Spring Training 2013

[ashie62]

The Mets are breaking in a new organist at Citi this year...

[metirish]

Cool armpits


bad news for this prospect

Prospect struck in face, may need surgery

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/61527/mets-prospect-struck-in-face-may-need-surgery?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

And... the result, via Twitter, originally from Goeddel's Facebook page:

[batmagadanleadoff]

February 19, 2013
Baseball Is Back, with a Few Changes
Posted by Ian Crouch

The deadline has arrived for players to join their teams for spring training, and so we can say goodbye to the mostly unhappy season of baseball, when the game isn�t played�the one full of trade talks and free agents; of old grudges aired by departed players and managers; of controversial Hall of Fame votes and the still-too-present problem of performance-enhancing drugs dispensed by quack doctors in shady clinics. We get, instead, a season that still has the possibility to bring joy, beginning with familiar and new faces arriving in warm southern locales to do a few casual wind sprints, some stretching exercises, and play a month of practice ball. There is drama for the players in spring warmup games, mostly for the young and old guys trying to make the major-league club. But for the fans, spring training is just a gentle nudge, giving us a few clips of baseball among the palm trees of Florida or desertscapes of Arizona, and preparing a spot in the mind for the real games to come. As we wait for Opening Day, though, there are a few winter happenings worthy of note. Realignments The Houston Astros, who spent their first fifty-one years playing in the National League, have jumped to the American League, and will be the fifth team in the A.L. West. This marks the first time that a team has switched leagues since 1998, when the Brewers left the A.L. for the N.L. The Astros will take the field, on March 31st, clad in new retro-style uniforms that embrace the great orange of years past�though, alas, they�ve not taken full advantage of the gonzo-color possibilities of team history. (Somewhere, the winged Brewster McCloud is disappointed.) There is not, however, much history that the team is eager to repeat, save for its lone World Series appearance in 2005, when it was swept by the White Sox. The Astros haven�t been back to the playoffs since, and have been the worst team in baseball for the past two seasons. The coming change of scenery doesn�t seem, on the face of it, to offer much hope: they join a division full of playoff contenders, including the Rangers, Angels, and A�s. Meanwhile, there has been another realignment in baseball�unofficial but no less important. The seat of power in the game has moved to California, as it has from time to time since the Giants and Dodgers opened up shop out West for the 1958 season. This offseason, the Dodgers finalized a television deal with Time Warner Cable worth between seven and eight billion dollars over the next twenty-five years. Under new ownership, and now backed by nearly unlimited funds, the Dodgers have embarked on a major spending spree. It started last season, when they traded with Miami for Hanley Ramirez, and then with Boston for Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Adrian Gonzalez�taking on in the process what seemed like most of the Red Sox payroll. The binge continued this off-season with the acquisition of the big-ticket pitcher Zack Greinke. As Nick Traverse writes at our new business hub, the Dodgers will have the highest payroll in baseball, outspending even the Yankees, who have held the top spot since 1998. Thirty miles south, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have added even more talent (though, blessedly, no more city names) to what has become a franchise full of all-stars. This season, Josh Hamilton joins Albert Pujols and Mark Trumbo on a batting lineup poised to score a ton of runs. And, in the twenty-one-year-old outfielder Mike Trout, the Angels have a man who is unquestionably the most exciting young player in the league. Up north, the Giants are the defending World Series champs, and the A�s are coming off a surprise playoff appearance. Rounding out the state, even the lowly Padres promise to be more exciting this year: they�ve decided to bring in the fences at Petco Park, which should lead to a few more home runs for the home team (and likely for the visitors as well, but never mind). Back east, where both the Yankees and Red Sox have cut their payrolls, a new bright spot of conspicuous baseball consumption can now be found north of the border, in Toronto, where the Blue Jays have decided to win the American League East�or at least to go broke trying. Big signings include Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle. They�ll spend about forty million more than they did last season. And Toronto is now home to the game�s most fascinating pitcher, R. A. Dickey, who won the Cy Young Award last year pitching for the Mets and then, in now-typical Flushing fashion, was sent away to float his knuckleballs for someone else. Canadians are likely to love Dickey�s introspective personality and literary sensibility; should he continue his fine late-career form, players in the American League will be less charmed. A Useless Gimmick Outlawed Enough business; baseball�s true charm is in its quirky mechanics and byzantine rules, right? Well, maybe not, but there is one rule change of note coming for 2013 that is worth a bit of attention. In its ongoing but probably futile effort to speed up the game, the league has made illegal the infrequent and largely impotent time-waster in which a pitcher fakes a throw to third base and then spins around and throws to first in the hope of picking off a confused base runner who has strayed too far from the bag. This season, if a pitcher tries it, it will be called a balk. The ploy, which is often rightly dismissed as �something that would only work in Little League,� depends on a pretty precise game situation and rarely works, despite the claims of some pitchers who favor it and have lamented its ouster. (To find a good video example, I had to go back to 2000�when the Mets still played at Shea Stadium and then-manager Bobby Valentine still did things that warranted praise like �great move� from a team�s broadcasters.) Bullpen 2.0 Designer drugs and massive cultural evolution aside, baseball hasn�t changed that much over the years. And so the little alterations stand out, like when the league announced this winter that stadiums would be ditching landline dugout-to-bullpen phones in favor of spiffy new cell phones provided by T-Mobile (which, it probably doesn�t need to be said, is the �Official Wireless Sponsor of Major League Baseball.�) Managers have been using dugout phones to send relief-pitcher orders and other instructions out to the bullpen since way back in the nineteen-thirties. (Before that, semaphore.) Change may be overdue: it was a screwy connection that reportedly caused a pitcher mixup during the 2011 World Series, when Cardinals� manager Tony La Russa asked for one reliever but was given another�a mistake that ended in a loss. Still, the jokes started flowing fast after news broke of the new arrangement: crusty old managers hiring gum-snapping teen-agers to handle texts, ballplayers tweeting between at-bats, Angry Birds run amok. Probably not, but the new cell-phone holders that will appear in dugouts and bullpens across the country are a garish bright pink, and the whole thing has led baseball suits to use phrases like �unique communications platform��proving that the only thing that could make baseball jargon worse is adding marketing nonsense into the mix. The transition could pass without major incident, but one unconsidered wrinkle may pose a problem: the bullpen call is often made in moments of managerial duress�runners in scoring position, the game on the line, the guy you have out their faltering badly�and the old, sturdy landline receiver surely was on the wrong end of some rough use. (�Johnson is shit out there. Give me the lefty.� Slam.) Now, as in the old Jerry Seinfeld bit about the drawbacks of the cordless phone, a manager will have to bark his orders and then carefully return the dainty smartphone to its charging slot. A few phones might get tossed around this season, and at the very least, I fear for the other objects in the dugout. Watch out, water jugs, and bats beware.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/02/three-things-to-note-from-baseballs-long-winter.html#ixzz2M8iVjaVq

