Humber in the Dumper

[Guest KC]

>>>It's not as if by wording my views more temperately, I'll persuade many others: I've concluded sadly that it's the critical content, and not the phrasing, that determines the reaction of my gentle (and sometimes savage) readers.<<<

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

]It's not as if by wording my views more temperately, I'll persuade many others: I've concluded sadly that it's the critical content, and not the phrasing, that determines the reaction of my gentle (and sometimes savage) readers.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by persuading people. If you're looking for 100% conversion, then you're probably correct - most of us posting on this Mets board are Mets fans are going to remain Mets fans, no matter what you say or how you say it.

OTOH, if you're looking for honest debate and building a consensus on specific points, then wording your arguments more temperately would help you persuade people. But the hyperbole implies that your mind is already made up, and that you're less interested in honest debate than you are in simply arguing with people.

But how you say it goes a long way towards how people perceive what you say.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: The Red Sox keep doing things right though and should serve as an example to the Mets. Yesterday they traded 2 prospects for a veteran middle infielder (Graffanino), and demoted a young infielder (Youkilis) to activate him.

Now I know you recognize the difference between the Red Sox' position in the standings and the Mets'.

Well, I think you do.

I hope you do.

Nah, forget it. If I have to explain the difference to you, you probably won't get it.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Hey, I understand the difference. You're referring to the Mets being a half-game out of 3rd place and the Red Sox 2 games out of 3rd place, yes?

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Yes, precisely. I never realized how insightful a Met fan can be, What was I thinking, that the World's Champion Red Sox going for the 2005 pennant makes serious sense and the Mets lack a prayer to have a clue of having a shot of maybe getting to sniff a three game blowout in the first round of the postseason. I don't know how I missed their utter equality.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I find it hard to believe you're 100% serious sometimes, yet other times I find it hard to believe you're not. Straight answer time: are you seriously advocating that the Mets load up for bear, acquire veterans, deal off kids, because they're thisclosetothepostseason?

[Frayed Knot]

Ummmm,
Shrink the Avatar NOW!!!!!

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I don't believe they have a strong chance as presently constructed because they don't score enough runs. But I'm open to listening to trades that could fix that, depending on the particular deal.

Now your turn for a straight answer:

] please give me the orgs who are accelerating their top guys any faster; the example(s) you're using so far aren't holding up. - Atlanta's Wilson Betemit was everyone's hot-stuff SS prospect before Reyes (he's 3 years older) but is just now popping his head into MLB this year, and even that was largely because he was in an out-of-options/use-or-lose situation - Andy Marte was a year behind Wright and was brought up ... a year later - and even then only for injury and has since been sent back for not hitting (they have no patience over there) - Jeff Francouer is 13 months younger than Wright and was brought up a whopping 11 months later. No telling how much the 6 weeks Wright wasted in AAA that Francoeur didn't will mean to their careers - but then again the Mets were obviously too tied to the veteren Wigginton at the time. - Anaheim's Casey Kotchman? - Wright's age, at least as heralded, called-up later, since been sent back - Florida's Cabrera? - prolly the best young hitter in the game today ... was brought up when 2 months older than Reyes

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Now your turn for a straight answer:

The 1967 Mets and the 1984 Mets isn't straight enough for you?

And do you really think that "I'm open to listening to trades that could fix that, depending on the particular deal" is a straight answer? Uh, let's see-- Would Pujols-for-Heredia be good enough? How 'bout we throw in Cris Carpenter? Now, don't commit yourself to a position or anything. You want to think that one over carefully.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="Frayed Knot"] ]If Reyes could play ss in early June, don't you think he could have been able to play it in April? I do. Why wait until April, why not the previous August? Or maybe June? And if June was Okay why not start that season with him?

I don't want to get manipulated here into defending a position I never took. What I gave you above was mere logic--I think you'll concede that if Reyes could play MLB on June 10, 2003 then he very likely could have played it a day before, a week before, a month before. There's no way of knowing where to draw that line, of course, and it's a pretty stupid argument to have, but people here (most people, though I suspect that they'd deny it now if you asked them, human memory being as self-serving as it is) strongly advocated in June of 2003 leaving Reyes in the minors for a good long time, for his own good and for that of the team. Among other objections, as I recall, was the danger Reyes caused to the 2003 Mets' pennant chances, being a way-too-raw rookie and all.

