batmagadanleadoff

I think I'm going to put myself on a posting moratorium for a few days, maybe a few weeks. I don't want to be repeating myself, or getting into arguments I can never make any progress on, until you folks learn how to process your grief, or even to acknowledge it, so I'll take my leave for a while now. Thanks for everything. You're a good bunch of guys and gals, with rare exceptions, and you don't seem to be getting much benefit from my unusual perspective. Oh please don't go. If you go, how will we ever learn to process our grief properly? Please stay and teach us how to process our grief. Please benefit us. This is all our fault I didn't catch this right away because I was too busy poking fun at it. But it finally sunk in. The audacity, the outrageous mindset and sense of superiority it takes for a person to tell another -- no, not tell -- insist -- on how they should "process their grief". Wow!

This all started over some jock (Pete Alonso) making some throwaway comment in passing about just being in the playoffs is fun enough. Which it should be. Especially for Alonso, who was making his playoff debut. And then this pushy blowhard ties himself into pretzel knots and suicidal despair over Alsonso's words --- dragging us into his over the top diva dramatics and once again insulting the entire forum over this, just like he did with his Ostrosser quiz and just like he did when he couldn't convince the forum that the infield fly rule should be ditched. All because he didn't like what Alonso said. And the thing is, it was probably a throwaway comment that Alonso himself might not even remember any more. Alonso might've been thinking more about which restaurant he was gonna have dinner in after he left the stadium when he made his "fun" comment. And this jerk holds Alonso to this ridiculously absurd and unrealistic standard that you'd think Alonso should've spoken as if he was one of the framers and founders, debating about what to include in the Bill of Rights when he said he was having "fun".

=roger_that post_id=111066 time=1665438184 user_id=128] I think I'm going to put myself on a posting moratorium for a few days, maybe a few weeks. I don't want to be repeating myself, or getting into arguments I can never make any progress on, until you folks learn how to process your grief, or even to acknowledge it, so I'll take my leave for a while now. Thanks for everything. You're a good bunch of guys and gals, with rare exceptions, and you don't seem to be getting much benefit from my unusual perspective.

Edgy MD wrote: Edgy MD wrote: That's a lot of sarcastic misrepresentation and utter nonsense directed at your fellow posters. Deal. I'm not sure what that refers to. Is there some sort of deal that has been proffered that you are agreeing to? "Deal", as in "Deal with it". That was his initial post: just that one word - "Deal". Then, like 15 minutes later, he amended his one word "Deal" post to include all the rest of the insulting and self-aggrandizing garbage that he routinely posts. Ever heard of Brian Ostrosser? I'll tell you all about him (just as soon as I google Ostrosser, myself, to learn all about him). Doesn't begin to make your characterization true though you will get a lot of "That's telling him, Edgy! You go, girl!" on this site. Edgy MD wrote: I haven't offered you rancor, and I've done my best to discourage any rancor directed at you and/or other posters. That having been written, please know that if you intend to gender-shame me or anybody else on this site, we ask that you take that to the Red Light Forum. I'll be happy to meet you there and we can discuss in whatever terms or tone you see fit. Or you can write me. Or you can visit me. I'm not hard to find. I never "offered him" any rancor either, but here we are now, me and him, in a feud that he totally started with numerous unhinged and foul posts directed at me before I finally responded. Funny, I don't remember you ever discouraging him from addressing me in the brutal way he now routinely does. And the nasty stuff he just wrote to you that inspired your criticisms just above is like a love poem compared to what he's written to me. What I do remember is you red-lighting one of my posts that had no business being red-lit -- some post where I didn't think his Doc Medich trade joke was as funny as he thought it was. Just a straight civil disagreement without any of the name-calling.

=MFS62 post_id=111067 time=1665438354 user_id=60] Does mutual option mean both the player and the team have to agree on a player becoming a free agent, or is it either/or? Laterr

Edgy MD wrote: That's a lot of sarcastic misrepresentation and utter nonsense directed at your fellow posters. I know. As if one can't be disappointed at the result and still have had fun throughout the experience, all at the same time. I dont mind him disagreeing. I dont even mind the name-calling anymore. But he makes stuff up every time from which to launch his points. Straw man stuff every single post. I'll take this 101 win season and first round exit every day over signing Wacha and Porcello while letting Wheeler walk.

