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…Carlos Delgado has been getting mocked and criticized for having said he was bored during the end of the season, which is not accurate…i keep reading in this site’s comment’s section, as well as hearing on talk radio, about how delgado is bored, he doesn’t care, etc, due to comments he made in a pre-game interview on WFAN in late September…for the record, here are the comments, of which he was speaking and generalizing about his sense of the team, not his specific, individual attitude…
Delgado, talking to WFAN on September 21, 2007 said…
“I think at times we can get a little careless. We’ve got so much talent, I think sometimes we get bored.”
…he’s not saying he is bored, specifically…he’s saying the team in general would play like it was bored, which is something i think you and i would actually agree with him about…yet, if you read and listen to some fans, you’d think the statement was, ‘I, Carlos Delgado, am bored and do not care to win,’ which is not at all what he said…
…the thing is, in this media market, he should know better than to say anything remotely close to this, regardless if it is true…however, i hate to see the ‘bored’ comment get stuck to him and only him…actuallly, if you go back and listen to Paul Lo Duca during his mid-day interviews throughout the season on the same station, i suspect you will hear him repeatedly making a similar comment, but it was done in a more forewarning way, not revisionist like delgado…the point is, to peg delgado as careless and bored is inaccurate…instead, include him with the rest of the team, who all appeared carless and bored…
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You’re right Matt, we shouldn’t over react to what we hear and read. But what should we perceive from the year he had? He played like crap all year. No excuses. He played like a bored player.
Delgado should be defended on this comment. He did not mean what people want to make is out to be. Fans were angry and would lash out at any public statement by any of the players in that moment. Delgado is a clubhouse leader. His leadeship wasn’t enough to stop what happened, but a leader none the less. Let’s hope that the experience will be a lesson to all of the reaturning players and more leaders will emerge. Let’s hope it makes to team hungry, angry, and never again “bored.”
in all fairness, i don’t understand the defense, you say he didn’t say that, and then quote him, which points out that he did say that. the rest is just interpretive excuse making.
but i don’t even care so long as he produces.
the problem is he is a .250 hitter in 2008. And may hit 30 homers at most (if he is lucky), with the majority coming in bunches. he will kill rallies, and is super vulnerable to any pitch inside; the man’s inconsistency is BAD NEWS!
the man has had an awesome career, but he is on the obvious downside of said career. there is no reason to believe he’ll get better imo.
throw him a pitch on the inner half, he hits it to one of the million guys playing on the right side of the infield, pops up, K’s, hits into a double play, etc.
if the pitch is on the outside of the plate he doesn’t know how to go with it.
a .280 hitting first baseman last year who hit 20 homers would have made up their one game deficit. they could have made a run at dmitri young when he was put on waivers (may not have gotten him, but at least try). they could have gone with believe it or not, Shawn Green more often, and they would have been in first. delgado killed them in the heart of the order. and i don’t want to hear much about his rbi numbers, because any hitter placed in that part of the lineup is by default going to drive in some runs. a higher average probably produces more RBI than delgado had.
delgado is not good news for the mets at first base in 2008
I wasn’t defending his declining abilities, I was defending his leadership. The word “bored” was blown way up way too much. Period.
Your comments about his declining skills are over obvious and irrelavant to the point that I was making. Just live with the fact that we have him for one more year and he will be better than ‘07 for two reasons:
1. He was still recovering from off-season wrist surgery. It was noted that a “full” recovery would take a year. Meaning: get your swing back.
2. It’s a walk year on his contract.
I think that we can expect a .270/28HR/100RBI year.
The Mets have much bigger things to worry about. Pitching, Pitching, Pitching……..
yeah I AGREE. my post supports the idea that the bored comment was blown up completely. my point is that what really matters is production, which is why i segued into the idea that delgado at first doesn’t thrill me as far as expected production.
last offseason, I actually discussed how delgado’s hand surgery was something that was being severely overlooked by Mets fans. I agree it hurt his ability to hit, perhaps especially defending the pitch insiode. but lets remember he broke his hand on the LAST DAY OF THE YEAR. He’s older now, this stuff is taking its toll. don’t underestimate it. I’m not expecting some big bounce back. I think its reasonable to believe he will perform at last year’s level, again.
