Where Mets Rank 2005

[Guest KC]

Happy Birthday

[Guest cooby]

Happy Birthday, Sal! Have a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie for me!

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

BS - is it really your birthday? If so, have a great one!

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Hmmm...maybe I am feeling some love here.

Thanks, folks. One year for every card in the deck, every week in the year, every section of "Leaves of Grass."

[Guest Edgy DC]

All-Time Met Hits in a Career 1) Ed Kranepool: 1,418 2) Cleon Jones: 1,188 3) Edgardo Alfonzo: 1,136 4) Mookie Wilson: 1,112 Mike Piazza projected to end of season: 1,059 5) Bud Harrelson: 1,029 6) Darryl Strawberry: 1,025 7) Howard Johnson: 997 8) Jerry Grote: 994 9) Mike Piazza: 984 10) Keith Hernandez: 939 Mike Piazza at start of season: 928

All-Time Met Doubles in a Career 1) Ed Kranepool: 225 2) Howard Johnson: 214 3) Edgardo Alfonzo: 212 Mike Piazza Projected to End of Season: 205 4) Darryl Strawberry: 187 5) Mike Piazza: 185 6) Cleon Jones: 182 7) Mookie Wilson: 170 Mike Piazza at Start of Season: 170 8) Keith Hernandez: 159 9) Kevin McReynolds: 153 10) John Stearns: 152

I'm guessing, but it may take until the end of the season for Piazza to pass Grote in hits by a Met catcher.

[Guest KC]

How about rbi and ind lob's or some measure of what he does with risp?

He's really kinda sucked the last couple of years.

[Guest Edgy DC]

In RBI, he's third and within a whisper of second. LoBs and BA with RiSP are elusive stats to measure against the Mets all-time.

[Guest KC]

He's lucky that his early years were so dominant, otherwise the last couple
of years might have elusively whispered him out of the HOF.

I'm just so through with him as a Met and tired of defending him or listening
to arguments and stats making him out to be some kind of great Met.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Whenever I think of Glavine, I think of freezing my ass off Opening Day 2003 for his Met debut.

And he's a negative example to any youngsters riding in my car. I'm constantly telling kids, "Don't be like Tom Glavine - buckle up."

I don't just hat him. I hate him.

[Guest KC]

I found Gary Carter's post '86 years with the Mets frustrating too. I used to
call him Pop Up Carter. At least Mike doesn't make that "damn I can't be-
lieve I just made another out" face that Gary used to make.

Back up the truck, the goose is cooked.

[Guest Edgy DC]

He's lucky that his early years were so dominant, otherwise the last couple of years might have elusively whispered him out of the HOF.

It's obvious, but it's hard to attribute it to luck.

[Guest KC]

Fortunate then, don't word play me. If you want to root for him go ahead, I'm done.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

How would a Moslem feel upon having converted the Pope to follow Islam?

Proud, I tell ya, proud.

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's not what I was doing.

All-Time Mets RBI

1) Darryl Strawberry: 733
Mike Piazza: 561
2) Howard Johnson: 629
3) Mike Piazza: 622
4) Ed Kranepool: 614
Mike Piazza: 593
5) Edgardo Alfonzo: 538
6) Cleon Jones: 521
7) Keith Hernandez: 468
8) Kevin McReynolds: 456
9) Rusty Staub: 399
10) Todd Hundley: 397

IN 74 plate appearances with runners in scoring position in 2005, Piazza has a .222 batting average, with a .338 on-base percentage and .476 slugging percentage, for an .814 OpS.

