Let's Get Animal: On Chris Carter

[seawolf17]

I love Def Leppard; probably one of my ten favorite bands of all time.

Actually, there was a blond girl in Poison's "Ride The Wind" video who I remember fondly as well.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Watching for number 23.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Wow, between RA Dickey's parent of the year and this story, them media sure lurves the Mets.

[metirish]

I missed the Dickey story , what's that about?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

He reads to his kids! In the game thread.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Chris Carter is one of several Met feel-good stories that have developed over the last month or so. But I've got a hunch that if the Mets make any significant trade during this season, especially with an AL team, Carter's gone.

[Guest Edgy DC]

With Martinez and Beltran over the horizon, he could certainly become ever more redundant, but I'm hoping this is the squad they go forward with.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

And if he is made redundant, well... he's got himself a backup plan. (JCL, you weren't kidding about the press love.)

CLEVELAND�Chris Carter looked at it this way: If professional baseball didn't work out for him, if his proficiency for putting bat to ball wasn't proficient enough to earn him a major-league career, he always had other options. There was the dedifferentiation of blood cells. There was stem-cell research. There was cloning. "I had a plan," he said. It involved the marriage of two worlds that could hardly be more different. Since the Mets recalled him from Triple-A on May 11, Mr. Carter has hit .250 and driven in 11 runs over 36 at-bats, becoming a valuable lefthanded bat off the bench who can serve as a designated hitter when the team plays its interleague schedule. In fact, in a recent series in Baltimore, he hit two three-run home runs, each of which drove in the winning run in a Mets victory. It is his scholastic background and an earnestness and work ethic that border on the obsessive, though, that have set Mr. Carter apart not merely from the other 24 players in the Mets' clubhouse, but from most in Major League Baseball. He played for three years at Stanford University, batting .277 with 23 home runs during his career there, and the reason he played three years, not four, is that it took him just that long to graduate with a degree in human biology. "He was one of those remarkable students who balanced excelling in sports and academics," said Dr. Ellen Porzig, a professor in the Stanford School of Medicine, who taught and mentored Mr. Carter. "I remember him as a very bright, balanced, straightforward guy who, I thought, would be a great doctor someday." As of June 2009, fewer than 30 major-league players had earned four-year college degrees, according to a Wall Street Journal report, so Mr. Carter's academic accomplishments make him something of an oddity by contemporary baseball standards. He had been an honorable-mention All-America selection at De La Salle High School in Concord, Calif., and anticipated embarking on a pro baseball career after college. But he performed so well in his high school science classes that he came to regard medicine as his fallback. "It's the only thing I really felt comfortable with in school," said Mr. Carter, 27, whom the Mets acquired last year in a trade with Boston. "It was the only thing I was good at." Initially, Mr. Carter had considered neurology as his concentration of study, but he soon changed his focus to developmental biology, to examining how cells and, in turn, organisms grow and evolve. During his time at Stanford, he studied under Dr. William Hurlbut, who has served on the President's Council of Bioethics since 2002 and is renowned for his work in embryonic stem-cell research. "Dr. Hurlbut is on the cutting edge," Mr. Carter said. "I was like, 'OK, this is what I want to do. If it becomes a big thing, there have been maybe 10 people who have been studying this for 10 years.'" At De La Salle, he had scored highly enough on his Advanced Placement tests to accumulate college credit before enrolling at Stanford in the fall of 2001. That head start and a 3.2 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale allowed him to complete his degree in the spring of 2004. But when the Arizona Diamondbacks selected him in the 17th round of that year's amateur draft, Mr. Carter elected to pursue his primary passion. He spent three years in the minors before Arizona traded him to the Boston Red Sox in 2007. Since his outfield skills were lacking, he was a hitter without a position. "I needed," he said, "to get better." The intensity of his personality has since become fodder for anecdotes shared by wide-eyed teammates and coaches. During spring training in 2008, for instance, he would get to the Red Sox's complex in Fort Myers, Fla., before 6 a.m., dress in his full uniform, and spend hours alone on the field, putting himself through outfield drills, practicing how to take a direct route on a fly ball and how to dive to catch a line drive. By the time the other players would arrive, Mr. Carter, his uniform stained green, would be slick with sweat and dew from his workout in the pre-dawn darkness. These days, he works himself into a lather before or after a game, muttering exhortations to himself, slapping the backs of perfect strangers in the clubhouse. Mets manager Jerry Manuel calls him "The Animal." "When you first see it, it's almost like an act," Mets leftfielder Jason Bay said. "But the more you're around it, it's just who he is, which makes it cool." Mr. Carter was in the starting lineup again Wednesday night against the Indians, the fourth time that he has started as a DH in this road trip's first five games. Meanwhile, Stanford's Program in Human Biology held its commencement ceremonies on Sunday. Four Fulbright Scholarship recipients graduated, and Ellen Porzig herself received two awards, one for excellence in teaching and one for her efforts in advising students. And on the same day 3,000 miles away in Baltimore, one of her former students, a committed kid she always thought would make a great doctor, hit a home run to win a baseball game for the New York Mets.

[metirish]

I like Carter and all but his two three run bombs aside he doesn't seem to have much of a plan at the plate.

[Guest Edgy DC]

His career minor league line of .307 / .380 / .514 // .894 sure suggests he does.

And it's not like the Mets haven't had a shortage of three-run homers.

[metirish]

I know right, it hardly makes sense for me to be critical of a guy who has hit two three run homes but still.

