Benjamin Grimm

Joel Sherman says that we shouldn't rule out the possibility. I agree. I really don't expect Manny to be a Met, but Brodie has the confidence of the Wilpons, and maybe he can charm them into spending. Omar did it after 2004. Maybe it can happen again. Maybe. Of course, the knee jerk will be the Wilpons are not paying for Machado, but think about the argument before dismissing it: Why Manny Machado to the Mets shouldn’t be dismissed The Mets currently have zero dollars invested in the 2021 payroll. Zero. They can extend deGrom, sign Machado and still have plenty left for the organic pay raises that will be due Conforto, Nimmo, Syndergaard, etc.

41Forever wrote: The highlight of the off-season! I can only imagine how much time goes into this project. It’s enjoyed and appreciated! Thank you! Since this isn't fully automated like Schaefer is, it does take up some time, but since it's partially automated, perhaps not as much as you're imagining. We'll be underway before long! The first poll will be posted on Monday morning. Jay Bruce! Adrian Gonzalez! Todd Frazier! You won't want to miss it!

PREVIOUSLY ON THE TABLOID COVER DERBY 2015 Inaugural competition sees Daily News cover YES-PEDES defeat CON4TO!, also from the Daily News. Winning cover is unveiled at a ceremony in Stockholm, attended by David Wright, U.S. ambassador to Sweden Mark Brzezinski, Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf and the ghost of Swedish actrees Ingrid Bergman. Cover later goes on world tour of great art museums, including the Louvre in Paris. Total number of covers: 377 (Daily News 135, New York Post 124, Newsday 110) Final Four: YES-PEDES (Daily News), CON4TO! (Daily News), TEAM OF DESTINY (Daily News), N.Y. CITI (New York Post) 2016 Second season of TCD announced in special ceremony featuring Rusty Staub and former Miss Sweden, Camilla Hansson. Daily News wins for the second year with CES BOOM BAH! defeating SEEDS OF LIFE from the New York Post in the final round. The 2016 ceremony takes place inside the Royal Palace in Stockholm. Terry Collins is joined by Sweden's Queen Silvia, CPF receptionist and Swedish reality show star Maja, children from the Järfälla branch of the Kran Pool Barn Klubb, and the ghost of Swedish actress Greta Garbo. Ceremony marred by unrest outside in the streets, with crowds protesting the early exit from the competititon of all urine-related Matt Harvey covers. Total number of covers: 381 (Daily News 150, New York Post 117, Newsday 114) Final Four: CES BOOM BAH! (Daily News), SEEDS OF LIFE (New York Post), 11th HEAVEN (Newsday), METS IN A LANDSLIDE (Daily News) 2017 With fewer covers, the third Tablod Cover Derby is downsized from 32 first-round polls to 16. For the first time this year, covers are seeded by first-round vote percentage instead of chronologically. Opening ceremony attended by Marty Silver, former Shea Stadium ticket booth worker, and Bev Donaldson, who had been employed at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm. Winning cover is again from the Daily News. GOD OF BLUNDER makes history as first bad-news cover to win competition. Winner is unveiled on a side street in Stockholm. On hand are Kingsport Mets mascot Slider (thanks to funds raised by school children of Sullivan County through car washes and bake sales); Family Ties star Tina Yothers; former ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog; CPF receptionist Maja; and the ghost of actress Cate Blanchett, who, curiously, is neither Swedish nor dead. Total number of covers: 208 (Daily News 83, Newsday 67, New York Post 58) Final Four: GOD OF BLUNDER (Daily News), IN THE BIG INNING (New York Post), TRESPEDES (Daily News), THANK YOU, CARDS (Newsday) 2015 2016 2017

He'll just step behind the curtain, that's all.

So if I'm on trial for robbing a bank, and I tell my attorney, in confidence, that I did in fact rob the bank, and I was helped by a guy named Kenny from the gym. My attorney now joins the prosecution team. He is no longer my attorney. So he goes and finds Kenny and gets him to flip on me, using the information I gave him in confidence. There's nothing wrong with this?

