New York Baseball, Times Are A Changin

2013 could very well be the worst baseball New York City has to offer in a very long time. Fans of the Yankees have been treated to regular post season appearances and ultra winning seasons since 1994. Supporters of the Queens-based Mets have fallen on hard times since Carlos Beltran took that called third strike back in the 2006 NLCS.

Injuries, age, poor management and the emergence of other teams look to contribute to an early tailgating party at MetLife stadium for many Tri-Staters.

Over in The Bronx, the ARoid curse really took hold when the aging (but extremely productive) Derek Jeter was moving to his left to field a slow grounder by Jhonny Peralta in the final game of the 2012 ALCS. He broke his ankle and is still a question mark for this season, especially in the field.

Speaking of ARoid, he will probably miss half the season as a result of his steroid inflammed hip. That's alright, he will have plenty of time to count his undeserved salary, which by the way, is more than the entire Houston Astros team combined.

Injuries to Mark Texiera (in addition to his slow starts) and Curtis Granderson compound (sorry for the pun Grandy) the potential misery the Pinstripers are likely to have.

The irony of all of this is, that the Yankees have no where to turn in the free agent market. The LA-area teams have taken care of becoming the new spend-thrifts in baseball, leaving the Yankees to sign an now average Vernon Wells. No offense Vernon.

On the mound, gone are the days of Wells, Cone, Pettitte and Mussina.

Pettitte (40 years old) is still here, joining the more than able C.C. Sabathia (32), as well as Ivan Nova and Hiroki Kuroda (38). Phil Hughes is banged up with a bad back and will begin the season on the disabled list. Age and injury are issues in the bullpen, and Mariano Rivera (43) fits both categories. Joba Chamberlain and David Robertson are also tweeked.

Joe Girardi will have to manage his butt off this season to get the Yankees back to the playoffs.

Now the Mets. What can be said about Fred Wilpon's team. Not too much, but we will give it shot.

Starting with the newest news, Johan Santana is out for the year. While this is tragic news on the surface, it was really unclear what the Venezuelan lefty was going to contribute in 2013 anyway. His shoulder is shot and his career may very well be done.

Staying on the mound, Jon Niese is now going to be the ace and he has the makeup to perform this task. He has a winning record over the last three years for a dreadful team, so climb on his back and hope for the best every five days. Twenty-four year old Matt Harvey is a future star, and the Mets actually had the correct approach (imagine that) in bringing along this kid. He doesn't beat himself with walks and will pitch deep into games. Dillon Gee is the likely third man and is looking healthy after the blood clot in his shoulder has been resolved.

Let's talk bullpen. Bobby Parnell has finally got what I am sure he has always wanted. He is the closer. Frank Francisco is still banged up and will not be ready for Opening Day. No names and no talents make up the middle of the relief staff.

Offensively speaking, the Mets will be offensive (and not in the good way) in 2013.

David Wright is the only all-around batter the Mets have and is a potential Gold Glove winner, but with little protection in the lineup, he will have few opportunities to produce huge numbers.

Wright's protection includes, Lucas Duda, Kirk Neiuwenheiss, Mike Baxter, Reuben Tejada and John Buck. Young catcher Travis d'Arnaud (part of the R.A. Dickey trade) was sent to AAA in an apparent move to preserve his ML service. FML.

The Mets should let d'Arnaud start the season in New York this year and hold him to low offensive expectations with the opportunity to learn the staff and catch at the ML level, thereby "develop" ML skills at the ML level.

Whatever.

This could be a long season in New York and the upcoming regular season intra-city games (I will not call it Subway Series unless they play in October) should provide some interestingly meaningless games.

We can count on a lot of listening to John Sterling droning on and miscalling flyballs (ala Ralph Kiner) and Susan Waldman crying, this time sad tears. YES sound-a-likes John Flaherty and David Cone (the vanilla kids) will bore us with blowhard Michael Kay on the TV side.

At least the Mets have Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez to kill the time on the tube and Howie Rose on the radio.

It's going to be a long hot summer in N-Y-C....