batmagadanleadoff

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: This card is from the 2nd series. (Collect 'em all) https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48410650882_3561e519f7_z.jpg> What's on the backs of these cards? https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48328698326_61cc606d3e_z.jpg>https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48418800156_a5ce53515b_z.jpg>

Some Mets snark from David Roth at Deadspin. Including about the third instsance I'm noticing about how the Wilpons suddenly don't like Syndergaard. And by don't like, I mean personality-wise. If this is true and history repeats itself, this is the kiss of death for Met fans of Thor. I guess the Wilpons still think that their fans will accept the unloading of any Met so long as the owners float a rumor about the so-called creepy soon to be departed Met. I now await the Mets inevitable acquisition of this year's Jim Fregosi in exchange for baseball's most spectacular throwing arm. https://deadspin.com/a-working-theory-of-what-the-mets-are-even-doing-right-https://deadspin.com/a-working-theory-of-what-the-mets-are-even-doing-right- An excerpt: The rest of it, the “Mets hijacking the market” part, is very interesting, and that's the part that we don't know yet. The Mets have, in Noah Syndergaard, easily the most valuable player being made available at the trade deadline. Ordinarily, a player like Syndergaard would not be made available under any circumstances—he is younger and better than Stroman, will be underpaid per MLB's system for two more years instead of one, and when he's right is one of the most overpowering arms in all of baseball. The Mets owners do not appear to like Syndergaard very much—it's a long and stupid story, but ownership tends to have a problem with big-personality aces, and Syndergaard is one of those—and the team's owner-dictated and shamelessly Flintstonian approach to pitching best practices have not helped Syndergaard at all in recent years. Syndergaard's stats this year have been startlingly pedestrian given his outsized stature and talent. The Mets think Syndergaard is less valuable than every other team in the league does, and as long as they're the ones messing around with him, they'll probably be right. The people in charge of the team are just self-aware enough to realize this, but unwilling to admit that the inevitable fix that unlocks Syndergaard's potential is one they too could make. And so they seem determined to trade Syndergaard, but filled with dread at the possibility—it's tempting to call it a likelihood—that he will compete for the Cy Young Award for whichever team acquires him and makes the same sort of simple, simplifying nudges that let the Houston Astros turn fellow Underachieving Demigod Stuck In Shitty Organization Gerrit Cole into a powerhouse. The Astros, as it happens, match up very well in a potential Syndergaard trade. “But the Mets have to be wondering if a club such as the Astros knows what they don't,” Joel Sherman wrote in the New York Post last week. “Notably, how to evoke the best of health and production from Syndergaard.” It's not just that the entire MLB trade market is waiting for the Mets to move Syndergaard, it's that they're waiting for the Mets to sort out impacted organizational issues and ownership-specific neuroses that have endured for a generation. It's less a hijacking than being in an escape room with a bunch of ultra-confident dopes. They've been arguing for hours.

I don't know what, but Jason doesn't seem to mind. I think Jason's about to have a Vargasm.

This card is from the 2nd series. (Collect 'em all) https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48410650882_3561e519f7_z.jpg>

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Pitching prospects are pitching prospects. I just don't know why they are doing this I read yesterday or the day before that the Mets might work a three way involving the Jays. Maybe this is the first leg of that.

Well now the Mets have no prospects in their farm. And the only pitcher the Mets are hellbent on holding on to is a real gem, but he'll be 32 next season.

=smg58 post_id=16798 time=1564158760 user_id=62] Other than McNeil, Alonso, and DeGrom, there is nobody untouchable.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Houston scares me because they're smarter than the Mets. Who isn't? The Mets are one of the dumbest organizations in all of baseball. And on top of that, they're cheap and broke.

Edgy MD wrote: The methodology isn't to rate who has been best in the first half of this year, but to use a broader deeper data set, analyzing current trends against the historical record, modeled after https://www.billjamesonline.com/the_worlds_1_starting_pitcher/tennis and golf ratings, where an injury won't make you disappear suddenly from rankings, but rather gradually fade. The order even changes in the offseason. Syndergaard's trade value is predominantly about his upside, his potential, his untapped ceiling, which Bill James's rankings ignores entirely. In Syndergaard's case, is the past merely prologue? Or is the past the future as well? TBD.

