Jose Reyes leaving: Sad, but not a travesty

Even dormant Mets blogs need to get in on this Jose Reyes action. For my part, I am sorry to see him go. He was homegrown, is really good at a scarce position, still on the right side of 30, and a fun guy to watch. I think from the Marlins standpoint, $106 million over six years is actually a decent bit of business. The Mets are far crappier for having lost him, obviously.

But disappointing though the fact of Reyes leaving may be, I don't see how people can be furious with Alderson. Sure, the division rival aspect makes it marginally worse, but winning an open bidding war for a hugely expensive star is not always and everywhere a blessing for a franchise, even if that franchise isn't effectively owned by the Madoff victims' trust, which of course the Mets are.

Another big consideration has to be "Is this player going to be in the core of the next contending Mets team?" For me that's a negative. The boys acquitted themselves well last season, but Santana is probably done as an elite pitcher, the guy right behind him in the rotation is R.A. Dickey, Beltran is gone, and Bay has by now put in a huge amount of really terrible work.  Even assuming very good years from Reyes and Wright next year, you've still only got a decent team, not necessarily a winning team and certainly not a plausible rival to the Phillies.

If I had my druthers, the Mets would be flush with cash, and talent under contract that's just entering its prime. But they're not. At all. So I say Sandy was right to let nature take its course on the Jose Reyes Era (2005-2011). Plus, will there be any more festive sight in baseball than Jose in that new Marlins uniform?

Sure, he cost $130m, but he's really, really good

German study reaches not entirely shocking conclusion:

The study indicates that, in his boots, Cristiano Ronaldo is the fastest elite player in the world, reaching an average speed of 33.6 kilometres per hour (20.88 mph), a quality he uses to full effect by blowing past defenders.

Another edition of short answers to stupid questions

"Should Daniel Murphy start at first base in 2010?"

No.

SAtSQ concept pioneered by Atrios

David Einhorn on the rating agencies

I love this guy:

via

No wingnut grievance is too small or ridiculous for the Obama White House

Shoot me in the face:

The Department of Education has now changed their supplementary materials on President Obama's upcoming address to schoolchildren on the importance of education -- eliminating a phrase that some conservatives, such as the Florida GOP, happened to have been bashing as evidence of socialist indoctrination in our schools.

Breaking: Man paid by oil companies says no rush on alternative fuels

I'll take incredibly unpersuasive and irresponsible op-eds for $1,000 please, Alex.

I wish the New York Times elaborated a bit on "energy consultant" as this Michael Lynch guy's title. He's not an MIT professor whom policy-makers consult on energy matters, he's a professional consultant to energy companies.

I'm not a hardcore "peak oil" guy, and I was hoping to be reassured by this flack's arguments against it, but they're laughably thin. Basically, technological wizardry is going to come up with a way to cost-effectively access the unconventional oil plays that producers have had to resort to, so $30 a barrel oil will be back to stay soon. Not buying it.

The last graf makes abundantly clear what this guy's motives are, too. Rather than focusing on his theoretical point (i.e. Peak oil is bunk), he tells us the country can't afford any more alternative energy "schemes," what with the recession and all:

This is not to say that we shouldn’t keep looking for other cost-effective, low-pollution energy sources — why not broaden our options? But we can’t let the false threat of disappearing oil lead the government to throw money away on harebrained renewable energy schemes or impose unnecessary and expensive conservation measures on a public already struggling through tough economic times.

Oh he's an "energy consultant," all right. The API pays good money for credentialed academics to write stuff like this.

Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move