TERRY MOSHER
YOENIS CESPEDES
I wish when sports reports talk about the baseball talent of players they also talk about what kind of character they are. Aren’t you curious? I am.
Take Yoenis Cespedes, and multi-teams do. Cespedes has now played for four teams in four years after Detroit traded him Friday to the New York Mets. He has played for those four teams – Oakland, Boston, Detroit and now the Mets – just in the last two years despite averaging 20 home runs and a .269 batting average, which is pretty darn good in the age of pitching.
So what is wrong with this former Cuban player? Why are teams anxious to unload him?
What the casual fan does not know, and that is because reporters fail to talk about character in their stories, is how players are away from the ballpark. I suspect when players get traded often despite having good baseball credentials is because there is a major flaw in their character.
I have no clue what ails Cespedes, although teams sure like to have him, at least for a short period of time. Then for some reason they dump him.
It doesn’t have to be a character flaw. Some players are what would be called tweeners in basketball or 4A players in baseball. They are good enough to serve as a fill-in until a minor league prospect is ready to take his place. Sort of a rental player.
These guys get bounced around from team to team as the 25th man on the 25-man roster. They can make a pretty good living that way, although it has to be very difficult on their families to be uprooted every year or even more than that.
I have always thought Mike Morse, who has had two stints with the Mariners, was (and is) one of those guys. He was drafted in 200 by the Chicago White Sox in the third round and in 2004 was part of the deal with the Mariners that sent Freddy “Chief” Garcia and Ben Davis from Seattle to the White Sox.
His odyssey was just beginning. Five years later he was traded to the Washington Nationals and four years after that he was part of a three-team deal with the Nationals and Oakland that sent him back to the Mariners. Eight months later the Mariners sent him to Baltimore.
Granted free agency twice in the intervening years, Morse has played with the Giants, the Marlins, and the Dodgers and now is with Pittsburgh after the Dodgers traded him at the July 31 deadline.
If you are keeping track that is seven teams (eight if you count his appearance twice with the Mariners).
So what is wrong with Morse?
I don’t know. But I do know he’s making a pretty good living being a vagabond. Morse is 33 and signed a two-year contract with the Marlins that pays him $16 million over this year and next season. Not bad for a guy whose business card should read, “Have Bat will Travel.”
Rolling my eyes is a gesture I have used often whenever a new player acquisition is announced by the Mariners. As a seasoned reported you get used to the roll of drums and clash of cymbals that come with each announcement as if the new player will help the club turn the season around.
Most of the time – listening Mark Trumbo – the roar associated with the announcement is much louder than what the player will produce. To be fair, I suppose rosters have to be filled out somehow and if there isn’t a ready-for-prime time player in the minor league system, the team has to reach outside to find somebody who will be a fill-in, and hopefully is better than his career stats indicate. It’s seldom a club will do, or can do, what Toronto did this trading deadline in acquiring probably the best shortstop in baseball (Troy Tulowitzki a) and left-handed David Price, one of the top pitchers in baseball. Tulowitzki, by the way, homered in his second at-bat for the Blue Jays.
The Mariners, in contrast, were sellers at the deadline. Their season has not jelled like was predicted, despite acquiring Nelson Cruz, who is having an unbelievable year.
Maybe the Mariners are just jinxed. I doubt that, but it’s easy to conclude that and to say they over-valued their club coming out of spring training, which they did. What puzzles me is why the Yankees were so interested in Dustin Ackley? What do they know that the Mariners didn’t find out?
That’s enough for today. It’s hot here up in my loft. I’ve lost 10 pounds just sweating from the heat.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.