On one side, he's brought back reliever Jeurys Familia, who owns the team record for saves in a season, signing Familia to a 3 year, $30 million contract. Infielder Dilson Herrera, who was dealt to Cincinnati for Jay Bruce a while back, signed a minor league deal a week or two ago after the Reds gave up on him for some reason.
With Familia now paired with Edwin Diaz, Van Wagenen has blessed Mickey Calloway with a lethal 1-2 punch in the back of the bullpen. Herrera will battle for a bench spot in spring training behind Robinson Cano and Jeff McNeil at second base.
On the other hand, Van Wagenen is riling up the fan base by dangling players that are meant to be untouchable, such as pitcher Noah Syndergaard and outfielders Brandon Nimmo & Michael Conforto, in a potential, but unlikely, trade for Miami catcher J. T. Realmuto. Owners Fred & Jeff Wilpon should've given Van Wagenen a list of players that cannot be traded. Period. End of story.
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Let the conspiracy theories fly, if they haven't already, surrounding the end of Thursday's Chiefs-Chargers rematch, the Thursday Night Football season finale.
Not to take anything away from Los Angeles salvaging a season split with Kansas City after a late fourth quarter comeback, but ref Walt Anderson's crew made some dubious calls that swung the game away from the AFC West leaders. Bear in mind that the Chargers weren't the real beneficiaries of Anderson's team screwing things up.
No, that would be East leader New England. Seems they're obsessed with keeping the path to the Super Bowl in their direction by any means necessary. Headed into Sunday's road match with Pittsburgh, the Evil Empire is now 1 1/2 games behind Kansas City/Los Angeles for the #1 seed in the AFC. The Steelers were screwed last year, and you wonder if NFL Director of Officiating Alberto Riveron may very well be in the pocket of Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Nothing says spoiled and artificially entitled like the Patriots and their legion of dittoheads.
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Hours before the game, on ESPN's First Take, Stephen A. Smith earned his 2nd straight Dunce Cap. How, you might ask? By being brain-dead on the air at the wrong time.
In discussing the pending game between the Chiefs & Chargers, Smith got confused, leading to looks of bewilderment from Max Kellerman and ex-Patriot-turned-ESPN analyst Tedy Bruschi when he name checked three guys that weren't going to be playing:
Kansas City running back Spencer Ware was ruled out with an injury, which Smith somehow missed.
Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson is out of the league, and hadn't played for the Chiefs in the last few years.
Chargers tight end Hunter Henry is out for the season with a torn ACL sustained early in the season.
Smith got called out, rightfully, by Kellerman & Bruschi, and wigged, claiming he had a brain lock due to "multi-tasking". No, what it was, really, was ignorance. As we've noted before, the only reason ESPN keeps Smith around is because he's a lightning rod for controversy, and in this case, he was exposed for his ignorance of details that have been mostly public knowledge for some time. Still don't understand why ESPN keeps using this goof with Teddy Atlas on boxing telecasts when Kellerman, the more experienced of the two debaters on the sweet science, is left on the bench. If anything, Atlas, one of Mike Tyson's old trainers, should take Smith to the woodshed once in a while.........
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Bowl season starts tomorrow with a string of C-list games, mostly on ESPN and/or ABC, with one game on CBS Sports Network. Most folks will be watching the NFL double-dip on NFL Network, one of which will have Fox's Curt Menefee on play-by-play.
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