[Guest d'Kong76]

How is Jimmy Neutron and Huskers vs Cincinnati more important for
Sunday viewing than the Mets' game? I'm gonna be more focused on
Knicks/Heat, but jeez it's Sunday!

[Ceetar]

Mike Kerwick @mikekerwick wrote: In the middle of Santana trying to shoo away reporters, Frank Francisco entered the fray. "I can talk." Gotta love Big Frank.

This pretty much says it all for beat writer analysis.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Jason Bay, 34, is hitting .333/.440/.714 with a triple, two homers and four RBI in 25 plate appearances this spring entering Wednesday. And the Mariners are considering batting Bay leadoff this season.




Jason Bay, leadoff man?
By Matt Snyder | Senior Blogger
March 13, 2013 2:21 pm ET

The 2012 Seattle Mariners were the worst offensive team in the American League last year, ranking dead last in runs, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. They are moving in the Safeco Field fences and have added some power upgrades this offseason, but are still without a leadoff man. And this week they are auditioning Jason Bay as a leadoff man. Wait, what? Jason Bay? Yes, Bay is hitting leadoff Wednesday and it's legitimately being considered for the season, reports the Seattle Times. Upon initial glance, this sounds ridiculous. Bay hit .165/.237/.299 for the Mets in 215 plate appearances last season. Even when he's been good, Bay is a power hitter and most people think power hitters should be in the middle of the order. If the Mariners get Good Jason Bay, however, this idea isn't as off-the-wall as one might think. Due to a high-walk rate, Bay sports a career .363 on-base percentage with his .269 batting average. He's not slow, either, as he's stolen at least 10 bases in a season six times. Bay, 34, was hitting .333/.440/.714 with a triple, two homers and four RBI in 25 plate appearances this spring entering Wednesday. So that has to factor into the Mariners' consideration for him in the leadoff spot. Still, doesn't it just sound hilarious? Of all the things we thought we might hear regarding the Mariners this season, Jason Bay hitting leadoff had to be pretty low on the list.

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/eye-on-baseball/21867841/jason-bay-leadoff-man

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, and break up the Royals already.

[metirish]

I'm going to guess that Good Bay showed up in Spring Training for the Mets too...

[Benjamin Grimm]

He'd even show up in the regular season for a few weeks at a time.

[ashie62]

Bix or Hicks?

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Got back from FLA on Sunday. When my wife uploads her pictures I'll post a few.

