The Mets are poised to pull this off even though Dickey’s unwieldy personality, the same personality that fueled his remarkable climb to greatness, mitigated the Mets’ options. Dickey’s remarks Tuesday underlined how risky it would be to employ Dickey as a one-year, $5-million, extension-less player in 2013.
This transaction marks a brave new path for the Mets, one in which sound baseball operations trumps sentiment. This in the same week when the Yankees are giving 39-year-old Ichiro Suzuki, who clocked 10 mediocre weeks and two phenomenal ones in The Bronx, a two-year extension seemingly because fans adored his inability to hit home runs.
And, in an underappreciated part of this saga that soared into visibility this week, Dickey can be a handful. He clearly has enjoyed his rise from the ashes into a Flushing folk hero, and while he deserves praise and riches, there’s also the matter of him having to coexist peacefully in a workplace. His gift for self-promotion and his love of attention don’t endear himself to most teammates. Instead, his durability and outstanding results led him to be appreciated but far from beloved.
If Dickey can’t control his verbiage at a holiday party — “Folks, not today, not with the kids here” was all he had to say to reporters — then how would a full season of uncertainty feel? How many times would Dickey spout off publicly? Or work behind the scenes to make the Mets look bad and boost his own brand?
The Mets are giving the Red Sox a run for their money as worst jagoffs in the front office.
Tripon
Posted: December 15, 2012 at 12:11 PM |
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1. Steve N Posted: December 15, 2012 at 05:40 PM (#4325663)And again, I've been following him since his Mariners days. So it's not like I'm new to coverage of him.
EDIT: OTOH, the fact that the author of this story is Ken Davidoff (one of the very few New York sportswriters who I respect) gives me at least a moment's pause.
Isn't this one of those attempts at irony that might have failed?
This bore repeating, censoring and all.
I'm not big on overpaying players because at one point you underpaid them. After all, you don't hear about players sucking and en masse giving millions back. But to let the price of a backup middle infielder get in the way of this is stupid, especially when yammering about it can only hurt your leverage. I don't think it puts the Mets in a hole, but it can't possibly help.
But, it's the Wilpons' fief, and Dickey apparently declined to do a personal appearance for Fred. That's about all it takes.
The Eddie Murray effect. If you don't kowtow to reporters, you're a bad guy.
Yeah, but except for the last year and 6 weeks,the Red Sox have been competitive for quite a while. If this was a ownership that gave the indication they knew their butt from a hole in the ground, I would cut them some slack for leaking this stuff. I don't think the word "Amazin'" applies anymore. Maybe "Regretable".
The hit job in the Post was strange though.
The Mets aren't even the worst jagoffs front office in their own division.
And most people have said that a good trade is defensible. The issue has been the public slamming of Dickey by the Mets in an attempt to save face if they do trade him.
Mind you, I do not agree that they can't contend next year. There is no powerhouse divisions in baseball, and if there was it is in the Al and on the west coast. The NL east, even with the Nationals performance last year, isn't a division that screams impossible to compete.
Good point.
That was really stupid; there's no way to win a PR war with Dickey. Everyone loves the guy, probably because he's awesome. I feel like that one had Jeff Wilpon written all over it.
You'd think Davidoff would actually report the bad stuff Dickey said, which presumably is determinative for his argument.
If he's writing for the Post now, he has lost the benefit of the doubt. Apparently, he aspires to be the new Dick Young -- or the new young dick.
Normally, I would never read the reader comments at the Post, but it is interesting to see that they are running around 9-1 in favor of "Davidoff is an ass".
Not that this would make the assessment more accurate, or fair. But it does add to our knowledge in an interesting way.
The Mets wont give the reigning Cy Young winner coming off a 140 ERA+ season (3 years 129 ERA+, 616 IP) an offer higher than $20M?
If Dickey can’t control his verbiage at a holiday party — “Folks, not today, not with the kids here” was all he had to say to reporters — then how would a full season of uncertainty feel? How many times would Dickey spout off publicly? Or work behind the scenes to make the Mets look bad and boost his own brand?
I think I am going to fucking throw up.
Eso, take a deep breath. I don't think anyone thinks a single thing about politics when they think about the Post's sportswriters. I personally think of blocked, overflowing, putrid toilets in old Shea.
