The temperature has dipped and it feels like it's going to rain, but you can see the seasonal change on Witherspoon Street in the trees.
Spring is here, finally.
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The Mets have a lot riding on the left arm of Oliver Perez, the enigmatic pitcher who can pitch like Steve Carlton one day and Steve Van Zandt the next. He is their No. 3 starter — who signed a three-year deal in the offseason worth $12 million per — and has to get to 12-15 wins for the Mets to have a shot at the Phillies.
Yesterday, he certainly didn’t live up to his salary, giving up eight runs in less than five innings after retiring the first six Reds he faced.
In too many ways, the outing was typical Ollie — there was a Phillies game last year in which he imploded in the third — as was his explanation:
Perez did not allow a base runner in the first two innings and struck out the side in the second. Then, his control disappeared.
Perez walked two of the first four batters he faced in the third inning and gave up an RBI single to Darnell McDonald and a three-run homer to Joey Votto.
“All my pitches were working,” Perez said. “They were taking chances.”
Huh?
When asked if he knew what Perez meant by that, catcher Ramon Castro said, “No.”
Pitching coach Dan Warthen? “I don’t understand,” Warthen said.
I like Perez, think he has as live an arm as any Mets pitcher (not named Johan Santana) has had in years and think he is worth the effort. Lefties tend to develop late — Perez will be 28 in August. Randy Johnson had compiled a 49-48 record at the same age and had led the league in walks for three straight years with an earned run average in the high 3s at a time when that was average (the league average these days is in the mid-4s).
I’m not claiming that Oliver Perez will become Randy Johnson — who became the superstar pitcher everyone expected him to be the next year. I’m just offering Johnson as an example of how lefties — especially power-pitching lefties — tend to develop late.
Another example, one that may be closer to what we might expect from Perez, is Al Leiter. Leiter is remembered as a bulldog pitcher who helped anchor the Mets and Marlins’ rotations in the late ’90s. But it is instructive to remember that Leiter did not have his first double-digit winning season until he turned 29 — after shaking off injuries and the heavy weight of expectations. For the next 10 years, he became a rather reliable winner, going 133-99.
So, patience will be an important virtue for the Mets as they move ahead with Ollie — and their two righties, Mike Pelfrey and John Maine. At the same time, they may need a lot more out of their No. 5 starter than is normally expected.
This week’s CJ Radio is about the Vermont same-sex marriage law and what it should mean for New Jersey.
This proposal, offered in an advertisement from Republican front runner Chris Christie, should disqualify him from being governor.
“I would ask the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment to be put on the ballot for the voters of New Jersey to require that any time taxes are going to be raised or new taxes imposed, that it require a 2/3 vote of both houses of the state legislature,” says Christie. “So it wouldn’t be easy for one party just to come in and raise taxes 103 times without any ability to restrict them.”
This is not a new proposal — other states have tried this and most have abandoned it because it does little more than starve government of funds and make it impossible to move any kind of revenue changes forward.
In New Jersey, such a constitutional amendment would mean that any tax legislation would need the yes votes of 54 Assembly members and 27 senators — an almost impossible number to.
It also contradicts the democratic process — the concept of majority rule falls by the wayside in favor of a supermajority.
Taxes are not popular, especially now. Christie appears willing to pander to this disgust without taking into account the consequences that such a proposal would have. Rather than offer alternatives to the Corzine budget — where he would cut, for instance — he offers this.
Now that’s what I call leadership.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, writing on Salon.com, offer an eloquent critique of Barack Obama’s efforts on behalf of the American financial system, efforts that have been characterized by a obeisance to Wall Street and the folks who got us into this mess in the first place.
Consider Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council and the president’s chief economic adviser. As Moyers and Winship point out, Summers has earned a lot of money over the years from the firms at the root of the mess, which could explain the meandering and ineffective way in which the president has addressed the crisis in the financial markets (as opposed to his aggressive — though not aggressive enough — approach on the economy as a while). Summers, they write,
was intoxicated by the exotic witches’ brew of derivatives and other financial legerdemain that got us into such a fine mess in the first place. Yet here he is, serving as gatekeeper of the information and analysis going to President Obama on the current collapse.
We have to wonder, when the president asks, “Larry, who did this to us?” is Summers going to name names of old friends and benefactors? Knowing he most likely will be looking for his old desk back once he leaves the White House, is he going to be tough on the very system of lucrative largesse that he helped create in his earlier incarnation as a deregulating treasury secretary? (“Larry?” “Yes, Mr. President?” “Who the hell recommended repealing the Glass-Steagall Act back in the ’90s and opened the floodgates to all this greed?” “Uh, excuse me, Mr. President, I think Bob Rubin’s calling me.”)
That imaginary conversation came to mind last week as we watched President Obama’s joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. When a reporter asked Obama who’s to blame for the financial crisis, our usually eloquent and knowledgeable president responded with a rambling and ineffectual answer. With Larry Summers guarding his in box, it’s hardly surprising he’s not getting the whole story.
Summers, of course, is only part of the problem. There is the ineffectual Timothy Geithner running Treasury, as well, meaning that far too many of the players involved in the creation of the financial house of cards — dating back to the Clinton administration and its role in the deregulation of the industry — are still in place, trying to balance the desire to right the economy with a bias toward protecting their own.
Geithner, at least, is salvagable. I can’t say the same for Summers, who should be dispatched from service and replaced as quickly as possible. It’s not like better, more progressive alternatives aren’t out there. Obama could — should — turn to anyone on this list: Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, Sheila Bair, Robert Reich, Leo Hindery, etc. There also are reporters like William Greider at The nation and Gretchen Morgenstern at The New York Times who’s take on the financial collapse is much more in line with the pitchfork-wielding public.
Coddling the bankers is bad policy and bad politics.
