I was never a boy scout, but I was a cub scout. While I didn’t take away much of anything that I learned in those two short years into the latter part of my life, I do remember the ‘Pinewood Derby’, and the simple life lesson it taught me.
For those unfamiliar, the event was an annual competition where cub scouts would be tasked with building a car about the size of a ‘Hot Wheels’. The car would fly down a ramp, and the entry that made it safely to the bottom in the fastest time would move onto the next competition.
My dad and I would sit in our basement for weeks, testing model after model of car before landing on the fastest, most aerodynamic one we had to take into competition. Every reject car was thanked for it’s service before being discarded to the endless pit of old Hess Trucks and legos.
That evolutionary trial and error process isn’t reserved for just ‘Pinewood Derby’ cars. If something, or someone. is not good enough, life has taught me it will be replaced by a more equipped version. Especially when it comes to sports. Just ask Wally Pipp or Carlos Boozer.
When a reporter asked the latter what he thought about a 17-year-old kid from Akron coming to Cleveland, the forward infamously told a reporter “we have better players at [LeBron James’s] position already on our team”. He later would admit LeBron was the best player on the team as soon as he stepped foot at practice.
As for Pipp, the Yankee first basemen was an above average player. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for an upstart Yankees team that just slayed Goliath by defeating the New York Giants to claim their first World Series, Lou Gehrig was waiting in the wings to turn the Giant-slayers into Goliath themselves.
Great players are supposed to take over the jobs from good players. Good ones usurp mediocre talents, and bad ones just get fired…
So why is Frankie Montas still taking the ball every fifth day for my favorite baseball team?
Montas, who was signed in the offseason, showed up to Spring Training out of shape and subsequently got injured within a week. He then went to AAA on rehab about 3 months later, where his ERA ended up right around the rebounds per game average of the aforementioned LeBron James.
The 32-year-old was then promoted to New York, where he played with fire and somehow came out of his first start unscathed against Atlanta. He then gave up 6 runs in 4 innings in his second start against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Pittsburgh is the only team in MLB this season to not score 400 runs. They have played 112 games.
Montas carries a 6.68 ERA through 7 starts this season. He has yet to pitch into the sixth inning. If he qualified for the league leader categories, the $17 Million/year man would be statistically the worst pitcher in the majors.
But the real shame in it all is the Mets have no one to replace him on the farm.
It’s a real shame Syracuse doesn’t have a 24-year-old ace with 77.2 AAA innings under his belt. It’s even more of a shame that former third round pick hasn’t performed in those innings. As general manager David Stearns likes to say, the prospects on the farm have to be in the right developmental stage to warrant a call up to the big leagues.
A 3.01 earned run average to go along with 83 strikeouts and a sub-.200 batting average against just is not good enough.
It’s even more of a shame that same AAA squad doesn’t roster another 24-year-old who has given up just four earned runs over his last 33 innings pitched. I’m sure that hypothetical pitcher would really help a stalling ball club with high hopes complete the ultimate goal this season.
To make matters even more dire, if one of those hypothetical prospects did exist, it’s a damn shame the farm system wouldn’t have anyone to replace them on the AAA club if they were called up.
If only some 22-year-old kid in Binghamton owned a 1.66 earned run average through 92 AA innings in 2025. That would be so, so convenient wouldn’t it.
If only a team in need of pitching at the big league level had a trio of prospects ready to climb up their respective rung on the minor league baseball ladder.
If only….
If you haven’t caught on by now you might as well be David Stearns. These prospects exist. Their names are Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah Tong.
If Tong isn’t the only one in Syracuse by the time college students report to school in upstate New York that is a major problem. The syllabus for success in the fall semester of the 2025 season is simple. Let. The. Kids. Play.
Figure it out David.
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