Channeling our Attention
Morning Dose: Monday, February 3
☀️ Good Morning:
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about attention.
How to teach my daughters to properly manage it, and how it impacts everything from relationships to politics to mental health.
“Attention is the substance of life. Every moment we are awake we are paying attention to something, whether through or affirmative choice or because something or someone has compelled it.”
Chris Hayes writes in his new book, The Siren’s Call
You can’t focus on two things at the same time, even if we are convinced to prove that truth wrong by constantly checking our phones at work meetings and dinner parties.
While there are several paths I could go down on this point, I have a thought particular to the Mets.
Pete Alonso remains unsigned. The lingering story of the offseason.
What the everlasting negotiation has done is stolen our attention. In other words, the longer the Alonso situation carries on, the more headlines it continues to generate, the more columns are published, the more sports talk shows remain dedicated to the topic, and perhaps, the more the front office loses some degree of focus on other matters.
As this newsletter proves, a discussion about the Mets never stops. If Alonso had signed an extension last summer, or found a new team this winter, we would be forced to talk about something else.
It makes you wonder what that something else might have been, and how the roster might consequently look, and how we (as fans) might view that roster and the work still to be done.
Since public discourse helps to persuade decision makers, it also makes you wonder if the front office might, at least in part, have been pushed toward being aggressive in other areas. Would all of those articles, first-time-long-time WFAN calls and insider reports on Alonso been replaced by speculation about another move?
I trust David Stearns is smart enough to avoid the temptation of responding to the news cycle. Although, I am fairly certain if it was up to him, he would have cemented his Alonso decision a long time ago.
“The battle to control what we pay attention to at any given instant structures everything from our inner life (who and what we listen to, how and when we are present to those we love) to our collective public lives (which pressing matters of social concern are debated and legislated, which are neglected),” Hayes writes.
Today, we turn our attention to the rotation and the signing of Nick Madrigal.
☕️ Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!
⚾️ Finding Depth
By Blake Zeff
While the Mets’ bullpen looks deep and formidable with the signings of A.J. Minter and Ryne Stanek, let’s face it -- the rotation is full of question marks.
Can Kodai Senga recover his 2023 form? Is David Peterson’s recent success sustainable? What can we expect from Clay Holmes the starter? Will Frankie Montas be the next star pupil of the Mets pitching lab?
Even if you believe in the top 5 of Senga, Sean Manaea, Peterson, Holmes and Montas, the club has committed to having a 6th starter -- and right now the internal pickings are slim (I mean, we’re not going to do the Tylor Megill experiment again, are we?).
The good news is there are two economical options to fill this hole that would cost the Mets very little in years or added payroll.
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