God help me I'm Armando Benitez!

[nymr83]

Quick, how many posts 'til the next level?

In "honor" of being Benitez I'll recap what I remember most about his Met career:

Down the stretch in 2001, the mets are putting together an improbable run at the division until Armando blows 2 saves against the division-leading Braves within a week in September. the Mets eventually end up 6 games out.

2000 NLDS game 2, Armando coughs up the lead with a 3-run bomb in the ninth to JT Snow, gets the W by deafult when the Mets win it in the 10th.

2000 WS Benitez blows it in the 9th long before trhe yanks win it in the 11th

[Guest themetfairy]

Quit whining, lose some weight, and don't bust up the bathroom, ok?

[Theoldmole]

And honor of your namesake, Fairy, are you going to tune in, turn on and drop out?

[Guest themetfairy]

I did the dropping out thing already

[Guest AG/DC]

Also worth remembering: Armando was inhumanly superlative during that improbable stretch.

[Elster88]

Nymr83 wrote: Quick, how many posts 'til the next level? In "honor" of being Benitez I'll recap what I remember most about his Met career: Down the stretch in 2001, the mets are putting together an improbable run at the division until Armando blows 2 saves against the division-leading Braves within a week in September. the Mets eventually end up 6 games out. 2000 NLDS game 2, Armando coughs up the lead with a 3-run bomb in the ninth to JT Snow, gets the W by deafult when the Mets win it in the 10th. 2000 WS Benitez blows it in the 9th long before trhe yanks win it in the 11th

The 24th most productive Met by the CPF's (very-good) ranking system.

[nymr83]

the system measures longevity in a met uniform more than anything else.

[Guest KC]

ny83: >>>the system measures longevity in a met uniform more than anything else<<<

Sometimes when I look at the top 100 I wonder how some guys are ahead
of others, and there is some truth to what you say, but I think you're painting
with too large of a dismissive brush.

Go find some threads where Armando is ranked and make a case.

[Frayed Knot]

="Nymr83"]the system measures longevity in a met uniform more than anything else.

It measures logevity in addition to quality.

IOW, not only did less than 10% of the players who ever pulled on a NYM shirt hang around long enough to see 5 seasons with the team as Armando did, but he was ranked (by your fellow CPFers) as the 5th, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, and 14th best Met during those 5 seasons - two of which were for playoff-bound teams.

Had he been ranked as say the 10th best Met during those first four seasons his final rank would drop some 35 spots and obviously mediocre and worse grades would drop him even further.
The bottom line is that if you're unhappy with his final spot your complaint is more with the rankers than with the system.

[Guest AG/DC]

Nymr83 wrote: the system measures longevity in a met uniform more than anything else.

Come on.

[RealityChuck]

Benitez was overall a good reliever, but with the unfortunate tendency of blowing saves at particularly bad times.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

No such thing as a good time.

[soupcan]

AG/DC wrote: Also worth remembering: Armando was inhumanly superlative during that improbable stretch.

Agitator.

[Guest AG/DC]

It's the culture that's agitated. I'm going to plant a truth tree in the midst of that, even as it gets ripped up by a tornado of hate every time.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I know that this is gonna be unpopular but I always liked Benitez, warts and all. Was there any Met reliever who was better than Benitez during his Met stint? And wasn't Benitez always one of baseball's best relievers during his years as a Met? Maybe I'm misremembering, but there were surely better relief pitchers around, but not too many.

[soupcan]

Another agitator!

[HahnSolo]

Nymr83 wrote: Quick, how many posts 'til the next level? In "honor" of being Benitez I'll recap what I remember most about his Met career: Down the stretch in 2001, the mets are putting together an improbable run at the division until Armando blows 2 saves against the division-leading Braves within a week in September. the Mets eventually end up 6 games out.

I'll duck from the stones being thrown my way, but technically, one of those was not a blown "save". A 5-1 lead going into the 9th of one of the games, so it was not a save situation. He did blow the game, but not the save.

[Frayed Knot]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: ... wasn't Benitez always one of baseball's best relievers during his years as a Met? Maybe I'm misremembering, but there were surely better relief pitchers around, but not too many.

Compare AB to his contemporary closers in IP, Saves, Save Pct, ERA, BAA, WHiP, K/9, etc. and "one of the better ones" is a very accurate assessment.

His detractors all then fell back to the "worst possible moment" argument but;
1) for late inning guys there rarely is a good time to have a bad game
2) a realistic reading of his blown games show his failures to be widely distributed among the opponent and time of year and that (contrary to popular belief) the only discernable pattern was that there was no discernable pattern.

[Centerfield]

For the most part, the Mets played from 1999 to 2001 with almost no room for error. Any time Benitez, or anyone else, blew a save would have been "the worst time".

[Guest themetfairy]

Centerfield wrote: For the most part, the Mets played from 1999 to 2001 with almost no room for error. Any time Benitez, or anyone else, blew a save would have been "the worst time".

And here we go again....