Chad ochoseis

This time last year, we were talking about him as Manager of the Year. He didn't suddenly get stupid over the winter. There were some decisions I didn't agree with, but that's going to happen with any manager. The pitching choices would have looked a lot better if we'd had better pitchers. But I don't think firing Mendoza is going to help the team any more than firing Showalter, Rojas, Calloway, or Collins did. I think the managerial revolving door may be the problem. It's hard to make good decisions with an axe hanging over your head. But I agree this team is a lot dumber than last year's team was. Success aside, last year's team was fun to root for because it looked like the LOLMets era had ended. They got out-talented by the Dodgers, but they didn't get out-thought by anyone. This year, the entire club's baseball IQ seems to have dropped. I haven't had a chance to watch much. It's been a busy spring and summer. But I've been asking myself just how good of a pickup Soto was. He's put up offensive numbers exactly as expected, maybe even better. But he's awful in right field, and it hurt that when Taylor was hurt or benched we didn't have a great center fielder to pick him up. He doesn't say much to the press so it's hard to gauge his personality, but he got pouty when he got off to a slow start. And I don't recall Gary or Ron ever saying "Wow, what a smart move by Soto!" And, yeah, pitching. We didn't get hit too hard by injuries this year, but losing Senga (followed by watching him stink up the joint) was a tough blow.

Whoa. Since the order of victories doesn't matter, there are effectively 64 possible outcomes. Each of the three teams has four possible outcomes - they win 0, 1, 2, or 3 games. 4³= 64. Of those, There are 16 combinations where the Mets win 3, and the Mets clinch in all There are 16 combinations where the Mets win 2. The only scenarios where the Mets don't clinch are the four where the Reds win 3 (and the DBacks win 0, 1, 2, or 3). That leaves 12 where the Mets clinch. 16 combinations where the Mets win 1. Of those, the Mets clinch where the Reds win 1 or 0 and the DBacks win 0, 1, or 2. That's 6 combinations. Where the Mets win 0, they only win the WC if the Reds also win 0 and the DBacks win 0 or 1. That's 2 combinations. So, out of 64, 16+12+6+2 = 36 where the Mets win the WC. So, if we assume 50-50 for each win, that's a 56.25% probability. If we assume that each team has a slightly higher probability of winning because they'll be more willing to use rather than rest better players, or simply that in the Mets' case, they're playing a weaker team, that favors the status quo and increases the probability that the Mets win the WC. Not showing work on that, but picture the extreme cases where the win probabilities were 0 or 100%. Those would guarantee the status quo.

Am I the only one on the planet who is on Team Karen here? Looking at the whole film, this wasn't a scrum. The ball landed in front of Karen. Nobody was anywhere near her, so she bent down to pick it up, and Dad darted from about 15 seats away to grab the ball from her. She overreacted a bit, but nothing is as simple as it seems. There isn't any more clear video available via a Google search because everyone loves a good hero/villain story, but this one isn't bad. https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/JPXJkEYa9Y

Bummer's done for the night. Next comes Ennui, Depression, Quiet Desperation, and Rock Bottom.

Cookie Carrasco is probably a stellar human being and has a great comeback story, but he's stunk up several stadiums over the past seven years and I puzzle over how he's still in organized baseball.

I get none of the clues. But Skip Lockwood saved some games. (OE - I see he was already guessed)

In the middle of a work trip that involved flights on Monday, Tuesday, and this morning, and I'm catching an early flight tomorrow from O'Hare to Greensboro, NC. The Cyclones are in town, so I'm going to see them play the Greensboro Grasshoppers at First National Bank Field before catching another flight Saturday morning. I can use some advice on how to depressurize my ears, and also some thoughts on the park if anyone's ever been there.

Guy makes how many million dollars per year and he's never been measured for a suit?

