smg58

Bottom line: ultimately handled correctly, news appears to be good, but maybe you don't inform the media every time you reconsider your position on something.

Lowrie has played short in the past but it has been a while. Gimenez is getting into a decent groove at Binghamton (or at least was at last check), but I really hope rushing him isn't our best option. I was more upset by the single Rosario didn't get to than I was by the error. I'm still completely mystified by the foul ball call. Gsellman looked really good today, taking one for the team and going three innings. Hopefully it's a positive sign long-term.

Really bizarre sequence where Cano got drilled on his hand and had to come out of the game, but it was ruled a foul ball. Lagares took his place and promptly struck out, but Confoto came up and hit one out. 6-4 Cards, but it really should be 6-5. Callaway was justifiably not happy with the call.

But he made Fowler's glove miss.

Thor is just not making bats miss today.

Ugh. Rosario has to make that play. Two runs that shouldn't have scored.

So are MRIs that expensive to billionaires that have a nine-figure investment they might want to protect? If you were that concerned the other day, just do it. If it tells you what you already think you know, then what harm was done?

Well I like that the approach is “we think it's nothing but we're not taking chances” instead of “we think it's nothing so get back out there.” We made that mistake often enough to learn from it.

And the next two seasons hang in the balance...

A lot of our pitchers have been disappointments, but I'm most concerned about Gsellman and Lugo. That, and two starters failing to get out of the first inning this past week. Brodie for treating Bruce and Swarzak strictly as dumps. We cannot afford to have them collectively outperform Cano and Diaz, and right now that is happening. Bruce is 0.6 WAR better than Cano, even with a sub-.100 BABIP. That does not bode well. And then there is the fact that Lowrie has established, through his absence, that he is not needed, and we don't have enough money to bring in Dallas Keuchel.

You want to make the games shorter? How about letting pitchers pitch? All these guys taking slow jogs around the bases just gets tedious after a while. I think it's clear that our pitchers just haven't been sharp so far. I also think the wind at Citi was actually blowing out for a few games, which will happen less often over the summer.

Ah, Mel "the smell" Rojas. Such fond memories. In his defense, making a return visit from Bobby Bonilla seem appealing was a remarkably difficult accomplishment.

Davis and Frazier fill the same niche, so I don't really see room for them both. Plus McNeil might have more experience at short than either of them. I'm not against giving Dom Smith regular ABs in Syracuse, but he deserves better too. And our pitching staff is one injury away from trouble. I think a trade is necessary

I honestly didn't think that things could get worse for the guy. Of course, I look at his salary and immediately stop feeling bad for him.

He'll be fine long term. But he should be sitting against Corbin today. (And McNeil should be playing third, while we're at it.)

Like I said before, the article mentions disparities with the Mets hitters but says nothing about the splits with their pitchers. Either he forgot about half the story, or that half of the story doesn't suggest as dramatic a park effect. If the latter is true, there is an explanation that goes beyond the park. So the Mets hit worse at Citi Field. They also have hit pretty well on the road, and the team has been more or less as good on the road as at home. So they have done a few things right. The exit velocity is cited as a factor. The bat spends a very small amount of time exposed to the wind, so I don't see how that could be affected. But I do agree it's kind of bizarre. "Since 2012, the Mets have the highest fly-ball percentage in the National League" NOW we have something. We hit more fly balls than anybody else, and play in the worst park for fly balls in the league. With the fences moved in the park has lost its boost in doubles and triples, so if you can't clear the fence consistently you're going to fly out a lot with not much to show for it. And last year was so bad in part because we had three all-or-nothing swingers in Conforto, Bruce, and Frazier who, because they were compromised by injury, couldn't produce even a mediocre amount of runs. We appear to have adopted the exactly wrong philosophy to fit our park.

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=6361 time=1554393884 user_id=68]I'm sure Jimmy Wynn was quite pleased to have to play in the Astrodome for so long. It might've cost him a spot in Cooperstown.

It's not the same and it doesnt even out. The bigger the park is, the more skill that's taken out. I was actually happy to see the Mets buck the trend of building bandboxes that took most of the "skill" out of hitting home runs. Places like Camden Yards, for example.

OK, so can we agree that "unfathomable nightmare" is an exaggeration? I'm curious that disparities in the performance of Mets' pitchers were not reported. If it were solely the park, you would see similar splits. So the writer either ignored half the story, or conveniently refrained from mentioning it. One possible explanation is that the Mets have employed a disproportionate number of the kind of players who would be hurt the most by the park. But I'm not sure who those players would be. It's not like the Mets have cornered the market on one-dimensional, all-or-nothing swingers. It would be worth digging into the stats further to see which players have the biggest home/road splits and which ones have the smallest. You know, investigative reporting.

Baseball Reference's park factors have Citi Field consistently in the mid-90s, with 100 being average, except for last year which was about 90. On the whole, that qualifies as a great big so what. The drop last year might have had something to do with the stadium, but it's also possible that the calculation of the factor might have been skewed by the enormous disparity between the performance of the Mets' pitchers and hitters. (Unless people think DeGrom was overrated and Jay Bruce got a raw deal?) ESPN on the other hand had Citi's runs at 75% relative to an average ballpark last year, which is ridiculously implausible.

Edgy MD wrote: No, that's pretty much the asshole I imagined. Exactly. I don't think it would be possible for him to be more of an asshole than we imagine. Later He was my favorite Met at the time, which just seems unfathomable now. But he's long past the point where anything about him would surprise me in a negative way.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: JD Davis, cleanup man. I guess this is the against-lefties lineup for now I'm not convinced he's a better bet against lefties than McNeil.

I always thought Jay Payton was an underrated centerfielder; he got to just about everything and never looked all-out in the process.

=seawolf17 post_id=5564 time=1553867337 user_id=91] =smg58 post_id=5561 time=1553865631 user_id=62] The biggest error bars of anybody on the team. If he keeps the ball in the park, he could be our fourth ace. Or he could give up home runs like last year and be less good/lucky at getting himself out of trouble. Hoping for the former, obviously, but don't ask me to make a bet on it.

The biggest error bars of anybody on the team. If he keeps the ball in the park, he could be our fourth ace. Or he could give up home runs like last year and be less good/lucky at getting himself out of trouble. Hoping for the former, obviously, but don't ask me to make a bet on it.