All My Exes Don’t Live in Flushing 2022

[Edgy MD]

That would be the third team he will have had two tours of duty with.

[Willets Point]

https://techstory.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/images-10.jpeg>

"It looks like you need relief pitching. Maybe I can help!"

[G-Fafif]

DUI for Jays pitching coach Pete Walker.



https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/pete-walker-continues-to-work-with-blue-jays-while-legal-process-unfolds/https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/pete-walker-continues-to-work-with-blue-jays-while-legal-process-unfolds/

[G-Fafif]

[G-Fafif]

Will Toffey, the minor league third baseman the Mets acquired from Oakland in the Jeurys Familia salary dump of 2018 and was sent to San Francisco for Anthony Banda, has moved on to the Phillies, still aspiring to make his MLB debut.

[MFS62]

Thank you for that article.

It makes me wonder what Ernie Banks and Billy Williams had to endure to play there all those years.

Later

[Edgy MD]

I tend to like Nightengale's work at some level, but that's kind of sloppy. Strohman says he's going to expose folks for what they are, and Nightengale pretty much runs with that as his thesis, but then, when asked about the Mets, he reports "crazy" stuff that went on, but he doesn't want to name names.

[G-Fafif]

[G-Fafif]

We're gonna rev up the hover scooters when Shinjo comes home to stay…

[Edgy MD]

I hope Buck Showalter is thinking long and hard about a way to top that.

[G-Fafif]

Zack Buchanan of the Athletic on Oliver Perez's last go-round (paywall)

Pérez is now 40, an old man by baseball standards, with specks of gray in his beard and a mohawk that's completely white. (His agent, Scott Boras, jokes with him that hitters lose sight of the baseball in his hair.) Once a tantalizing and frustrating starting pitcher, he's carved out a lengthy second act as a left-handed reliever. He's spent the entirety of his 30s in the bullpen — with seven different organizations — and has recorded a 3.42 ERA in 490 appearances. Since 2012, the year he moved to the bullpen, only three pitchers logged more appearances after turning 30. At times, the game has seemed prepared to yank him off the stage, but Pérez has declined to make his exit. Often, including four times since 2018, the best offer on the table in free agency has been a minor-league deal. So, he takes that deal and, in spring training or in Triple A, earns his way back onto the major-league roster. He's pitched in the majors — sometimes a full season, sometimes just a few games — each of the past 10 seasons. But now, the end is near, and so he faces his final curtain. The 2022 season will be his 20th in the majors if he makes Arizona's roster. If he doesn't, he will play in his home country of Mexico for the Toros de Tijuana, with whom he spent most of last season. Wherever he plays, he's decided, this campaign will be his last. “Do you want to keep playing baseball or do you want to be around your kids?” said Pérez, whose four children range from 10 years old to 3. “I was discussing that the last couple years with my wife and with my family. We said, ‘This might be the year.' I love baseball, but I love my family more.” His career certainly is a testament to his love of the former. Had Pérez been any less resolute, his time in the game could have ended on any number of occasions, and hardly on his own terms. By the time he was 29, he was already at a career crossroads. He'd been a disappointment in New York, in part because he said he persuaded himself to pitch through knee troubles. “I was not prepared at that level to compete when everybody's at 100 percent and I was at 60,” he said. He refused minor-league assignments (as was his collectively bargained right) after a demotion from the rotation in 2010. The Mets released him before the next season, still on the hook for the final year of his contract. To that point, he'd made more than $35 million. The Mets would pay him $12 million more in 2011 no matter where, or if, he pitched. He could have walked away then and never worked another day in his life, and he thought about doing just that. “Those times, you say, ‘You know what, I'm going to retire,'” he said. But that was an emotional reaction that soon passed. Instead, he told Boras that he wanted any job the agent could find. Pérez had flopped so badly in New York, that taxed even the abilities of baseball's super-agent. “I could not find him a job,” Boras said, “except Double A.”

https://theathletic.com/3221154/2022/03/31/i-have-to-enjoy-every-moment-at-40-years-old-mlb-journeyman-oliver-perez-prepares-for-his-last-ridehttps://theathletic.com/3221154/2022/03/31/i-have-to-enjoy-every-moment-at-40-years-old-mlb-journeyman-oliver-perez-prepares-for-his-last-ride

[G-Fafif]

Brent Strom keeps it comin', via the Athletic (paywall).

Standing at his locker one March afternoon, Madison Bumgarner classified the style of his new pitching coach. “He's probably the first mixture I've seen of the old school and new school,” he said of Strom, and from the gruff star, that amounts to high praise. “Everybody claims to be,” Bumgarner added, “but I haven't ran into anybody I thought was an actual mixture until now.” If Strom is the authentic hybrid, it's because he's spent five decades bridging the divide between analytics and the old school. Many of his “new-school” philosophies can be traced far back into the old school's heyday. After undergoing Tommy John surgery in the early 1970s — he was the second person to ever have it — he became interested in biomechanics and “optimal movement patterns.” “That's been a driving force,” Strom said. While coaching in the Dodgers' system for the entirety of the 1980s, Strom picked up nuggets from Hall of Fame left-hander Sandy Koufax. If the Astros succeeded so much with the four-seam at the top of the strike zone, it's because Strom first learned that approach from The Left Arm of God. He has rapaciously educated himself on pitching over the years, picking up information from sources within and without Major League Baseball. By the time he reached the Cardinals as a minor-league pitching instructor in 2008 — after a series of stops with the Padres, Expos, Royals and a previous stint with Houston — that research had congealed into a general philosophy. He preached certain principles of velocity enhancement and “understanding the value of the top of the zone.” The problem was, the Cardinals were often preaching the exact opposite in the big leagues.

https://theathletic.com/3228451/2022/04/06/a-new-challenge-for-brent-strom-baseballs-best-pitching-coach-the-diamondbacks-you-can-take-us-to-the-next-level/https://theathletic.com/3228451/2022/04/06/a-new-challenge-for-brent-strom-baseballs-best-pitching-coach-the-diamondbacks-you-can-take-us-to-the-next-level/

[G-Fafif]

[batmagadanleadoff]

=G-Fafif post_id=88513 time=1649295708 user_id=55]
Brent Strom keeps it comin', via the Athletic (paywall)....