It's THAT argument I'm opposing here. While I can't, of course, prove that he could have handled MLB pitching etc at the age of 18, or in the womb either, I can confidently assert that he

1) was fully capable of playing MLB ss at the age of 19 years and 364 days

and 2) the Mets were no way calling him up without a DL trip for the fabulous Rey Sanchez. If Sanchez had kept healthy, Reyes might still be in the minors, and I might still be getting told that bringing up a raw rookie at the premature age of 21 is crazy talk, especially for a team as close to the division lead as the Mets are (and in your dreams will always be.)

In arguing that (rather sound) position, I have decided to go to the extreme of arguing that, not only were the Mets perfectly correct to promote Reyes when they did (a fact I think barely disputable by now), but they could have promoted him earlier and only because of Sanchez's injury did they even consider promoting him when they did. This is not, IMO, the mark of a knowledgable organization: they made one of their few sharp moves in the last five years against their own judgment, and had to be dragged into that decision against their wills. Not what you want to see.

Pretty much the same story with Wright and Diaz.

I don't understand why you're asking me for chapter and verse of how Reyes' and Wright's 20- and 22-year-old contemporaries are doing. (Well, I DO understand why you're asking--because it's a load of work that no one other than a professional would have at his fingertips, and you're figuring that the donkeywork will keep me out your hair for a few months, but I'll give you credit here and just say that I don't understand why.) It's sufficient, and pretty indisputable from where I stand, to show all the HOFers and All-stars and GMOTP (Great Mets of the Past) who have played spectacularly well with very little minor league experience and at very tender ages, and to boot who were not called up to fill in for injured players but who won their jobs on merit out of ST because they were better players than the vets on the big club.

Good teams see that. (Who are the good teams? Uh, the mid-eighties and late sixties Mets, as I note above, the Tigers who promoted Kaline at 20, the Orioles who promoted Brooks Robinson at 20, the Dodgers who promoted the Davis boys at ages 20 and 21...I could go on and on and on, but you don't really give a shit, do you?) Now, maybe I'm just advocating that the Mets actuallly have some good players in their system to promote--certainly they need some serious improvement in scouting and player development--but it makes little difference if they had a system full of Willie Mayses and Babe Ruths, because the team's philosophy, taken from the Byrds' song, is "Churn, Churn, Churn." Why? Because they've foolishly decided that young talent is abundant, and they wouldn;t know how to recognize it if they had it, so why not make their young talent someone else's problem to develop while they go for the gusto?

Well, another indisputable fact has been the results of that philosophy--look at the standings at the end of any recent season to check out how that plan is progressing. At any moment, you've been justifying this foolish philosophy by showing how close you are to finishing in post-season play (which is fairly easy to do for the first half of any season for any team, no matter how woeful, and is sustainable, regardless of your team's quality or lack thereof, through much of the second half, given a weak enough division--but that sleight of hand doesn't make you a good team.)

By this point, KC has long since stopped reading this post, I'm sure, and Scarlet has become good and bored, and I know that Edgy hasn't read a single word I've written for quite a few months now (disciplined lad, he), so I usually feel free to express all sorts of excessive whining and posturing positions about now, but I'll simply say that I understand how little people like to visit this site to be reminded that they haven't got a good team. And if it pleases you to think that I'm pissing on your parade, and you should devote much energy to distorting what I say, and arguing against your distortion of my points, then go ahead, but it still won't give you a good team. It's just pretty to think so.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Matsui hasn't worked out, which is a shame. And it was dumb to have installed him at SS over Reyes. And we seemed to have underestimated how difficult it was to communicate effectively with him. That said, acquiring him in the first place wasn't a horrible gamble, IMO. It's obvious he has ability, even if it hadn't been fully realized due to what has to be more serious injuries than anyone would have guessed. You might recall he was the object of several teams' bids, and the organization as then constructed was in need of a middle infielder (minds had evidently been made up as to the ceiling of Garcia, correctly) and pickings were slim.

I appreciate your relative honesty in assessing the Matsui deal (at last) as unsuccessful --but it was a horrible gamble, because of the Mets' inability (refusal, IMO) to see that they had a bad ball club AT THE TIME and that spending megabucks on an (oxymoron coming) unproven veteran would only be a wise gamble for a strongly contending club that couldn't possibly afford to take even a small chance on leaving a vital cog in their powerful machine unfilled for the shortest time.