A bit of math geek-out follows. The Mets are batting .245 (639 for 2609) on the season, and .215 with RISP. I'd prefer to work with OBP and not BA, but I couldn't find their OBP with RISP. I also couldn't find the number of at-bats they've had with RISP, but on average, about 24% of ABs come with RISP. So, figure in rough terms that 626 at bats have been with RISP and the Mets have gotten 134 hits. On average, if the Mets' true overall BA is .245, you'd expect them to get 153 hits in 626 at-bats. Using some standard mathematical assumptions, this is distributed normally (i.e. according to a bell curve) with a standard deviation of 10.76. We're assuming 134 hits, or 19 fewer than expected, or about 1.77 standard deviations below average. There would be about a 4% chance of that happening by luck alone. 5% is about where statisticians start considering that something didn't occur by luck alone. I'm oversimplifying by avoiding issues like sampling error, but this is about where we'd conclude that it isn't just bad luck, and we have enough of a sample to say that yes, there's a real problem here. Not that I know what to do about it. Or that anything is certain. Things with 4% probabilities of occurring do happen by dumb luck sometimes.

And some of Fman's live guitar. I've been doing a lot of traveling and am just starting to watch the Mets again. Alvy has looked lost at the plate. I assume that, since he's still better than Senger, this is just a chance to get him to figure it out in Syracuse and he'll be back up in a month or two. Ike Davis was a completely different story. Valley fever affected him long term. If he'd stayed healthy, he probably wouldn't have been a superstar, but he had a good chance at a perfectly solid Adam LaRoche type career. But, yes, we have Torrens now, just like we had Duda then. And Pete when first baseman of the future Dom Smith turned out to be a flash in the pan. And DeGrom, when Rafael Montero did likewise. Etc. Etc. Etc. Quantity is better than perceived quality when you're counting on prospects to pan out (yeah, I know - Torrens wasn't exactly a prospect).

[bLOCKQUOTE]Jeff McNeil: McNeil (oblique) will start in center field during a rehab game with Single-A St. Lucie on Thursday, Tim Healey of Newsday reports. McNeil has limited experience in center field, having made three appearances there with the Mets in 2023 and another three in the minors. With Jose Siri (leg) sidelined, the club would like to have McNeil as an option to play center field. That said, most of McNeil's reps should still come at second base. The 33-year-old appears likely to be activated from the 10-day injured list early next week. Injury Oblique. Est. Return 4/25/2025[/bLOCKQUOTE] If it came to that, why not Nimmo in CF and McNeil in LF? There was a lot of talk about Nimmo being the second worst CF in the NL one year, but looking at the dWAR, I remember seeing that there were maybe three great center fielders and the differences among the rest of the pack weren't large. So a lot of that chatter was overblown. I never thought of Nimmo as a particularly poor center fielder.

Frank Lane : Rocky Colavito :: M. Donald Grant : Tom Seaver RIP

His teammates nicknamed him "The Fidrych".

It's not the road for me, but I'll be in Section 138, short right field lower level, on Tuesday May 21 when the Mets play the Guardians. Anyone wants to come out to Cleveland and crash on my living room floor, be my guest. Literally.

I believe the swap worked out for him, but not for Mike Kekich.

Fritz Peterson, 82, one of the few Yankees who was easy to root for. https://niuhuskies.com/news/2024/4/12/baseball-niu-hall-of-fame-pitcher-fritz-peterson-passes-away.aspx

Based on a true story. The Osage tribe collects royalties on oil below their reservation. The white man collects royalties on the Osage. Scorsese directs as if it's a New York mob movie that happens to take place in Oklahoma, with DeNiro as the Don and DiCaprio playing his loyal but slow-witted caporegime who figures out too late that he's just a pawn in the game of life. Blackfoot Nation member Lily Gladstone earned a Golden Globe for playing DiCaprio's Osage wife, who's always a step or two ahead of her dumdum of a spouse. On Apple+.

Never heard of the mighty Quinn until this evening. But he just homered and put the Ponies ahead of the Ducks 3-0, so I'm calling dibs. Stanford grad, right fielder, 3rd round 2017 pick, toolsy type. But he's batting 9th and barely off the interstate in the Eastern League, so the odds are long against him cracking the Mets corner outfield corps. 4 solo home runs so far in the top of the 5th. Jason Krizan, Mazeka, and David Thompson in addition to my man Quinn. Ponies 6, Ducks 0 here in beautiful Akron.