[G-Fafif]

Cody Stavenhagen, who does terrific work covering the Tigers for the Athletic (paywall), has a profile up of Javy Baez.

The other narrative always tied to Báez is the dichotomous nature of his game. The homers and the strikeouts, the highlights and the occasional errors, the boom and bust of a player so good yet sometimes so frustrating. Sometimes, scouts, fans, coaches and players wonder if Báez's flaws come from a bad attitude, arrogance, or worse, indifference. Too many people still don't get it. The unbridled passion that creates Báez's gaping flaws is the same source that fuels his greatest strengths. Too many people still have Javy Báez all wrong.

https://theathletic.com/3234818/2022/04/07/to-understand-tigers-shortstop-javier-baez-you-must-understand-what-drives-him/https://theathletic.com/3234818/2022/04/07/to-understand-tigers-shortstop-javier-baez-you-must-understand-what-drives-him/

[G-Fafif]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=88579 time=1649358779 user_id=68]
=G-Fafif post_id=88513 time=1649295708 user_id=55]
Brent Strom keeps it comin', via the Athletic (paywall)....

[Edgy MD]

If "special assistant to the GM" counts for "in the game," I think 1970 Met Mike Jorgensen is still bringing it.

[G-Fafif]

Edgy MD wrote: If "special assistant to the GM" counts for "in the game," I think 1970 Met Mike Jorgensen is still bringing it.

Jorgy (whose Met debut was 1968) was last a Met in 1983, which would be the baseline for this "afterlife" exercise.

[MFS62]

=G-Fafif post_id=88587 time=1649360018 user_id=55]
Other than 1962 tradee Don Zimmer, who was a senior adviser (and occasionally in uniform) with the Rays when he died in 2014, I can't think of any other Mets involved on a daily basis in the game 50 years past their departure from our playing ranks.

[G-Fafif]

Last Met season: 1969

Served as an instructor through 2004; consulted until his stroke in 2015.

[G-Fafif]

[Edgy MD]

wOw.

[G-Fafif]

Shea lives.

[G-Fafif]

The pitcher formerly known as the New York Mets' Noah Syndergaard's debut at his West Coast place of employ seems to have gone well, with Thor getting outs, along with his sentiments well-articulated. (Paywall.)

There was a lot of personal significance for Noah Syndergaard on Saturday night. It was his first game in an Angels uniform. It was also his first meaningful start since 2019. It's a moment he has worked very hard to achieve, and thought about, literally for years. But when Syndergaard was asked about that personal significance shortly after the Angels defeated the Astros 2-0 on Saturday for their first win of the season, he recognized that his start meant something more important. “The whole day I had goose bumps just because I was taking the mound on the 13-year anniversary of (Nick) Adenhart being tragically taken away from us,” Syndergaard said. “I felt like there was an angel by my side tonight. That was really special to me. “As athletes, I feel like our number — to the everyday person, it's just kind of a number — but to us, it's part of our identity. Growing up, my number was 34 because I was a huge fan of Nolan Ryan. But now it kind of means something a little bit different to me. I want to use that to lift up his name.” Thirteen years ago to the day, Adenhart was killed by a drunk driver just hours after a successful season debut for the Angels. He was 22 years old, only beginning to shine in his big-league career. That night was the last time any player had worn the No. 34 in an Angels uniform. It had been unofficially retired. It was also the number Syndergaard wore in New York, one the native Texan proudly wore as a hat tip to his former hero. He wanted to wear it in Anaheim, and the team agreed. Syndergaard lived up to every expectation. He threw 5 1/3 innings and allowed no runs. The powerful right-hander walked two, struck out one and induced 11 groundouts. “Outstanding,” manager Joe Maddon said of the performance. “He's just a strike thrower. The changeup is outstanding, and the slider, he's willing to pitch inside. … He was totally in command of everything that he's doing out there.”

I must admit I've felt uncommonly jilted by Thor. Other free agent Mets who left I reasoned were partaking in business and it was probably the Mets' fault for not re-signing them if in fact I wanted them back. After being reminded Thor is a real person, I think I've moved on to sincerely wishing him well. Besides, his prospective slot in the Mets' rotation appears suitably filled.



https://theathletic.com/3240809/2022/04/10/an-angel-by-my-side-noah-syndergaard-stars-in-angels-debut-with-a-tribute-to-nick-adenhart/https://theathletic.com/3240809/2022/04/10/an-angel-by-my-side-noah-syndergaard-stars-in-angels-debut-with-a-tribute-to-nick-adenhart/

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Didn't get the whiffs, that's a thing to watch for with him

[G-Fafif]

Thor reinventing himself into what we might call a Chris Bassitt type could be a sight to see.

[G-Fafif]

[roger_that]

That's a great TDA clip, but he really shouldn't get awarded first base for a HBP on that, should he?

[G-Fafif]

Zack Scott's gonna make a champion out of your organization.

[Fman99]

Marcus Stroman off to a bumpy start in Chi-town, I noticed. Mets fans who are jerks are giving him the business on social media, which I think he asked for to an extent. Most fans would wish the guy well had he not crapped on us collectively on his way out of town.