In retrospect (and I'll argue "at the time" as well), it would have been a much sharper gamble to go with a series of untested kids, on the chance that one of them would make serious progress, and you could fill a hole cheaply and concentrate on your other holes as well. (May I remind you that only a small part of this disasterous gamble had to do with the fact that the Mets at the time were far from having a hole at ss--rather that was their strongest position at the time, a sad fact that only makes the move more ironic. As we know now, it would have been a horrible mistake even if they'd played Matsui at 2b from the git-go, though I'm sure his defenders would have claimed that doing so would have been the root of all his problems--"If you move an All-Star Gold Glove SS to 2b, of course he's going to be demoralized, bbbyyy"). That's the sort of gambling I favor, and would find it easy to root for, not this tired old failure of a 'hired-gun" policy that screws the pooch as often as it succeeds.

Garcia would have flamed out? Maybe. But the real question is how much worse would he (or Wiggy or Keppinger or Scutaro or...) have been than Matsui has proven himself to be? I'd argue that any difference in OPS (if there even is a negative difference) isnt worth the defensive problems, the advanced age, the salary, the roster tie-up, the lack of control over the contract, and all the mishugaaas the Mets have taken on with Matsui.

[smg58]

Actually, I'm completely confused by the Red Sox' treatment of Youkilis. He has a higher OPS than Graffanino and Mueller can play some second, so unless his defense is really bad, I don't see why he hasn't gotten more of a chance. And the rumors of Lowell being brought in only confuse things further. I don't see the value of blocking younger guys with veterans who aren't better. (People interested in Alan Embree, take note.) And that has happened here too -- Padilla should have been brought up way before he was -- but I see no evidence that Reyes and Wright were held back.

The Matsui situation was bungled on so many levels there's no point in going into it anymore. I don't see it as though they should have committed to rebuilding, though, because giving Scutaro a chance or grabbing a cheap second baseman would have meant having the money to make a real bid for Vladi.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think the Mets had money to give to Vladimir Guerrero. They just didn't want to, because of their fears over his back.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

smg58 wrote: The Matsui situation was bungled on so many levels there's no point in going into it anymore.

Thanks for illustrating my point, inadvertantly, that we often go straight from "X is true, and I dare to you to prove with exhaustive studies that it's not" to "X is false, as we all know" with no middle stage at all. As an illustration, Dickshot was trying to convince me (as we stood on the IRT coming back from Shea earlier this season) that Matsui still would turn it around and show his critics, etc. rather passionately, and now he's all "Yeah, he sucks HMC, we know that, for sure"--it's to his credit that he's changed his mind, but do all the sinners who argued with him before his conversion now get to be made saints? (See avatar.)

As to the Sox, I'm just beginning to know their full roster, minor league situation, etc.--I will report on the Youkilis situation when I get more informed.

[Willets Point]

Aw, Bret has a Christ complex, how cute!!!

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Willets Point wrote: Aw, Bret has a Christ complex, how cute!!!

Yup, thought of that one all by myself, too. You know how prone I am to exaggerating everything.

[seawolf17]

In defense of Matsui, he was very good in Japan. VERY good. Not a world-beater, but very good. I'm willing to agree that they screwed it up, and they probably shouldn't have screwed with Reyes at all, but it wasn't a disaster at the time. This guy was going to come here, play every day (which he did in Japan), hit a handful of home runs (which he did in Japan, although we expected less than he hit there), steal bases (which he did in Japan), and be a catalyst (which he was in Japan). It sucks that it didn't work out, but it was not a complete disaster until recently. I believe most of the baseball pundits -- and a lot of us, IIRC -- figured him to have a solid year this year, now that he knew the league a little better. Now that he's hurt, and now that it's clear that he hasn't become the player we'd hoped, it looks ugly.

I felt much more confident with Matsui's resume coming into 2004 than I would have with Marco Scutaro, or Ty Wigginton, or some random prospect from the Pirates who nobody had heard of until he arrived here. Besides, he was only 28! He's still not even 30! He's supposed to be in the prime of his career, and we didn't know that he would fall apart when he was signed.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't think getting Matsui was a dumb move. (The dumb part was having him displace Reyes at shortstop.) I think it was a reasonable risk. His offense in 2004 was fine; it's the bad defense that was the surprise and what led to the bad outcome.

[Guest Rotblatt]

]I will report on the Youkilis situation when I get more informed.

Most of us idiotically drooling Mets fans would probably find a way to justify sending down a 26-year old with a .812 OPS who can play 3B, 1B & 2B in favor of a 33-year old journeyman utility inflielder currently playing above his head at a .804 OPS level (his career OPS over 10 years is .723), but I'm sure you Sox fans are made of sterner stuff . . .