And based on your offensive screed, I see no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt either, as you are just another poster who pointlessly throws politics into sports thread, just to stir up dust. Go back to the OTP thread.
My initial fear was that the players may get fed up that he sucks the entire media oxygen out of the room and aggressively marketed himself through the NY press while the team was going through another horrid season. Hearing how great he is and that the rest of you stink can be hard to take for an entire summer.
Too bad the Wilpons who were too ignorant to see that the cult of RA Dickey helped knock the Madoff financial mess off the sports pages.
Esoteric, The Post is known for sensationalism and low quality, regardless of politics. Yes, they do get stories right sometimes, too.
Totally agree. Furthermore, the trading partner may want to discuss an extension with Dickey. He'll certainly be less willing to help the Mets out by agreeing to an extension with the new team after hearing this. It does not seem to be the case, however, that an extension is being discussed with Toronto. Probably doesn't help their image with other ballplayers and potential free agents, too.
You know this would have been a lot better if you would have given Davidoff's response to the question.
Look, it's dumb for this thread to devolve into a "you suck/no you suck" flame war, but you don't get to just drop that sort of accusation on me and walk away. I'm the OPPOSITE of a person who throws political arguments into sports threads -- I basically run shrieking from politics on Primer at this point -- meanwhile that is precisely the sort of thing you do nearly all the time. Therefore for you to level this accusation at me is irony writ large.
For the record, I get the point (that others have made) that the Post is a sensationalistic paper...but so is the Daily News. So are any and all tabloid-style dailies. I never really thought of their sports section as sharing the same sort of irresponsibility as their straight news coverage.
On top of that, isn't it logical to think that the writer would maintain his level of quality/standards instead of changing that level just because his paychecks are coming from someone else? At least until he proves differently.
But... it IS what you did here. I personally recognize you don't post in the OOTP thread, and knew that as soon as Srul wrote what he did. It doesn't change that that's what happened this time.
I thought I remembered you saying that Romney would win easily. A simple search shows this
Ken is still a liberal that lives on the West Side of Manhattan.
Perhaps this got the ball rolling - from the NY Times 26th September:
Dickey’s narrative, in this way, has engulfed all others on the team. But the Mets, while aware of the possibility for tension among other players, are adamant that it does not exist within the clubhouse.
“In R. A.’s case, right now, this is kind of a special thing,” Manager Terry Collins said Wednesday. “I know most of the players understand what it means and what it is. There’s always going to be some guy that maybe takes it the wrong way. But you can’t please everybody.”
And then is response his to say 1.) Esoteric, you have no credibility as a person, either; 2.) Go crawl back into the OTP cesspool you slinked out of. I mean talk about about giving me both barrels disproportionately.
Besides, isn't there a more important point here: that some people on the Mets may actually think Dickey is a primadonna? Whether rightly or wrongly so?
That would be an empty point. You accused Srul of bigotry because you believe his political leanings influenced his judgement of the Post. It seems clear to me that your political focus is just a bit tight and misguided.
Anyone else reading between the lines there? I'd find it very surprising were the implied message true, and something that reflected poorly on those people. But if it's true it's true.
Except for the rather important point that Srul didn't say what you perceived him as saying. His problem with the Post, vis-a-vis sports, is not that it's a sensationalist right-wing rag. It's simply that it's a sensationalist rag. IOW, you interpreted what he said incorrectly and as a result, it was you and not Srul who did the politics-injecting. You see that?
Now: back to badgering Bob Tufts into cutting out the cryptic hints and outright telling us what the response was to his inquiry about how other people in the club felt about Dickey during his late season run.
What may have changed? Perhaps items that caused the NYT article. Perhaps there were more than a few people that weren't on board with the drive for Cy. Perhaps Mets' management has been dropping more negative tidbits for reporters to pick up as part of the hardball negotiations process with Dickey.
Again: I'm a massive fan of his (which says a lot considering he's spend the last three years with The Mets!), so I'm not accepting that as proof of his moral failing; in fact, as I said earlier, I'm instead inclined to believe that it just means those people should get over themselves. But there's no question that this is a rather interesting new data point, insofar as it suggests that Davidoff isn't just pulling his angle out of thin air (or doing the bidding of the front office's PR goons).