Fantastic. My favorite topic - travel guides. As far as Cleveland - since you said you'll be driving to Detroit and Toronto, I'm assuming you'll be renting a car from the airport. I think the subway ("rapid" in Cleveland parlance) is easier, but you've got a wife and kids and in-laws, so I can see the value of having a car. Fair warning - the rental car pickup in Cleveland is a pain in the ass. It's a long shuttle ride to the rental area. I'm guessing you're staying at a hotel downtown. Straight from the airport You're arriving midday, so you'll be hungry. Don't go straight downtown. Stop in my neighborhood, http://www.ohiocity.org/Ohio City. Best way to get there would be to pick up 71 north from the airport, and get off at Pearl Rd. Drive north on Pearl for about a mile through a kind of eh neighborhood. It becomes W.25th. Keep going north and you'll hit a big intersection - Lorain Avenue. To your right will be a rapid stop and, across the street, a brick building with something that looks like a bell tower. That's the West Side Market, Cleveland's public market. There's parking behind the market and metered parking on the street. The West Side Market is fantastic. Kind of like the Reading Terminal Market in Philly if you've ever been there, but more fresh foods and fewer restauranty foods. So a lot of your time at the WSM will just be walking around. However, Maha's Falafel, at the northeast corner of the market, has excellent, quick Middle Eastern falafel and kebobs. It's not a sit-down place. If you want to sit down and eat, if the weather is nice, cross W. 25th and eat at Market Square, the little pocket park at the NW corner of W. 25th and Lorain. If you want some beer, and also a regular sit-down lunch, go to Great Lakes, which is on Market (the little street north of Market Square). It's been around since the mid 80s, just before the brewpub craze hit hard. Beer is great, particularly the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter and the IPA (which I think is called Conway). Food is excellent as brew pubs go. There are other good places to eat along W. 25th. North of the market, Nate's Deli (also Middle Eastern) is a very good sit-down restaurant. Ohio City Burrito - more fast foody, on the west side of W. 25th, about four blocks north of the market, is quite good. South of Lorain, W. 25th has really developed over the past few years. I've heard Bakersfield has excellent tacos, though I haven't been there yet. A lot of people rave about Citizen Pie pizza, but I'm not nuts about it. Certainly, it's not NYC style pizza. There are other bars along W. 25th, but I wouldn't bother with them for either beer or food, except maybe Market Garden, which is the standard go-to place if Great Lakes is crowded. Great Lakes and Market Garden also have nice souvenir shops if you want to bring stuff back with you. For dessert, Picadilly ice cream in the WSM is very good. Mitchell's, a few blocks north on W. 25th (with the movie theater marquee) is a small, excellent Cleveland ice cream chain. If you want to walk a couple of blocks west on Lorain, Farkas is supposed to have terrific Hungarian pastries. I'm not a big pastry person, so I've never tried it. As I said, this is my neighborhood. I'm off from work April 19 for Good Friday. I'm always glad to meet up with a Cranepooler, so I'll PM you my number if you want me to join you for lunch or a beer. To get downtown from Ohio City, make a left on Lorain. You'll almost immediately cross the Lorain-Carnegie bridge. You'll see some cool sculpture in the bridge pillars ("the Guardians of Transportation"). At the foot of the bridge, the street name changes from Lorain to Carnegie, and you'll be looking right at Progressive Field. Welcome to the southwestern edge of downtown Cleveland. Downtown I'm not a big downtown guy. I prefer the neighborhoods. But the pedestrian mall along E. 4 has some nice shops and restaurants. Take a look at the Terminal Tower, in the center of town at Euclid and Ontario. It's a beautiful building and was, until around 1990, the tallest building in North America between NYC and Chicago. In front of the building is the statue of Moses Cleaveland that the fans stuck an Indians cap on in Major League. Nice shopping mall inside the tower. Plenty of little places to have dinner before the game. Yours Truly - there's one in Playhouse Square just east of downtown, and I think there's one on E. 5th and Euclid - is kind of the standard chain if you have kids with you. It's perfectly OK. If you want to go fancy, the Greenhouse Tavern is about the best place downtown, though you'll need reservations and it won't be cheap (though pricy by Cleveland standards is still a serious bargain if you're a New Yorker). It's casual enough for the kids, though. I don't generally eat at the ballpark, so I can't tell you too much there, but most of the places I recommended above also have booths at the park. And go see the Indians' Hall of Fame outside the park. I'd consider going to the game, myself, but it's Passover