Centerfield

Are the lefties prospects? I thought we had signed a couple of journeyman minor-leaguers. In the end, I don't care where the LOOGY comes from, so long as we have someone who is tough against lefties. We have Harper, Freeman, Murphy and Yelich in this league. I just hope we have a good plan in place to find a few of these guys, rather than just hoping that a career journeyman suddenly finds himself.

Maybe Edgin can bounce back. But from what I remember he didn't seem particularly sharp last year. Gilmartin, I remember, was not effective against lefties either. Don't know about the new minor-league guys. I suspect they can't be all that good if they are minor league guys.

I think we badly need a LOOGY. Smoker is bad against lefties, and everyone else is right-handed.

Seeds for me, but again, not in love with the cover. The picture and the moment are both terrific. But the headline obscure the picture, and I just don't like the "Seeds" headline. I don't think it does enough. It's cluttered. Especially with the unnecessary orange "SPORTS" behind it. Landslide is not a great cover either, and not a particularly memorable moment in the season, but that headline layout is better. But we already have a Cespedes cover in the final. So Seeds it is.

Yeah right? The empty seats. Plus everything bmfc wrote. Boom!

I would flip flop Granderson and Duda.

I think there is not a chance he did this. He's a professional. He owes a duty to his teammates and fans. If the Mets had already clinched possibly, but in a heated pennant race? No way.

What a PR nightmare that would be. Not his relatives' fault that he was an idiot and raced himself to death. I would guess you are insured for that kind of thing no? Well not you, but KC anyway.

I got 14. But I only really "knew" about 5 of them. It was more about knowing (or guessing) all the guys that played a particular position in a given year.

Frayed Knot wrote: On the subject of his ranking, I'm not trying to pull a Woody Allen here and claim that 90% of life is just showing up, but the idea of marking down Loney because you think that others who weren't actually on the team would have done better if they were isn't exactly the idea of this thing. These other maybe/possible names might have tallied more than 26 XBHs if given 300+ ABs but they weren't and so taking it out on Loney based on that reasoning is silly. And while I certainly have no issue if he's slotted behind guys like Flores and Kelly Johnson, I'm just having a heard time seeing the logic in him either off lists entirely or at the very bottom in back of likes of Ty Kelly and Brandon Nimmo. Well, for me it was more that even guys that were on the team would have been more effective, but the point is well taken. I looked back at my list. While I don't have Ty Kelly, I ranked Nimmo as the 19th best, which seems kinda silly. And although I do think that the bad defense works against Loney, it's hard to justify ranking Nimmo, and Lagares, and d'Arnaud, and Reynolds and De Aza higher...especially when all of them failed to hit as well as Loney. Yeah, I may have whiffed on Loney. I think I to re-work my list. Is there a deadline to this?

Frayed Knot wrote: - Loney off, or at the very bottom of, several evaluations. As I mentioned elsewhere, no other player was as wildly over the map as Loney - top half of some lists, not listed at all on several others. And while he was certainly a comedown from Duda, he was still the starting 1st baseman for four months and not a bad one (fair to below average maybe, but not terrible). 350 AB guys usually have to be pretty terrible to get left off entirely and it's certainly odd to see him and his 703 OPS behind Ty Kelly and even lower OPS w/just 58 ABs. I was down on Loney, and was considering leaving him out altogether, but he just had so many AB's and he did hit 9 HR's. But in the end those HR's were really all he did (kinda symbolic of the whole offense in 2016). His OPS of .703 from a 1B is terrible. Like Ceetar said, KJ was the better choice there. He had a reputation of being hitter-ish, even if he didn't have a lot of power. That ended up not being the case at all. But the biggest disappointment was his defense. I don't know that I have seen scouting reports be that wrong. Just complete head scratchers at times. Not know what balls to go for. Getting caught way off the bag. He played 1B like a coordinated guy who just converted from another position. I probably am projecting some ill will on him since I wanted him out of the lineup down the stretch run (Play Bruce at 1B, start Conforto). And I realize that's not really his fault, but whatever. Bye Loney.

Nobody won more games than the Mets last year. Period.

I tend to agree with JCL. That design seems so subtle I'm not sure I would have even noticed it. I'd be down with white hats but I think it would look funny with the alternative uniforms now that they are blue. I think you'd have to bring back the snow-whites so it doesn't look funny. I don't know. Question, on the days the Mets wear their alternative jerseys, do we also pretend that the inauguration was attended by the most people ever?

Come on kids. Stop drinking and driving. So sad.

Probably going to be the weakest of our Final Four I would guess. And if the current tallies hold up, it looks like we will have dueling Cespedes covers in the semi-final.

After much deliberation, I went with Hair. But it looks like it won't make much difference.

