any given team
that you wanted. To any teamin the league, you could have gotten
top five prospects. Nope. Nowhere's the thing with Showhyotani, and this

(09:28):
is baseball in general. You takea look at basketball, you take a
look at the NFL, you takea look at any other sport that you
want to look at. One player. Look at Lionel Messi and what he's
doing with Interpool Miami. One playercan change the outlook of a team.
That is not the case in baseball. Nope, that has never been the
case in baseball. Point taken,Alex Rodriguez with the Seattle Mariners winning MVP

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did not have much of an impactfor that team. Overall, but he
individually was that great that he wonthe MVP that year? Yeah, but
look how many MVP Mike Trouts won. Exactly what if the Angels done exactly?
This is the point, and theyneed more than one or two people.
You need to field a full team. And that's been the big problem
with the Angels they had. They'relike, we have Mike Trout. You

(10:16):
know, he's Mike Trout. Hehas all these all stars, all these
MVPs. Let's bring in Otani.He's the unicorn. He'll give us some
extra umpinar starting rotation, and he'llbe an everyday consistent hitter. Look,
and I'm not faulting that idea.He's leading the major leagues and home runs
and he's one of the best pitchersas far as batting average against him.
If you can get the long balldown, he'll be fine. And the

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fact if you were just like,oh, yeah, we'll just skeleton a
team around them and they'll be thebody of it, that's not how it
works. You need to have afull, cohesive team that meshes together.
Yeah, certain teams can support havingthose two superstars. For instance, if
the Dodgers had them, they'd crewthe whole team with superstars. But you're

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not the Dodgers, you're the Angels. You don't have that payroll, and
therefore you don't have that team.You're putting everything up to two guys and
it's going nowhere. And I'm notsaying it's hit or miss. We'll get
off this topic, but I'm notsaying it's hit or miss because you have
teams like the Why can't I thinkright now the Padres who have a built

(11:18):
roster and look at them. Theyhave been miserable this year and might not
even make the wild Card. Lookat the Mets. They had a three
hundred million dollars payroll. They wentnowhere. So I'm not saying it's boom
or bust. You need to buildan all star lineup. I think the
big thing here is does show Heyetanigive you a second chance? Does he

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sign back with you? And willyou build around him? Are the two
biggest questions is will he give youa second chance? And are you going
to build around him? I thinkwhat they need to do they need to
come in with a giant binder ofhey, if you sign back, this
is what our plan is. Wewant to play the baseball this way.
We want to work through our startingpitching with a strong bullpen. We're gonna

(12:01):
get some solid hitters around you thathave high on paced percentage, and we
want you to be the focal point. You and Trout went healthy, the
focal point of our offense. ButI think you just stated the reason why
I don't think he's going to signback. Trout, who is your other
backbone of this team, cannot stayhealthy. He cannot do it. He's
trying, and I give him thecredit for trying. He's someone who is

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essential to the success of this organization. But he can't stay on the field.
And so you are, essince,we're leaving it to show Hey to
be the core of that team.And when you're not building around him and
you're not seeming like you're giving ita future, what's there to stay for?
Empty promises and broken hearts, Becausethat's all you're getting every time again
he goes to a team like theDodgers, the Yankees, any team like

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that. He's the face of baseball. He's a big market guy and a
big market team for an international orglobal interest. I've never been a person
that likes to trade the known forthe unknown. But in this particular case,
if you're gonna miss out on anknown, if he's not going to sign
back with you, I'd rather getthe unknown, the hope, the what

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could be from these guys instead ofhaving absolutely nothing and at the end of
the day, the angels. Youknow, you still have two days to
take a hard look in the mirrorand say, do we want to go
this route? Are we confident withour discussions behind the scenes that this is
going to happen. He is goingto sign back for a megor amount of
money and we're going to be ableto build around him. That's the questions

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we need to ask