Mets Broadcasts May Never Be the Same

(Note: A piece about Tom Coughlin from Sip, the Road Warrior, follows this one from A.F.O.M.G.)

I could hardly believe what I was reading. "SNY Replaces Cotter with Kevin Burkhardt" read the headline over at MetsBlog. My stomach dropped to the floor.

Could it really be true? Could SportsNet New York really be dropping Chris Cotter, the original Y2K legend and perhaps the best part of Mets broadcasts (which is really saying something when you consider the overall quality that Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling bring to bear every night)?

Thankfully, Matt Cerrone's headline proved somewhat misleading. Yes, Cotter won't return in the field reporter role next season, but don't pour some out for him just yet. Keep reading Cerrone's post and you'll see that Cotter is set to join the in-studio news team that features Matt Yallof and Lee Mazzilli.

All things considered you can't really blame Cotter for wanting to make the move. He won't have to get on a plane every three days, get to spend more time with trendy New York hair stylists and presumably hit up more keggers with his frat buddies.

But we're gonna miss the Cott here at Y2K. He really made the Matt Loughlin role his own last year, and it's a shame, for us, that it's one and done for him in that position.

I suppose his transition to the studio team may mean more face time, so that's a plus. But I don't know, part of his appeal was the wacky situations he'd find himself in, and the way the Gary, Keith and Ron would rib him about it.

I know I should be happy for Cotter, and I am. Somehow though I can't help but fear that Mets broadcasts on SNY won't ever be the same.

That's not a knock on this Kevin Burkhardt character, mind you. I'm largely unfamiliar with his work; if I've heard his voice on the FAN (his current employer), I wasn't aware of it.

I'm willing to give Burkhardt the benefit of the doubt, but replacing a legend is a tough job in this town. A-game or bust, Burkhardt.

Scott Schoeneweis

The Mets inked left-handed reliever Scott Schoeneweis to a 3-year, $10.8 million contract yesterday. The deal puzzled some, coming as it did months after the team made such a stink out of letting Chad Bradford walk because a 3-year deal wasn't what the team had in mind for a relief pitcher.

What makes Schoeneweis different? Almost certainly it's that he's a lefthanded pitcher, and frankly, that's a commodity this team needed badly.

Without Schoeneweis our one lefty in the 'pen, aside from Billy Wagner, would have been Pedro Feliciano.

Now look, I thought Feliciano had a real strong season last year. He did. For me though, Feliciano has "unreliable bullpen commodity" written all over him. It's not that I think he's incapable of being as sharp next season, it's that I don't think we should count on it. He's a lot like Juan Padilla in that way.

Schoeneweis gives us some protection in case we see a regression out of Feliciano. Three years is a lot of years for a relief pitcher, and truth be told, he's every bit as susceptible to regression as Feliciano is, if not more so.

Schoeneweis spent the first 7 seasons of his major league career in the American League, bouncing from Anaheim to the White Sox to the Blue Jays. His numbers in that time were uninspiring; that's different from bad, but if another person called his numbers bad, I wouldn't get too bent out of shape.

What's attractive about Schoeneweis is that he's lefthanded, he could probably make a spot start (he was a starter in 2000 and 2001) if he needed to, and when he went to the National League for a month and change last year, he absolutely dominated.

In 13.2 innings with the Reds, Schoeneweis allowed exactly 1 earned run, striking out 11 pathetic, possibly genetically inferior to their AL brethren, NL batters.

Needless to say, Schoeneweis won't put up those kinds of numbers over the course of the season. But he should be pretty reliable against lefties, who slugged a paltry .292 against him last year.

Three years may be a little rich for my blood, but ultimately I'm in favor of any move right now that gives us bullpen depth given the state of our starting rotation, which will either hit and hit well, or miss and miss badly.

So on a day of great sadness for us here at Y2K, avast, a silver lining.

- A.F.O.M.G.

(Images courtesy of flickr.com and mlb.com)