Why Blanco Scares Mets Fans
By Howard Megdal ~ December 4th, 2009. Filed under: Howard Megdal.
It isn’t that Henry Blanco is a bad signing. As Sam Page points out this morning, Blanco, for $1.5 million, provides exceptional defense and decent enough offense for a backup catcher, giving the Mets a presence behind the plate they didn’t have last year.
But both Blanco and Alex Cora have something in common with nearly every non-superstar the Mets have acquired in recent years- they are veterans with a finite ceiling and a relatively low floor. The Mets have filled another roster spot with a player extremely unlikely to have a breakout season, exceeding expectations.
That has a carryover effect on the rest of the team, of course. Every possible breakout mitigates against those players who fail to live up to expectations, either by fluctuations in performance or injury. A failure to have such breakout candidates means that everything else has to go right.
And when does that ever happen for the Mets?
And it seems like the Mets do this every year. Henry Blanco over Kelly Shoppach fits nicely with a program that seems to nearly always favor the established veteran over the high-achieving Triple-A player who needs a break.
The oddest part of this is the Mets have had success with players in recent years like Fernando Tatis and Nelson Figueroa, players who put up very good Triple-A numbers. But they have been the exception, for one thing, and for another, Tatis, in particular also had expanded major league time.
Take this in contrast to Oakland’s acquisition of Jake Fox from the Cubs. Fox will be 27, has absolutely crushed Triple-A pitching. What are the chances he won’t be a better hitter than a Chris Coste?
The urgency to acquire such players in an offseason like this, where even the highest-priced free agents have significant holes, should be obvious. And seeing the Mets act as though this isn’t the way to build a bench worries fans, and rightfully so, that spending too much on older players (I’m looking at you, Jason Marquis and Bengie Molina) will be how the lineup and starting rotation come together as well.
