batmagadanleadoff

The 26 man roster was long overdue. Expanded reliever use had shrunk MLB benches to about four players. Ridiculous.

I'm not sour on the 2019 Mets. And yes I agree with you that if the Mets don't lose a single player game to injuries and every single Met exceeds their most optimistic expectations , then the Mets should win 110 games. At least. And don't dismiss the last 30 Met seasons. It's more than half of the franchise's history and is overwhelming evidence that the meddling owners haven't a clue as to what the fuck they're doing.

There's nothing wrong with that article except for the usual suspects who go apeshit whenever someone dares to criticize the MLB franchise that plays in the greatest media market on the planet and has just two first place finishes in 30 seasons to show for it --those 30 seasons more or less encompassing when Fred Wilpon took over the Mets from a disgusted Nelson Doubleday in the early 90s and became the team's de facto 100% owner. It's not a criticism of the Mets to recognize that every other team in the division but the Marlins is also poised to contend for the division title in 2019. It is a criticism of the Mets, and a well deserved one, to note that the MLB franchise that plays in the greatest media market on the planet can't even come within sniffing distance of the luxury tax threshold and isn't even in the conversation for the pursuit of MLB's very best free agents. The team from New York can't go after baseball's best players. But hey, wish the author of that piece into the cornfield for not writing a delusional puff piece predicting that the Mets are gonna win 105 games this season and that David Wright is gonna return and hit 35 HR's and win the MVP. The nerve of that guy. Imagine that! Criticizing the franchise from New York City that has two first place finishes in 30 seasons.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mets-picked-a-bad-year-to-try-to-win-the-nl-east/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mets-picked-a-bad-year-to-try-to-win-the-nl-east/

Edgy MD wrote: It tells you how hard baseball is that, by football standards, Tebow has an impressive range of skills, but by baseball standards, he's got like 1 1/2 tools. I'm certain that Jake deGrom, OTOH, has less than 1 1/2 football tools. It cuts both ways. But tell me about that Keith jersey with the script that couple was wearing. What year jerseys were they? The 93-94 roads? That's a jersey you rarely see fans wear. I'm drawing a blank as to any other NY script road jersey that Keith never played in.

Oh, I'm sure the Mets'll fuck this up the same way the Mets fuck up everything else. They'll probably commission the same people who make the bobbleheads to make tbe Seaver statue, all to save twenty five dollars and when it's all done, we'll have a Seaver statue that looks more like Don Knotts than like Tom Seaver.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Signings like this make me think Omar's actually making all the decisions (in partnership with Fred, natch) and Brodie is just there to give the right answers when asked about it. Doesn't sound much different than the way it probably was during Alderson's last years.

Edgy MD wrote: Young Tom Seaver, looking over his shoulder like a badass, wearing a batting helmet and still carrying himself like he's the man to beat, even at the plate. A sidebar box on his shoulder, but no header or footer text floating over him. Hard. To. Beat. https://i.pinimg.com/236x/e0/27/0d/e0270d6a2cd3d58796046ddfc7edf357--sports-art-sports-illustrated.jpg> This terrific cover also annoyed the living shit out of me. It's Seaver's only TSN cover as a Met. Are you kidding me, TSN? TSN, the weekly that featured baseball players on its covers virtually year round. TSN would cover a marginal player over the NBA championship because it was baseball season. I mean, a player, if he was a baseball player, could get on that cover just by having two hot weeks. Ken Reitz was on the cover of TSN. So was Jorge Orta. And Milt Wilcox. And Gary Alexander. I'd bet anything that every one of Tom Seaver's contemporaries that was a first ballot no doubt about it Hall of Famer -- I'm talking guys like Bench and Reggie and Rod Carew and Steve Carlton -- probably made the cover of TSN at least three times. And Seaver, the greatest pitcher of his generation, maybe even the best player of his generation, gets just one Met cover. What a gyp. I can't let this one go. In the 70s, Seaver, as a Met, won two more Cy Young awards. He was also Cy Young caliber in 1971 and in his last (half) season as a Met, 1977. He led the NL in strikeouts virtually every single season. He led the Mets to another pennant. He was all-star caliber every single season, including in 1974 when he was 11-11 and would be the first person to tell you that he was extremely disappointed by his production that year -- even though he was, without a doubt, one of the league's best seven or eight pitchers that year despite his W-L record. And how many TSN covers did Seaver appear on in the 1970s as a Met? Zero. None. Even SPORT magazine featured Seaver, as a Met, on its cover three times. And SPORT was a monthly that featured all sports equally. You wouldn't see more than three or four SPORT baseball covers in an entire year, whereas TSN, depending on how the calendar fell out in a given month, might publish five baseball covers in just one single month.

