batmagadanleadoff

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I just want to repeat: If anyone can think of any events from Mets history that should be included, please let me know. This is great. Bruce Stark cartoons. I loved those.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think Kingman was already gone by then. (Noble's article mentions Seaver, Foster, and Staub.) Wasn't Kingman released during the 1983 season after Keith Hernandez arrived? I think Kingman finished out the '83 season with the Mets. The famous line was Kingman telling Hernandez shortly after Keith arrived, (they were both first basemen) was something like "I'm glad the Mets got you, so that now I can get the hell out of here." (Or something like that).

I've been rooting for the Pods ever since they eliminated the Mets but every year, I root real hard for a series like Phillies v. Padres. I love this. It's as normal as a Dodgers/Mets NLCS or a Mets/Braves NLCS. It confirms everything I believe about playoff baseball and baseball in general and is sort or my revenge for all of those playoff articles I come across every year that annoy the living shit out of me that make much ado about a team with a better record losing in three of four games to its opponent. This is all literally --literally-- a coin flip as far as I'm concerned and I think that every qualifier has about the same chance of taking the title.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: .... and a wild card needing to win 5 extra games under your plan for the title makes the road a little harder for them. I'm not following this. A little help? Where are you getting the "five extra wins" from? Thanks.

Playoff baseball is a crapshoot. You might as well throw darts at your wall blindfolded to try and figure out who's gonna win any single series. The Dodgers are the undisputed best team in baseball over the last 10 years and its not close. They sign top tier MVP caliber free agents. They trade for top tier MVP caliber players. They've been developing the best players in baseball over the last 10 years. And they have no holes in their starting lineup. No James McCanns. They're a powerhouse. And they have one World Series crown to show for all of that. Just one. And in a 60 game Covid shortened season, no less. Just one World Series title. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's supposed to go like that. Because playoff baseball blah blah blah short series' between good teams blah blah yada and all that luck that pollutes baseball yada yada blah. It's a game of a lotta luck where the differences between two teams 10 games apart in the standings is way tinier than most people think. If less teams made the playoffs, I'm certain that the Dodgers would have several more titles. The only thing that I think the Dodgers should be favored to do this Fall is to not win the 2022 World Series. And it's not because they're not baseball's best team. They are. Easily. The Mets were tremendous this year. They won 101 games -- and with deGrom and Scherzer combined, missing close to an entire season -- and getting the kid glove hothouse flower treatment for a good chunk of their active stretches. That's how you measure a team -- by the 162 game regular season. Playoffs are just a spectacle. The regular season is William Shakespeare and the playoffs are Archie comics. It's a gimmick. Here's another dumb article about playoff baseball. Expect more to come. The Dodgers are proof that, in the postseason, nothing is guaranteed Image without a caption Analysis by Chelsea Janes Excerpt:The Los Angeles Dodgers were the best team in the majors all season. No one scored more runs or had a higher team on-base-plus-slugging percentage. No one allowed fewer earned runs. They were dominant. And they are done. [***] The Dodgers are the most dominant regular season team of the past decade. They have won 73 more regular season games in the past 10 years than anyone else. They have beaten their regular season opponents by more than 1,700 runs in that span, more than 700 more than the second-best Houston Astros, according to MLB.com. They have won just one World Series in that time, and it came in the 2020 covid-shortened season. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/16/dodgers-early-postseason-exit/https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/16/dodgers-early-postseason-exit/ It's a dumb article. It goes on and on about the usual lack of timely hitting and starters that weren't as effective in the playoffs as during the season. It speculates about whether the bye layoff was detrimental rather than an advantage. But it misses the point because it ignores the crapshoots and coinflips and lucky nature of playoff baseball. And that two or four games isn't enough of a sample to prove anything. It tries to come up with solutions to yield better playoff outcomes, i.e. winning playoff games, when it's a crapshoot and a coin flip and a coin flip, by its very nature, is all luck and luck is something beyond anyone's control. It can't be fixed because it's beyond anyone's control. Just like you can't control whether you're gonna be born into a fabulous wealthy family with resources and good values and connections in a major American city or whether you're going to be born in a third world town where you have to walk around barefoot all of the time because hardly anyone there has shoes and the only reading material you'll ever have access to is the Bible. It's luck because you have no control over that. And the Dodgers winning just one WS despite being the unquestionable best team in baseball over the last 11 years is like the most normal thing that could be. If this was the 50s, where only the pennant winners advanced beyond the regular season, the Dodgers would surely have won more titles over that time. But that's a bygone era.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I really think he's gone .... Me too. I think he already knows which team he's going to and that his representatives already had secret talks with the prospective new team to feel each other out and establish important parameters. It's the way deGrom is so adamant about not wanting to talk about his upcoming contract. Many players take that position once the season starts, but there's something different about the way deGrom's handling this. It's as if he knows he's leaving and wants to avoid the topic as much as possible because it's a very difficult decision for him to make and a large part of him wants to remain a Met. This comment that Steve Cohen made about a month and a half ago convinced me and was my last straw: “We love Jacob, and I think he's the best pitcher in baseball,” Cohen told The Post on Saturday before the Mets hosted the Rockies at Citi Field. “We'll do whatever we can to make sure he stays. But it's his decision, not ours.” https://nypost.com/2022/08/27/steve-cohen-adamant-mets-will-do-whatever-we-can-to-keep-jacob-degrom/https://nypost.com/2022/08/27/steve-cohen-adamant-mets-will-do-whatever-we-can-to-keep-jacob-degrom/ It seemed to me that Cohen was setting up the fanbase for the inevitable news that will disappoint many, when deGrom announces that he's signing elsewhere -- and also, pre-emptively deflecting blame for when deGrom does leave. I get the sense that deGrom and the Mets already had meaningful "feel each other out" talks that indicated that deGrom is likely to leave. If the Wilpons still owned the Mets, this would be easy to figure out. Well, first of all, the Wilpon Mets couldn't afford deGrom at the current market rate, so there's that and that's a big that. But beyond that, if the Wilpon Mets were pretty sure that deGrom was leaving, they'd be shitcanning deGrom through press leaks every other week. Anyways, what do I know? I don't know anything youse don't already know. I'm just speculating. This is my take.