that evening and I'll be at seder. Saturday The Rock Hall and the river tours are the Statue of Liberty and Circle Line of Cleveland. If you want to avoid Clevelanders, sure, do it. I went to the Rock Hall once, sometime in the last millenium, long before I moved here. It's beautiful and probably worth seeing. I believe it's crazy expensive. You'll go to the Rock Hall because it's the Rock Hall. But I'd give the boat a miss. After the Rock Hall, go east, to Little Italy and the museums. Take the Shoreway and get off at MLK Boulevard, and you'll go south through the beautiful Cultural Gardens. Little Italy runs for about six blocks uphill along Mayfield Road (not named for the Browns quarterback, at least not yet), between Euclid Avenue and Lakeview Cemetery (which is worth driving through...eternal home of John D. Rockefeller, James Garfield, Harvey Pekar, and Ray Chapman). Presti's has the best sandwiches. If you like coffee, Rising Star on [CROSSOUT]Random Rd.[/CROSSOUT] Murray Hill Rd. just off Mayfield has the third best espresso I've ever had. The second best ran me $8, and the first best was in Cuba. So stick with Rising Star at $2.75, including a glass of seltzer. If you like tea, Algebra Tea House, a little further up [CROSSOUT]Random[/CROSSOUT] Murray Hill on the opposite side of the street, is quite good. You may run into me in Little Italy. I'll be doing this walk: Error M.FACEBOOK.COM See posts, photos and more on Facebook. Error M.FACEBOOK.COM See posts, photos and more on Facebook. . Feel free to join in. After Little Italy, head west on Mayfield about five blocks to the Cleveland Art Museum, which is generally ranked among the top art museums in the country. It's certainly the best free admission art museum. This is the cultural center of the city. Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra, is also there, as well as the modern art museum and the museum of natural history. The Case Western campus is intertwined. If you have dinner in Little Italy, Mia Bella's is excellent. Also a place whose name begins with V that I can't think of off the top of my head. I've heard that Mama Santa's has good pizza, but I've never tried it. Afterwards Are you definitely staying over in Cleveland Saturday night? If not, I'd recommend heading towards Detroit in the late afternoon. You can stop in Lakewood, our hipster inner ring suburb. Lakewood Park has the Solstice Steps, which give a beautiful view of the sunset over Lake Erie. It's fun. The town comes out and watches the sunset, and then they give the sun a nice round of applause when it's over. If you were to have dinner there, Detroit Avenue is the main drag and has plenty of good restaurants. The Root, a hipster vegetarian (not vegan) place, is delicious. Aladdin's is a good Middle Eastern chain. El Carnicero is good upscale Mexican. You'll be west of Cleveland and on your way to Detroit. I'd stay somewhere between. Getting to Detroit The Ohio Turnpike is fast, but blah. I'd take Ohio Rt. 2. West of Sandusky, it becomes a gorgeous causeway over Sandusky Bay. The downside of 2 is that once you're west of the causeway, it becomes a two lane state road for about 15 miles, until you hit I-280 in the Toledo suburbs. Take I-280. You'll cross a beautiful cable-stay bridge over the Maumee River in Toledo. You'll likely take 280 even if you opt for the OH Turnpike. From there, you pick up I-75 to Detroit. Detroit I don't really know Detroit. For the most part, I'll defer to 41. However, the best beef barbecue I ever had was at Slows, in the Corktown neighborhood (which is a good part of Detroit). Toronto We were there last year for a few days. Here are my memories. - Are you staying at a hotel with parking? We didn't drive there, but I remember it being nearly impossible to leave your car long term anywhere in Toronto. Don't drive around Toronto. They have a fantastic public transportation system. It's slightly confusing because it involves streetcars as well as subways and buses, but it's quick, efficient, and easy. - Loved the Ontario Museum of Art, as well as the park around it. - We went to Asiatown, around Dundas and Spadina. Possibly one of the best tasting foods I have ever eaten anywhere was the black sesame gelato at Kekou, on Queen just west of Spadina. - The St. Lawrence Market. I love public markets, and this one is one of the few that I like even better than the West Side Market. And there was a place where you could get a reasonably authentic Montreal smoked meat sandwich, which comes in right behind that black sesame gelato in the Best Foods Anywhere race. - Just for grins, take the ferry over to the little airport on Lake Ontario. I can't remember the name of the airport. It's Billy Something. I want to call it Billy Bragg, but that's not it. It handles domestic flights, mostly from Montreal. The ferry is free, takes you about 100 yards from the mainland to the little island where the airport is located, and offers a great view of the Toronto skyline. It's pretty near the Rogers Centre. Have fun!