Edgy MD wrote: Young Tom Seaver, looking over his shoulder like a badass, wearing a batting helmet and still carrying himself like he's the man to beat, even at the plate. A sidebar box on his shoulder, but no header or footer text floating over him. Hard. To. Beat. https://i.pinimg.com/236x/e0/27/0d/e0270d6a2cd3d58796046ddfc7edf357--sports-art-sports-illustrated.jpg> This terrific cover also annoyed the living shit out of me. It's Seaver's only TSN cover as a Met. Are you kidding me, TSN? TSN, the weekly that featured baseball players on its covers virtually year round. TSN would cover a marginal player over the NBA championship because it was baseball season. I mean, a player, if he was a baseball player, could get on that cover just by having two hot weeks. Ken Reitz was on the cover of TSN. So was Jorge Orta. And Milt Wilcox. And Gary Alexander. I'd bet anything that every one of Tom Seaver's contemporaries that was a first ballot no doubt about it Hall of Famer -- I'm talking guys like Bench and Reggie and Rod Carew and Steve Carlton -- probably made the cover of TSN at least three times. And Seaver, the greatest pitcher of his generation, maybe even the best player of his generation, gets just one Met cover. What a gyp.

Edgy MD wrote: July, '76. https://d1w8cc2yygc27j.cloudfront.net/-7325257006572852611/-1643656226094574266.jpg> Wow. The monthly sports magazine. Do any of those even exist anymore?

I always wanted to get this one for my wall. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/57/be/2d/57be2d8fc4432776b2e367bd753a934d.jpg> And to a lesser extent, this one, but I didn't like the picture as much. https://i2.wp.com/www.banishedtothepen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Gooden_1.jpg> It's hard to imagine now that a kid could want a magazine cover to hang on his wall but wasn't able to get a physical copy of it. Here's my favorite Gooden cover image. I can't say that the cover, overall, is my favorite Gooden cover, but I like that photo. Gooden's body language really captures his energy being unleashed, I think. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51sXQ7gIUNL.jpg>

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I should also add that we're including only weekly, monthly, or quarterly publications, but not the annual baseball preview issues that come out each spring. And we will only see covers from publications that are not exclusively devoted to the Mets. So no Street & Smith, etc. And no Mets Magazine or Mets Inside Pitch. There are more Sports Illustrated than anything else. KC has contributed some additional covers today, and there may be more to come, but at the moment SI will comprise 38 of 113 covers, and two others will be variants of SI. Good. I was thinking this exact same point to myself when I read this thread. I think that including regional covers, that have proliferated greatly over the last 15 or 20 years, would probably cheapen the derby. I own a ton of Met themed magazine covers that I'd bet you don't have and 'd be really impressed if you did. I'd give you photos but I haven't scanned them, and my scanner broke down about a week ago. I haven't gotten around to getting a new scanner yet so at the moment I'm scannerless. Plus, I'm not really in the mood anyways because it would be a tremendous task for me to gather all those mags from wherever they are so I'll stick with scannerless at the moment.

Reyes not shot? Last year, I wrote that Reyes still getting playing time by Memorial Day might've been the most scandalous thing going on on the baseball diamond. Reyes is about as done as Paul Manafort, I would think.

