Tour De Farce

BY KEVIN KERNAN

This week I got hooked on multi-stage bicycle racing and the effortless riding of Tadej Pogacar, who won his fifth straight Tour de France. Watching the race through the Alps on Eurosports was a pleasure (not too much analytics, great scenery, and the human spirit on display) and was a welcome break from MLB, which is running another Tour de Farce.

This is a tuneup for next season when baseball will selfishly fall off its bike with a lockout and whatever. As I have said all along this is one dangerous game the players and owners are playing. A work stoppage of any kind will set the sport back decades and people have too many other options to worry about millionaire baseball players fighting billionaire baseball owners.

They can always turn to the Savannah Bananas League, the NFL, soccer, college sports, and the Tour de France – among other things – like going outside on their own.

Plus, as I have documented, this is not close to being the same game it once was when we all fell in love with baseball. The bond is not there. Strategy and fundamentals are out the window as drones run the front offices, the game and managers and coaches; more on that later with yet another manager wanting to take thinking out of the game.

In MLB, this is really the height of Tour de Farce season because the trade deadline is right around the corner on August 3, so presidents of baseball operations and general managers who really screwed up building their teams get another chance to screw up again.

This is my favorite week during the season because you get to hear all the breathless reports from the media about possible trades, and in the end, teams like the Guardians… will just deal for another scrapheap outfielder like they do every trade deadline season.

Remember the stellar trade deadline the Mets David Stearns had last trade deadline season and the debilitating offseason, “Hey, let’s let our home run bashing first baseman who never misses a game walk away and make the position even worse defensively!”

“Brilliant’’ came the response from owner Steve Cohen.

So brilliant he has once again handed the keys of the kingdom to Stearns so he can make more deals in the name of progress for the last-place 44-62 Mets, who are now working on 41 years without a World Series victory.

This is my favorite week during the season because you get to hear all the breathless reports from the media about possible trades, and in the end, teams like the Guardians – who haven’t won a World Series since 1948 – will just deal for another scrapheap outfielder like they do every trade deadline season.

I’m hoping Detroit’s Cy Young Tarik Skubal winds up with a real organization that is always trying to win, yes, the Dodgers, just for fun, and irritate all the “Small Market’’ teams who will demand a lockout. The Tigers have to trade Skubal because he is a free agent and is represented by Scott Boras, who I have known since 1988, and you just know there is no way in the world the Tigers will sign Skubal long term. You have to get something great for Skubal now, so I want to see what Scott Harris comes up with here.

Same for another difference making pitcher, San Diego wonder of a closer Mason Miller.

The Padres’ A.J. Preller is king of winning the off-season – according to the media, not according to reality – and Preller once again is pushing that the Padres are in the thick of it, currently at .500 and 14.5 games behind the Dodgers in third place in the NL West. Yeah, they are right in the thick of it — and have to jump over four teams to have a shot at Rob Manfred’s sixth playoff spot, another travesty created by Manfred.

Not quite as bad as the Fake Runner, but close.

There is no way that six teams from each league should be in the postseason. That doesn’t make it a postseason, that makes it a longer season with crappier teams in the postseason — and allows teams that should not be in the postseason to brag they made the postseason or were “in the race’’ until the end; and much of the media and many fans will fall for the bait and switch.

Poor Padres fans, and I spent 10 years in San Diego and love their enthusiasm, may be the easiest to fool. It seems Mets fans are perennial winners of the “We were right there’’ award, as much as the Padres fans. Padres fans, though, also have to deal with terrible Chargers guilt because their beloved Chargers skipped town in 2017. The Padres are the only game in town.

What makes this edition of Preller’s Death of a Salesman even more interesting is that there is a new owner in town, that would be a group led by Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones, and that group may not fall for Preller’s ways as easily as the past owners did. There is also a good chance that Mr. Feliciano may glance at the NL West standings and Padres payroll, which means big trouble for Preller.

I fully expect a new sheriff to be in San Diego at some point. That’s okay though, I can already picture the breathless media members who will help push Preller for a new GM job.

Give Preller credit, though, because the Padres sold for $3.9 billion and he was the baseball architect of a team that has never won a World Series to be sold for that insane amount of money, he deserves credit. I’m guessing that if the new ownership group is basically putting $4 billion on the line, they will find their own leadership.