Starling Marte and his Heavy Friends - The History of Pop Music 1990.3 [FIMG=555]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52418845405_66ed9e518f_h.jpg[/FIMG] [media=youtube]GuJQSAiODqI[/media] [media=youtube]jrwjiO1MCVs[/media] [media=youtube]0RJwW77Lsj8[/media]

They also didn't truly address their holes at the deadline, making marginal bet around the edges, which mostly felt like shoring up a deep playoff roster...except the Mets didn't have a deep playoff roster, so their "this is a really good platoon guy, and gives us flexibility!" additions get overused, and they struggled. Nobody ever said the Mets were flawless. What team ever was? For all their flaws (and their strengths outnumbered their weaknesses by a lot) the Mets still won 101 games. And they lost Marte for the last month of the season -- not to mention that he may have been playing compromised against the Padres in the playoffs. He was consistently tremendous before he broke his finger and a deserving all-star. I'd like to believe that having Marte for the last four weeks would've made the difference between the Mets winning their division easily and finishing in second place.

you're misreading me. I'm not saying the Mets need "better than reasonable hope" from their prospects. I'm saying Atlanta has a more complete talented player dev system, and a more consistent plan of promotion. Yes, they ended up doing even better than that, even faster. But they put them in positions to succeed, and the Mets promotions seemed like reactions to twitter pressure, desperate ,and could be argued put them in a position to fail. Again, no doubt that Atlanta has had a better talent development system in place. Certainly that was a shortcoming of prior management, and it's also certainly too early to know if it's been improved. Any fair measurement of that is going to take several years. I'm not saying Cohen is unwilling to expand the budget, i'm saying he's unwilling to expand it to compensate for the MANY players that are now free agents. He's said stuff about the budget not being unlimited ,which means it exists, which means decisions have to be made. But this is based on supposition, that because there is a limit somewhere, that means enough won't be spent. There's no evidence for this claim. They need to replace 3 starting pitchers, a closer, a centerfielder, a few other bullpen arms, and then add a hitter, and maybe some new bench pieces. The budget gap is not as big as it might seem. Many of the players to be replaced are already making close to market value on one-year deals. Take Diaz: he's at $10M this year. DeGrom would require some additional fresh money to resign but it's not coming from zero; he was already making $28M this year. It's fine to take a pessimistic viewpoint, I guess, but there's no basis to for the idea that Cohen won't or can't spend sufficiently to make the team competitive. And they've botched some of these decisions in the past, from draft to trade deadline to offseason. There is no indication that this team is up to the task. I hope so, but I don't think any of them have the track record to say "I trust Billy Eppler implicitly to put the best options in place" This is a bit all over the place, and it plays both ways. Eppler has a 101 win team on the field. That's a success anywhere. His off-season acquisitions were a resounding success. I'll agree he underperformed at the most recent deadline but longer-term results are unclear given that prospects stayed put. And if you want to claim the Rocker draft was botched, fine - but that can't count against Eppler. There's no basis to complain about the most recent draft and far too early to judge results. And don't forget -- Cano's contract comes off the books after next season. That's a huge chunk of money.

Lefty Specialist wrote: I may be in the minority, but if deGrom opts out of his contract I let him walk. He'll want ridiculous money for declining results. I'm not sure where I stand on this. But seeing deGrom in 2021 was about as awesome a baseball experience as I've ever witnessed. I'm starting to believe that deGrom has already decided that he wants to play elsewhere and that he even knows specifically where he wants to play. This is just a hunch, but it's based on the few public comments he does make once in a while, and also, what little some of his teammates have said publicly about this situation.

=whippoorwill post_id=111030 time=1665423816 user_id=79] I'm over it.

