Back in the early part of this decade, the New York Mets were positively dreadful. There were a lot of different explanations for why they were so bad, with some of the best being a complete lack of offense (Jeff Duncan? Richard Hidalgo? Kaz Matsui?). Another was their pitching staff (the staff ace was Steve Trachsel before Tom Glavine was brought in and while Pedro was on the DL). Steve and I, however, had a different theory.
Cornelious Clifford Floyd.
When he wasn’t nursing his bum knee, he was hitting about 15 fewer homers than anticipated and batting .40 points lower than expected. He did this for 4 straight seasons. All while making what, at the time, was an impressive 6-7 million a year. Not only was he underperforming and often broken, Cliff Floyd was sapping the payroll of a team that featured Mike Cameron as their biggest slugger.
2005 came around, and Floyd began to earn his money, once again hitting 30 homers and then, we hadn’t heard from him for a while. He had a decent season last year with the Cubs after another rough season in New York. After being let go from the Cubs, could this have been it?
No. He signed with another payroll strapped team making strides for contending. Signed with them and will be ruining them. Sure, his contract is only for 3 million a year, but for the Rays, 3 million is a lot of money. It’s Greg Vaughn all over again, except less talented and more injury prone. I shouldn’t have to tell you then, that Cliff is already on the disabled list.
It’s good to have you back, Cliff. We needed another guy for our go to punchline. There’s only so many Kirk Cameron jokes we can make.
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