[Guest duan]

you may mock my liking of Piazza and wishing his further success - and tying that up with records, retirements & the hall of fame. Here's the thing Piazza is more of *the mets* to me then any other player. It's as simple as that, when he goes there'll be no connection to the team I first followed. That's fine, all 'fans' go through that it over the passing of time.

but it isn't to say that I wouldn't be willing

a) for him to be traded, if I felt it was for the overall benefit of the club
b) for us NOT to resign him
c) for piazza to move down to 5/6/7 in the batting order
d) for us to bench him if we had a better option

They are decisions that I could make - I wish that it was Piazza's performance rather then his heritage that made them tough to do - is that wrong?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Mike Piazza v. Mike Piazza with Runners in Scoring Position

	BA	OBP	SLG	OpS
Career	.313	.384	.557	.941
Career w/RiSP	.265	.402	.485	.886
Met Career	.299	.376	.546	.921
Met Career w/RiSP*	.273	.395	.483	.878
2005	.263	.329	.432	.761
2005 w/RiSP	.222	.338	.476	.814

*I haven't been able to locate Piazza's 1998 totals w/RiSP, so this data is incomplete.

[Guest KC]

I think he probably had a good hundred games with the Mets in 1998 and
they were probably productive so it would bolster the numbers a little.

Thanks.

And Bret, you haven't converted anyone. My point (if I really do have a point)
is that at some point I reached a frustration level with our hall-of fame-best-
hitting-catcher-of-all-time and I don't feel like he's even been all-star worthy
at times. The tv guys talk about him like he's god and hasn't been god-like
in quite some time. Drop him down another notch or two and see if he can
get hungry again.

He had a decent day yesterday. I think the chip in my brain went off when
Reyes shorthopped a throw to him at home and the camera caught Piazza
looking at him like, "what the fuh". Hey Mike, this team is more Joses and
Wrights, and Pedros ... don't be glaring at my boy.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Well, SOMETHING happened in between mocking some poor hapless predictor's remark that the Mets will never have another playoff team with Piazza on it (by sticking it in your sig line) and "If you want to root for him go ahead, I'm done."

I'm claiming it as another soul for Allah.

[Guest KC]

Poor Sal, we wounded him so ...

And perhaps you've forgotten that I embraced Judaism towards the end of
last season. I wouldn't know allah from nothin'.

[Guest Edgy DC]

All-Time Met Triples in a Season 1) Lance Johnson, 1996: 21 Jose Reyes Projected to End of Season: 18.51 2) Mookie Wilson, 1984: 10 T3) Charlie Neal, 1962: 9 T3) Steve Henderson, 1978: 9 T3) Frank Taveras, 1979: 9 T3) Mookie Wilson, 1982: 9 T7) Joe Christopher, 1964: 8 T7) Joel Youngblood, 1970: 8 T7) Bud Harrelson, 1970: 8 T7) Cleon Jones, 1970: 8 T7) Len Randle, 1978: 8 T7) Doug Flynn, 1978: 8 T7) Steve Henderson, 1979: 8 T7) Doug Flynn, 1980: 8 T7) Steve Henderson, 1980: 8 T7) Mookie Wilson, 1981: 8 T7) Mookie Wilson, 1985: 8 T7) Vince Coleman, 1993: 8 T7) Jose Reyes, 2005: 8

All-Time Met Triples in a Career 1) Mookie Wilson: 62 2) Bud Harrelson: 45 3) Cleon Jones: 33 4) Steve Henderson: 31 5) Darryl Strawberry: 30 6) Lance Johnson: 27 7) Doug Flynn: 26 8) Ed Kranepool: 25 Jose Reyes Projected to End of Season: 24.51 9) Lee Mazzilli: 22 T10) Ron Swoboda: 20 T10) Wayne Garrett: 20 T12) Jerry Grote: 18 T12) Joel Youngblood: 18 T12) Howard Johnson: 18 T15) Lenny Dykstra: 17 T15) Rey Ordóñez: 17 T17) Ken Boswell: 15 T17) Lenny Randle: 15 T19) Joe Christopher: 14 T19) Tommie Agee: 14 T19) Ted Martinez: 14 T19) Mike Phillips: 14 T19) Wally Backman: 14 T19) Kevin McReynolds: 14 T19) Vince Coleman: 14 T19) Jose Vizcaino: 14 T19) Edgardo Alfonzo: 14 T19) Jose Reyes: 14 29) Ron Hunt: 13... ...Jose Reyes at Start of Season: 6

In the single-season category, it looks like Jose could quickly try and fill that huge gap between the leader and the pack.