They didn't JUST lose. They got lit up, humiliated, totally outhit, outpitched, outfielded by a team that is, frankly, mediocre itself and missing a major player in its lineup besides. The Mets clearly showed their bona fide credentials as just another so-so team that let its opponents walk all over them in their home stadium. If these had been exciting, interesting nuanced games to watch but they happened to come out on the wrong end, I'd grant you room to spout this silly stuff about "fun" baseball. So what? You've been watching baseball as long as you have and you can't comprehend that this happens all the time. Every single day. Because it's as normal as the sun rising. You really have a weak, almost child-like understanding of the game. Yeah. The Mets "let" the Padres walk all over them. Because it all comes down to character and who supposedly wants it more. Tom Seaver had a crappy WS W-L record. Wanna know why? It's because he lacked character and didn't wanna win those games as much as his opponents did. /rolls eyes It couldn't possibly be luck or randomness or that three WS games carries less weight and meaning than 600+ regular season games.

=Ceetar post_id=111027 time=1665422847 user_id=102] because he's a large human being going into his age 31 season? because injury hasn't been uncommon for him? Because regression is almost baked in?

=Ceetar post_id=111022 time=1665421708 user_id=102] I only mention Judge because I feel like this admin has had a certain attraction to the big name, the trendy guy, and he's certainly that. And i'm talking about next year, not this one.

You can't just give Aaron Judge a billion dollars and pretend that fixes the offense. Spot-on analysis. Really? I'm certain that the Mets having Aaron Judge on their team this year would've upgraded the Mets offense tremendously. Any contrary opinion is just crazy talk. But this from a guy who last Spring wrote that Showalter was a bad choice to manage the Mets because he had "Yankee taint". What are you, eight years old?

=roger_that post_id=111011 time=1665416626 user_id=128] =Ceetar post_id=111001 time=1665406823 user_id=102] You can't just give Aaron Judge a billion dollars and pretend that fixes the offense.

You'd be singing --well, warbling off-key and forgetting most of the lyrics--a different song if the Mets had won the World Series this year. Then it would be all "It's the playoff system that really tests your mettle," and blah blah blah. It never ceases to amaze me how you can rationalize any weak bullshit and come to the conclusion "We actually did very well this year" whatever the facts tell you. You're here 10 minutes and you act as if you know me all your life. I've been minimizing baseball's post-season probably since I was a teen-ager. And back then, only four teams made the playoffs. It's a luck fest. It means crap other than to provide the sport and the season the badly needed closure that its players and fans must have. It's a spectacle and it's fun but it means very little in assessing which of the participating teams is the best of all. Seven playoff games or 15 playoff games doesn't carry more weight, not even remotely, than the 162 games that comprises the regular season. And this opinion of mine wouldn't change even if the Mets were to win the World Series this year. I still tell people that the 1969 Orioles were a better team than the 1969 Mets and if those two teams played each other 100 times, the Orioles would have easlily won the majority of the games played between the two teams. The Mets winning the 1969 WS and the '69 Orioles being the better team aren't inconsistent or irreconcilable outcomes. But let the pundits and the experts over-analyze playoff games the same way you attach so much weight to Alonso's throwaway comment about having fun. I'm sure Alonso gave that "fun" comment as much thought and reflection as one of his farts in the shower or him picking up a napkin to kill a spider that wandered into his kitchen. Who's the nutjob? What? The Mets are supposed to go undefeated in the playoffs? Win every game by sheer will? Win every game just because they want to? Or because you want them to? If they could do that, they would've gone 162-0 in the regular season. You have ridiculous expectations, and from a sport that's polluted with luck, way more so than any other of the major team sports games. Baseball is an extremely flawed game, no matter what the poets wax about how great the game is and the sheer bullshit about how bases that are 90 feet apart is supposed to be some standard of perfection. The fact is the 101-win season didn't mean a damned thing--it didn't mean the Mets were dominant, it didn't mean their pitching was their secret advantage over the rest of the league, it didn't mean they were a well-run organization, and it certainly didn't mean that Cohen's wallet would get them the players they needed when they needed them. If your'e making a statement here, that's your right. But if you're claiming that I said the Mets were well run or that they had all of the players they needed, well then find that quote. You won't because I never said anything like that. I said that the Mets had one of baseball's best teams this season. If you disagree, show us how they didn't have one of baseball's best teams. If character meant anything, they would have found a way to eke out a single win during the nail-in-the-coffin Atlanta series, one win that would have made all the difference now, and if they had pulled out a single win when they needed one so desparately, i'm sure you would be citing that win as a sure sign of the character of this fabulous team. What does that one win's absence tell you? Not a lack of character, that's for sure, which tells me that your way of evaluating character is deeply, deeply flawed. More straw man crap. I don't believe in baseball character and I loathe, despise the way playoff baseball always come down to "character" in the reporting. If you object to the term "character," fine. I'm probably with you on that, but this team lacked something in the end. And whatever else you want to call that lack, you can't just call it "luck" and skip off on your merry way. Oh OK. So character in baseball is a myth. But I should believe in it anyways. And then suffer your straw man attacks because I don't believe in baseball character. Or because I do believe in baseball character. Talk about having it both ways. We're going to see a whole new version of the Mets next year, but I will guarantee you two things: 1) they will have the highest payroll in all of baseball (again) and 2) you will do anything to ignore fundamental ways in which that team is mis-run. Yeah sure, whatever. The team is mis-run because Pete Alonso said that the playoffs are fun. And then you invent a lot of shit that you pull out of your asshole to challenge my posts and general understanding of baseball. And now you're so distraught that you come off like you should be calling the suicide hotline because Alonso is happy to be in the playoffs, his first ever, even after the Mets lost the opener to the Padres.

