New York Mets – The News Desk

MLB insiders “pretty worried” by rise in arm injuries to top young starting pitchers

8Apr

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Sports

MLB insiders “pretty worried” by rise in arm injuries to top young starting pitchers

Matt Blake texted Cleveland Guardians pitcher Shane Bieber a conciliatory message over the weekend. As a member of the Cleveland player-development system in the 2010s, Blake aided Bieber’s rise from college walk-on to unanimous American League Cy Young Award winner in 2020. For a time, Bieber represented the modern model for the manufacturing of a big-league ace, a player who added strength to his frame, velocity to his fastball and spin to his offspeed pitches as he ascended the ranks.By the time Blake sent his text, though, Bieber had become part of a growing, more troubling demographic: talented young pitchers who will spend this season as spectators. Two days after the Miami Marlins announced 20-year-old phenom Eury Pérez would undergo Tommy John surgery, the Guardians disclosed Bieb...

MLB’s weirdest injuries of 2023, from a pool basketball mishap to a toilet setback

28Dec

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Sports

MLB’s weirdest injuries of 2023, from a pool basketball mishap to a toilet setback

Every year at this time, we marvel at the many creative ways baseball players find to make an appearance on the ever-popular Strange But True Injuries of the Year leaderboard.So we’d like to thank this year’s baseball population for … cooking breakfast … playing the piano … and doing their best to get in and out of their hotel bathroom safely. But you know what’s especially amazing? None of those mishaps even topped this list!Really? Yes, really. So here they come, the Strangest But Truest Injuries of 2023.First prize: Eye confess!We always award Injury of the Year bonus points to guys who manage to get hurt while they’re already hurt. So here’s to Rays relief warrior Pete Fairbanks, who couldn’t even cover up the Giannis imitation that got him into this mess.When Fairbanks met with the R...

MLB’s 20 most mind-blowing hitting, pitching feats of 2023 — with Kyle Schwarber leading off

27Dec

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Sports

MLB’s 20 most mind-blowing hitting, pitching feats of 2023 — with Kyle Schwarber leading off

It’s the most wonderful time of the year … except for one thing:It’s no longer baseball season!But that’s where we come in. It’s our not-so-solemn duty to get you through these long, chilly, baseball-free months by helping you relive the best of the Strange But True baseball season of 2023. Don’t tell us you already forgot that …An unforgettable on-base streak ended even though the man who compiled that streak was standing on first base. … And we really did see a real human being steal third base and home on the same pitch. … And a team pitched a no-hitter despite the minor hindrance of also allowing seven runs — in the same inning!We’re not making any of that up. We spend the whole year keeping track of wacky stuff like this so you don’t have to. So join us now as we relive The Strange B...

New York Mets hit with record luxury tax of nearly $101 million for season of fourth-place finish

23Dec

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Business

New York Mets hit with record luxury tax of nearly $101 million for season of fourth-place finish

NEW YORK: The New York Mets must pay a record luxury tax of nearly $101 million after a fourth-place finish in their division, among an unprecedented eight teams that owe the penalty for the 2023 season.Owner Steve Cohen's Mets finished with a tax payroll of $374.7 million, according to figures finalized by Major League Baseball on Thursday and obtained by The Associated Press.That topped the previous high of $291.1 million by the 2015 Los Angeles Dodgers.The Mets' tax bill came to $100,781,932 after they finished fourth in the NL East at 75-87 in the most expensive flop in baseball history. That more than doubled the prior high of $43.6 million by the 2015 Dodgers.The Mets saved about $18 million for this year with their summer selloff that saw them trade Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, ...

Five things to watch on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot: Could Beltré be a unanimous pick?

24Nov

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Sports

Five things to watch on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot: Could Beltré be a unanimous pick?

Nine weeks from today, we’ll find out who gets to live out the weekend of a lifetime next July in magical Cooperstown, N.Y. Spoiler alert: Adrián Beltré’s friends and loved ones had better make those dinner reservations ASAP!But there were 25 other names on the 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot that was announced on Monday. And when I looked over those names, I could already see the storylines forming in my brain.So here they come — my Five Things to Watch on the latest, greatest Hall ballot.1. Can Adrián Beltré make ballot history? Adrián Beltré throws out the first pitch before Game 2 of the 2023 World Series. (Raymond Carlin III / USA Today)Could Adrián Beltré really become the first position player to get elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously? It’s a fascinating questio...

2023-24 MLB offseason: Bowden’s 24 predictions for signings, trades, hirings and more

9Nov

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Sports

2023-24 MLB offseason: Bowden’s 24 predictions for signings, trades, hirings and more

Free agency officially started Monday but the managers, not the players, stole the show, headlined by the Cubs’ stunning swoop to land Craig Counsell. Frankly, I’m still in shock after yesterday’s series of managerial moves, which also included hires by the Mets (Carlos Mendoza) and Guardians (Stephen Vogt).Another unpredictable MLB offseason is here and although the trades and signings haven’t started in earnest, we have seen some noteworthy transactions, including several teams exercising club options on potential free agents such as Alex Cobb (Giants), José Leclerc (Rangers) and Kyle Hendricks (Cubs). We’ve seen teams cut ties with the faces of their franchise, as the White Sox declined their option on Tim Anderson and the Reds did the same with Joey Votto. We’ve seen players such as E...

Why Diamondbacks-Rangers is worth watching, from young stars to ring-chasing old timers

27Oct

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Sports

Why Diamondbacks-Rangers is worth watching, from young stars to ring-chasing old timers

Look, we didn’t expect this either. Of all the possible World Series matchups, a tussle of the 90-win Texas Rangers against the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks wasn’t exactly at the top of our wish list. It’s being already decried as a battle of who could care less, and we get it. But we also disagree. Is this World Series custom-made for primetime? Of course not. But when asked to come up with a handful of reasons to watch, it took about two minutes for a small group of baseball writers to bat around more than a dozen storylines, personalities and raw talents that are going to be worth watching for the next however-long-this-lasts. Give us another Game 7, we say, because this might not be the series we expected, it might not even be the series we deserve, but it’s going to be a series worth ...

Inside the Mets’ decision to fire Buck Showalter and his team’s reaction

4Oct

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Sports

Inside the Mets’ decision to fire Buck Showalter and his team’s reaction

NEW YORK — Just after 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Buck Showalter called his group of veterans into his office. It’s a group he’s relied on throughout this season, for counsel, for leadership, for accountability. It’s a group that grew smaller when the team shipped out veterans at the trade deadline and shifted course for the final two months.On this day, the lingering members of the New York Mets’ core — Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso among them — listened as Showalter delivered his news.Sunday would be his final game as manager of the Mets. Late Saturday night, following New York’s doubleheader sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies, Showalter had been fired.“It was one of those conversations where there was a lot of seconds with silence,” Lindor said later.New York’s veterans had kno...

How the $445 million Mets crashed and burned

21Sep

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Sports

How the $445 million Mets crashed and burned

It was May, barely a month into the Mets season, and the visiting clubhouse at Comerica Park was silent. The typical frenzy of a getaway day had been replaced by introspection, players sitting at nearly every locker, heads down as they scrolled through their phones.In a span of 27 hours, the Mets had been swept by the lowly Tigers, their ninth loss in 11 games pushing them back to .500. That final loss in Detroit was punctuated by something that rarely, if ever, had to happen during a charmed 101-win season in 2022:Buck Showalter called a postgame team meeting.Showalter has long viewed the clubhouse as the players’ sanctuary, trusting a veteran squad in Queens to police itself. One day prior, in the midst of getting swept in a doubleheader, those players had held their own meeting. The si...