Sports Then and Now

The Mets must decide where Jenrry Mejia will start the season.

This is the time during Spring Training that all Major League teams starts to cut down on its rosters sending some players down to their Minor League affiliates while others are sent on their way right out of the organization.

The funny thing about this process is that there are very few surprises as to who stays and who goes. Sometimes a young player with just a little minor league experience makes such an outstanding impression the management feels that he is ready for the big leagues and they can’t see him not being with the parent club.

Steven Strasburg of the Washington Nationals comes to mind this year as he has not allowed a run in three appearances so far. It was expected that the number one overall player in last years draft would start the year perhaps even as high as AAA. He did have an advantage of playing college ball under Hall of Fame great Tony Gwynn but still there would seem to be no real reason to rush him into the fray. It’s not like the Nationals will be in the playoff hunt this year.

On Sirius/XM Radio yesterday Rob Dibble, who I love as a color commentator and sports talk show host, said when he was in his first couple of years of Spring Training and he knew he wasn’t going to make the Reds big club he actually asked the team to cut him early enough so he could get more work in the level he would be playing at. Amazing. Read the rest of this entry →