=metsmarathon post_id=3589 time=1551392026 user_id=83] I'm cool with this. One more reason to hate the Phillies. Also should take them out of the mike trout sweepstakes

Thirteen years from now, $25M will very likely be worth less than $10M in today's dollars. Plus, owners are counting on an ever increasing revenue stream. So 13 years from now, a player who's the equivalent of Steven Matz will probably be making $25M a year in MLB.

He's the reigning Cy Young award winner. He received Cy Young award votes in three of the last four seasons. And five seasons ago, he won the Rookie of the Year award. Five seasons of excellence, all as a starting pitcher. You'd think he'd have about 80 wins by now, maybe even 100. Or near 100. Not even close 55. 55 lifetime wins for all of that.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Chili_Davis_1983.jpg> He was just about the only player that had Dwight Gooden's number, back when not even God could touch Doc. Also, never noticed until now how much Chili in his prime, resembled Eddie Murphy in Murphy's prime.

2019 Topps Heritage set is out. First peek at some Mets cards, including an air-brushed Robinson Cano in a Mets uni. It's 1970 all over again so let's break up the Beatles, invade Cambodia and get yer ya ya's out. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/s-4AAOSwwmBcdYNw/s-l500.jpg>

Todd Frazier has an oblique strain. Will get a cortisone shot. No timetable for return, increasing the chances that when he does recover, "it will be like adding a Todd Frazier at the trade deadline." https://twitter.com/AnthonyDiComo/status/1100389916503171072?s=19https://twitter.com/AnthonyDiComo/status/1100389916503171072?s=19 Maybe now the Mets'll sign Manny Machado.

Somewhere out there, Keith Hernandez is wishing he was born 40 years later.

=smg58 post_id=3325 time=1550928857 user_id=62] Singling out Jeter for not trying hard enough (or the Wilpons for that matter) overlooks a systemic issue.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Court-packing (or at least an attempt at it) is more likely because it only requires one President to give it a try, and not a fundamental restructuring of a major industry. But I think the politician most likely to do something like that is probably Donald Trump. I hope Trump does pack the court(s). The GOP wouldn't gain much as far as I'm concernced because they already have a reliable arch conservative majority. But it'll embolden Democrats to counter, especially the wimpy ones like Amy Klobuchar. OE: Not that Trump would be able to with the Dems taking back the House. He'd be able to after 2020 if he's reelected and the GOP takes back the House and holds the Senate. But in that scenario, he'd most likely replace RBG anyways.

Edgy MD wrote: =batmagadanleadoff post_id=3304 time=1550871264 user_id=68] Oh c'mon already with relegation. Might as well talk about flying monkeys driving flying cars. Or Supreme Court packing! OE: In fact, if you get your packed Supreme Court, all those Democratic Party-appointed judges might gang up to kill baseball's absurd anti-trust exemption, and I can get my relegation and promotion.

Oh c'mon already with relegation. Might as well talk about flying monkeys driving flying cars.

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=3265 time=1550786680 user_id=68] There's more strikeouts because today's pitchers are better. And they throw harder. And then batters get specialized relievers for the last three or four innings who can hit 100 on the radar and air it out because they know they won't pitch more than an inning, if even that much. The other day, I was reading an old Roger Angell piece. I have all of his anthology/collections and I like to pull them out for a quick read when I'm in the mood to read without committing to three or four hundred pages of some book. Angell's baseball pieces, as everyone here knows, are chapter size standalones and can be read independently of the other Angell pieces in his typical anthologies. So I randomly picked out a piece from the '74 baseball season - a hodgepodege article on the goings on of that season. And there were a few lines about the remarkable Nolan Ryan, whose fast ball was clocked at almost 101MPH, a baseball record. Ryan was the only pitcher who could break the century mark on the radar and his accomplishment was met with the kind of awe appropriately reserved for the only pitcher in the whole wide world who could accomplish such a rare feat. How many pitchers today can hit 100MPH on the radar gun. I'd bet at least two dozen in the majors.