SCHAEFER PLAYERS OF THE MONTH: MAY 2010

[Benjamin Grimm]

SCHAEFER METS PLAYER AND PITCHERS OF THE MONTH, MAY 2010

The Schaefer Mets Player of the Month and Pitcher of the Month for May 2010 is JOHAN SANTANA. This is the fifth time that Johan has been named Player of the Month and the eighth time that he's been Pitcher of the Month. After getting shelled in his first May start (10 earned runs in 3.2 innings at Philadelphia) Santana settled down and began racking up the Schaefer points over his next five starts, when he was 1-0 with a 1.69 ERA. Santana led Mets pitchers in May wth 41 innings, 26 strikeouts, and a 3.73 ERA. (Mike Pelfrey was 3-1 in May with a 3.82 ERA. Hisanori Takahashi fell just short of the necessary 29 innings. Otherwise his 2.93 ERA would have been the teams' best.)

May's race was especially tight, with as many as six players in close contention for Player of the Month in the final days of May. Angel Pagan ended up finishing a close second, with Rod Barajas not far behind. Jason Bay, David Wright, Jose Reyes and Mike Pelfrey all put up good Schaefer totals in May. Barajas led the club in May with 6 homers and 19 runs batted in and a .608 slugging percentage. Pagan led the Mets with a .333 batting average, and OBP of .388, 35 hits, and 19 runs scored.

And the Schaefer Mets Relief Pitcher of the Month for May is a first-time winner, RAUL VALDES. Valdes benefited from Takahashi's ascension into the starting rotation, as the Japanese rookie had a solid lead among relievers at the time of his promotion. Valdes led the Mets in relief innings, with 18.2, and was 2-1 with an unimpressive 5.30 ERA.

Month-to-date totals for May 2010
Through game of May 31, 2010

Rank	Name	Points
1	Johan Santana	20.84
2	Angel Pagan	19.57
3	Rod Barajas	19.07
4	Jason Bay	17.71
5	David Wright	17.06
6	Jos� Reyes	16.84
7	Mike Pelfrey	15.46
8	Hisanori Takahashi	13.44
9	Ike Davis	12.85
10	Jeff Francoeur	10.81
11	Raul Valdes	8.34
12	R. A. Dickey	7.53
13	Luis Castillo	7.08
14	Alex Cora	6.30
15	Francisco Rodriguez	5.79
16	John Maine	5.75
17	Pedro Feliciano	5.50
18	Henry Blanco	5.09
19	Jenrry Mejia	4.36
19	Chris Carter	4.36
21	Fernando Nieve	3.38
22	Manny Acosta	3.37
23	Oliver Perez	2.90
24	Gary Matthews	1.71
25	Elmer Dessens	1.55
26	Jon Niese	1.05
27	Fernando Tatis	1.03
28	Ryota Igarashi	0.58
29	Frank Catalanotto	0.45

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Spectacular cards -- again!

[Frayed Knot]

I predict Valdes will not repeat in June.

[G-Fafif]

Please forward Catalanotto's fraction of a point to Smithtown.

[ashie62]

Pagan almost got the suds, wow!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The rightmost Johan is an awesome action shot.

But I prefer the leftmost one, I think. He looks like he's wondering where he left his car keys, or trying to figure out which overly-intense '80s movie character Carter reminds him of.

Also... Angel, my man. I wanted this so badly for you.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Well, Pagan does at least have a POTM in his past.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Yabbut... triple play! Inside-the-parker! Crazy catches!

[Guest Edgy DC]

Looks like he has extra material put into his sleeves, a la Pedro Martinez.

[Zvon]

Ben,
I may have asked you this before but I can't recall.
How do you get the font for the names to be so perfect?

Maybe if i compared em to a real card from that year they are not exact, but they look to be.

Is there a font pack with baseball card type fonts in it?
Did u painstakingly look through fonts till you found and matched them?
Do you work for Topps?
I gots to know...

Love the cards, love em.
I have collected all your cards I've ever come across.
Makes me feel like a kid again, which I know isn't a stretch but still.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Most of the fonts are probably not exact, but I'm able to get them close enough. Usually I can get by with Arial, though I have to play with the sizes and the boldness. For the 1973 cards, I actually have to stretch the font a bit.

I suspect the font you're really asking about is the 1970 one, and that was just serendipity. The font is called Kauffman, and I just happened to discover that I had the same font on my PC that was used by Topps in 1970. It's actually a pretty common font. I've seen it on restaurant menus, on postcards, in advertisements, and on the marquee in front of the Ed Sullivan theater.



And thanks! Glad you like them!

[G-Fafif]

Happy to see Raul Valdes get the 1979 treatment. Is that a first, yearwise, for POTM cards? Most appropriate given his ERA on this last road trip.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Did you ever try to print any of the cards you create on card stock?

[Benjamin Grimm]

No, I've never printed them out, although you do have me wondering how they'd look.

And yes, this is the first time we've seen a 1979 card. Every year from the 1970's has now been done at least once.

Here are the counts, by year. (Most of them, except for the most recent ones, can be seen on the UMDB Facebook page.)

1970 4 (includes one special post-season game card for 2006 NLDS Game 1)
1971 6
1972 12 (includes two "in action", and one traded)
1973 9 (seven players, one wife, and one organist)
1974 8 (2 sideways)
1975 5
1976 1
1977 3
1978 1
1979 1