The Prince Of New York’s Sunday Lightning, 2.1.2009

• Some things the Mets need to remember as they pass on Manny:

    No one is arguing with the multitude of reasons the Mets are
passing on Manny Ramirez. They don’t want to pay him; they don’t want
to risk Manny showing up on a Monday and deciding on Tuesday that he’s
not happy for whatever reason and starts causing trouble immediately;
they don’t like the way he shoehorned his way out of Boston; and after
the way they’ve been torched with players upon whom they rolled the
dice like Mo Vaughn, they don’t want to sell their souls as NFL teams
have with a guy like Terrell Owens. No matter how many times Manny says
that he’s going to behave himself, be a team player and act
accordingly, there’s a very good chance that that’s going to be
conveniently forgotten once some petty thing upsets him, then the Mets
are going to have to deal with the “Manny package” and pay handsomely
for it.
    On the other hand, they also have to realize that they have a
massive hole in their lineup that Manny would fill perfectly; he’s out
there and waiting for someone to ante up the cash for him to sign; he’d
probably behave himself for at least the first season of the contract;
he’d hit and hit and hit and hit; the combination of GM Omar Minaya and
Jerry Manuel, along with the presence of Carlos Delgado would keep
Manny in line as much as anyone can keep Manny in line; right now, even
if they re-sign Oliver Perez, they’re the third best team in the NL
East; and most importantly, they’d win the World Series if they brought
him in.
    The risk is massive, but then so is the reward; and if the Mets are
more willing to stand on their principles and are afraid of having to
deal with Dark Manny instead of Hall of Fame Manny, then they should
pass on him; but if they are determined to win this year to erase the
collapses of 2007 and 2008; put behind them the ridicule they endure
throughout baseball for one gaffe after another (some not their fault
like the Citi Field name and that Citicorp is in disarray; some their
fault like that patch on their uniforms to commemorate the first year
in the new stadium); and win BIG, they should put their fears aside and make a drastic and bold move for Manny Ramirez because the risk may be worth the reward.

• Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Huh? Think, McFly:

    Sometimes I feel the urge to find Buster Olney, grab him in a headlock a la Biff Tannen from Back to the Future,
start tapping feverishly on his head to try to knock some sense into
him. Here’s one of the paragraphs from his blog today as he wonders why
certain players have gotten long-term contracts and other, seemingly
superior players, haven’t:

Derek Lowe is 35 years old and in good condition and has been
durable, which explains why he got $60 million. Ben Sheets, on the
other hand, is five years younger than Lowe, has been an elite pitcher
when healthy, and is coming off a season in which he started the NL
All-Star Game — and he apparently can’t get much of a sniff of
multi-year offers.

The reason, you say, is that Sheets is injury prone and Lowe is not. OK, if durability is valued, then explain how it is that Milton Bradley
got a multi-year deal worth about $10 million per season, having lasted
100 games in the outfield in just one season in his career — and Bobby Abreu, who has appeared in 151 or more games in 11 consecutive seasons is apparently going to have to settle for a one-year deal.

    Is it really that hard to figure out why this is
happening? Lowe got his money because: A) the Braves were completely
and hopelessly desperate after whiffing in each and every one of their
attempts to upgrade their pitching staff from signing A.J. Burnett to
trading for Jake Peavy; B) Lowe was the best choice available to—-at
the very least—-get out there and pitch; Sheets wants a multi-year deal
while no one knows how many starts and innings they’re going to get out
of him; Sheets would be a good risk for a team like the Yankees who
have the depth and money to withstand a gamble on Sheets even if he
does get hurt and the Braves don’t.
    With Abreu, he, like Adam Dunn, is waiting. Waiting to see where Manny ends up and picking from the remains of the teams that need a bat; waiting to see if the dominoes start to fall after Manny’s signed and someone—-the Dodgers, the Giants, the Braves, the Mets, the Nationals, the Mariners—-are willing to give Abreu something close to what he expected to get before the financial collapse began. Sure, he could do what Milton Bradley and Raul Ibanez did and accept $10 million a year, but why should he? Why shouldn’t he wait and see if he can squeeze the $12-15 million he thought he’d get from another team after Manny signs? In the worst case scenario, Abreu and Dunn are going to get at least $10 million from someone even if it’s on a one-year deal, so at this point they may as well wait for Manny, then make their move. Think McFly; good grief.

• The concern of trust in the Dodgers clubhouse in the aftermath of Joe Torre’s book:

    I can’t judge how bad things are going to be perceived with Torre and his players until I read the book, but I can’t believe that the young players in the Dodgers clubhouse are even going to be interested enough to read the book in its entire context, let alone sit and worry about whether Torre’s airing dirty laundry about their “in-clubhouse” activities. It’s not like he outed guys who were cheating on their wives or doing other things in their own lives that are neither anyone’s business, nor affected their on-field play. Young players tend to resist the overt authority figures anyway and aren’t going to worry about what their manager might write in a book ten years from now. I don’t think it needs to be written down for most players to know that they don’t want to act like the guys who were supposedly ripped like David Wells, Carl Pavano and Kevin Brown; and if they don’t know that, then any dirty laundry that might be aired is the least of their problems.

• More on those Captain Morgan ads:

    The newest one with these four idiots putting posters of themselves all over town referring to themselves as the “Four Guys” and getting into nightclubs free as they bypass the line; not paying for drinks and having hot chicks come up and talk to them makes me wonder how they find the actors for the commercials. In each and every one of them, the guys are pretty much the most putrid group of losers anyone would (or wouldn’t) want to meet. Is this done intentionally? Did the ad agency say, “let’s have a casting call for the commercial and pick the biggest losers we can find” because plying women with copious amounts of Captain Morgan until they couldn’t think or see straight may be the only way those guys could get the time of day out of them, let alone any kind of genuine, worthwhile attention.

• Super Bowl XHAHDJDAJDLKSAJGJGDKSAGA-90210-FAHSDJNMISHJE,JHLSJDALJDNDSO%%$#@!:

     I’m tempted to pick the Cardinals, but I don’t think they’ll win. The ride ends here in a close game until the fourth quarter when the Steelers will win comfortably.
PITTSBURGH STEELERS 36
ARIZONA CARDINALS 24