Marty’s musings: a big week for the Mets, a bigger week for Cleveland

Welcome to ‘Marty’s Musings’, my weekly column of numbers summarizing the happenings in the baseball world. I am your guide for taking an analytic look at the news and notes throughout the game, and highlighting this week’s key pitching matchups.

The Mets make two major announcements this week, while Cleveland finally plans to ditch Chief Wahoo and the Indians name for good.

News & Notes

1964 - The year the Houston Colt .45s became the Houston Astros. It was the last time an MLB team stayed in the same city and changed their name. Cleveland will be joining Houston, as the team announced over the weekend than the Indians moniker will be no more as of 2022.

2 - Major front office announcements last week as the Phillies hired front-office veteran Dave Dombrowski, and the Mets announced the named Jared Porter their GM.

Dombrowski is known for trading farm talent for big-leaguer ready players who can transform a middling team to a World Series contender. After much futility in Philadelphia, ownership brought DD on to drive the next iteration of culture change. Philadelphia hasn’t exactly been spectacular at developing talent in recent years, so perhaps the downside is limited.

The Mets meanwhile made Theo Epstein disciple Jared Porter their new General Manager. The move has generally received positive accolades.

4 - Year, $40 million contract the Mets doled out to catcher James McCann. It’s an interesting choice for New York, as McCann has generally been an inconsistent player who hasn’t even played in more than 118 games in any of his five full MLB seasons.

108 - Days until Opening Day 2021. Whether or not there will be fans in the stands and whether or not MLB start s as scheduled is yet to be determined. With a vaccine on-the-way to the general public, hopefully we see better things in store in 2021.