IT’S A MADD MADD WORLD...
On Friday, the Baseball Writers Association lost one of our most esteemed members, Roger Angell, at 101, who, with his essays for the New Yorker, elevated our profession, especially the Career Excellence Award, for which he has a plaque in the library of the Hall of Fame. I was proud and gratified to be able to call Roger a friend and I will miss our many conversations, both in the press boxes and in later years by phone, about the state of the game we both loved — most recently a few months ago when he railed about the ghost runner. Good night old friend . ...
In a touch of irony, last Wednesday, the same day Max Scherzer suffered an oblique injury that’s going to sideline him for 6-8 weeks, the Twins announced that Chris Paddack, whom the Mets almost acquired from the Padres back in April, was to undergo Tommy John surgery. So you could probably say the Mets dodged a bullet there as the reason they rejected the deal that would have sent Dominic Smith to San Diego with Eric Hosmer and reliever Emilio Pagan also coming to the Mets, was because they didn’t like what they saw in Paddack’s medicals. And yet,
right now Buck Showalter probably wouldn’t mind having another reliever in his bullpen (Pagan had a 2.13 ERA, 16 strikeouts and 10 walks in 12.2 innings) and Hosmer is having a career season, hitting .324 with 24 RBI. Meanwhile, Steve Cohen should be happy about another bullet he dodged in Steven Matz, who spurned him to sign a four-year/$44M contract with the Cardinals and so far and so far has a 6.03 ERA, 1.393 WHIP and eight homers allowed to show for all that money. Conceivably down the road Mets GM Billy Eppler may still have to use Smith to get himself another starter to bolster the rotation . ...
In what has otherwise been a disastrous season, the Red Sox last Thursday finally got a huge (even historic) dividend from Trevor Story who became the first second baseman in history to have three homers and a stolen base in one game. Story, who signed a six-year/$140M free agent contract with the Sox, had been mired in the .220s with just two homers before the outburst. Story then continued his home run barrage Friday night in Fenway Park with a grand slam against Seattle that was caught by former Red Sox left fielder Jonny Gomes who was sitting in the front row of the Green Monster.