IGT 9/3/05 - Mets vs. Marlins

[Valadius]

Mets

Reyes SS
Cairo 2B
Beltran CF
Floyd LF
Wright 3B
Mientkiewicz 1B
Castro C
Diaz RF
Benson P

Marlins

Pierre CF
Castillo 2B
Cabrera LF
Delgado 1B
Encarnacion RF
Lo Duca C
Lowell 3B
Gonzalez SS
Beckett P

Pitching Matchup: Benson (9-6, 3.91) vs. Beckett (12-8, 3.62)

[Guest Iubitul]

Cairo batting second again... Will someone please rip the pinstriped glasses off of WWSB?

[Valadius]

He's had one too many toasted Subway sandwiches...

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

]Mientkiewicz 1B

Here's hoping this fella works his ass off to redeem his season and ours.

[Valadius]

He was doing just that before he got hurt. IIRC, his average was starting to creep up.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Yup.

All Doug, all the time, to infinity and beyond.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: ]Mientkiewicz 1B Here's hoping this fella works his ass off to redeem his season and ours.

Very neat trick.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Cairo must have some dirt on Willie from their Yankee days. That's the only thing that makes sense of his love for Cairo.

Thank goodness Heredia is gone or Willie would probably have him closing games.

[Valadius]

Mientkiewicz went 8 for 12 in the last three games he was up here before yesterday.

[Valadius]

Just about game time.

Let's go METS!!!

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I guess Willie is starting to persuade some of you that he is a very limited thinker. That's a long way from "a stupid man," an "assclown," a "hateful weasel," and much else (largely undeserved--I wish him well on his next managerial post), but it's good to see that "Shower-Love-on-Willie" act is coming to a close.

It's one thing to hire people he's familiar with, though were bazillions of better options for middle-infield, just not all former AL or AL East or Yankees. Not that his choices have all been as bad as Cairo, but the sabermetric approach says "If you give 500 ABs to 3 retread middle infielders who have a long track record of not producing, you will not be happy with the overall numbers at season's end." The non-sabermetric approach, I suppose, says, "Let's Go, Mets! Yay, Willie!" and then you're all bummed out in September.

But it's another thing to stick with the bad choices for so long. That's the truly disturbing part.

[Valadius]

The start of the game is being delayed due to "wet grounds".

[Guest SI Metman]

Game ON

[duan]

I just don't get why we keep dissing Diaz in the lineup.

If you look at the team in terms of eqa it goes
David Wright .313
Cliff Floyd .296
Victor Diaz .288
Mike Cameron .285
Ramon Castro .283
Chris Woodward .266
Carlos Beltran .265
Mike Piazza .265
Doug Mientkiewicz .264
Jose Reyes .252
Marlon Anderson .244
Miguel Cairo .229
Kaz Matsui .211

AND he's 4th in the team in OBP so it's not like they can say he's a low obp with pop guy that might be suited to 7 slot.

Now Diaz is a GIDP machine (he's had 48 GIDP opportunities and 12 'successful' GIDP's - that's a rate of 25%) So we need to figure out what's the correct balance between protecting from the GIDP and maximise his value to the lineup.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=24665

I'd be on for trying out batting him 2nd on the basis that Reyes is pretty hard to double up and that with Beltran 3rd it'd be another "hard to double guy behind him"

Batting him 7th/8th in front of or behind Castro, Minky et al is a recipe for the GIDP bonanza that we've had AND minimising the impact of his excellent hitting.

****
EqA

Equivalent Average. A measure of total offensive value per out, with corrections for league offensive level, home park, and team pitching. EQA considers batting as well as baserunning, but not the value of a position player's defense. The EqA adjusted for all-time also has a correction for league difficulty. The scale is deliberately set to approximate that of batting average. League average EqA is always equal to .260. EqA is derived from Raw EqA, which is (H + TB + 1.5*(BB + HBP + SB) + SH + SF) divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF + CS + SB). REqA is then normalized to account for league difficulty and scale to create EqA.[/url]

[Guest Iubitul]

I would love to see

Reyes
Beltran
Wright
Floyd

as 1-4

[Zvon]

if Beckett paints that outside corner all evening like he did in the 1st, we are in a world of trouble.

Id like to watch this game uninterupted tonight.

Omar.......hold all my calls.

[Zvon]

Oh, I wanted Floyd so much to make a fool out of me for my fatigue statement last night, but the ball dies at the warning track.
Damn.

Maybe those raindrops drove it down.

OUCH.Wright had a pitch to hit there.
Mienky hits a hard out.

Lets just hope that Benson has a primo game on the mound.
He looked great in the 1st.

[Valadius]

Wright is a more dangerous hitter than Floyd, though, IMO. Therefore, it should be as follows:

Reyes
Beltran
Floyd
Wright

And then find someone to protect Wright.

[Valadius]

Now that I think about it, I have a better idea - get another big bat that allows Floyd to move to 5th.

[Valadius]

Zeros through two.

[Valadius]

I had a strange feeling that Castro would get the first hit of the day.

[Valadius]

Benson walks, runners on first and second with one out, and here's Reyes.

[Valadius]

Reyes grounds out, runners advance, 2 out, and here's goddamn Cairo with runners in scoring position.

[seawolf17]

Hey, Cairo! You suck!

[Valadius]

I really hate Cairo.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

All for naught.

Stil no score heading to the bottom of the third.

[nymr83]

we want Hernandez NOW!

[Valadius]

Ramon Castro has a better batting average than Carlos Beltran. That is SAD.

[Zvon]

thought we'd capitalize there.
Seein eye single,
he walks Benson,
Reyes moves em over with a decent AB,
then Beckett makes a fool out of Cairo on that outside corner.

Cant let opportunities like that go by.
Not vs Beckett.

[Zvon]

Benson lookin good tho., so theres that