batmagadanleadoff

Zvon wrote: I like the Indian crying guy from the pollution commercial on the Santos card. Interesting touch. I changed that card. I rushed the first one because I was pressed for time, and in the end, I didn't like the way Santos and the Benton came out. I used an Indian themed font for the player name. The font had many features and Indian things going on inside the outline of each letter. But I saw that the font didn't work well at such a small scale because of its intricacy. You couldn't see the goings on -- and you could barely read it either, which should be the main thing about a font. That font needed to be displayed larger. Also, I didn't do a good job of incorporating the non baseball playing Indians into the cards. So I re-did those. Overall, this card thread was a real pain in the ass. There must be around 20 Indian/Mets not represented -- and that's a high number these days. Over the years, I developed an efficient system for getting the cards for the threads. Plus, custom-carding has increased in popularity in that time -- so that helps fill in the gap for players without cards. Plus I can do customs now, too, so I usually pitch in a couple of my own. But some players, you just can't get. There are no pictures of them on the web. Typically though, I usually narrow the MIA's to less than 10 nowadays. Last season, I even did a team without any MIA's -- a rarity. But these Indians, well there's apparently a lot of one-time Mets off the reservation.

You thought LOLMets would be a thing of the past just because the team won the pennant? Still the same owners .... [fimg=500:3kyn9t8v]http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2601867.1460721696!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_400/back-0415-copy.jpg[/fimg:3kyn9t8v]

Lefty Specialist wrote: That Schaefer woman looks homicidal. I looked real quick and first thought it was Harpo.

Chad Ochoseis wrote: Recker is in the Indians org and on the 40-man, but hasn't yet been on the big club this season. And you just won the first interloper contest of 2016. I didn't even bother asking for youse to identify the interloper because, to tell you the truth, I didn't think anyone would've picked up on Recker's status. And if anyone did, no one woulda connected it to this thread. This contest though, didn't even last past an hour. "Johnny, tell Chad what he's won...."

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: Is the Mike Vail card real? Don't remember that one. It's a custom job. Don't remember where I got it from, but I've had it on my hard drive for a while, I suppose. Whenever I come across a DIY card of a one-time Met, I scoop it up for future use, meaning mainly for this style thread.

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Nice to get a W but jeez, how about some offense, dudes? Offense hasn't checked in yet and the Mets are 3-5. From that standpoint, looking pretty solid. Only if you think on pace to lose 101 games is "pretty solid". Which is even worse than I just made it sound because the Mets current Pythagorean Expectation at this rate of play is "only" 99 losses over the course of the season. Plus, the Mets have played only two of their eight games against teams that finished over .500 last year. And none of this year's opponents, to date, are expected to finish over .500 this season --- including the defending champion Royals. Looking for a real silver lining? A real "pretty solid"? Here it is: It's probably too early to say this, but Noah looks like he's on the fast track to superduperstardom. Maybe it's a good thing he was left off of the Mets recent Sports Illustrated cover. If you're superstitious about those things.

Ceetar wrote: Lefty Specialist wrote: Nice to get a W but jeez, how about some offense, dudes? Offense hasn't checked in yet and the Mets are 3-5. From that standpoint, looking pretty solid. Only if you think on pace to lose 101 games is "pretty solid".

Edgy MD wrote: I think sometimes the tendency is to take the slow action. When everybody's dooming and glooming, it can be attractive to take the optimistic view. And the payoff is huge. Now that optimism abounds (I mean, "best pitching staff in the league" is a cool assessment, but it's not necessary been established on the field of honor), one might feel like the community, in their contagious enthusiasm, is missing warning signs. Lotta preachin' on goin' on here, eh?

Here's Familia's Baseball Prospectus write-up in the 2015 annual, released at the start of last season. I'd say it was pretty prescient. Familia's two-seamer is --unhittable-- 97 with decent arm-side movement, and the control is good enough to make it all work. His four-seam data shows some of that same movement, suggesting many of his supposed four-seamers are just failed sinkers. The end product is about three sinkers for every slider. Now, consider this: On 0-0 counts, Familia threw up to 266 (85%) fastballs in 2014. Of those, 128 were strikes, and of those, just seven were hit for line drives or fly balls. Not only can big leaguers not hit what they already know is coming, but Familia's fastball hasn't even reached its ceiling; it's easy to imagine a grade jump in control still. In a perfect world, Familia and Jenrry Mejia become a media sensation, a sort of Dominican Bash Brothers. But you know what happens when the Mets try to market themselves. BONUS MATERIAL -- Here's Mejia's write-up: You probably heard about Mejia for his "excessive" postgame celebrations -- a laughable controversy in which the media seemed to care for more than the players themselves -- but his real story of 2014 was one of self-discovery and heartwarming deliverance. After injury upon injury, role reversals and re-reversals, Mejia flourished as a closer when Bobby Parnell went down and Jose Valverde was Jose Vaslverde. Although his curve and slider are functionally very similar, a four-pitch offering (with no four-seam fastball) is odd for a closer and difficult to square up in a single at-bat. Mejia had taken his lumps and succeeded in spite of it; you can't blame the guy for doing a little dance. I'd say Mejia wasn't done with the "reversals".