I think I've long owed youse guys a writeup on my adopted hometown's ballpark. The reputation is that it's a second-tier Good Place to Watch a Game. Not as good as the holy triumvirate of PNC, AT&T, and Camden Yards, but still quite nice. I've never been to PNC or AT&T I think Progressive vs Camden Yards is about a wash. What sets Progressive Field apart is how open it feels. At ground level, there are generally gates rather than walls, so even walking around to the concession stands, there's a feeling of being outdoors. I don't really get that at Citi, except at the Shea Bridge. I've generally watched games from the large bar inside the ballpark, called The Corner, which gets its name from radio announcer Tom Hamilton's tag line to open a home game, "...and we're underway at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario", with Carnegie pronounced the Scottish way with an accent on the second syllable. It's a nice bar, featuring fire pits and couches that come in handy on cold nights. You get a great view from the railing, similar to the Pepsi Porch (Coca-Cola Corner now?), but closer in, and purely standing room. On weeknights, you can get a "District Ticket" that includes admission and a free beer from among the cheap selections (Labatt's is the best of the bunch) for $15. You don't get a seat; the expectation is that you hang out in The Corner. On the downside, it's crowded for weekend games, the lines at the bar are long, and for whatever reason they didn't have a selection of local beers on tap, particularly odd considering that Progressive generally pushes local flavor. I had a Pilsener from Belgium that was reasonably good. The ballpark plays small. Its deepest part is in right center. Sightlines are excellent. I've rarely sat in the seats. I'm usually too cheap to buy a field level ticket - last time I did so was a couple of years ago, when the Mets were in town. I had the pleasure of chatting with 41Forever for a bit that day; he'd made the four hour drive in from western Michigan. Those of you who know me in real life know that I don't do high places, so I generally don't sit in the Promenade Level. I've only done it once in Cleveland; for Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, a friend had an extra 400-level ticket, so I sucked it up for Corey Kluber. He returned the favor by sucking in the game. The scoreboard beats Citi Field's, though that's admittedly not a high bar. Informative, good clear replays, and short on advertisements. The one thing that I found very odd is that the batter's major counting stats - home runs and RBIs - are only shown on the auxiliary scoreboards. The main scoreboard shows batting average, hits, walks, OBP, OPS, doubles, triples, and has a blurb that includes some home-only stats. But it takes a while to get the hang of remembering to look to a smaller scoreboard if you want to know how many home runs Frankie Lindor has on the season. The Indians Hall of Fame is very well done - understated, with a sea of plaques. All outdoors, at ground level of the ballpark. I wouldn't mind a retractable roof along the lines of Safeco. Fun fact - Cleveland has more rainy days than any other major league city, including Seattle. The location is ideal - a formerly desolate area near downtown. That seems to be the best formula for a ballpark location when it's available - convenient, with plenty of things to do in the area already built in. It works well in Denver, Seattle, and Baltimore, too. The atmosphere around the park during ballgames is festive, with people watching the TV broadcasts outside the park. There are two main drags within a couple of blocks of the ballpark - E. 4th Street for tourists and restaurants, and W. 6th for frat boy bars. Before and after the game, people also go across the river to the Ohio City neighborhood where W. 25th Street has somewhat better and less generic bars and restaurants. Great Lakes Brewing Company, the granddaddy of Cleveland brew pubs and the anchor of the W25th bar and restaurant strip, sponsors the vegetable oil powered Fatty Wagon shuttle bus, which will take you to and from the game for $1 plus a purchase from the bar or gift shop. I've never taken it, but it looks like fun. Concessions at the ballpark are generally solid, with an emphasis on local restaurants. I generally bike over to the games. It's about a two mile ride, mostly in dedicated bike lanes. There's plenty of bike parking behind the ballpark. The downtown train stop (Cleveland has three rapid transit lines, all of which converge downtown at the Terminal Tower) is about a four block walk. Progressive Field itself has no parking garages; the local lots charge $15-25. A few words on Wahoo, because you can't talk about the Indians without talking about Wahoo: The ballpark itself no longer sponsors anything with Chief Wahoo on it; they've gone to the block C logo (they may still sell Wahoo hats in the gift shop; I didn't check). There are Wahoo shirts all over the ballpark, though. I don't like Wahoo at all, though I see the point of view of the fans. Wahoo is probably the most readily identifiable logo in all of sports, and had been long before the rest of us figured out just how loathsome the logo is. And the Indians have generally been one of the more progressive franchises in baseball in terms of their actions; they were the first to integrate the American League and the first to hire an African-American manager, so there's a sense of frustration that they're being looked at as a bunch of ignorant yahoos because of a picture on a baseball cap. And Clevelanders are a stubborn bunch. They don't appreciate being told what to do. They're getting there, but they're not ready to let go of the Chief yet. One compromise I've seen proposed is a new Indian logo that's a dignified image rather than a crass caricature: An out-of-the-box way to keep the tradition with honor rather than bigotry. I can see this possibly working, if Native American leaders are on board. Otherwise, no.