Ceetar just informed us that CF is not, in fact, an attorney. So I guess he doesn't know anything about conflicts of interest after all.

Ceetar wrote: I have no idea what you do for a living. and you've still only defined a singular interest for Brodie. What's the other interest that it's conflicting against? He's an attorney. AND THE CONFLICT IS WITH DEGROM'S INTEREST!

It's not about "benefit" to Van Wagenen. It's about harm to deGrom and the others. It's about information given in confidence potentially being used against them.

It seems pretty clear that if someone has confidential information about a client, and then switches to the other side, that would be a conflict of interest. What if you're on trial, and your defense attorney joins the prosecution? Is that not a conflict of interest? The stakes here are less dramatic, but I think they're similar in concept.

I discovered baseball in 1971, and Willie McCovey was one of the biggest names in the game. I'll always have a special fondness for the superstars of those years because I was eight years old and baseball players were never more larger than life than they were then. Oh, and Charlie Brown was definitely rooting for the Giants against the Yankees in the 1962 World Series. (Note that these two strips were published six weeks apart!)

Maybe the same advisers, but a different decision maker. And anyway, keeping the old GM wasn't an option.

My hope is that he'll use his charm (which his bosses seem susceptible to) to get the Wilpons to open their wallets and spend. BVW has said that he wants to be in on every free agent. Time will tell how sincere that sentiment is. Omar got the Wilpons to spend (Martinez, Beltran, Delgado) and hopefully Brodie can do that too. And note, I'm not being optimistic here, I'm being hopeful.

Centerfield wrote: "No, not today. But that's why they hired me Mike. If we were already good, they could have hired you."

We need an "All-Purpose Former Mets in the Peanut Butter Industry" thread.

BVW: I know you usually ask the questions here, but I got one for you. Who in the National League East is going to beat us, and why? hu·bris /ˈ(h)yo͞obrəs/ noun excessive pride or self-confidence. synonyms: arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness, superiority; (in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

Centerfield wrote: Brodie asked Francesa, who in the NL East is going to beat them. Did he really say that? That may imply that Brodie is more brash than he is smart. I hope that's not really the case.

Wow! You really must like newspaper covers!

I think you're missing his point.

Well, they could negotiate with Vargas for a 2020 contract. That doesn't look especially likely at this point, but who knows how things will develop?

I would think that "similar" means his former clients. Syndergaard, Nimmo, Vargas, etc.

No, not much of substance came out of that. Now he'll be doing one-on-one interviews. Maybe some better information will surface.

Hopes to keep deGrom for a long time.

It's just about showtime...

Baseball's Weirdest Team Makes A Weird GM Hire, But Maybe A Smart One Too Because of how much control the Wilpons exert over every decision that the team makes—the GM has in recent years been given no set budget, with ownership approving every personnel move on a case-by-case basis—the identity of the next GM mattered most as a reflection of how these grouchy Long Island weirdos were feeling. As a top agent, Van Wagenen knows the state of play in the league and understands both player evaluation and valuation; CAA, like many big sports agencies, has an in-house analytics shop that almost certainly dwarfs the tiny team that the Wilpons grudgingly allowed to former GM Sandy Alderson in both size and sophistication. There’s not much that Van Wagenen will need to do as a GM that he hasn’t done at least a little bit of as an agent, although he’s more experienced in some areas than others. Nothing much is likely to change as long as the Wilpons are in charge, and the owners are supremely dedicated to their particular brand of vinegary shortsightedness. But if Van Wagenen will have to do the same things that every GM has done under the Wilpons—convince Fred to do more to improve the team than signing some aw-shucks potato-shaped ex-slugger and then groaning anonymously to the Daily News—he at least has some relevant experience convincing this particular oldster on matters like this. As Baseball Prospectus’s Jarrett Seidler wrote, there’s a great deal that’s damning about the fact that a baseball team venturing this far outside the box still winds up with a white dude named Brodie who played right field for Stanford. “[They] hired someone whose qualifications are so offbeat that it would’ve opened the door to hire a real change agent,” Seidler tweeted. “And instead they hired him because he’s chummy with the owner’s son.”