Eat it Haters: Sheffield Was a Brilliant Pick Up

I recall the day when Omar Minaya signed Gary Sheffield to a measly one year, $400,000 dollar contract. To the traditional hater Mets fan, it was like signing Bobby Bonilla, Mo Vaughn, or Juan Samuel again.

As it turns out, at least for the current moment, it was a brilliant acquisition. Especially since every single player on the Mets is injured and Ramon Martinez is a David Wright injury away from batting clean up.

A plethora of sports writers, bloggers and media types went off on tirades on how Sheff is a clubhouse cancer and that he is washed up. They proclaimed that for a Mets team historically riddled with chemistry issues, it would be asinine to add a player who would indubitably only make things worse.

Here are some of the headlines and quotes from reputable writers when they found out Sheffield was gonna be in a Met uniform.

Bill Madden, NY Daily News "The Mets' signing of aging slugger Gary Sheffield smells of desperation"

Wallace Matthews, Newsday "Don't expect Sheff to stay long"

Matthew Cerrone, Metsblog "I have always lacked faith in Omar Minaya’s ability to manage the roster properly, so this will be interesting to watch...Initially, I was against the signing of Gary Sheffield."

Cormac Gorden, SI live "Gary Sheffield signing shows New York Mets are forever mystifying"

I think you get the point. To Cerrone's credit, he claimed that after thinking over the signing, he liked the low risk high reward aspect of it. This is how I looked at it all along.

Many criticizers lobbyed that Sheff was a "clubhouse cancer". This is so overrated. The guy goes to the ball park, shags his fly balls, takes his BP, eats the free buffet, waits to see if he's in the lineup, and does his job. When a teammate hits a home run, he gives them a pound. When someone makes an error, he slaps their hiney vigorously so they keep their chin up.

I understand that he once called Joe Torre a racist. I am also aware that he claimed that Jeter isn't all the way "black" He might be right about Torre, probably not, but do any of us know for sure? One thing that I am 100% sure about is Jeter. He is whiter than a Nantucket native driving in a Prius on his way to purchase New Balance sneakers.

Bottom line, He has been the insurance for a team that signed him to be a pinch hitter and to be ready "just in case". He doesn't get nervous and worked up in big situations like most of the Mets typically do. He's been there done that a million times before. Compared to Daniel Murphy, he is the best left fielder since Stan Musial. He has a .421 OBP, a well above average OPS of .925 and is a threat every time he comes up to the plate. What more do you want for 400 G's?

Now if we can only find an "aging slugger" to play shortstop...