Mets take step towards becoming New Dodgers with latest promotion

The Los Angeles Dodgers are (gasp) at a bit of a crossroads entering 2022?

I know, I know, people have been trying to stop Dodgers fans from panicking for decades, and the warnings rang especially hollow from 2017-2021, when LA held objectively the best and deepest roster in baseball, and entered all five Octobers with the best chance to take home the Commissioner’s Hunk of Metal (though it only happened once).

But now? Clayton Kershaw should come back (he will … right?!), but even if he signs back on when the lockout ends, LA’s rotation consists of Walker Buehler, Julio Urías, Dustin May (someday), Andrew Heaney, Tony Gonsolin, and David Price (?). That’s not enough at either the front or back, without things breaking very right.

The lineup is without Corey Seager and an effective Cody Bellinger. The bullpen won’t have Kenley Jansen, Corey Knebel or Joe Kelly at the back end. The Dodgers aren’t preemptively “out of it,” but for the first time in this generation, things look a little … stale. As well as incomplete.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast … New York Mets owner Steve Cohen’s 2020 declaration to create a “Dodgers East” output doesn’t seem so laughable anymore. When LA outbid the Mets for Tr**** Ba***, it seemed like the natural order of operations might continue infinitely.

But now? The Mets are the 2021-22 offseason behemoths, and they’re also the smartest ones in the room. The team’s latest promotion on Monday indicates they’re en route to going Full Dodgers, just as the Dodgers are beginning to decline.

The Mets have promoted former Dodgers Director of Analytics Ben Zauzmer.

Meet Ben Zauzmer, the immediate antidote to the idea that the Mets will always be some sort of blustery 2000s Yankees clone, while the Dodgers will remain on the other side of the country, weaving their budget together with their unique numerical advantage in an entirely different arena.

Nope. The Mets are getting smarter. Combine this with the surprisingly early success of Chaim Bloom with the Boston Red Sox, and it’s clear that there will be several big-city analytics blenders moving forward. In Silicon Valley terms, the Dodgers are no longer a unicorn.

Zauzmer was hired by the Mets to direct their analytics department prior to 2020, but has been swiftly promoted under new GM Billy Eppler. Previously, he spent six years with the Dodgers in some capacity, and graduated Harvard back in 2015 (ever heard of it?).

And, yes, he’s also got a pretty sweet backpack.

We’re not shaking in our boots at the Mets’ transformation just yet.

But let it be said that they’ve out-Dodgers’d the Dodgers in both buckets so far this offseason, and it looks like Andrew Friedman might just have a new adversary after all.

Looks like Happy learned how to putt.

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