Centerfield

4. In his Mets days, whose initials and number were scrawled --- and for all I know, still are scrawled --- under the brim of Darren O'Day's hat? Wasn't it that Angels pitcher that died? Was his name Nick Adenhart?

I can't imagine how dark a place the team is in when Tsuyoshi Shinjo is batting 3 or 4. As bad as things are now, I guess at one time they were worse.

Mazzilli.

Willie Randolph.

There was that Gooden guy.

I hate to say it, but I tend to think so too. I really thought Bobby would be a perfect fit to wake up that Boston team. Shows you what I know.

Look at how young. It makes your heart hurt. Someday when I am king I will outlaw kids being sick.

Look, as much as we'd love to pretend emotion and loyalty have anything to do with baseball, logically speaking, the Wilpons' decision comes down to only two options: 1. Sign Wright long-term this Winter. 2. Get run over by CF multiple times.

Look, I can't stand the Bay contract and wish he'd go away as soon as possible, but if I were him there is no way I'd consider walking away from the money even for a second.

I'm glad you guys are here to make me feel normal. Otherwise I'd feel odd about being this happy about an otherwise meaningless game in a lost season. I mean, I LOVE that the Mets won like this on Chipper Jones night. Years down the line this is going to be motivation for the Braves to fuck up Lucas Duda night.

Really, I'm glad you guys have known me for years and some of you think I'm sane. If I were to join the forum now my handle would be "FUCK THE WILPONS". I'd write negative post after negative post pinning all the blame the owners and you guys would just write me off as a some troll. Oh, and I left out a step. Let's leak to the press that Wright eats his pizza with a fork or some other damaging information so we can justify not re-signing him.

seawolf17 wrote: Was at Shea for hit number one; played hooky from work with a colleague. SIGN THE FUCKING CONTRACT EXTENSION, SANDY. No, let's not do that. Let's wait a little longer so Sandy can see in person what type of player he is. Let's wait until he starts out hot next year so we can make a half-hearted attempt to engage in talks during the middle of the season. Let's let the fans suffer and watch as them as they engage in fruitless "Re-Sign David" campaigns. Let's not move him at the deadline for players who can help us in the future so as to not effect second-half ticket sales. And then when he hits the open market and has a bazillion suitors for his services, let's talk conceptually about an offer that falls just under what others are offering so we can watch him walk away.

Humid day. Push him back.

They grow up so fast.

Our first at CitiField.

Vic Sage wrote: the Mets were better with him than without him in the years immediately preceding and following his Mets manageriacy. And he won us a pennant. and before all that, he did better with Texas than was either expected or justified by the team's talent. which could be said of the Mets as well. and i'd bet (but do not know) he did well in Japan, too. Whatever happened in Beantown, i blame the players. Apparently the owner did too as he shipped half of them out of town for a sack of magic beans. But Bobby is a whipping boy for the media (cuz he's smarter than them and he lets them know it), so he's demonized. Hell, for all i know about it, he deserved it this time. But he didn't deserve it here (with the Mets) and i wished he'd outlasted Steve (I'll fuck the cleaning lady now, thanks) Phillips and the Wilpons. Yup.

Obstructive Blouse Fosters dispute over What's a Good Neighbor Prolific CPF Poster contends woman on bus should remove blouse that blocks poster's view of amazing breasts By Adam Rubin ESPN News .... Centerfield, who declined to be interviewed, said at a recent hearing he couldn't understand why the woman wouldn't help her fellow busriders enjoy the same "amazing view" she enjoys. "You guys saw the blouse," said CF. "It's not a fashionable blouse. Neither is her bra. I would say they're the kind of clothes that only the devil could love." "I'm just making the point that if you've been blessed with a killer rack, and yet you aren't willing to offer that to your neighbor, how is that being a good neighbor? "The Bible says, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.' That's Jesus' commandment."

Really? Other than the idiotic OF dimensions and the corny replica of Ebbets Field, I thought the building was pretty nice. In other news, it looks like the Mets have discovered the problem and fixed it. Per Metsblog: Terry Collins told reporters today that he plans to move the team�s batting practice at home to a time closer to the actual start time of the game, with his starter hitting last. Typically, on the road he explained, the team hits roughly 45 minutes before the game. However, at home, it can be as much as two hours and 25 minutes, which, in his estimation, is too large an amount of time.