Defunct: Shea Pre-'74 YS Pre-'09 YS Municipal Olympic County Comiskey Old Busch Still around: Citi Jacobs Field (yeah, I know what the actual name is) Wrigley Miller US Cellular Nats Park Safeco Ballpark at Arlington Camden Yards Toured Coors, but didn't see a game there

4 billboards. About a half hour in, with Frances McDormand in the main role and with the whole black comedy vibe, I was starting to think that the Coen Brothers had directed this film under a fake name. I enjoyed the film, mainly because of the characterizations and the acting performances. Everyone's been raving about Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, but it was also fun to watch Clarke Peters (Lester Freamon from The Wire) in a minor role. One of the bad guys has a transformation at the end that critics seem to have a hard time buying, which is why the film has evolved from "brilliant" to "controversial" (detail with spoilers here). I had no problem at all with the transformation. Somehow, in the past 20 years or so, we've lost the ability as a society to believe that some people are redeemable. I still believe that they are. People are complex, and their complexity makes great drama. For some reason, that's difficult for modern critics to handle. I did have some serious problems with a couple of the practical aspects of the plot. Two people in the film commit serious crimes in very obvious ways. One of those people suffers only minor consequences, even though the crime is committed in front of someone who has both the authority and the motivation to put the perp away for a long time. The other person who commits a crime gets away with the lamest of lame alibis. In both those cases, I call bullshit, which knocked the film from 5 down to 4 for me.

Just two months ago, I was watching you make the Akron Rubber Ducks look foolish. Now, you're pitching against major leaguers, and also Jedd Gyorko. They grow up so darn fast. I'm proud of you, son.

Well, as I've posted here previously, I'm no longer working full time and I've left the NYC area. So I have lots more free time, and I'm going to use some of it to give an orphaned Met prospect the father figure he needs in order to progress and achieve his full Metly potential. I've selected Robert Gsellman, current ace of the Binghamton staff and, according to MLB.com, the 3rd ranked pitching prospect in the org. And that's third behind not-really-a-prospect anymore Steven Matz and out-with-TJ Marcos Molina, so he can make a claim for being the top guy in the minors this year. 22-year-old Gsellman's best pitch is his sinking fastball, which I got to see up close and personal Wednesday night when he pitched on the road. He hit 95 mph pretty regularly and made the Akron Rubber Ducks look foolish (not that a team with a mascot named Rubberta doesn't look foolish even before they start swinging their bats). The bullpen blew the game for him, but let's not think about that. Right now, the Mets are pretty well fixed for starting pitching, but pitching is ephemeral. So who knows. We may be gseeing more Gsellman if things don't work out for one or more of our current staff, and I'm proud to be his adoptive daddy. Oh, yeah...both the G and the S are pronounced. So his name sounds sort of like "gesundheit", but not really.

Precious? Yes. Formulaic? Yes. Predictable? Yes. But, hey, good cinematography and Judi Dench. I can think of worse ways to spend $13 and two hours.