Accepted.
Bu this:
is B.S. I am NOT one of the regular politics-injectors. The only thing I am notorious for is injecting Hawaii references, particularly in the Winter.
This reads to me like R.A. isn't the one who's being a dickey.
You dog, you!
Enjoy being above sea level while you can! (HAHA See what i did there!)
enh...it's not funny cause parts of Hawaii will always be above sea level.
1. Is it possible to be on an award chase or milestone chase on a team that's not going anywhere and not be the focus of all attention?
2. Are there players on the team who were upset that their suckitude wasn't getting its due?
"hey--why is the media focussing on how well RJ is pitching and completely ignoring how much the rest of us suck. It's performance bias."
Sherman and Davidoff are both very good national baseball columnists. Most papers are lucky if they have one good national writer on baseball.
The political bent of the Post's editorial page has nothing to do with the quality of the sports section.
And yes, let's keep politics out of the baseball threads. The political theorists around here already have their forum.
"As someone who has read the NYC papers for many years, dating back to the late 1970s, I'd say the Post has consistently had the best and most in-depth sports coverage, particularly baseball coverage.
Sherman and Davidoff are both very good national baseball columnists. Most papers are lucky if they have one good national writer on baseball."
I go back a bit further, but don't greatly disagree.
Don't really know Sherman, but on the tabloid scale, I have found him more responsible than most.
Ken is a former colleague and a class act. I only glanced at the Dickey column, and won't claim a lack of biased opinion.
To be fair, I looked at the Mets 2012 stats recently and was surprised by how many good young players they have. Duda, Davis, Murphy, Baxter, Nooenhoos, Tejada, Valdespin, Niese, Gee, Parnell, Harvey. But somehow these guys are punchlines because
A) the team is bad
B) the team has no money, therefore doesn't bring in players from other teams except relievers for some reason, therefore isn't trying to win so who cares about these schmoes
C) the team seems to have no interest in promoting anyone as a star except David Wright. I don't even know what any of those young guys look like except Lucas Duda (giant chin) and Justin Turner (red hair). Why is Starlin Castro so much more famous than Ruben Tejada?
At the risk of upsetting Lassus, :) Duda and Nieuwenhuis aren't very good; neither one has much of a chance of sticking as a regular, and Duda will be 27. Baxter, Murphy, and Parnell simply aren't young; they're all entering their age 28 seasons, which is fine, but they don't fit your description of good and young. Gee is a back of the rotation guy. Every team needs that, but he's not a good pitcher. He has an 88 mph fastball, no plus pitches, and no upside. He's a great story, but the part of it that's to like is that he's in the majors at all. A 4A pitcher with just enough extra to stick around for several million dollars.
On the other hand, Davis might take a step up and be an All-Star for several years. Niese just had his first strong year, and he's 25. Once Dickey's gone the team may stop trying to trade him. Harvey's a top prospect. Valdespin walks in 5% of his minor league PAs and had a .278 OBP in his rookie season. The Mets played him all over the place, which is not what you usually do with someone you think of as a regular, but who knows. Make of it what you will.
Because he's a much better player. Starlin Castro now is Tejada in a few years if everything goes really, really well for Tejada. Tejada has so little power and seems so unlikely to develop any that his upside is very limited. In the last three seasons, Castro's HRs have gone 3-10-14. Tejada's have gone 1-0-1. Still, he's a nice ballplayer. An average fielding MI who can put up a .350 OBP and stay in the lineup is a good guy to have, but that's also his upside.
.
I have never said these two were very good. My optimism isn't blind. Tejada is better than you give him credit for, though. I think calling him an average fielder is a clear undersell.
Sherman and Davidoff are both very good national baseball columnists.
That may or may not be true, but this specific article makes Davidoff sound like a complete tool. It's embarrassing.
...but this is not your typical hack delivering a hatchet job.
Considering that's exactly how this reads, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to figure that out.