I've been rooting for the Padres ever since they eliminated the Mets. Mainly because I think that they have the best uniforms of the remaining teams and also, because a series victory over the Dodgers, which the Padres completed last night, is consistent with everything I believe about playoff baseball.

'Rosenthal: Too soon to cite new format as reason for MLB postseason upsets" (From The Athletic). The 101-win Mets lose and it's "#LOLMets" but ATL and LAD lose and "the system might be flawed!" Lol. This is why I hate baseball playoffs. Because the commentary and most everything else surrounding it is moronic. Now what? They want the second and third place teams to participate --- but not to win any series? Is that it?

'Rosenthal: Too soon to cite new format as reason for MLB postseason upsets" (From The Athletic). Good grief. Here we go with the overreactions and the failure to understand the randomness of a short baseball series and the enormous influence of luck in baseball. If they dont want non-elite teams to advance in baseball playoffs, then those teams shouldn't be in the playoffs in the first place. What do they think? That the best teams get magical powers in the playoffs and that the team with the better record is suppose to win every playoff game just by wanting to win? I dont get why they even have these dialogues at this point in time. If I flipped a coin twice and it came up heads both times, my first instinct wouldn't be to think that the coin was rigged to come up heads more often than not.

=smg58 post_id=111382 time=1665931561 user_id=62] But you're still better off making the playoffs consistently if the goal is to come away with a title or two.

Willets Point wrote: Perhaps the Padres are actually a good team and losing to them was not a rage-inducing humiliation or a sign that the Mets "gave up" that some Mets fans have insisted upon. I wouldn't have thought or felt any of that stuff even if it was the Nats or Marlins that took two of three from the Mets. It was two out of three games, that's all it was. (Oooooooh. But it happened in the playoffs. The plaaaaaaaaaaaayoffs.)