Anyway, I was checking out BP's Adjusted Standings this morning and discovered that we SHOULD be in first place by a half game, going by our third-order wins & losses. Your third-order standings are:

1. Mets 51.7 / 43.3
2. Braves 51.9 / 44.1
3. Phillies 49.6 / 46.4
4. Marlins 47.3 / 45.7
5. Nationals 45.9 / 50.1

Not as good as the Sox, sure, but one could say that the only difference between the Sox's place in their division and ours is, well, luck. Unless you credit managers with the ability to meet or exceed their team's Pythagorean projections, in which case, one would say the difference is our managers, although the Sox are -2.5 wins below their projections, just .2 better than ours.

As for going 0-3 in the first round of the playoffs, we just swept the team we'd face in the first round if everyone met their projections. Would we have a chance against the Cardinals? Not much of one, but then, if, going into the playoffs last year, you had told me the Sox would beat the Yankees after dropping the first three games, then sweep the Cardinals, I'd have laughed in your face.

I'm not saying we should sell the farm to try and compete this year, but we're really not as bad as you think we are, Bret. Or, perhaps more accurately, the rest of the league isn't as good as you think it is.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Alow me to speak for myself, wouldya? I said putting Matsui at shortstop over Reyes was a poor decision, and believed as much from the start. The deal is bad one in retrospect because he's been hurt so often, not that he SBHMC. I think he'd have made a good middle infielder were he healthy (switch hits, little pop, fast, etc). What I probably trying to relate to you on the train was that the asswipes booing him at Shea were hateful and embarrassing and I believed that Matsui could play well enough to shut them up. I don't think he can stay healthy enough to now is all that's changed.

I suspect the whole 2003 budget in the end was more about Fred's decision to give 53 million US dollars to Jim Dolan rather than to his GM or a ballplayer.

[Frayed Knot]

]I don't understand why you're asking me for chapter and verse of how Reyes' and Wright's 20- and 22-year-old contemporaries are doing.

Because you constantly insist that the two players - promoted at ages 19 & 21 and each w/only a few months of above A-ball under their belts - were unconscionably left to rot in the minors by holding team mgmt to a standard which doesn't seem to exist. If this is uniquely a Met problem then where are the players who promotion schedules makes these two look like a couple of slacker turtles and why are they both STILL among the youngest players in MLB 1 & 2 years past their callups?
Had this not been your orignial and continuing thesis I never would have entered the discussion.

]It's sufficient, and pretty indisputable from where I stand, to show all the HOFers and All-stars and GMOTP (Great Mets of the Past) who have played spectacularly well with very little minor league experience and at very tender ages, and to boot who were not called up to fill in for injured players but who won their jobs on merit out of ST because they were better players than the vets on the big club.

So you don't understand why I ask about contemporaries, yet your response that the '51 Giants called Willie Mays up at a similar (note: similar, not faster*) schedule - therefore everyone else should also - is somehow relevent?
This all reminds me of an old 'Mad' magazine article: "I Clawed my Way to the Top so Why Can't those Other Punk Kids' -- by David Eisenhower



* Older (by a few weeks) than Reyes at his callup - also not taken out of spring training.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Alow me to speak for myself, wouldya? .

Gladly.

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I believed that Matsui could play well enough to shut them up.

This really isn't so far from what i said you said, but your version is more accurate. I didn't mean to imply that any references to sucking BHMC were actually uttered.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Frayed Knot wrote: you constantly insist that the two players - promoted at ages 19 & 21 and each w/only a few months of above A-ball under their belts - were unconscionably left to rot in the minors by holding team mgmt to a standard which doesn't seem to exist.

"Rotting" and such is your language, not mine. I began simply by advocating their callups while they were still in the minors, and getting some serious derision ("give-up" talk) for saying so. (You remember my "back up the truck" talk--very unpopular around these parts.) I was met by a lot of Nervous Nellies telling me how nuts it was to think a 19 y.o. punk could hit his weight, or even his age, in MLB, especially when the 2003 Mets were so clearly in contention with the great Sanchez stanchioning their quietly powerful infield.

Then when Sanchez blessedly got hurt, and Reyes was called up, with the Mets brass kicking and screaming and CYAing all over the place, I heard "This will never work." I was good so far, but then I took the extreme rhetorical point that not only was this a wise callup, I'm not at all sure that calling Reyes up sooner wouldn't have been equally wise. OE: It's a smart move even if it doesn't work because the 2003 Mets, going nowhere and hemorrhaging money, needed to make some roster dumps, get some young blood in the lineup, get some hustle and attitude-adjustments on the team, etc. regardless of the effect on the 2003 standings, which as it turned out sucked BHMC anyhow.