I think this is particularly harsh. Dillon Gee's average fastball last year was 90.2. He put up a 3.71 fip, 3.54 Xfip. He put up a 7.96 k/9 and a 3.34 k/bb ratio. In his last 9 starts he put up a 3.00 ERA
Is he going to compete for a Cy Young? No. Is he a guy who can be a solid middle of the rotation starter? Absolutely. He doesn't have electric stuff but he's got 4 quality pitches, good control, and a feel for pitching.
I've been following him since the low minors. I hope his injury doesn't ruin him because I really think he does a lot with the stuff he has. I admire that quality.
I do think you're overselling him, but I put a lot less stock in fip and xfip as predictive (which is how a lot of people treat it) or as indicative of true talent. I also see that on fangraphs, the values for every single pitch of Gee's bounces around. Some variation is inevitable, but his numbers look a lot like the numbers of a guy who doesn't have reliable stuff. One year his fastball's good, then it's not. His slider is awful, then it's his out pitch. His curve is his worst pitch, then it's ordinary. His change up is poor, then it's good. That's a guy with ordinary stuff.
As do I. My hat's off to him, and I hope he comes back and pitches well.
To be fair (for some reason,) the whole criticism of Dickey is centered around what his new-found fame has turned him into. It might be utter baloney, but his reputation with the Mariners 15 years ago is not really relevant to that. It could absolutely be that Dickey used to be a likable guy but his recent success has gone to his head.
It seems to have turned him into a guy who answers reporters' questions truthfully.
Actually, I could see how that would scare a team off.
Tejada has never even been accused of rape, dude. No street cred.
That also holds true for the Times' mediocre-at-best sports section.
To be fair, I looked at the Mets 2012 stats recently and was surprised by how many good young players they have. Duda, Davis, Murphy, Baxter, Nooenhoos, Tejada, Valdespin, Niese, Gee, Parnell, Harvey. ...
I don't even know what any of those young guys look like except Lucas Duda (giant chin) and Justin Turner (red hair).
Add Jonathan Niese (unattractive nose - even after Beltran paid $10K to fix Niese's "deviated septum")
That's only since Murray Chass left.
For what it's worth, and that's not very much because it's just one claim being made by one random guy on the internet, but two different guys I know who are in a position to know told me Dickey was very unpopular with the Mets clubhouse by the end of the season. And you know, it's possible; beyond the 'self-promoting' he may or may not have been engaged in, Dickey seems from what I've read to be an intelligent and perhaps even kind of nerdy guy. If that's true, well... that tends not to go over well in locker rooms in just about any sport.
OK, my own wild speculations and generalizations aside, I still don't understand what the Mets gain from trashing a guy in the media they're trying to trade. I expect Sandy Alderson to be smarter than that. (Counterpoint: he works for the Wilpons.) Branch Rickey did the same thing 60 years ago when he wanted to get rid of Ralph Kiner, and got about the same results (he was able to trade him, but not for any tremendous value, as part of an eleven-piece deal).
It would be fun having Dickey on the Jays, but this looks like a solid Mets win.
It would be fun having Dickey on the Jays, but this looks like a solid Mets win.
What? Done? Source?
Your use of conflicting tenses is troubling.
Oh no, just latest rumour. Apologies.
You have to admit that this was a bit over the top. The Poles and Czechs in particular were not amused.
And laying claim to all of Westeros was the icing on the cake.
Still, as far as Dickey "letting his press get to his head", the only other evidence Davidoff has is Dickey's feeling he should have started the All-Star Game, and "pushing for Wright to get charged with an error against Tampa Bay so he could get a no-hitter." I would be truly surprised if Dickey were the primary person driving the latter, which would mean that all three things Davidoff's complaining about are ridiculously minuscule incidents where I don't even see how Dickey is wrong in the first place.
(Luckily, the smear campaign doesn't seem to be killing Dickey's trade value much, so I guess who cares, right? Nah... still the wrong thing to do.)
Dirk Hayhurst reporting on Dickey will presumably be better...
Ken hadn't realized that we could retroactively apply DIPS theory. Eno Sarris subsequently showed him the BABIP numbers for all known knuckleballers.
What makes so much of Ken's work enjoyable to read is his willingness to learn and apply new information. What surprised me about this piece was that he casually brought up the negative clubhouse sentiment against Dickey (no quotes, let alone attribution) as if it were common knowledge.