Simple solution: Sign or trade for a guy who will make CitiField his bitch. Knock HR's left and right.

Vic Sage wrote: Centerfield wrote: The offense sucks. They are 22nd in runs scored in MLB. Our lineup has no one with an OPS in the 900's. Our clean up hitter is at .752, and it took an incredible surge (mostly after we were out of it) to even get it that high. Our #5 hitter (Duda) is at .716. Jason Bay is at .546. We are lucky Scott Hairston played over his head to an .805 OPS or else we really would have sucked. Even our feel good story at SS is under .700 in OPS. Murphy has a nice looking BA, but his OPS remains in the low .700's. I thought our pitching was pretty good but we are 19th in MLB in staff ERA. This is surprising. I thought we had a pretty good rotation and the bullpen has been solid lately. I'm surprised to see this. So to sum up, we have shitty hitters and below average pitchers. I think the staff is pretty close to being a playoff caliber staff, so maybe just re-stock some bullpen arms and we will be in good shape for 2013. The offense is miles away from being competitive. granted to all of this, but why would the hitters be relatively productive on the road (4th overall, 2nd in the NL to SF) and just god awful at home (next to last overall, dead last in NL)? No one has given me a theory with even a hint of plausibility beyond random chance. and maybe there isn't one. You know, it's odd. I just looked up the individual numbers. Out of the regulars that I checked, only Davis has stark differences (.582, .893). Tejada and Wright are both about a 100 points better away, but the rest are about what you'd expect. It's odd. Maybe CitiField just sucks. It still is a great pitcher's park and it's hard to hit it out opposite field to RF. This park would have messed with Piazza a lot.

I'm not sure if you're insulting me or not. If so, I hate you.

It's like something out of the Back to the Future plot. Somehow we have to figure out how to take out Jason Bay so Duda can get into the lineup tonight. If we don't, the future may be irreparably altered.

I think implied in the "X players away" statements are the idea that if a current player turns into one of the players they are lacking, then they lack one less player. So if the Mets are 4 players away and the Looney Tunes martians return Jason Bay's ability back to him, we will be 3 players away.

Years from now when Lucas Duda is in the twilight of his career, there will be spirited debate about whether you sign him to a long-term extension and let him finish his career as a Met, or make the economical decision to let the first-ballot Hall of Famer finish his career elsewhere. Arguments about the a player's ZFACTORGRADEOUTPUT after 39 years of age will be pitted against heartfelt anecdotes of Duda's post-season heroics. "A player with that many championship rings can play on my team any day. He should be a Met as long as he wants." "Hey, Tom Seaver was a pretty good Met. Why don't we sign him for next year too?" "Asshole" "Loser" The one thing thing these CPF'ers will agree on is that Duda's success can all be traced back to that one day in September of 2012, when Duda, with the Mets hopelessly out of the race, gave Mets fans something to cheer about by smacking 4 HR's against the Nationals. Two of them off then-Cy-Young candidate Gio Gonzalez. "Yup. That was definitely the turning point in his career." "Oh, and remember, Colin McHugh started that game too. That was the first of his many complete game one-hitters." "Really? That's right, we had no idea how good he'd be then." "What a special day that was for us when you look back on it."

Duda I am willing to give you. He had such a promising 300 AB's last year, I thought he had the potential to really turn into a middle of the lineup guy. But he has taken a huge step back this year. Which is not to say you should give up on a young player after a bad year, but he is certainly far from being a known commodity. Murphy has had 1500 AB's in the majors. He is what he is. He's a pretty good hitter for average who does not get on base enough to justify his lack of power. He doesn't hit well enough to justify his poor fielding. He is one of these guys that will bounce around and some team will take a flyer on him. Once in a while he may find the right situation and find his way to a .800 OPS season, but he is not someone you build a team around. Thole? I will grant you that Thole has been better, but he has never been anything approaching good. Plus he is getting worse as time goes by. I may be exaggerating a bit but I feel like this entire team except Wright and Davis is made of guys who would be batting 7th or 8th on a championship level team.