Peyton Manning, Baseball-Style

You don't need 40,000 yards of insight to realize that the confluence of Peyton Manning's sore neck and the Colt's team disintegration is a happy coincidence for both, leading to an amicable divorce that serves both the team and the star well.

The usual arc of the story in which a championship vehicle temporarily loses its steering wheel is one of wobbling to a mediocre finish. In one sense, that's better luck, but in another, it's no Luck at all. The team's downward spiral is masked, unwarranted hope is kept alive and there's no #1 draft pick awaiting.

For Indianapolis, there is no denying the need for a total rebuild, the kind of no use to, and able to make no use of, an aging Peyton Manning. Manning is now free to choose the best spot for his golden parachute landing, and IF he is healthy -- the most momentous two letters in English -- to continue his historic career with opportunities to win more championships.

It got me thinking, who is the Peyton Manning of baseball? That is, which accomplished veteran is most in need of a new uniform where his departure would most aid his team?

The simple answer is that there is no baseball analogy for Manning; indeed, there might be no equivalent in all of sports, which is why the Colts dilemma has been such ubiquitous news for months. Still, we can draw some parallels. Here are a few:

Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota Twins -- The Twins lost 99 games last year for two reasons: they didn't hit and they didn't pitch. This year, Francisco Liriano is back from injury and Mauer and Justin Morneau might be. Or they might not. Mauer played in just 82 games after knee surgery and lingering doubts about a 6'5" backstop. Morneau has played in 150 games in two years, suffering from a  string of injuries wired in parallel, including a pair of concussions that sidelined him for more than four months and four surgeries (neck, knee, foot, wrist) among other assorted cricks, cracks and creaks. 

The Target field denizens aren't going anywhere this year or probably next, the last two seasons Mauer will spend in his 20s. If he wants to contribute to a winner, he desperately needs to play elsewhere. Coincidentally, the Twinkles could use relief from that eight-year, $184 million albatross they signed Mauer to following his anomalous 2009 season (.365/.44/.587 ). Maybe then they'll be able to sign a pitcher or two who can actually break glass with his fastball.

David Wright, 3B, NY Mets -- For starters, Wright might like to be paid this year in American legal tender. Fred Wilpon's got some of that around here somewhere. Hey, here's some chit, a few hundred IOUs and a whole box of rubber checks. Oh wait, I also have this autographed Jose Reyes photo from his dreadlock days. That's gotta be worth four digits on Ebay if you act before the 2012 season starts.

If the Mets still exist during Mitt Romney's second term, perhaps they won't suck. For now, they just need to shed salary, and David Wright needs other kids to play with while he's still young (29) and carefree. Citi Field is sapping his power and masking his continuing tremendiosity. Even last year, laid up for 50 games and limited to a .254 B.A., he hit 14% above league average. 

Johan Santana, P, NY Mets --  Sorry Met fans, but Santana is the closest thing to Peyton Manning in MLB. After a string of great performances, he's missed a full season and his current health is a wild card. He's on the wrong side of 32 and he's already begun to decline. (After five seasons of 219+ innings, he's thrown 167, 199 and zero. After four seasons of 235+ strikeouts, he fanned 146 and 144 (and, of course, zero) for the Mets.)

The Mets' marketing department might be able wring a couple of Venezuelan Nights out of their lefty ace, but beyond that, does it really matter whether they win 70 games with Santana on the hill every sixth night or 65 games with Chris Schwinden? You bet it does! It makes a $79 million difference, that being the gap between Santana's remaining $80 million salary through 2014 (plus buyout) and what Schwinden would make if he manages to cling to a roster spot.

Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle and the Cubs figure to be gawdawful this year as well, but they aren't holding any competent veterans hostage, so these three players strike me as the closest to Peyton doppelgangers in America's pastime. Good luck, Joe, David and Johan!

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A Wagnerian Opera

By the time you read this, events may have passed it by, but the Mets' Billy Wagner dilemma is worth examining.

It appears that the Mets, by showcasing the fireballing lefty following his long DL stint, and then placing him on the waiver wire, expect to buy out his $1 million option next year rather than pay him $8 million to stay. That in turn indicates that the Mets don't expect to compete seriously in 2010.

There's no reason KRod and Wagner can't co-exist in Queens. They would form a devastating lefty-righty bullpen combo, with one pitching the 8th and the other the 9th depending on the handedness of the batters due up. With the help of a decent "set-up" man, the Mets would truncate each game to six innings, a prospect that could benefit the starting rotation in myriad ways.

Certainly the brains of some managers and GMs (and virtually all baseball reporters) would get snagged on the idea of splitting saves between two star closers. But statistics are servants, not masters. They should illuminate what's important, not distort strategy in order to accumulate them. A bullpen of Wagner, KRod and a few working parts would almost certainly be the best in baseball, regardless who "closes."

No one has done this before, and it bucks conventional wisdom to some degree. That's a big hill for a GM to climb, particularly a GM facing the prospect of unemployment with one more wrong move. Omar Minaya is probably more risk averse than Ben Bernanke at this point, and tampering with baseball tradition is about as risky as it gets, short of violating an "unwritten rule."

Of course, it's not my money, so it's easy for me to endorse the expenditure of $8 million. But I'm guessing that even the seriously-Madofffed Fred Wilpon would gladly spend $8 million for a pennant, particularly given what he's been through the last three MLB campaigns. In addition, the Mets may know something about Wagner that we don't. Perhaps they believe that his two-strikeout audition against the Phillies was his high water mark and that the Red Sox, or whoever takes Wagner off their hands, would be getting damaged goods. In that case, a trade might save them some salary this year, $1 million next year, and return a promising youngster in trade.

Personally, I'd like to see the Mets figure out how to create synergy with their dynamic closer duo. They might actually knock over some false idols in the process. But I'm not counting on it.
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