Posts tagged CarlosDelgado at FanHouse

Our MLB editor files dispatches from the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas in Notes From Sin City.

While the baseball world watches and waits for Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia to make up their mind, or even just for a scrap from super-agent Scott Boras, closer Francisco Rodriguez has become the belle of the Winter Meetings ball.

Though the Mets have yet to publicly acknowledge that they have signed the record-setting reliever, it is widely believed that Rodriguez has agreed to a three-year deal with the club worth roughly $37 million and containing a vesting option for a fourth year that could push its value past $50 million.

Problem solved, right? Third straight September swoon averted, right? Hardly.

Look, there's no doubt that the Mets' biggest need heading into the offseason was to fix their wretched bullpen. And there's no doubt that Rodriguez is a big part of the puzzle in that regard. But they also play in the same division as the reigning world champions and a pair of clubs in the Marlins and Braves who are capable of winning 85-plus games if things break right.

New York has some elite talent -- Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Johan Santana -- but it also has a roster that is perilously thin at the margins.

Out of the rubble of another disastrous ending for the Mets was an MVP-type performance down the stretch for Carlos Delgado. Delgado has been very streaky over the last two seasons having alternating bad months and good months in '07. In '08, Delgado started with a bad month which somehow lasted 11 weeks (that's an odd calendar). Many were calling for his head, and there were whispers of Carlos possibly being released.

But since a game against the Yankees on June 25th when Delgado drove in nine runs, he's been unreal, batting .308 with an OPS of 1.018 in his final 84 games to help the Mets back into the pennant race. For his efforts, the Mets rewarded Delgado by picking up his option for one year at $12 million.

There will certainly be questions as to whether Delgado can have another season like he did last year, or whether he'll start out '09 as he started out '08. And of course there will be questions as to what exactly will motivate Delgado through the course of the season. But I look at it this way: With Ike Davis moving through the minor leagues and being the Mets' heir apparent to Delgado at first, the Mets are better served to have a stop gap for a season or two at first rather than throw a lot of money and years at a guy like Mark Teixeira. That's money and years that would be better served being thrown at other people (Bullpen? Bullpen. BULLPEN!!!) And if you're going to have a short term solution there anyway, there aren't a lot of options better than Delgado.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Big Papi Busts Out: The news was almost entirely bad for the Red Sox Monday night. Josh Beckett looked pretty shaky. Boston allowed the Yankees to stay alive another day -- mostly because umpire Gerry Davis got in the way of a two-run double.

The big bright spot? David Ortiz is rounding into playoff form. Big Papi had a terrible April, then injured his wrist in May, then lost the hitter who protected him for years, Manny Ramirez, at the end of July. But he's hit two home runs in the last two days, one to the opposite field in Toronto and a second to the deepest part of Fenway Park Monday. He's driving the ball like he rarely has this year, and Boston needs him more than ever heading into October.

The Red Sox are not as vulnerable as they were in 2005, the last time they had a championship to defend, but they also don't appear quite as strong as the teams that won in 2004 and 2007, especially with J.D. Drew likely out for the season and Mike Lowell hurting too.

The loss of players like Lowell, Drew and Ramirez and the general ineffectiveness and inconsistency of guys like Tim Wakefield, Manny Delcarmen and Jacoby Ellsbury means Boston needs its stars more than ever come playoff time.

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

For the first time since the Clinton Administration, Yankee Stadium will be dark this October. The only thing more popular in America than the Yankees, is hating the Yankees, so it seems unlikely that your average non-New York baseball fan will be shedding a tear over the absence of the Bronx Bombers.

The network executives at FOX and TBS, on the other hand, can't be too pleased. People either love or hate the Yankees. Either way, they tune in to watch them in October.

The biggest draw in baseball won't be on the game's biggest stage next month, and the television types have every reason to wring their hands about the enormous void left in their wake. But hope is far from lost.

The 2008 postseason should offer plenty of storylines to keep viewers captivated -- and bean-counting executives happy -- even without the Yankees to kick around (or dote upon or whatever it is your average baseball fan likes to do with them).

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Chaos Reigns in NL: The Brewers firing their manager with two weeks to go in the season and the wild-card lead says a lot about the state of their club. But it also says plenty about the wild and wacky National League. A dozen days remain in the regular season, and anyone who tells you they can sort the senior circuit out is plainly lying.

The Dodgers and Cubs are almost certainly bound for the playoffs. Three principle teams -- the Mets, Phillies and Brewers -- are battling for the two remaining spots, but the Astros are within striking distance, and the Marlins, who still have Houston, Philadelphia and New York left on the schedule, even have a sliver of a hope

For now, the Phillies appear to have the edge in the NL East after rallying past the Braves and into first place. For now, the Mets appear headed for another collapse, done in by a rickety bullpen and an offense that can't seem to scrape out a clutch hit. For now, the Brewers appeared destined to wilt, no matter who is managing them.

But the Phils still have a spotty back of the rotation, New York still has Johan Santana and David Wright and Carlos Delgado and Milwaukee still has CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder and it showed plenty of fight against the Cubs Tuesday night. If the Brewers and Mets win and Philadelphia loses Wednesday, we'll know even less than we do now.

