Favorite Nonplaying Met has been a favorite noncrucial award doled out by yours truly dating all the way back to the early 1990s. It began as a way for me to subtly posit that I could be the manager if I had A. played minor league ball, B. endured 10,000 bus rides between Cedar Rapids and every Springfield ever made, C. knew what I was talking about, and D. had the power to make out a lineup.
So I pick out a player each year to be FNP Met. Maybe he is in the real manager’s doghouse, or maybe he is stuck behind someone I think he’s better than, or I am just using the power of what might have been to make my point. Sometimes, such as the rare case of Heath Bell, I was right (for a while, at least). But when you look at the long list of scrubinees and the many “they were Mets?,” you’ll see that every skipper from Bud Harrelson to Terry Collins might have known something. Past winners have included Chris Donnels, Todd Pratt, Dicky Gonzalez, Anthony Recker, Kirk Nieuwenhuis… you get the idea. Nick Evans was the only two-time winner, that says a lot about this award right off the bat. One of the first, if not the first FNP (even my memory gets fuzzy about something that was invented after about 10 beers) was Mackey Sasser. Mackey couldn’t throw but sure could hit; he can scout, too, giving the Mets the scoop on his former Wallace College player T.J. Rivera, who had been undrafted and now looks to be a start in at least one postseason game.
Last fall I was up to my ears in editing and updates and there really was no good choice because everyone played so well and just about the right amount, So after the postseason I went with Jose Uribe, who got a little forgotten after David Wright came back. Then Jose got hurt and didn’t play the last few weeks of the season. Sort of like Wilmer Flores now. My biggest beef about Jose’s playing time was how he was not chosen to be DH in the first two World Series games in Kansas City. When he pinch-hit in Game Three in Flushing, he looked plenty healthy as he rocketed an RBI single. And he didn’t play again. Uribe only played in every game during the curse-ending World Series titles by the White Sox and Giants. Surprised he wasn’t on the Royals roster the way they broke their own 30-year drought. Now the Mets’ drought has reached 30, you may have read about that.
Well, let’s give Terry Collins credit this year—and if T.C. gets ripped off for the Manager of the Year Award like he did last year, you’ll hear a distant upstate scream some time next month. Terry could have and maybe should have benched Curtis Granderson this summer, but despite sitting him for a brief time, he stuck with Grandy, who responded with 30 homers (his record-low 59 RBI for a 30-homer guy is not all his doing). Terry likewise stuck with Jay Bruce and it paid off in the crucial final week of the year. Asdrubel Cabrera went two months (and 32 at bats) between hits with a runner in scoring position. Nobody is complaining about that now.
Wilmer Flores saw more bench time than he should have—playing only against lefties for much of the year—but when he was injured and knocked out for the season in Atlanta, he was playing second base every day. Wish he was still available for October.
But it is October now and I am going to go with an FNP that as of this writing I am not sure is on the postseason roster. And I’m not even sure he deserves to be on it. But I am still picking Michael Conforto with an even more half-hearted vote than last year. I almost went with Brandon Nimmo for the award because he’s almost exclusively been a pinch hitter—and pretty good at that role—but Nimmo was not up for very long this season. Conforto was in New York enough to come to the plate 348 times—way more than any past FNP—but I am granting Michael dispensation for his long exile in the minors, especially for someone who looked so good last October and looked great making that sliding catch to clinch the 2015 postseason berth.
So come claim your prize, Conforto. And lay off those pitches in the dirt! I’m out on a limb for ya. Let’s go Mets!