A year ago today we signed Antonio Bastardo to a two year contract. Four days later, we re-signed some guy named Cespedes. That pretty much wrapped up our off-season. I realize this year might follow a different schedule, but we are at the point in the off-season that I'm starting to worry that this is it. I think we are really going to regret it if we don't add an effective lefty to the pen. Right now we have Josh Smoker, who isn't really good against lefties. I guess there is also Edgin, but I don't see us getting much from him. I know that Sandy is probably thinking to wait out a guy like Blevins, but if he bolts, we are kinda out of options here. Also disappointed that Sandy would not try to upgrade the offense at all. I guess here we just hope that Duda stays healthy, Conforto bounces back to form, and that guys like Cabrera, Reyes and Ces duplicate last year. Maybe full years from Walker and Flores will help too.

I'm not a Bruce fan at all, and I was against the trade that got him, but I have to admit I am surprised by the absolute lack of interest. I mean, the guy does hit 30 HR's. That's gotta be worth something. Who wouldn't want to slot 30 HR's in the 7 hole. Maybe you just keep him. Put Conforto in CF and just roll the dice.

Why are we doing this? Did something happen to Hefner? Or just because?

My list: 30. SYNDERGAARD 29. CESPEDES 28. CABRERA 27. DEGROM 26. COLON 25. WALKER 24. MATZ 23. GRANDERSON 22. REED 21. FAMILIA 20. LUGO 19. GSELLMAN 18. FLORES 17. ROBLES 16. REYES 15. BLEVINS 14. CONFORTO 13. TJ RIVERA 12. R. RIVERA 11. JOHNSON 10. NIMMO 9. LAGARES 8. d'ARNAUD 7. REYNOLDS 6. DE AZA 5. HARVEY 4. DUDA 3. SALAS 2. SMOKER 1. LONEY

Ha! Love it. Is that Lucas Duda in the crowd of tourists? I wouldn't be so sure that Maja is gone. That type of celebrity can be short-lived. For years they said Vanna White would leave Wheel of Fortune.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: And my point is that the shift is probably most effective when it prevents home run hitters from trying to hit home runs Maybe. But maybe not. I don't think being a spray hitter and a HR hitter are mutually exclusive. Take a look at Carlos Gonzalez spray chart: http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=7287&position=OF&type=battedball This looks like a guy with a .291 career average. The approach doesn't stop Carlos from hitting with power. Trying a different approach may or may not work. Certainly it's hard, which is why the elite hitters are elite. But I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that he try. Look what it did for Yoenis Cespedes over the last two years. In 2014, Cespedes hit .260 and hit 22 HR's. His spray chart: http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=13110&position=OF&type=battedball&pid2=13110&ss1=2014&se1=2014&ss2=2014&se2=2014&cht1=hittype&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL In 2015, he started to spray the ball a bit more, and got better results, both in BA and in power. By 2016, his spray chart looks a lot different: http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=13110&position=OF&type=battedball&pid2=13110&ss1=2016&se1=2016&ss2=2016&se2=2016&cht1=hittype&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL A lot more green on the second base side. Now, it may or may not work with Duda. But how would we know without him trying?

Well that's the thing right? Does a spray hitting approach negatively impact his greatest strength (power). We'd all love for someone to hit for average and power. Easier said than done. But anyway, my point is to state that Duda is not a true spray hitter. So the perception is somewhat well-founded.

Edgy MD wrote: Yeah, if you use the menus and get him over a couple of years, against all pitchers, you see his distribution is pretty liberal across the field, even while his grounders tend to go to the right. But even most guys known as a spray hittters are going to favor their pull side somewhat. That's just how it goes. Sure. Somewhat. But Duda's ground ball distribution is drastic. Here is his spray chart against all pitchers: http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=2502&position=1B/OF&type=battedball&pid2=2502&ss1=2015&se1=2015&ss2=2015&se2=2015&cht1=hittype&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL His groundball distribution grossly favors the right. Compare that to Daniel Murphy, an actual spray hitter: http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=4316&position=1B/2B&type=battedball Murphy's chart favors the right side as well, but he has a substantial number of ground balls going to the left side of the infield. Murphy is a spray hitter. Duda is not.

I like both covers, but ended up voting for their opponents in the prior round. Will have to think this one through. The Cabrera HR is one of the best moments of the season. Maybe even the best, arguably. But that picture does the moment no justice. And the cover and headline are just ok. In a way it's hurt by Zvon's contribution: When you look at that, you can't help but think what might have been. Everyone on their feet. Cabrera celebrating. Everyone looking the other way. One random Met knows it's gone and is already hopping the fence. That picture with any headline wins this contest. *Can and Admin fix the size? Didn't know it would display that big!