None of these teams are great, but just based on the sheer unpredictability of the races, the NL is about as entertaining as it possibly could be.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Oh, What a Night: It's easy to get wrapped up in the daily drama of the pennant races this time of year without stopping to smell the roses. If you didn't have playoff fever before last night, there's a good chance you have it now. I'll get to the gory details in a moment, but for now, let's take a moment to bask in the glow of this time of year.

The Red Sox and Rays played one of the better games all season long -- a see-saw affair that saw Boston darling Jason Bay give his new club a dramatic lead in the eighth, followed by the upstart Rays showing surprising fight and scoring twice on closer Jonathan Papelbon to win the game.

The White Sox dropped a pair of games to the red-hot Blue Jays, who are seven games back of the Red Sox with seven left to play against Boston, and saw their lead over the Twins shrink to just one game.

Carlos Delgado's continued resurgence helped the Mets eke out a dramatic, late-inning win over the Nationals. The Cubs and Brewers continued to slump, in the case of the latter creating an intriguing wild-card race where there wasn't one just a few weeks before.

Finally, out west, the Dodgers yet again got Herculean efforts out of Andre Ethier and Manny Ramirez to add another game to their division lead as the Diamondbacks wilted in the wake of ninth-inning rally.

It's all too easy to buy into the mantra that the games in April count just the same as they do in September. Of course, it's completely true. On the other hand, there's nothing more fun than baseball this time of year. Any fan can appreciate that.

Carlos Delgado opened the year slow, but in case you haven't noticed, he's been raking the ball lately. Before the All-Star break, Delgado hit just .248 with a .748 OPS. Ever since then, he's been hitting .286 with a .972 OPS. Does his revival have something to do with Jerry Manuel replacing Willie Randolph? John Harper of the New York Daily News and Mets assistant GM Tony Bernazard seem to think so:

No player seemingly has benefited more from change than Delgado. His return to form as a feared slugger, after looking ready for retirement early in the season, already had been so remarkable you couldn't help but wonder if he was somehow lacking motivation under Randolph.

[...] "Delgado is such a student of the game," said Bernazard. "If you're running a good game, he knows. When you're running a bad game, he knows."

It's an interesting theory, I suppose, and hey, everybody is entitled to an opinion. But is Delgado's resurgence even that surprising? Part of the reason his early struggles were magnified was because of his strong finish last year. When you look at the numbers, Delgado has consistently improved his OPS after the All-Star break each of the last five years. With few exceptions, it's a trend that's existed his entire career.

To ignore that trend and instead attribute Delgado's current success to Randolph's absence is both mean-spirited and ignorant. If the two developments are at all related, it's the opposite that's true: Randolph is no longer around because Delgado wasn't hitting.

The first meeting of The Dugout's Speculation Station was met with considerable success. Its panelists -- Brian Bannister, Carlos Delgado, and Chipper Jones -- contributed their thoughts in a (largely) rational and orderly manner, and as a result, a greater understanding was grasped of the item at hand.

Today, The Speculation Station turns its curious and objective gaze toward a 1988 commercial for the Nintendo Entertainment System's R.B.I. Baseball. Let's wish our thoughtful participants well as they attempt to digest and understand this material!

Today's Dugout is after the jump.

Instant replay. Baseball might have instant replay, but instant replay would require instant replay. The issue of instant replay has been an instant replay for years now, only complicating the matter of instant replay. On one hand, instant replay. Of course that raises the issue of instant replay. This, in turn, creates the problem of not being able to have instant replay without instant replay. Personally, I instant replay. I've instant replayed since I was a small instant replay. Instant replay is a completely natural and instant replay thing. Baseball purists who instant replay the issue need to instant replay themselves and stop instant replaying the matter at hand.

In case you haven't heard, instant replay.

Instant replay after the jump.

Just because the Mets didn't fire Willie Randolph, it doesn't mean the team isn't open to making some changes in hopes of getting back on the winning side of things. You need only look at last night's lineup against the Marlins to see that.

Fernando Tatis won the game with a 12th inning double and he was joined in the lineup by Nick Evans and Damion Easley. Tatis and Evans were both in the minor leagues earlier this month and Easley started for the second straight night at the expense of Carlos Delgado. Does that mean the Mets have benched him?

"I told him he has to pick it up," Randolph told Mets.com before the game. "His defense played into (the decision). He has to pick it up. He didn't like what I said. I don't want him to be happy (about) not playing. But he had no choice."

Nor should he because Delgado isn't doing anything right now. Never the best glove, Delgado's bat no longer carries that deficiency and the Mets aren't hitting on enough cylinders to keep waiting for him to come around. There's a caveat, each of Easley's starts came against lefties and Delgado's expected in the lineup against Brad Penny tonight, but there's probably not much rope left for Delgado.

Maybe he should shave his moustache and goatee. Growing a 'stache got Jason Giambi cooking, perhaps the opposite could get New York's other first baseman in gear.