smg58

I just realized that none of the legendary players from before my time that I grew up reading about are still with us, except for Mr. Koufax. I think the baton is his for the time being.

I told somebody a week ago that the Mets were one good week from contending for a playoff spot. Part of that is there is a whole lot of mediocrity in the NL, but a few good breaks moving forward and a shrewd deal or two makes us better than .500, which will be good enough.

The turning point for me was the hit by pitch. If you hit a guy on a 1-2 count to put the tying runs in scoring position and the winning run on, you're not getting out of the inning.

Hi, I'm Jonah Tong from Markham, Ontario. I was drafted in the 7th round in 2022, and I will turn 21 next month. I spent April in St. Lucie, but after 36 strikeouts in 18 innings with a WHIP of 0.643 and a 0 ERA, I was handed a one-way ticket to Brooklyn. I've had some control issues since the promotion, but last night I got into the seventh inning allowing only one walk and one run. The next person to homer off me this year will be the first. Don't know me yet? You will.

Running backs in football have it easy in comparison.

Darryl.

I still think Herzog stole two division titles from us in 85 and 87. No way those teams matched the Mets in talent.

Didn't get to watch the game, but putting Taylor fourth and Alvarez seventh? And sitting Baty in favor of a guy with a career .174/.266/.308 line? Do we want to tell our young guys to show us what they've got or no? You could justify batting Alvarez behind JD Martinez in that situation -- for now -- but Taylor? Seriously? Bader hits lefties better, and he was batting ninth. Taylor wouldn't even play if Martinez were here, but hey let's make him the cleanup guy. As for Baty, he homered off a guy who held lefties to a .155/.223/.227 last year. If Mendoza wants to play Short against the next lefty, Cohen should jump onto the field and fire him as he walks up to the ump with the lineup card.

Some creative accounting got this done. But the Mets are better for it.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: It has me recalling Tom Glavine's first start in 2003. I don't recall how we reacted, but it probably wasn't especially measured. It was more measured than for Glavine's last start as a Met.

he dependably hangs around his .270/.380/.447 career line, so let's go with that. Breaks 100 runs for the second time in his career.

.240/.320/.420 as an adequate platoon DH. Like JCL said, he'll strike out too much.

.245/.315/.415, with 17 HR. If he can't improve his strikeout rate, he is just going to be meh.

With Gibson, the career OPS against him was .653 the third time through and .657 the fourth. Certainly not terrible, but you might have a reliever or two who can do better. But that was for his whole career. In 1968, it was .463 the third time through and .555 the fourth (and beyond).

It's been my impression for a while that people are over-obsessed with the radar gun, with detrimental long-term results for pitchers. So I don't think Bassitt is saying anything all that radical. There have always been a handful of hard throwers, but I don't know if the number of pitchers who can hit triple digits without suffering a major injury sooner rather than later has actually increased from Nolan Ryan's day. Now I don't have data to back that up, but we all know that Bassitt was teammates with Exhibit A. Did the best pitcher in baseball need to add to his velocity? No, but he did, and while the short-term results were stunning, maybe we'll see him pitch again. My hypothesis is that somebody (I'm guessing in Tampa) figured out that you could get good seasons out of otherwise so-so pitchers by getting them to throw harder. I'm not sure how or why this approach spread to pitchers whose value was established, but now even good pitchers run out of gas by their third time through the line-up and still seem to get hurt more often. Snell just got $30M per year and he can't go six. I remember we signed a reliever (forgetting his name) a couple of years ago who had pitched in Cleveland when Mickey Calloway was their pitching coach, and had credited Calloway with turning his career around by getting him to add two mph and was happy to come here. He began the season on the IL and never got right.

Michael A. Taylor goes to the Pirates for one year and $4M. Bader getting $10M looks less good now.

It comes down to whether or not he deals with nagging injuries. He's a .320 hitter when fully healthy, but we've only seen that guy once in the last three seasons. That makes him hard to predict, but I'll be bullish and say .311/.375/.455. And at some point, our manager will be sufficiently clever to bat him ahead of our muscle and not behind it.

I'm going to go with a 3.65 ERA in 150 IP, and a 10-8 record.

Alonso had a ridiculously unlucky .205 BABIP last year. This year, it goes in the other direction: .277/.368/.564, leads the league in RBIs. And yes, somebody will pay in the offseason.

Given that Urshela got $1.5M, I'll be surprised if anybody claims Davis for ~$7M. But he'll be a useful piece for somebody.

Gio Urshela is a Tiger for $1.5M. I think I would have beaten that offer by quite a lot.

Is there a Boras client for whom waiting this long paid off? Stephen Drew waited until midseason and he showed up in no shape to play. His career never recovered. Conforto got hurt before he even had a chance to wait that long. I get the feeling that Boras is determined to test Mark Twain's definition of insanity.

Alvarez has power that can play in Citifield. Baty and Vientos can't say that, at least not yet. So I'm for making a committment.

I don't want to rush Jett. I'd like to see him get half a year in AA and half in AAA, assuming he's handling things the way I think he will. But every plan gets written down in pencil.

Amed Rosario goes to the Rays for $1.5M. A career .806 OPS against lefties, could have spelled McNeil, Baty, and Nimmo or DHed. And he'd have kept us from being royally screwed if something happens to Lindor. I'd have at least doubled that bid.