IGT 6/23 Mets vs Phillies Salvation Series Senga Time

[batmagadanleadoff]

Absolutely. I don't think he wants to play for a three year plan or hear about "visions". I think he wants to win now. A baseball player's prime is extremely short in the grand scheme of things and that's even without sustaining any serious injuries. And Ohtani knows this. He's already had a serious injury and lost meaningful playing time. And he's a pitcher. So up the risk on that.

[Edgy MD]

I think any player at the top of his field who asks if his team is committed to winning is going to get an "Absolutely, that's why we're offering a billion dollars to you, aren't we?"



Certainly no team is going to tell you they aren't committed to winning. And any player who says "Show me" can look at his own payday.



Yankee fans for time immemorial have been calling WFAN and telling how this top player or that one will want to come to the Yankees because he wants to win. But no player and no team is going to say any different. Cada equipo quiere ganar.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I already addressed this, if tersely. I don't believe that Ohtani wants to hear about hope and promises. I think Ohtani wants a more concrete winning environment. If the Mets continue at this season's pace, they will have had losing seasons in two of the last three years. Nimmo and McNeil and Alonso are an excellent core but the Mets have had those players for quite some time now and haven't won a goddamn thing with them yet.



IF Scherzer and Verlander don't revert to form, the team has no starting pitching --- and nobody down below that can make a meaningful impact is close to major-league ready. Senga has had some moments of brilliance, but just as much ineffectiveness, mediocrity and awfulness. He's unreliable. And Scherzer and Verlander are gonna be a year older next year. The smart money bets that they're gonna get worse, not better. I can't see Ohtani wanting to play here under those conditions.

[Edgy MD]

The future is all hope and promises. At best. Nothing there is concrete.



And that's certainly what I'd tell my client.



Jacob deGrom had his ticket punched for any team he wanted. He chose a team that won 68 games last season, 60 the year before that, and 22 of 60 in 2021. I don't believe he didn't want to win. I think he understood that recent seasons' records alone don't represent coming seasons for a team. You look at the broad picture and put your faith where you will. In the end, only one team walks away and it's a modestly educated guess as to which team that will be.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Jake deGrom limited himself to a small geographic area of America - namely the slavery belt or whatever else you'd wanna call the southeast. Ideally, he would've pitched for the Braves, a winning team about as close to his home as any other team in baseball. But the Braves had zero interest in deGrom. deGrom signed with the only team that showed interest in him, checked his geographic box, and was willing to spend the money needed to lure deGrom. I think that the stuff about deGrom buying into the Rangers' plans was a horseshit cover story, even though, as things turned out, the Rangers improved vastly and are one of baseball's best teams this year. What else was deGrom gonna say -- that he didn't wanna play in NYC for a team that just came off a 101 win season?



But we'll see. No matter how the Mets finish this season, Cohen has more money than anyone else and NYC is the greatest city in the world, and those are huge advantages.

[ashie62]

Low water mark

Edited June 24, 2023 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

http://potg.leaptoad.com/mets/images/schaefer19.jpg>



http://potg.leaptoad.com/mets/index.phpCast your vote!

[bmfc1]

Edgy MD wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Those runs were all earned ... but they kind of weren't. We're sort of trapped by out-of-date — ancient, by baseball standards — ideology when it comes to what we judge to be an outfield error and, consequently, what we judge to be earned runs.

Right. It's absurd that Senga had to be charged with 2 ERs because his teammates can't catch a pop-up but it wasn't clear who should get the error as neither player touched the ball so there was no error on the play (hopefully the FO is trying to fix this stupidity).

[bmfc1]

Edgy MD wrote: Escobar would be pinch-hitting for Vogebach here if he was, you know, a Met. Not sure why Canha wasn't up there.

Buck was asked about this and he said that Vogelbach was hot and he only had one pinch-hitter (a by-product of making the trade during and not after the game) so he chose to PH for Baty (even though Vogelbach can hit LHPs about as well as he can run and field).

[Edgy MD]

Vogelbach's futility against lefties seems likely to be true, but it's also largely an abstract thing, as he's generally been pulled as soon as a lefty enters the game. Last night's plate appearance was only his ninth trip against a southpaw all season.



He had been oh-for-eight up until then, so it was a really lousy time to test the proposition, against a fireballer like that.



Buck was looking ahead, thinking he wanted his one righthanded pinch-hitter available to sub for Baty, but at least Baty had faced lefties during the season. Mark Canha has some on-basing acumen. Replacing Vogie as the leadoff batter is where I'd have deployed him.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: The future is all hope and promises. At best. Nothing there is concrete.

"Hope is not a strategy."



Steve Cohen, himself.



More on the Mets likely pursuit of Ohtani from The Athletic:



Rosenthal: If Mets sell at trade deadline, options range from the obvious to the extreme



Excerpt:

One other point to consider: If the Mets are serious about landing Shohei Ohtani -- and with Cohen, why wouldn't they be? -- they will need to present the two-way sensation with a coherent vision of how they intend to win. A five year plan is not going to entice Ohtani, and Cohen also wants no part of such a thing, having said upon taking over as owner in Nov. 2020 that he expected a championship in 3 to 5 years. [***] Ohtani would not want to join this version of the Mets, not when he will have other lucrative options.

__________



Also:



If aging Mets are bad now, what does it mean for 2024? ‘Not a great place to be'



Excerpt:

NEW YORK — A losing season reverberates, its consequences rippling out into the future in ways unpredictable. For the Mets, their wholly disappointing first half of 2023, which continued in a 5-2 loss to the Brewers Wednesday, doesn't just limit their chances to play October baseball this season. It also calls into question their long-term roster construction and the strategy that led to it. New York is already the oldest team in baseball, and most of that age is slated to return next season. The Mets are paying players 32 and older roughly $186 million this season (not counting salaries for Robinson Canó and James McCann). They're already scheduled to pay such players $153 million next year. If that core looks like this in 2023, should they expect it to be any better in 2024? “If it turns out we don't improve, and we're looking at '24, let's say we're with a similar team and one year older, for a veteran team, that's probably not a great place to be,” owner Steve Cohen said during his wide-ranging press conference on Wednesday. “I mean, it could get better. But it may not. We have to make those judgments.”

https://theathletic.com/4650402/2023/06/29/mets-struggles-2024-roster/https://theathletic.com/4650402/2023/06/29/mets-struggles-2024-roster/

[Edgy MD]

Edgy MD wrote: The future is all hope and promises. At best. Nothing there is concrete. "Hope is not a strategy." Steve Cohen, himself.

I didn't write that it was.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Edgy MD wrote: The future is all hope and promises. At best. Nothing there is concrete. "Hope is not a strategy." Steve Cohen, himself. I didn't write that it was.

I know.