Mets sign Tony Clark to a minor league deal. I loved the Clark pickup by the Red Sox last year, and I could not have been more wrong: if the Sox had given Clark’s at bats to a merely average first baseman, they might have closed at least a game or two of the six-game gap that cost them the wild card. (Granted, Clark had just 275 at bats, but when you hit .207/.291/.265, you can do a lot of hurt in a little time). And given his injury history, Clark is a good deal less than a 50/50 shot to ever hit well again. But for the Mets — who have high-risk players at nearly every position, an injury-prone first baseman, and are only committing to a minor league contract rather than the millions the Sox paid Clark — there’s nothing but upside in even the outside chance that Clark’s bad back might relent long enough to give back some of the form that made Clark a consistently above-average hitting first baseman for five years entering 2002. The guy is only 30, after all.
I’d rather give him a minor league deal than what the Braves are paying Mike Hampton.
In other news, the same ESPN report notes that El Guapo has retired at the age of “31.”