I think that what Matt was pointing out is that although Delgado is frequently singled out in comments on this blog as being the primary Met who was bored because he “said he was,” he was really making a comment about the team in general rather than just making a pronouncement about himself. The same people who single out Delgado also criticize Willie for refusing to discuss this obvious problem in public and pretend that everything was ok, and would certainly describe the same comments by Lo Duca as “lighting a fire under the team,” a “wake-up call,” etc. On a similar note, it’s a bit hindsight-oriented to say that we should have gotten Young or used Green more given the fact that almost every other team in baseball passed on Young too (it’s not like he turned down lots of suiters to join the Nationals), and I don’t need to tell anyone who reads this blog regularly what the reaction would have been to the announcement that Green was going to start to see significantly more playing time (although I personally thought that his contributions were a little underrated).
Yes, Delgado isn’t living up to his contract. Last year, he did not provide the offensive production expected from a first baseman on a contending team. I think we all know that. He’s certainly not the biggest problem on this team either, though. even if he doesn’t improve, which he should since he’s finally healthy, he’s a decent 6th-type bat, which is really all this offense needs from him to be competitive. Unless something surprising happens (A-Rod signing, etc.), we’re not dumping him while eating most of his salary, which is what it would take at this point, so there’s not really much discussion to be had about whether or not he’ll be in the lineup next year. We all wish we had a better, all-star-type first baseman, but with no obvious significant improvement readily available right now, it’s just not one of our bigger problems.
I agree that if delgado had put up the type of nymbers he did in 2006 this would NOT be an issue. However, when yo have a year like he did and play like he did then fans will look for reasons why and this is a perfect one. He did NOT play up to his potential and he never really did come out of his slump. So let his record talk for itself. He played poorly for some reason?
incorrecto, mein host. To peg Delgado as careless and bored is accurate, whether the rest of the team is careless and bored or not. It is still true about him. He still doesn’t hustle on grounders, he still tries to pull through the shift when singles are needed, he is still a lazy and inattentive fielder, he still swings at every breaking ball he sees, and I suspect he is not in the best shape of anyone on the team. Sure, the rest of the team is accountable; if they had played hard in 80 per cent of the games this year they would have won walking away. But they took a game off almost every series. I suppose next year they will have something to prove. And the following year it will be more of the same. There are too many softies in this clubhouse.
He won’t be bored this year regardless. Isn’t it his walk year? I expect a big rebound year for Delgado and then him going to the AL to finish out his career.
Good post, but I did not post it??????
Delgado always seemed more of a DH to me then anything else. I’m not sure why he thought a move to the NL would be good. Oh wait…the money…
Your right Matt, he actually meant the entire team is bored which is much worse.
Delgados abuse is not due to hs comments but to his play which was piss poor last year.
BTW I like your slick header, however I see you photo shopped it to have us think it is the right and left field corner. The crowd gives it away.
look closer…on the left side you can see the retired numbers on the wall, and on the right side you can see the playoff banners on the wall. That’s not a photoshopped mirror image, those are actually left and right field.
Read my comment.
THE CROWD GIVES IT AWAY
He photo shopped the banners. He could not alter the crowd. Look at the people they are all in the same position and wearing the same colors.
Matt can you weigh in on this?
the rest of the team stands for the gba….but not delgado
First off, they don’t play God Bless America at Shea anymore – except maybe on the Memorial Day, 4th of July, and 9/11.
Secondly, Delgado did say that when he came to the Mets he was “employee #21″ and would do whatever management asked him too, which would include standing during the singing of GBA.
Finally, standing is only really required during the singing of a national anthem (which GBA is not). And Delgado stands at that time.
In response to your “first off” point, I’m pretty sure they play it at Shea more than that. I think they do it for most nationally televised games, at least Sunday night games. My guess is they do it for all the Yankees games, too, but I don’t remember.
what does any of that have to do with his ability to hit, throw, or catch a baseball? Also, are we penalizing people now for thinking independently?
I’m pretty sure delgado is a terrorist too
i’d also like to add that the mets should try and move delgado for a couple of relievers or something; pay half his salary 7 million or whatever. they are commited to paying it either way. no point in shooting yourself in the foot with him at 1b because you’ve paid for him. it is the sunk cost fallacy.
he has a no trade clause, but may go somewhere if he is forced out by bringing in someone else and making him unhappy.
do the blue jays have a void at DH with Frank Thomas gone? is thomas gone or did he sign past one year? he was happy there and is loved there I am sure.