It wasn't necessary to make my point (that Reyes was fuilly qualified at 20 to play MLB ss) to go overboard and claim that he was also quite possibly qualfied at 19, at 18 or in the womb, but that's the point you choose to focus on, and since I did make the point, I'll discuss it, though I would prefer to stick to my original position, which is this: playing young kids is not a give up position, and the Mets' annual results show that even if it were a give up position, it's hard to finish worse than in last place.

You of course may argue any position you like, as long as it's focused on making me seem silly rather than discussing my actual point.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: His offense in 2004 was fine; it's the bad defense that was the surprise and what led to the bad outcome.

Apart from that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

[Guest KC]

We should probably try to limit cussing in sig lines to one cuss. Two is
overkill and any new readers might get the impression that we're boors.

[Guest Rotblatt]

]It wasn't necessary to make my point (that Reyes was fuilly qualified at 20 to play MLB ss) to go overboard and claim that he was also quite possibly qualfied at 19, at 18 or in the womb, but that's the point you choose to focus on, and since I did make the point, I'll discuss it, though I would prefer to stick to my original position, which is this: playing young kids is not a give up position, and the Mets' annual results show that even if it were a give up position, it's hard to finish worse than in last place.

Bret, who, exactly, are you arguing with? I don't see anyone saying that we shouldn't be playing young kids, and I see a number of us saying that we SHOULD be playing them--Padilla, Seo, Heilman & Keppinger before he got hurt have all been promoted to death by many of us here, and Anderson is the new flavor of the month. And many of us have been saying that we could do all that without hurting our chances this year, which is exactly what you're saying.

Why do you insist on attacking positions supposedly held years ago by "all of us" that no one is currently making?

As for Reyes being qualified, I posted stats that pretty clearly show that he wasn't qualified and still had a lot to learn before getting called up. Management came to the same conclusion you did--that he might as well do his learning in the majors. So, again, what's the problem?

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="Rotblatt"] ]It wasn't necessary to make my point (that Reyes was fuilly qualified at 20 to play MLB ss) to go overboard and claim that he was also quite possibly qualfied at 19, at 18 or in the womb, but that's the point you choose to focus on, and since I did make the point, I'll discuss it, though I would prefer to stick to my original position, which is this: playing young kids is not a give up position, and the Mets' annual results show that even if it were a give up position, it's hard to finish worse than in last place. Bret, who, exactly, are you arguing with? I don't see anyone saying that we shouldn't be playing young kids, and I see a number of us saying that we SHOULD be playing them--Padilla, Seo, Heilman & Keppinger before he got hurt have all been promoted to death by many of us here, and Anderson is the new flavor of the month. And many of us have been saying that we could do all that without hurting our chances this year, which is exactly what you're saying. Why do you insist on attacking positions supposedly held years ago by "all of us" that no one is currently making? As for Reyes being qualified, I posted stats that pretty clearly show that he wasn't qualified and still had a lot to learn before getting called up. Management came to the same conclusion you did--that he might as well do his learning in the majors. So, again, what's the problem?

As I noted to smg above we go straight from "you're nuts and I'm offended" to "Of course, and I and everyone has always felt so" very easily around here.

Now this was the sort of thing that, when we had archives, I used to delight in demonstrating, only to be told often as not that "who cares about the dim and distant past, man? Move on. Live in the present."

Hey, all I can say is, if it doesn't apply to you then don't defend it. Let me invent my delusional adversaries and poke them with sharp sticks, okay? It was hard enough making people defend their foolish positions with archives--without them, I understand everyone's going to run away at light speed from their past statements. Dudn't mean I'm going to let them go gratis, just means I no longer have the hard evidence, is all.

Reyes' qualifications have little to do with stats and everything to do with seeing a talented ballplayer. As I said in re Seaver above, his stats and his minor league experience told you that he needed another few seasons in the minors. But some smart guy decided he looked like a pitcher, and so he was.

The Mets need to hire some smart guys.

They certainly need to hire at least one.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

KC wrote: We should probably try to limit cussing in sig lines to one cuss. Two is overkill and any new readers might get the impression that we're boors.

Or we could limit the cussing in actual posts. Nah, we wouldn;t want that. How could people ever let me know what they think of me, then? (See avatar.)

[Willets Point]

I'm going to go on record to say that Bret's new avatar is more disturbing than this:

[Guest KC]

I apologize if depicting you as a persecuted christ-like image insulted you.
We used to have fun here by razzing each other.