I dunno. I think this Winter is gonna be just as long or as short as every other that preceded it. 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.

This will all be a distant memory after a Mets win tonight The over the top dramarama and angst here is just mind-boggling. Who gives a flying fuck how Alonso "feels" and what "he said? It doesn't even matter. So long as Alonso's giving it his all, I couldn't care less if he's wearing diapers beneath his uni.

Edgy MD wrote: Guillorme, McCann, and Alvarez all get through the series without seeing a start. Nido starting all three playoff games tells you exactly what the Mets think of McCann when the rubber hits the road.

I'm certain that Pete Alonso is playing as hard, as intense and as cutthroat as you would like him to play, no matter what the hell he said about having fun. Which doesn't matter anyways because pretty much everything they say is carefully calculated for effect rather than honesty. But go ahead and knock yourself out parsing to the infinite degree, the six or eleven words Alonso uttered -- uttered probably without a speck of a half a molecule of the thought that you're putting into his insignificant and throwaway comment that isn't worth half a second of analysis.

Edgy MD wrote: a meaningful chance that it was deGrom's last game as a Met. A damned good chance, I'd say. Curious: for comparable money, do you suspect he thinks "Get me the fuck away from these non-supporting teammates and these horrible memories" or "I like it here and the run support can only get better if I stay"? Oh please with the daily hypothetical dramatics. The Mets won 101 games and are already one of baseball's best teams in only Cohen's second full season. If they're not scoring for deGrom, it's randomness. If he signs elsewhere for 2023, "non supporting teammates and horrible memories" will be the last reason. Or less than the last reason because this reason won't even register. deGrom might want to play for the Dodgers, for example, because right now and for at least the immediate future, the Dodgers franchise will be in better shape than the Mets franchise. But that's nothing like "horrible memories". And these Mets aren't the 2018 Mets anyways.

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Lefty Specialist wrote: Diaz throwing too many pitches to go 3 innings. I'd bet they were planning for such a possibility. This wasnt sprung on Diaz 15 minutes ago. I like it. But ideally, deGrom would've pitched at least one more inning. In a situation like this, I think the strategy should be to go with your best reliever. If he has to be replaced, then go with your next best. You have to play these innings like its sudden death.

He's the only Mets reliever I'd trust with a one run lead in an elimination game. Obviously, Buck thinks deGrom is spent if Buck's going to Diaz in the 7th.