{"id":2670,"date":"2016-11-12T07:43:54","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T13:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2670"},"modified":"2016-11-12T07:43:54","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T13:43:54","slug":"bye-bye-bart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2670","title":{"rendered":"Bye Bye Bart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"40\"<\/a>As you know by now, Bartolo Colon has signed a 2017 contract with the Braves, where he’ll join fellow new arrival R.A. Dickey as a veteran dynamic duo we may well encounter when the Mets open the 2017 season against Atlanta in April.<\/p>\n

Colon can’t be blamed for seeking a regular starting gig as he pursues a few personal milestones: He needs 10 wins to catch Juan Marichal for the all-time lead among Dominican pitchers, and 12 to surpass Dennis Martinez and become the winningest\u00a0Latin American pitcher of all-time. I speak for all Mets fans wishing him the best of luck most nights, anyway.<\/p>\n

I had no idea what to expect of Colon when he arrived as a 40-year-old ostensibly to hold Matt Harvey’s place in the rotation in 2014, and would not have predicted he’d depart three years later having set the all-time mark for wins (44) and strikeouts (415) among guys who wore No. 40 (Pat Zachry was the prior king and still leads this club in losses). Colon was a surprising guy all around,\u00a0obviously a better athlete than he looked to be and a fun presence who really helped the Mets especially this last year. We’ll miss him!<\/p>\n

\"20\"<\/a>That’s the first significant departure of what’s looking to be an interesting offseason for the Mets. At the moment I cannot picture a scenario that doesn’t involve a significant trade or two. Briefly I’m sort of rooting against a return engagement for Neil Walker but can’t see how he’ll turn down that $17 million waiting for him, and if he takes it that’ll put a strain on the budget to re-engage Cespedes, so I suppose if the Mets want Walker they can do so with a compromise kind of multiyear deal, and just maybe, prepare him for a kind of caddy deal where his switch-hittingness becomes valuable for the bench while ushering in\u00a0Gavin Cecchini\u00a0who keeps on hitting.<\/p>\n

While pursuit of a new deal for Cespedes could be hair raising it could be argued that the club already has the next-best available outfielder of a relatively weak class in Jay Bruce, and so I’m rooting for Sandy and the guys to make hay of this and surprise us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you know by now, Bartolo Colon has signed a 2017 contract with the Braves, where he’ll join fellow new arrival R.A. Dickey as a veteran dynamic duo we may well encounter when the Mets open the 2017 season against Atlanta in April. Colon can’t be blamed for seeking a regular starting gig as he … Continue reading “Bye Bye Bart”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[626],"tags":[625,744,736,710,746,700],"class_list":["post-2670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-useless-milestones","tag-bartolo-colon","tag-gavin-cecchini","tag-jay-bruce","tag-neil-walker","tag-pat-zachry","tag-yoenis-cespedes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2671,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670\/revisions\/2671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}