To be sure, I have also encountered Ken's dark side, which comes out if he catches even the faintest whiff of nitpicking about something he wrote! ;-)
Er, what now?
But it seems likely to be true.
I'm thinking your usage of "likely" and "confirmation" is pretty suspect here.
The relevant part is that Dickey is (rightly!) seen as being very good at manipulating the press, so if you've decided to trade rather than extend him, you probably want to get it done sooner rather than later, since if the issue lingers he'll be around making himself look good and you look bad. (Not that there's anything wrong with him doing that!)
Of course, since we are talking about the Mets, Dickey could accomplish this by doing absolutely nothing and letting the Mets do what they do.
But WTF is "laughable" about a "threat" to leave after 2013? Isn't that what players do when their contracts expire? This all has the definite feel or third-party-projected-brinksmanship. Invent a story so you can comment on it.
Exactly. This is part of what makes the Davidoff piece a deplorable hatchet job. His contract is up in 2013. If the Mets wanted to keep him after that, this was their best window since nobody else is allowed to negotiate with him. After that, he can talk to anyone.
And we have seen this a thousand times. A player in his last year makes it clear that he wants an extension, and if not, he will leave after the year -- and then he leaves. There is nothing laughable abut it, it is not a threat, it is the way business is and always has been done.
No kidding. One would think from the headline that Dickey had threatened to leave immediately for the North Korean League.
But stuff like this sells papers (or clickthroughs) over the winter. The DFW media spent much of 2012 running down Josh Hamilton, floating rumors about how the Rangers wouldn't want the quitter back at any money, questioning everything from his guts to his contact lenses. Then Hamilton signs a perfectly reasonable FA contract with the Angels, and the columnists here are all "He said he'd let Texas match any offer, he's leaving the only team that believed in him, such a classless traitor." Whatever.
I suspect that Ken's editor is responsible for the headline.
That's what I figured, but in this case the headline writer is just accurately reflecting the writer's thoughts. This is from Davidoff's lede:
All about himself once again, Dickey issued the laughable threat that, if the Mets didn’t extend his contract, he’d bolt the organization after 2013.
Like others, I've enjoyed Davidoff's work. But even if there are issues with Dickey in the Mets' clubhouse, this column is just flat bad.
However, he does use the "laughable threat" language in the actual article. (Edit: Coke to SoSH on that.) And certainly a lot more people see his column than his Twitter.
Overall, I respect Davidoff enough to believe that he thinks this is a good baseball move for the Mets, and is motivated by that belief to defend it in various ways, one of which is to try to chip away at Dickey's previously universally beloved personality.
However, Davidoff really needs to be less credulous than this. These are 25 guys living together for six months. It's crazy to think that any one of those 25 is going to make it through the six months without doing something that at least one of the other 24 isn't going to love. Davidoff isn't even claiming that Dickey is disliked in the clubhouse. He points to three times where Dickey arguably did not say the exact right thing, in insignificant situations that no one really cared about. That is an impossible standard, and one that virtually all players would fail much quicker than Dickey does.
Ultimately, Davidoff should have just written an article about how this is a totally defensible baseball move (which it is). He didn't need to go this route.
I call shenanigans. He came back to the same theme time and again. He conveyed his thoughts very well, he is just now realizing that they are not going down very well with anyone,and it is damaging his credibility.
Davidoff has not come off well in this. The article gives every appearance of his simply puking in the direction the Wilpons wanted him to puke. I realize sports journalism isn't really journalism, but you'd think Davidoff would have wanted to appear as something other than a hired hand.
Dunno how you're defining "big print," but I'd be very surprised, based on a couple of decades in the business, if any writer on any paper with circulation of at least 10,000 or so writes his own heds. Granted, staffing & such have plummeted since I was excused from the profession 10 years ago, & in many cases genuine on-site copy desks (the guys who actually write heds, or at least did) don't exist, but still.
Wow - crazy that I used the exact word "accused" and in no way stated anything that could be construed to imply that I believed it or not. Look, Don Quixote - a windmill!
It's a shame that the Mets wouldn't pay Dickey "Ollie Perez money".
Considering that they really are good friends, I was a bit surprised that Bowtie Ken was so brutal in his analysis.
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