Farewell to Wallace Matthews

[bmfc1]

Good riddance, I mean good luck!, to Wallace Matthews. He's not leaving NY, but he's left Newsday to join ESPN NY as the Yankees reporter. That means no more lame columns about the Mets.

http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2010/04/espnnewyork-com-announces-contributors/

http://espn.go.com/newyork/

Edited April 1, 2010 by Guest

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

So, ESPN NY is run by illiterates, then?

[Guest Kong76]

ESPN NY is looking to take over everything ... Wally's head must be
bigger than ever.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I found out the site is being run by Leon Carter who was the Snooze's sports editor. Site is supposed to launch in the am.

[metirish]

I think Wally was never going to last at Newsday once MSG and Dolan took over . Wally used to kill him in the paper.

[nymr83]

good riddance! let him write about just the yankees where i'll have no compulsion to ever read him.

[A Boy Named Seo]

We've had our ESPN-LA for a while. Most times I'm there, it's an accident.

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/

[metirish]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I found out the site is being run by Leon Carter who was the Snooze's sports editor. Site is supposed to launch in the am.

Launched

http://espn.go.com/new-york/index

The roster of columnists is very familiar

[Frayed Knot]

Kicking it off with a Buster Olney Q&A session starting at 9AM

[Ceetar]

I'm not sure we need even more coverage, even if it is just recycled people from other venues.

I guess i'll find out if things from there start popping up as 'must read', but so far it's not worth reading the main stream media about the Mets since they are incapable of forming an opinion that's not heavily supported by all the other media guys, and the negativity cycle just continues.

[HahnSolo]

I tend to like O'Connor, Rubin and Kieran Darcy.

They have a pretty strong douche contingent in Wally, Marchand, and Coutinho, though.

[HahnSolo]

Ceetar wrote: I'm not sure we need even more coverage, even if it is just recycled people from other venues. I guess i'll find out if things from there start popping up as 'must read', but so far it's not worth reading the main stream media about the Mets since they are incapable of forming an opinion that's not heavily supported by all the other media guys, and the negativity cycle just continues.

Too much of ESPN's on-line stuff is hidden behind their "Insider" walls, so I tend not to do much more on their sites than browse headlines.

[Ceetar]

I've never been a following of any of the beat writer guys close enough to care anyway, but not really a fan of Rubin, especially after last year.

coutinho had a very enlightening interview with Pelfrey the other day that pretty much erased any of the (small) worry I had over his Spring though.



There's just so much info out there. And with Twitter and blogs I already read, and here, news will come to me if it's worth reading. So that's on them.

[metirish]

David Wright's Helmet has submitted a question.

[metirish]

There's a chat with Rubin at 9:30 and with Wally at 10...in fact it looks like these chats will be a big feature of the site. In Olney's chat on the right side they have all the upcoming chats, and there's a whole lot.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm in the Rubin queue now but forgot to ask under a goofy name.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Got to me right away though he didn't answer the $24 million question:

Jonny (Brooklyn) Hey Adam, Sorry to see you leave the News, I'm an old school hard-copy reader. What should we make of the rotation switcheroo? Is this supposed to have sent a message to Pelfrey and Perez especially, and do you expect they will receive it? $24M is a lot to eat, do they dare? Adam Rubin They want to get off to a good start, and want to go with the hottest pitchers in the first series. It's probably a message thing, too. Jerry said it was because of Pelfrey's numbers against the Marlins. That's spin. He knew that weeks earlier.

[Ceetar]

It's an example of managing scared, and I wish Manuel would s top trying to send veiled messages to his players through the media and instead challenge Pelfrey to step up and beat the Marlins. Show confidence in his players instead of basically criticizing them behind their backs.

[batmagadanleadoff]

What if this move is a show of confidence in Niese?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'd like to think that that's what it is.

[Ceetar]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: What if this move is a show of confidence in Niese?

Then he shouldn't have said "I don't want Pelfrey to face the Marlins."

[G-Fafif]

What's the point of Mike Pelfrey if we have to hide him from a division rival in April?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think Mike Pelfrey still has too much potential to give up on him, but he's, at the present time, not as good as we'd like him to be.

[metirish]

G-Fafif wrote: What's the point of Mike Pelfrey if we have to hide him from a division rival in April?

Yeah this , it's been the same the last few seasons too with Pelfrey and the Marlins, shuffling him to avoid them in a key late season game is one thing(I don't like it) but doing it now is for losers.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Let's not go too far afield.

It's obvious the move was done in reaction to their poor performances this spring, my question was really whether this is the kind of thing that could jolt or motivate a player, trigger some primal jock response or even make clear the tenuousness of their jobs, or whether it's no big deal to them. I mean, I think at some level athletes in pro team sports are driven not to disappoint or fall behind one another, and to that extent I wondered the weight at which the rotation order carries.

I don't think Rubin really answered this.

[metirish]

Fair points JCL. Pelfrey doesn't strike me as the kind of person that gets mad at anything and my impression of him is that he probably shrugged his shoulders at this.

[Ceetar]

metirish wrote: G-Fafif wrote: What's the point of Mike Pelfrey if we have to hide him from a division rival in April? Yeah this , it's been the same the last few seasons too with Pelfrey and the Marlins, shuffling him to avoid them in a key late season game is one thing(I don't like it) but doing it now is for losers.

Exactly. I have a lot of faith in Pelfrey this year, we'll see how it goes, but this is pretty much exactly why I think Manuel is the worst manager I've ever seen on the Mets. He does similar stuff in game as well. How about when he pulls pitchers (and I've heard people bring this up in general) at 5.2, etc. You're teaching these guys that there is always a safety net, and you don't challenge them to go all the way, to finish things off, to battle when they're tired or struggling. Teaching them how to overcome these things that are present in just about every game is important, because any talented major league pitcher is going to have success when they're feeling good, and all their pitches are working perfectly.

Rubin didn't answer it because he doesn't know what Manuel was really thinking, just what he said. But why should you punish a guy that's just working on things in games that don't count who's guarenteed a job?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Isn't it also possible that they wanted to break up the bullpen-taxers-- Maine and Perez being the most flagrant-- so as not to deplete the rubber-arm brigade in the first couple of weeks?

That said, though I'm with G-F, et. al., on the Hiding-Pelf issue... I do like the matchup of Niese on Florida a lot. Ramirez aside, they're a team of fastball hitters-- Uggla, Cantu... even young buck Sanchez profiles that way. They're guys you can make miss "back and forth" in the zone more than "side to side" (which is to say, mixing speeds and loopy stuff messes them up, but they can hold up on outside-the-zone stuff). The kid's curve should give them night terrors.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And it's perfectly OK to see the swap as an investment in Niese's development, rather than a divestment in Pelf's.

[ashie62]

I have no idea what Jerry is doing with the SP. Maybe the intent is to set Niese aflutter and make Pelfrey cry. The rotation will likely be a work in progress.