[Guest Nymr83]

Sal, i admit i did not join the "anti-piazza party" until last year, but why does it matter when people came around, calm down on the converting thing, Piazza's lack of production converted them, not you :)

to Piazza lovers-
if your reason for wanting piazza on the team is to put him in the hall as a met then i disagree strongly with you that this is a worthy objective- the mets should try to win games, not hall placks.
if, however, you still believe that he can help this team win, either because he can still be productive or whatever else then i again disagree with you...but i feel this point of view is totally justified if you honestly hold it.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Nymr83--it's not about my getting credit for conversion, or getting credit for being right, but now it hardly matters if you're pro-Piazza or anti-, because there's no real buyers for Piazza on any level whatsoever. If the Mets released him, there would be many multiples of the numbers of teams who would go "Meh" as opposed to the teams who, even a year or two ago, would go, "I'll buy THAT for a dollar!" Almost literally, you can't give him away any more.

But a year or two ago, and cetainly three or four ago, when I was first advocating Piazza's trade value being realized ( and being soundly reviled for it by many of the same folks now, who stick to their hostility without acknowledging that maybe that was just my being a good far-seeing fan), WE COULD HAVE BEGUN THE REBUILDING PROCESS. I mean, Piazza of 2001 or 2002 was an attractive option to many GMs. The problem was even then that maybe he was a bit over-priced, so we would have had to eat some money in a deal trading him for young talent--and Fred would rather, as it happened, spend the money on four bad years of Piazza than eat a few mil in 2001, and as for Mets fans, eating money was equivalent to saying that their love for Piazza was misplaced. Or something. I still don't really get the "Death before Dishonor" mentality of naysaying any Piazza deal for years and years.

Like Nixon, you're all suavely admitting to being Keynesians now, when Keynes' economic views are universally accepted and no one disputes you anymore. It's very easy to be down on Piazza now. I don't respect you much for that--you would have to be deaf and blind and very, very dumb to continue upholding the Piazza banner now. But there was a time, and not so long ago, when being down on Piazza still had possibilities that would have worked out very well in the Mets' favor, but you preferred to go on wearing your PIAZZA 31 pajamas and deny what you were seeing happen before your eyes. That's my complaint--you thought you were being good Mets fans, but you were enabling the deterioration of this franchise. I have a problem with that.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Who are you talking to?

[Guest cooby]

Wow, I was not aware that my personal interest in this club had such a direct result on their fortunes. And from so far away, too. I will have to be more careful about that.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Dickshot, I think you and Cooby are being disingenuous here.

If my post was addressed to people other than yourself, than please feel free to regard it as my criticism of adversaries who do not exist. I think to say that I haven't received several truckloads of shit (decreasing with Piazza's OPS over the years, though typically lagging a few months behnd that declining curve) for my early "trade Piazza" passion is to remember the past very selectively, so selectively I refuse to do the work (now mainly lost anyway) of finding you archives to support my position. I'll merely refer you to KC's somewhat (he thought) scathing sig line referenced above, quoting me as predicting Piazza's never again playing on a Mets playoff team, presumably to rub my nose in when the Mets contradicted me (as many people felt they surely would), only to gradually drop the sig line and then to come around to taking an anti-Piazza stance, only TLTL after the ship of actually getting a useful return for Piazza had long since sailed.

So maybe I'm addressing KC here. He doesn;'t want to credit me for having converted him? Fine. I don't need credit.

Maybe I'm addressing (as my post above indicates) Nymr83. Maybe I'm addressing everyone who hotly disputed my claim that Piazza was unlikely to drive in 80 runs last year. Maybe I'm addressing those folks who lost several hundred dollars to me backing up that foolish hope. I certainly don't want to lump in all those fine folks who considered my trade proposals a beneficial thing for the Mets as equally culpable: I just don't see a lot of them here. Maybe I have a very selective memory too, and I've forgotten all the outspoken support I've gotten over the years for thinking that the Mets would do well to deal him for younger players whose potential might be less right here right now. And thanks to EZ board, we may never be able to identify these fine folks and pin medals on them for their prescience and long-term understanding of the Mets' best interests.

