Mets Fans Know Best: Star pitchers are a better gift than experienced managers
If you’re not pumped for the coming New York Mets season, you may want to check your own pulse. The franchise managed to make plenty of improvements prior to the MLB lockout both on the field and off of it.
The major players they added were Starling Marte, Eduardo Escobar, and Mark Canha. Oh, and some guy named Max Scherzer.
On the management side of things, they hired Billy Eppler to become their next general manager. Most recently, the organization decided to go with Buck Showalter as the manager of the team.
Several new players—with Marte and Scherzer being the most exciting—plus two experienced hires for non-player duties should have you eager to fast-forward to spring. Out of all of the new additions, which one should have you most excited?
Mets fans know best and they say Max Scherzer has them most excited of all
As much as the majority of people were hoping for Showalter to take the manager job, he wasn’t the winner in our recent Twitter poll. Given the choice between Eppler, Marte, Scherzer, and Showalte (Buck Showalter’s misguided alter-ego who is always losing his R, I guess?), the majority of voters went with Scherzer in as much of a landslide as they could vote.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given how unlikely it was for the Mets to acquire Scherzer in the first place. Fans were talking about the possibility of Showalter for months. Scherzer wasn’t within 60 feet, 6 inches of ever joining the Mets.
The excitement for Scherzer hasn’t worn off nor should we expect it to. In fact, the closer we get to Opening Day, I’m sure the more thrilled fans will be with each reminder that he truly is a member of the organization.
Showalter did have a nice showing in the poll. I gather voters for him have some doubts about Scherzer’s health and/or age which is fair. He can also only participate once every five days while Showalter can have some control all 162 times.
Eppler and Marte were much more distant in the polling. This was to be expected. Eppler wasn’t a universally praised hire. When comparing Marte to someone like Scherzer, it’s tough to give him the more favorable, heavy nod.
Plus, we always have to account for the occasional troll vote and the Eppler Family getting involved, too. Even so, Scherzer was the overwhelming winner in this poll. Unlike so many other elections, there won’t be any recount.