Delgado does not have a no trade clause.
I doubt they have to pay half of his salary with the Marlins already paying 4mil (25%) of it. And he doesnt have a no trade.
If the Mets put up 4 mil, then he is owed 8 mil from his new team, with a 12 mil option for 2009 with a 4 mil buy out. His contract is not unmovable, and he would be a decent value at 12 mil (8+4 cost to a new team) in a walk year.
The Marlins are paying some of Delgado’s salary for us. If we trade, we loose that. We would get robbed/raped if we tried to unload him. Let him play out his walk year and then go guns blazing after Tex…..
The difference is that Delgado is the one saying it, so he is the only one we can mention as admitting he was bored. If others came forward and agreed with it then it would be a non-issue. But as of right now, Delgado is the only one who has admitted being guilty of being too bored to put out his best effort.
unload delgado’s “bored” butt
Ship him and his Derek Jeter jersey out of town.
I understant fully what Delgado was saying. That doesn’t mean it’s right.
Delgado is supposed to be an upper-statesman and a leader on this team. If he saw his teamates being “bored,” he had no business telling the media this and thinking that this was the end of it. This team needed someone to wake them up – how about holding a team meeting and yelling at them to stop being bored, instead of just telling the media. No one on this team took any leadership during the last two weeks of the season. If Delgado saw something wrong he should have called out his teamates directly, not to the media.
this is probably the best post in this thread
Thank you for continuing to clear this up, Matt.
This irks me so much when people bring this up, and I just know they’re taking his quote out of context.
If the entire team played bored and careless, why in the world wasn’t Willie held accountable for that?
Excellent point.. Willie should be gone
LA finally woke up and removed the lump that was Grady Little… that team is already instantly better
I actually think ‘Willie is hanging by a thread.
when he said “we”, I wouldn’t be surprise if he was talking about reyes, milledge, gomez, etc. who at times seem like they have A.D.D. He could’ve been referring to the younger players who honestly did look bored many times. Or maybe he’s dumb and IS talking about himself. who knows anymore with these guys…
Why not just kill Delgado in the media (and on this blog and others) for his disgusting PLAY on the field last year? I don’t care what he says or how his comments get misconstrued. All I care about is that we have to watch another 162 games of him as our first basemen. That’s sad enough.
HOW ABOUT HIS WHIFFS AT BALLLS THAT ACTUALLY HIT HIM?
Yeah, maybe he wasn’t eferring to himself, but at best, a poor choice of words to use with the media.
But, assuming it was true, he should have (who knows, maybe he did) tried to address it in the clubhouse. But, when you are having a bad year, and miss chunks of time injured, it limits the clout you have.
Much more so than an occasional double switch, a managers job is supposed to be to prepare the team to win, and get them to play up to their abilities on a daily basis. If this team was careless/bored/coasting, then that does come squarely onto Willie. A few days in mid summer is one thing, but they basically seemed to think it was over by June and decide to coast on in. Oops.
If that scenerio is true, Willie should have been canned. And it sure can’t happen again.
Then, when the race got tight again, they flipped the switch. And probably the worst thing that happened was, the swept the Braves and went on that 10-3 run.
Why was that bad? It pretty much cemented the idea that they could coast, and “flip the switch” to win when they felt like it. Well, when the collapse happened, and the switch was broken, they fell apart (panicked, whatever)
A good analogy might be your kids in school. sure, sometiems smart kids can goof off a bit and slide by, but that doesn’t mean when finals come they can suddenly start producing when they haven’t al year.
The team should all be on a short leash. Any sign of slacking needs to be dealt with immediately. I don’t care if it is Reyes. DW, Beltran, Delgado or anyone else, if you laze in the field or don’t run out a batted ball, then you come out.
But, does Willie have the stones for this? Will Omar and his boys back him up?
So in agreement with this. Omar needs to let Willie know in no uncertain terms that he’ll be fired ANYTIME WITHOUT WARNING if the team continues to play lazy/stupid/uncaring.
And Willie needs to enforce it from minute one of spring training.