[Guest Frankenstein]

HOME RUNS... GOOOOD!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Frankenstein wrote: HOME RUNS... GOOOOD!

I agree with Frankie.

[Fman99]

Seriously... I'd much rather see the Mets trade Fartinez, who looks very toolsy/non-power-y in the Milledge/Carlos Gomez/guy-we-gave-up-to-get-Alomar-whose-name-escapes-me kind of way, for an outfielder who can, you know, hit a ball out of the park like Carter shows.

[MFS62]

Its refreshing to see that a WSJ reporter talked about a player nicknamed "Animal" because of his aggressive nature, who majored in Human Biology, hits long home runs and the writer never alluded to steroids. (Of course they have no place in this article about how bright Carter is.)

But I'm guessing that at least one of the local writers would have made an awful joke about it if they had written the same piece.

Later

[bmfc1]

Fman99 wrote: Seriously... I'd much rather see the Mets trade Fartinez, who looks very toolsy/non-power-y in the Milledge/Carlos Gomez/guy-we-gave-up-to-get-Alomar-whose-name-escapes-me kind of way, for an outfielder who can, you know, hit a ball out of the park like Carter shows.

Alex Escobar. And I agree. F. Martinez gets hurt too much--he hit a walk-off slam the other night and I was surprised that he didn't get hurt running around the bases.

[Frayed Knot]

If this is turning into a discussion of whether to bet on Carter for the future or Martinez I'm casting my lot with Martinez.
Don't be too eager to give up on 21 year olds. Just because we Met fans started hearing of him when he was 16 doesn't mean his 21 is the equivalent of someone else's 26. The injuries are frustrating although a good sign is that it's not one recurring problem that portends a chronic condition. Some guys tend to get hurt a lot right up until that point where they don't.

[soupcan]

bmfc1 wrote: Fman99 wrote: Seriously... I'd much rather see the Mets trade Fartinez, who looks very toolsy/non-power-y in the Milledge/Carlos Gomez/guy-we-gave-up-to-get-Alomar-whose-name-escapes-me kind of way, for an outfielder who can, you know, hit a ball out of the park like Carter shows. Alex Escobar.

Wait...then who did they get for Ochoa...was that Bonilla?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Frayed Knot wrote: If this is turning into a discussion of whether to bet on Carter for the future or Martinez I'm casting my lot with Martinez. Don't be too eager to give up on 21 year olds. Just because we Met fans started hearing of him when he was 16 doesn't mean his 21 is the equivalent of someone else's 26. The injuries are frustrating although a good sign is that it's not one recurring problem that portends a chronic condition. Some guys tend to get hurt a lot right up until that point where they don't.

what he said. You guys is crazy.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Martinez for me also, thanks.

What's overlooked in the story above is that the guy was mentored in college by Dr. William Hurlbut, who, besides having a great name, is giant in his field and has been ahead of the curve pursuing middle ground on the stem cell dilemma.

Oddly enough --- considering his field and this thread --- William Hurlbut is also the name of the guy who wrote Bride of Frankenstein.

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: If this is turning into a discussion of whether to bet on Carter for the future or Martinez I'm casting my lot with Martinez. Don't be too eager to give up on 21 year olds. Just because we Met fans started hearing of him when he was 16 doesn't mean his 21 is the equivalent of someone else's 26. The injuries are frustrating although a good sign is that it's not one recurring problem that portends a chronic condition. Some guys tend to get hurt a lot right up until that point where they don't. what he said. You guys is crazy.

The rushed too early and didn't look ready up here soured a lot of people on him. (I know he was a 30 year old career minor leaguer, but wasn't it worth giving Feliciano a look last year rather than rush a prospect that it was very likely wasn't ready?)

Growing pains probably play a part, getting used to the wear and tear on baseball on his changing body, building muscle, etc. all those things. I'm not yet worried that Martinez will be an injury prone guy. Hopefully he got the injury out of the way for the year and can play the rest of the season so we can really evaluate his major league readiness. Of course, way too many factors involved there to worry about now.


Carter's cool and all, and definitely helping out our AL lineup version, but I imagine he's a guy the Mets would look t o "sell high" on to an AL team after he helps us win a title. Although by then he'll be such a fan favorite (and media favorite)

[metirish]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: If this is turning into a discussion of whether to bet on Carter for the future or Martinez I'm casting my lot with Martinez. Don't be too eager to give up on 21 year olds. Just because we Met fans started hearing of him when he was 16 doesn't mean his 21 is the equivalent of someone else's 26. The injuries are frustrating although a good sign is that it's not one recurring problem that portends a chronic condition. Some guys tend to get hurt a lot right up until that point where they don't. what he said. You guys is crazy.

Yeah really......

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy DC wrote: Oddly enough ... William Hurlbut is also the name of the guy who wrote Bride of Frankenstein.

Bride of Frankenstein. GOOOOOD!

[MFS62]

Oddly enough ... William Hurlbut is also the name of the guy who wrote Bride of Frankenstein. Bride of Frankenstein. GOOOOOD!

The remake could star Suzyn Waldmann - without any special makeup.

Seriously, from David Waldstein's column about Carter's grandpa attending last night's game:

Bill Carter was going to sit in the family section on Tuesday night, which is not all that close to home plate. But when the Indians heard that Carter is legally blind, they provided him and Baker with seats behind home plate normally used by scouts.

Classy move by the Indians.

Later