Willets Point wrote: The way I see it, the Pennant and the World Series champions are awards for two different things. The Pennant is the award for sustained excellence over the regular season by winning the most games, or at least it was from 1876 to 1968. I think it should be restored as the award. Remember, the Pennant was once highly-regarded on its own as a high achievement, such as in 1954 when New York City gave the New York Giants a ticker tape parade for winning the Pennant. The World Series Championship on the other hand is an award for winning a post-season tournament among the best teams in baseball in that regular season. That tournament has grown from 2 to 4 to 8 to 10 to 12 contestants but it has always been true that the team with the best regular season record frequently does not win the World Series Championship. If that doesn't make it clear, consider this parallel: European Football. In domestic leagues, the championship titles are given to the team that wins the most games in the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, et al. That's the Pennant. But the best teams in Europe also compete in the Champions League. That's the MLB Postseason (and sometimes the Champions League winner doesn't even win their domestic league, such as Chelsea in 2021). Winning a domestic league and winning a Champions League are both highly-desired and celebrated awards. That's what I want for the Pennant and the World Series Championship. My main point is that baseball's different and isn't prone to comparisons to the other sports. Much different than the other team sports. It's loaded with luck, so much more than any of the other sports. And so a large playoff field to determine its champion in a series of short series where the enormous amount of luck that exists will never even out is practically pointless and undermines the regular season to a great degree. The long season is needed to weed out the luck. Inviting so many teams to the playoffs undermines all that the regular season accomplishes. I haven't watched a single at-bat of this post season other than the Mets games. This has been my practice - not precisely but more or less - for 30 years now, since wild cards were instituted. As I see it, I might as well go and stand in front of a casino roulette wheel station. Not to gamble my own money on the roulette wheel but to watch and wonder and maybe even bet on which of the gathered roulette wheel players are going to win or lose. And then the tortured analysis'. You can't credibly say that Max Scherzer sucks or that Aaron Judge sucks after the Mets were eliminated or after the Yankees might be eliminated. So you get these stupid narratives about deGrom or Scherzer or Judge's lack of character or strength to pitch in big situations. I've been reading that crap all my life and the pundits are still putting out that nonsense. Because too many people can't acceptr that some results are simply random and nothing more. Me, I happen to think that 99.9999% of life is all luck, including everybody's failures and successes.

My other idea is for the World Series winners to get World Series rings and extra bonus money and a big hometown parade in their honor or instead, they could take a bullet to the back of their heads. I wonder how many would choose the second option? Of course, it would be their choice.

I had this great idea that I invented so I'm taking all the credit for it, of giving the baseball team with the best league record the option of either getting a first round bye or instead having to play a first round series where it would have to win 10 games to win the series and advance -- while their opponent only has to win one game to take the series. I wonder how many "league best record" teams would take that option of waiving their bye and instead, having to win 10 first round games? That's my idea. I thought of it all by myself. Just me.

Frayed Knot wrote: I don't understand the logic behind awarding the pennant to the team with the best record if you're then going to have a playoff format anyway and have the winner of that scrum, however it's structured, go on to the World Series. If the final squad standing ins't the best regular season team then the whole pennant thing is a meaningless title and if it is them then the pennant award was merely a premature title. A league champion based on the regular season vs a playoff system seems to me is an either/or situation. Wanting to have both is a kind of contradiction in terms. This is on the money. There's really no right or wrong way, no good or bad way to structure baseball playoffs. It simply comes down to preference. Me, I'd prefer a much smaller field of baseball playoff teams. Structurally, baseball is a deeply flawed game because luck plays an enormous role in sorting out its winners and losers. Way too big of a role. Hopefully, though, the lengthy 162 game season would go a long way towards evening out that luck and determining, with reasonable accuracy, who its very best teams are. Luck doesn't even out in short series' and so all too often, the best team doesn't necessarily win out in playoff baseball. Playoff baseball really is a crapshoot or a coin flip. And I'm not sure if those words adequately describe the dynamics involved in a short baseball series overflowing with luck because, I, suspect, "] I don't mind the expanded playoffs as much as I thought I might. I still think the MLB regular season means something, as opposed to, say, the NBA season.

Frayed Knot wrote: No, the thumb thing was Sutter. So that, even when the splitter became more common, his version of it, owing in part to his extraordinarily long fingers, remained unique to him. Yeah. I just remembered that it had to be Sutter who gave that demonstration and not Scott. Scott was extremely secretive about the way he threw his pitch and never would have gone on national TV to explain how to throw that pitch -- an attitude that made total sense to me. If I was the only major leaguer that knew how to throw a new out pitch to devastating effect, why on Earth would I be teaching some other player how to throw the same pitch so long as I was still an active player? Makes about as much sense as Coca-Cola publicizing their formula for Coca-Cola.

Edgy MD wrote: I guess his era was the beginning of the era of closers being adrenaline junkies, pumped and intimidating beasts being let off the leash, but that was never really his act to my memory, despite his broad shoulders and big crazy beard. This sounds a lot like The Mad Hungarian.

Frayed Knot wrote: No, the thumb thing was Sutter. So that, even when the splitter became more common, his version of it, owing in part to his extraordinarily long fingers, remained unique to him. So Sutter actually did throw that pitch by using his thumb to pop the ball out from his grip? My suspicion that he wasnt telling the truth grew stronger over time because as that pitch gained popularity over the ensuing years, it turned out that nobody else threw the pitch the way Sutter claimed he did.