[Guest KC]

I need this like I need a hole in the head.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

You see, KC, that some people are in indefensible positions so they mostly treat my posts as invisible these days. If you ferociously and mockingly asserted that Piazza was likely to drive in 80 runs last year, that makes me think that there may have been an equally wrongheaded major league GM who thought last year at that time that possibility was much larger than I thought it was. What I advocated then was simply to find out what that hypothetical (but very real) GM would have given you in exchange for Piazza.

Now, I happen to think that a catcher who drives in 80+ runs is a valuable commodity, and that many contending teams would like to have one, especially in exchange for a few players who's future performances are off in, well, the future. I think it's very hard to take that postition then AND now to take the position that "Who knew Piazza would go south like this?" The Mets are stuck with their crappy roster because they WANTED to be stuck with it, making them a very hard team to root for.

I've rooted for some very bad teams in my time, teams that have gotten burned on unwise deals, teams that banked on 5-tool heroes whose tools were all in the garage, teams with a very low base of talent to begin with...but I've never rooted for a team determined to put the APPEARANCE of quality out on the field without the substance, and I find this team more unlikeable the more I see.

For Omar even to be TALKING now about being a buyer for 2005 is despicable--he should be indicted for fraud. I think I'll drop Eliot Spitzer a line.

[Guest KC]

Look, let me be blunt. These outbursts make no fucking sense to me.
Maybe I'm stupid.

Later.

OE: Substitured 'outbursts' for the word 'posts'.

Later

[Guest Rotblatt]

]For Omar even to be TALKING now about being a buyer for 2005 is despicable

Okey dokey, smokey!

While I agree that we should be sellers this year, your statement is laughable. There are maybe one or two teams who have conceded the season so far. Those teams are worse in the standings than we are and have less talent than we do. Are ALL the GMs with records worse than ours despicable for not throwing in the towel yet? What about all the teams who are more than 6.5 games out? Or maybe just those more than 3 games out of the wild card race?

Anything can happen in a season, Sal. Even I know that Omar can't publicly throw in the towel yet, and I totally agree with you that we should be sellers this year, not buyers.

As for your hypothesis that Omar is only concerned with putting the appearance of talent on the field, what the fuck are you talking about? He's been here all of about five minutes. How can you possibly blame him for Piazza or Glavine or Kazmir or Huber or Peterson? Maybe you don't like the moves he's made, but it's waaaay too early to start saying he's only interested in window dressing.

And I think it's clear that this team, while flawed, is both better than the ones we've trotted out the last few years, and contains more players likely to contribute in the years ahead. Do you honestly think we're worse last year than we are now? Or that we'd be better this year with Phillips, Stanton & McEwing than with Pedro, Beltran & Ishii?

[Guest soupcan]

I think what you are failing to see as far as Piazza's value to the Mets is the business side of it.

People buy, or more accurately bought, tickets to Mets games to see Piazza. He was a drawing card for the franchise at a time when the franchise needed it.

Rather than criticizing Fred for not givng the okay to trading him and eating a few million, try to to look at it from the owner's point of view. He needed a marquee name to sell tickets and the pizza man was the guy. He trades him away for some young 'uns and *poof* there goes excitement, ticket sales, tv ratings and revenue.

What's that you say? He more than would have made up for it in the ensuing years had the talent he brought back blossomed and added to a better product on the field thereby resulting in sold-out stadiums a year or two or three later? Interesting but you'd be assuming that those imaginary prospects would in fact blossom. What if they didn't? Where's Fred's return?

Besides I think the Mets attendance is actually pretty good this season so even if the players a Piazza trade would've netted became drawing cards you would be hard-pressed to show that they would've gotten more people into thebpark this year than Pedro, Carlos et al.

I know that we don't like to think of baseball as a business but the guys that own the teams do and unfortunately sdometies we need to as well.