Am sitting here in Starbucks, speaking with Rob Massimi, the resident baseball head. Subject is Ike Davis, the Mets first baseman. We both agree—waaaaaaaaayyy overrated.
Way.
Rob says Ike will be DHing in Cleveland within three years. I concur. Guys like Davis are a dime a dozen. He’ll hit 20 home runs, drive in 80, strike out a lot while hitting .260. I asked Rob for a name, and he came up with a dandy—Erubiel Durazo. Davis is, indeed, the modern-day Durazo (minus the steroids suspicions. Which were enormous when E.D. bust onto the scene with Arizona).
Along these lines, when’s the last time the Mets produced a genuine Grade-A ballplayer? Scott Kazmir has been so-so. Mike Pelfrey—merely solid. Aaron Heilman? Journeyman. Daniel Murphy? Will spend the next 10 years drifting through Triple A. There was great hype for Lastings Milledge, who just wrapped up a .277-4 HR-34 RBI run with Pittsburgh. Blech. Truth is, David Wright and Jose Reyes—beacons of light for the ballclub—are also beacons of failure. They’re reminders of the last time anyone worth his weight passed through the system and into the majors.
That was a long time ago.
