On Valentin, Split from Quotes Thread

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

For a guy who lost his job and got demoted to ride pine and who spent major time on the DL last year, Kaz seems to have played an awful lot.

I did miss WIllie's announcement that Kaz had played himself out of a starting job and was relegated to the bench for the rest of his contract. That would have been some comfort to me, if were paying closer attention.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

All I'm saying is that things did not go as you said they did last year, and likely won't again this year. Marty Noble today rather boldly notes:

]Last season, Randolph played the Miguel Cairo rather than Kaz Matsui, who is far more mobile, at second base, particularly when Martinez pitched, making sure that potential double plays were turned. Matsui won't be unseating Hernandez if and when he returns from the disabled list.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

"Matsui won't be unseating Hernandez if and when he returns from the disabled list"

A pretty bold prediction. So if Hernandez is going to hit .126, Willie's going to ride him into the grave, and leave the Mets' 8 million dollar mistake on the bench? I'd like to see that.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

This is futile. You pick one argument "Matsui plays because he's higher paid" and when that's proven wrong it's onto another argument: "The Mets are too stupid to play Matsui" or "The Mets lied when they said Matsui hadn't missed in time in japan" or whatever.

It doesn;t seem like you have anything to discuss. You just wanna argue.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Well, there's a lot to complain about here, Johnny. let me try to simplify the argument: the Mets have invested far too much in propping up the image of Matsui as a MLB player. They probably on some level realized what I realized long ago: this guy's talent makes him a bench player, or part-time player, on a mediocre ballclub, and make him a minor league player on a contending club. IOW, they made a horrible mistake in signing him and if they want to contend, they need to get a real second baseman. Maybe they could contend by making him a 8 million dollar
UT infielder, but he might be too unhappy with that to make it worthwhile. So they give him every chance in the universe to claim a starting job while they try to contend.

It's bad enough they took two years to figure this out, if figure it they did. Remember how he was totally fucking up his audition this ST in a supposedly "open competition" and he still had the edge on the job according to Willie's public statements? Does that tell you nothing? The fact that he again hurt himself is what allowed Hernandez to claim the job. Personally, I'm rooting for Hernandez to start hitting and make plausible the claim that he's earned the job, but if doesn't then Kaz has (once again) the arguable claim that he's the best 2b option the Mets have, and they're so committed to CYA that they'll go along with it, at least until their financial investment is almost completely gone.

I do like arguing.

[Elster88]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="Elster88"] ]But they stuck with him faithfully NQA the last two years Is this why you Cairo got so much time last year? You forget that another reason he got so much time the past two years was the lack of alternatives. Actually "ignore" is a better fit there than "forget". Youo keep ignoring the fact that Cairo played when Kaz got hurt, as impossible as that was to foretell. They did not choose to sit the 8 mil dollar man down. As long as he could play, he played. They aren;t wasting any money, no siree. What's important, baseball judgment or financial judgment? Who starts and who sits around here? That's easy--what does their contracts say?

Yeah, Kaz did get as much time or more. But he's a better player than Cairo. Who did you want to play in Kaz's stead? Anderson Hernandez? We've seen how that worked out.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I wanted (and want) them to suck it up and get a real secondbaseman. I want them to stop investing another minute in Kaz's non-existent future, and stop investing another second explaining how he's starting to look like he's turning it around, and make a priority of getting a second baseman.

How, you ask? Maybe by trading Jay Seo or Kris Benson for one instead of dumping them for middle relief. Maybe by trading Cliff Floyd for Soriano and promoting Milledge or by playing Nady and Diaz fulltime. Maybe by seeing how Keppinger on O and Hernandez on D will do as a secondbase combo at the start of '05. Maybe by shelling out big bucks for Grudzy or whoever was available as a FA. What I don't want them to do is whine, as they've been whining for two years "But we're stuck with Kaz. Some big bad meanie made us sign him to a LT Big bucks deal with a NT clauser, so we're have to keep playing this lousy suck ass non-MLB yoyo until his contract runs out."

[Elster88]

I agree with all that. Fortunately, thus far this year the lack of a second baseman doesn't seem to be hurting the team.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Don't agree with either of you.

Matsui's problem isn't that he sucks, necessarily, but that he's been unreliable, health wise.

And Anderson Hernandez' poor hitting is hurting this team... fortunately it hasn't shown up in the results yet.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

At his healthiest, he's never been close to adequate defensively at ss or 2b.

And his batting (low OBP, a little bit of occasional pop) doesn't start to bring him up to adequate.

Throw in the unreliable health, and he's about 7.5 mil overpriced at best on an 8 mil contract

If the Mets were to release him, how much would you pay for his contract the rest of '06? I wonder if you could name me a figure that would be anywhere near what I think he get.

[Elster88]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Matsui's problem isn't that he sucks, necessarily, but that he's been unreliable, health wise.

I've been saying this all along.

What I meant above is that I agree that I'd have liked them to trade Seo and Benson for other players than what they got. Though I'm liking the Seo trade more and more every day.

Johnny Dickshot wrote: And Anderson Hernandez' poor hitting is hurting this team... fortunately it hasn't shown up in the results yet.

That's what I meant.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]It's just the kind of thing you never saw he & Kaz perform together.

Well, there's this:

(I hope that's not going to come out as a disgusting picture.)

I think Reyes is an athletic talented baseball players and does stuff like that because he enjoys being around other athletic talented baseball players, who challenge him in his game.

I think if we haven't seen a lot of that goofy stuff involving him and Matusi, it's (a, 40%) becasue Reyes and Matsui haven't gotten enough time together, (b, 30%) because Matsui's injuries have isolated him from his teammates even more than his linguistic and cultural differences already had, and (c, 30%) because Reyes now sees Hernandez as a good partner in one-upmanship. but has to some degree or another moved on from viewing Matusi as a guy with enough ability on defense to trade plays with him*, just as we have moved on from Jose Valentin as a suject of this thread.
_______________
*c, partially being a product of a and b, partially just being the facts.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Edgy DC wrote: Matusi

Or any Matusi tribesman, really

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Isn't that the dance that's made just for romance?

[seawolf17]

We heard you the first two times, Yance.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Weird.

I guess that comment was so dumb it had to be repeated twice.

[Guest abogdan]

Just to get this Valentin thread back on track, Anderson Hernandez is on the bench today getting a day off against Livan. Righthanded hitting Chris Woodward is in the lineup instead of the lefty Valentin.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I don't remember where it was questioned, but Matsui did most of his 8th place hitting last year in May.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I never noticed that cool "pos #" thing before, and I'm a real UMDB junkie. Is it new?

Useful info in the "WWSB isn't learning" argument. If WWSB had batted him 8th in September, then you might be able to argue that he finally figured out that he wasn't cutting it at the top of the lineup.

Brought to you by "CRAP FROM THE PAST."



OE: more typos.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Yes, brand new.