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=111255 time=1665765626 user_id=68] I only think of Sutter as a Cub. Odd because Sutter was still producing elite all star seasons for the Cards and was their ace reliever on the '82 WS championship team. But this notion of Sutter as only a Cub is so powerfully ingrained in me that I sometimes have to remind myself that he even played for the Cards. My strongest Sutter memory is of him appearing on a TV game of the week pregame segment to explain how he throws his at the time novel but virtually unhittable split finger fastball.He demonstrated how he used his thumb to push the ball out from between his index and middle fingers as he was releasing the pitch. I thought he was full of shit and that it was impossible to throw a pitch like that. I figured he didnt wanna reveal his secret trick, which made perfect sense to me.

I only think of Sutter as a Cub. Odd because Sutter was still producing elite all star seasons for the Cards and was their ace reliever on the '82 WS championship team. But this notion of Sutter as only a Cub is so powerfully ingrained in me that I sometimes have to remind myself that he even played for the Cards. My strongest Sutter memory is of him appearing on a TV game of the week pregame segment to explain how he throws his at the time novel but virtually unhittable split finger fastball.He demonstrated how he used his thumb to push the ball out from between his index and middle fingers as he was releasing the pitch. I thought he was full of shit and that it was impossible to throw a pitch like that. I figured he didnt wanna reveal his secret trick, which made perfect sense to me.

I keep on reading so called insider scoops that say deGrom really wants to play close to his home, in Florida. What does this mean? I doubt that either the Rays or Marlins have the money to pay deGrom. If that's true, the Braves are the closest team to deGrom's home that could afford him. What does deGrom expect to do? Take a jet home to Florida after every Braves home game and then a jet back to Atlanta in the morning? On most days, he wont even get out of the stadium until about midnight so this isnt even feasible unless he asks for and gets special privileges when he's not pitching. (I'm sure he'll have the money to do that). Take a jet home on every home off day? How many days is that? Maybe once a month, if even that much? Is that alone worth leaving the Mets?

It's not such a no brainer to let deGrom walk. He struck out 102 in 64.1 innings this year and showed no lingering health issues from what sidelined him for 13 months. He did develop a blister but that's a routine occurrence that shouldn't factor at all in deciding how hard to pursue deGrom. It took about two months to build back deGrom's strength to where he could throw 100 pitches a game but that's normal given he hadn't pitched in 13 months and had no Spring Training. I'm fairly certain even though I'm really guessing here, that some team will offer him more than what Scherzer's making. That deGrom is likely to regress even if he remains healthy over the next three years can, just the same, have been said about Scherzer before the Mets signed him. The real risk is carrying not one, but two pitchers at exorbitant salaries into their very late 30s.

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=111090 time=1665498888 user_id=68] =metsmarathon post_id=111088 time=1665497850 user_id=83] degrom is a headscratcher. i'd love to pay him what he wants, but there's so much risk. that said, i'd easily go 3x100, with vesting options on the back end. I could be talked up from there on the AAV. and then i'd start looking at cost-controlling my young players and extending mcneil and alonso ASAP.

=metsmarathon post_id=111088 time=1665497850 user_id=83] degrom is a headscratcher. i'd love to pay him what he wants, but there's so much risk. that said, i'd easily go 3x100, with vesting options on the back end. I could be talked up from there on the AAV. and then i'd start looking at cost-controlling my young players and extending mcneil and alonso ASAP.

Jason Fry (Faith and Fear in Flushing) on that game: I was there for that night, also known as Game 3 of the Wild Card Series.... Unlike Game 1, we had good neighbors — knowledgeable about the game, passionate about the Mets, and philosophical and mournful instead of vengeful and irrational once things spun out of control. [Emphasis added] [***] [T]he Mets lost one and then won one and then their opponents played better and so they lost a rubber game. There's nothing earth-shaking about that — I could have just described several chunks of any season, even a 101-win one. But because this particular rubber game came in October, people will try and tell you it means everything. They'll turn it into a referendum on the entire season, or say risible stuff about 26 guys wanting it more than 26 other guys, or opine about who was battle-tested or possessed the will to win. And it will all be nonsense. The Mets lost a rubber game in an exhibition series. It's disappointing and I'm sad about it, but fundamentally that's all that happened and all this other … stuff encrusting that fact is more than a little ridiculous. The postseason is a series of coin flips that we spin into Just So stories, and the more baseball I watch, the more resistant I am to the whole narrative industrial complex that surrounds the games. [***] [D]on't let losing an exhibition series sour you on a 101-win campaign that was marvelous fun for six months. http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/ bml and Jason Fry similarity score --- off the charts!