I don’t care if it is opening day in front of a packed crowd at Shea in the 1st inning. If Reyes doesn’t run it out, TO THE GODDAMN BENCH HE GOES. And the same better go for Delgado and the rest.
You try to steal 3rd with 2 out? TO THE BENCH YOU GO.
Playing bored? TO THE BENCH YOU GO.
Not gonna tolerate this crap again in 08
Willie has a sense of entitlement. That’s a fact. Being around the yankees all those years when they were making the playoffs every year will do that. He emits over confidence. His players were overconfident last year as a result, and it bit them in the a$$. I can’t see him changing that part of his personality. Only way this team turns it around is if they do it themselves and use 2007 as an example. Because Willie will be doing his usual “no big deal, we’ll just get em tomorrow” stuff.
OK, Matt- he didn’t mean what he said. And the Senator sticking his hands into the other bathroom stall was just saying ‘hi’. And Clinton never met Lewinsky.
How many years do we have to endure the Delgado-apologists?
He meant what he said about the Mets when he went to Florida.
He intentionally brings politics onto the field by not standing WHEN IN UNIFORM (instead of discussing his politics OFF the field).
His production in 2006 was pitiful considering his salary in the top 15 in MLB. He had 3 good games in the playoffs (woo-hoo!).
His production in 2007 was TRAGIC and absolutely cost the Mets several games (ie playoffs).
He, and the medical staff, asserted at the beginning of the season that he was fully healed- and if I hear “he had a kid” as an excuse again I will literally throw up.
He MEANT what he said- he doesn’t care, he WAS bored, he wants to cash his big paycheck and sit around leaving 3 or 4 men on base every game.
He has cost this team far more than Vaughn, who was an exchange of bad contracts; Delgado cost us prime prospects AND almost $40M.
We can look forward to .240, 20HR, 70 RBI, crappy defense and more boredom in 2008.
Good post Matt.
In the heat of what happened, I can understand why Met fans chose to associate Delgado with being “bored” but now that some tempers have hopefully cooled, I think it’s unfair to single him out or to keep taking the quote out of context. Whether he should have said it or not is an argument for another day. For what it’s worth I thought that “gritty” Paul Lo Duca said some outlandish things about the state of the team as well, though I guess you can never say he was bored.
I think going foward I more interested in what Carlos can/will do to improve on a really pitiful seson and if this FO doesn’t think he can or he’ll get worse, they need to really consider how they can improve the team either despite of or without Delgado’s presence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVyhSzU5dV0
This is why we as a team should never get to the point of being bored. We need to ensure that this never happens again. What a complete shame.
Come on guys,
Instead of being taken to the cleaners by Arod ..
Let’s please get us some pitching!
Thanks for this post. I must admit that I was reminded of how horrible that last day of the season was by viewing that clip. All of the mets should be forced to watch this clip at the beginning of the season this year to be reminded of what a debacle that was for this franchise and that hopefully something like this will never happen again….I hope willie watches this every day during the offseason…….
I really had enough of Delgado and his inability to hit the inside pitch. He would continually get beat by mediocre inside fastballs routinely.
He really needs to stop being bored and work his ass off this offseason.
It doesn’t matter how hard he works, he probably won’t be able to hit that inside pitch anymore. He’s simply lost his quickness with age. Instead of working hard physically, he should read over his notebook and realize that just maybe he should stop swinging at it, and then maybe pitchers might just stop throwing it.
Unfortunately, I agree with this 100%. Seen it happen a million times. Hell, we saw it happen to Piazza in front of our eyes.
He might be able to adjust and still be productive, as Mike was to some extent, as he’s still extremely strong, but I can’t see him ever putting up numbers even close to ‘06. I think you’ll see ‘07 numbers if not worse.
Matt — what a spin job. He said what he said. Were the ‘86 Mets ever “bored”? No, they had fire in the belly and an immense desire to win. If you’re “bored” of winning then go home and give your salary back.
Don’t spin this to make Delgado look like the victim. He wasn’t a clubhouse leader. He rarely talked to the media. He was one of the first guys to leave the clubhouse after a game. Even when something good happened. Remember the game he homered off Benitez? The first thing he did after all the high-fives was bolt into the dugout, didn’t even acknowledge the fans.
He needs to take his swiss cheese swing and “meh” attitude out of here.