We started our week in Fort Lauderdale for four nights. We got up to PSL last Wednesday afternoon, and on Thursday morning got to the back fields a bit before 10 AM. Watched the usual drills, with the ML outfielders throwing on one field for quite a while. Mookie Wilson was pitching BP on another, and having a great time. Jim Leyland strolled by and talked with Terry Collins and Rich Donnelly (who was on Leyland's staff for a good long while) for at least twenty minutes. We went to the game that day (a pasting by the Tigers), headed up to Orlando Friday morning to see them beat the Braves, hit the Magic Kingdom until 1 AM, returned at around 3:45 AM, slept in and attended the loss to Miami on Saturday. Some random observations:

-Brandon Nimmo looks like a ballplayer. I have no idea whether he'll ever make it, but he sure looks like it. I'd have liked to see him in a game rather than just BP, but I was glad to get a look at him.
-Even if Matt Den Dekker wasn't wearing a glove, I'd know he was lefthanded. He just looks lefthanded.
-Allan Dykstra turns the 3-6-3 like a guy who is wearing a winter coat.
-Anthony Recker is dreamy. There, I said it.
-Bob Geren looks like the gym teacher none of the kids liked.
-Bacon-wrapped hot dog with pulled pork, cole slaw and jalapeno slices.
-Jordany Valdespin seems to have more of a positive attitude than last year. We were sitting right by the Mets bullpen for two games, and in one of them they had two guys warming up and Valdespin bounded out from the dugout to stand behind the catchers.
-Miguel Cabrera talks to everybody - umps, fans, ball boys, Mets, security folks - and is always smiling. If I hit like him, I'd smile too. I almost expected him to pull out his cell phone between pitches. I didn't expect to see him at a road game, but he played third and went six innings, I believe - probably due to his being at the WBC and wanting more ABs.
-There's a kid on Kingsport named Shane Bay. He's going to hear some shit this year.
-Wilmer Flores looks like Miguel Cabrera's kid brother.
-Taco in a helmet.
-Behind Citi Field - chop shops. Behind Tradition Field - alligators.
-The best thing about PSL is that it's not that far from other places.
-Biggest surprise about the Disney Wide World of Sports complex - free parking. We were there in 2011, but I didn't remember. The field is fine, and it's a nice place to see a game. You will not for five seconds forget that you are at Disney, however.
-The ball jumps off the bat of Travis d'Arnaud.
-Robert Carson seems like a helluva nice guy.
-Lucas Duda gets perhaps the slowest jump of any outfielder I have seen. It's like he's seeing a helicopter landing on the roof and isn't quite sure what to do about it. He did back up third on the Turner ankle-breaker on Saturday.

I like spring training. Three days is just about right, especially since the game is over at 4 PM and there you are, in Port St. Lucie. Last time we went two of the three games were night games, which seemed to make the day flow better. This year, on Saturday night we drove up to Vero Beach to see a musical based on the life of Woody Guthrie, and stumbled across a St. Patrick's Day street fair before the show, which was nice. It was either that or go to Stuart and see Regis Philbin.

[Vic Sage]

-Brandon Nimmo looks like a ballplayer. I have no idea whether he'll ever make it, but he sure looks like it. I'd have liked to see him in a game rather than just BP, but I was glad to get a look at him.

So did Billy Beane...

-Bacon-wrapped hot dog with pulled pork, cole slaw and jalapeno slices.

heart attack on a bun -- where do i sign up?

-Wilmer Flores looks like Miguel Cabrera's kid brother.

i hope he has the same bloodlines.

-Taco in a helmet.

not quite a bacon-wrapped hot dog, but intriguing nonetheless.

[Guest themetfairy]

Swan Swan H wrote: -Bacon-wrapped hot dog with pulled pork, cole slaw and jalapeno slices.

I have heartburn from just reading that!

[Ceetar]

Swan Swan H wrote: -Bacon-wrapped hot dog with pulled pork, cole slaw and jalapeno slices.

Doesn't have the pulled pork, but if you need a bacon-wrapped hot dog with cole slaw, chili and jalapenos in NY..

http://www.crifdogs.com

[Guest Swan Swan H]

I don't want to clog up the thread, so I put some pictures up on Flickr.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Geat thread and dynamite photos. Learned more in that post than I have from Kristie Ackert all spring.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Thanks. All credit to my wife for the pictures.

[Edgy MD]

Sometimes, I hear the term "Grapefruit League" and it sounds like a slur of some kind.

[metirish]

Yes, excellent post Swannie and pix.

[Farmer Ted]

Taco in a Helmet. Let the discussion begin.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Astros and Jays moving to West Palm Beach. Great news for Mets.

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Astros and Jays moving to West Palm Beach. Great news for Mets.

saves 'em an hour over going to Kissimmee.

where were the Jays before?

whee, Reyes-Mets story lines in March. fun.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Jays were in Dunedin, right near the Phils in Clearwater.

[bmfc1]

Plus, each is in the American League (I keep having to remind myself that the Astros aren't in the NL) which means that the Mets won't have to almost always be playing NL teams (Cardinals; Marlins; Nationals).