Kingman had the season of his career in '79 with the Cubs and his best three year run in '78-'80, also with the Cubs. His peak correlates perfectly with his Cub years. And that famous Lasorda rant came after Kingman clouted three homers against the Dodgers in the same game. As a Cub.

=Ceetar post_id=16603 time=1563974480 user_id=102] =batmagadanleadoff post_id=16560 time=1563918738 user_id=68] =Ceetar post_id=16555 time=1563915567 user_id=102] we have replay for that anyway though. And robots, if we'd utilize them. Neil Best has some views of the obstruction from a fan view point of view. Of course, those views were pretty bad anyway because of the big orange pole and thick orange netting. you gotta lean a little.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: A Twitter post I saw on the way to the game reminded me it was the 20th anniversary of the Sammy Sosa Merengue Night game, which the Tuesday Night Mets Club was also at, before they were known for their Tuesday Night antics. That night we'd intended to buy Tix at the gate but it was a sellout. While I was trying to scalp my brother ran into a cousin who was there working on a film crew shooting the Woody Allen flick Small Time Crooks. He got us in free to the field level behind the Mets dugout as we became "extras" in the shoot, which turned into 3 seconds of Sosa's first inning HR off Yoshi. Came back and won, dammit I was at that game. I remember lotsa flags, and maybe a show or a concert after the game. Loud crowd, but in an annoying way. We scrammed outta there before the last out and headed to a Manhattan steakhouse.

=Ceetar post_id=16555 time=1563915567 user_id=102] we have replay for that anyway though. And robots, if we'd utilize them. Neil Best has some views of the obstruction from a fan view point of view. Of course, those views were pretty bad anyway because of the big orange pole and thick orange netting. you gotta lean a little.

Edgy MD wrote: Man, Casey's a great subject so I can't be too disappointed. But ARMED FORCE is what you want your layout staff to go for. Such perfect framing, with one of his toes tucked into the bleed corner and the other tucked into the corner above the UPC code. The head is laid in front of the logo, but only screens half of one letter. This allows an illusion that makes his gloved hand really come forward. Even the fonts don't look dated. Keith would deduct points for Darling's misaligned racing stripes.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Angels eat the balance of that $11 million they foolishly gave him last winter. Someone will pick him up but it better not be the Mets. Ironically, Harvey's $11M 2019 deal was the largest contract of his career. By far. When Harvey was baseball's best pitcher for about two, two and a half months in 2013, the Mets were paying Harvey less than half a mil for that whole season.

It's another three-pack: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48328698326_61cc606d3e_z.jpg> https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48328698426_6803cf1158_z.jpg>https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48328826437_c101ec55e7_z.jpg>

This game was a microcosm of the Mets 2019 season: Alonso, the transcendent rookie, carrying the Mets offense, providing the key run production and then the dreadful bullpen blowing the game.

43 years ago, today. [YOUTUBE]UzJzqYNDTLs[/YOUTUBE]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=16196 time=1563395340 user_id=68] Wilmer's been such an enormous font for so much clever wordplay. /rollseyes

=G-Fafif post_id=16202 time=1563395882 user_id=55] 31st HR: Hundley 1996: Mets Game 109 Beltran 2006: Mets Game 104 Alonso 2019: Mets Game 95 Kingman 1976: Mets Game 89

Oh, you also know Font? I know Font from way back when. Last time I saw him, he gave me some tasty high end Fontina cheese as a gift with a very fancy font label. Fancy fonts for fancy cheeses. But no dinged corners on that piece of cheese.

Wilmer's been such an enormous font for so much clever wordplay. /rollseyes

Benjamin Grimm wrote: http://leaptoad.com/mets/cards/WilmerFont1978.jpg> https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48287082302_8d62894255_z.jpg> D'ya like my dinged corners?

Of course, if Sandy Alderson were running things, and the owners were more like Nelson Doubleday, who stayed out of things but spent like the major market team the Mets are, the team wouldn't be in the utter shithole of a position they're usually in, like now. Two first place finishes in 31 seasons.

First player move of the figurative second half: Mazza up, Font DFA'd. Sneak Peek - Coming Attractions: 2019 - Code Name - Holy Curt Gowdy! https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48287082302_8d62894255_z.jpg> https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48437435062_57365fb119_z.jpg>https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48380993142_4342db449f_z.jpg>