All that makes Preller even more of a wild card this Trade Deadline. Might be his last shot in San Diego. Cool. Go for it A.J. You got nothing to lose.

Before I go any further let me bring up the Andy Green comment that infuriated some baseball people and former coaches I know. Green, the Mets’ interim manager, was talking about the play where Brett Baty hit the Dodgers baserunner going to second in the back of the helmet with his throw. “You have to get rid of it quickly and thread that gap that exists there quickly before the runner veers into grass,’’ Green said of the play. “In baseball, right now, that is probably the dumbest rule in baseball that you can run into the grass to get in the way of the thrower, certainly something now that is pretty uniform across the game where everybody is doing that … that is not an easy play for a first baseman to make.’’

Especially for a first baseman like Brett Baty who has never really played first in the Mets’ plan of moving Baty all over the field — including right field where the third baseman botched a key fly ball this week as well. As you know, Nerds think anybody can play anywhere.

In my mind, the first baseman can easily widen the angle and make that throw or outsmart the runner and step into the baseline to make a more direct throw. My advice is for Green and Stearns to go up to the TV booth and talk to Keith Hernandez on how to make that play. Keith is lefty. Baty is righty, but I’m sure Keith knows what to do there. And as for the dumbest rule Andy, you might consider creating a player out of thin air and putting him on second base to start an extra inning as pretty dumb. Fake players? Fake doubles? Fake runs?

Anyway, as one longtime major league coach told BallNine of Green, who also happens to be the Mets’ director of player development, “How about we just dumb down the game even more and not allow any ‘baseball players’ to play the game!’’

I agree. Baseball doesn’t need another rule, Andy. I give credit to the thinking Dodger baserunner for forcing the non-first baseman to make the play and taking a ball on the back of his helmet for his team. This generation of baseball leadership, though, wants to make everything a rule, no thinking allowed.

Look at the card in your pocket and do as we say, do as the rules say, or else … the pitch clock is running down. You are out of ABS challenges. Two disengagements. Rules, rules, rules.

Part of the fun of watching the Tour de France was riders working for each other in unique ways to help teammates succeed. The riders had to think for themselves on the move, going up and down mountains. You know, like baseball players used to think for themselves, like when Derek Jeter made the flip to Jorge Posada as Jeremy Giambi did not think to slide.

Here we are 25 years later in this 2026 non-thinking, soft brand of baseball; you can’t break up a double play anymore, always one of the exciting plays in the game from not too long ago. Now Green and his like don’t want the runner to think for himself and get in the way of the throw. How about working with your first basemen in player development to combat the runner veering onto the grass? But I can excuse Green because Baty was developed as a third baseman until David Stearns, in his mighty wisdom – no use for scouts’ wisdom – said, “No, today Baty you are a first baseman, no, today Baty, you are a right-fielder, no, today Baty you are a second baseman.’’ On Sunday, in the Mets 8-3 win over the Dodgers, Baty was a second baseman and then a first baseman.

It’s a small point, but I had to get it out there.

The Red Sox, who recently won 15 in a row to actually move above .500, made the first significant trade of the deadline, landing right-handed power-hitting infielder Curtis Mead from the Nats for young lefty pitcher Connelly Early, who is currently on the shelf with an inflamed elbow. In discussing the deal Sunday on NESN Craig Breslow said, the power-hitting right-handed hitter with 17 home runs was “a great fit for our ballpark.’’

As for the Nats, who desperately need pitching of any sort, one scout told me, “I liked Early when I saw him last year and Mead is having a pretty good year for Washington in a platoon role.’’

Mead made some swing changes recently that have helped. Interesting deal on both ends and I believe there will be a lot of interesting trades this deadline because too many teams believe they are contenders in a watered-down season.

Breslow went into the year, of course, desperately needing right-handed power because if he had looked out to left field at Fenway, he might have noticed the Green Monster. This was overdue. As the Nerds might say, this is a course correction. Hey, the American League is wide open, only six teams are over .500. Anybody can come out of the AL for the World Series. And everybody is in the NL wild card turtle race. Make a deal.

The Tour de Farce is breaking away.