Here's Curtis Granderson's write-up in last year's 2015 Baseball Prospectus annual, entering the 2015 season: In 2008, Granderson published a children's book entitled All You Can Be: Dream It, Draw It, Become It. Which is a nice thought, albeit better suited to a self-help seminar or a corporate retreat Powerpoint than a children's book; in much the same way, Granderson was a nice idea but an odd fit for the Mets, given the unlikelihood of both player and team being competitive at the same time. Granderson is regrettably but unmistakably on the decline. He is almost purely a mistake hitter now, unable to turn on the inside fastball or drive to left center with convincing power. His swings against curves and sliders are not something you talk about in polite company. He is hanging on to starter status - and he was a fringe-average starter last year [in 2014], essentially - but it's difficult to see that extending past 2015.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: The Mets save a lot of money (well, I suppose it's a lot of money to these Mets, but not a heckuvva lotta money to a real big market team that operates like a big market team instead of a big market team that's a big market team in name only) because Niese was their highest paid pitcher and he was expendable, and they save on the free agent money they wouldda hadda pay Murph to keep him.... Who knows? It might even be the case that the $20M-$30M the Mets saved by trading Niese and letting Murph walk is what allowed the Mets to sign Cespedes for 2016.

The Mets save a lot of money (well, I suppose it's a lot of money to these Mets, but not a heckuvva lotta money to a real big market team that operates like a big market team instead of a big market team that's a big market team in name only) because Niese was their highest paid pitcher and he was expendable, and they save on the free agent money they wouldda hadda pay Murph to keep him. Of course, like with everything else, we won't know how good this deal was until the season's over --- but I'd guess that it'll work out for the Mets because Walker should match whatever production the Mets got from Murph and could reasonably expect to get from Murph. But if it turns out that Murph really did transform himself into someone that could now all of a sudden bang out 25+ HR's regularly and reliably, like some were implying or suggesting during Murph's heroic playoff run, well then we'll hafta see about that.

According to The Donald, he has the support of Paul O'Neil. please merge for posterity. Funny. I remember this Mets yearbook from the late '80s or early 90s. I'm 100% positive that Dave Magadan is in it and about 85% certain that Keith Hernandez was no longer a Met when that yearbook came out. Anyways, most of the Mets got a full page spread with a top to bottom color picture in that yearbook and a series of lightweight Playboy centerfold type questions to answer. Not as vapid as "What's your favorite color?", but not much meatier. Questions like what's your favorite movie ... what's your favorite food ... what's your favorite band or what kind of music do you listen to? Etc. You get the point. One of the questions that I think just about every Met got was along the lines of "Who's your favorite celebrity?" or "Who's the person you'd most wanna meet?" or some such variation on that theme. And almost every single Met that got that question ... just about every single Met ... answered --- Donald Trump. If it is the 1990 yearbook Keith was gone and Magadan was not. Magadans favorite movie was Casablanca, his favorite musician, Elton John. It's true that not every Met got the question regarding "non-sportsman idol" (Magadan wasn't asked). There were questions like "favorite New York restaurant", "favorite New York Attraction", "favorite musician/movie", and "offseason activity". Two Mets answered Donald Trump for "non-sportsman idol". Wally Whitehurst and Phil Lombardi. So not everyone (I'll spare you how many were asked the question), but that's still notable. I could see it leaving an impression. Macky Sasser liked Nixon. Coney, Jackie Gleason. Doc, his mom . Getouutttahere. I must be getting Alzheimer's. I was sure a heckuvvalotta Mets picked Trump. Maybe the Mets ran a similar questionnaire in another season/yearbook?

TransMonk wrote: I'm giving this stunt an "A" for idea, thought, concept etc. and a "C" for execution. This turned out to be real lame-o as far as I'm concerned. Oh, the lost possibilities.

Super KTE!

[fimg=666:79a9hsva]https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2016-04-05/AP/Astros_Yankees_Baseball-8190b.jpg&w=800[/fimg:79a9hsva] They coulda done a lot better than NInja Turtles. I wish they came in rags and tatters and dived into a cesspool before the game so that they'd be odorifically repellent and nausea inducing. It woulda been great to see all those neighboring asshole Yankee fans vomiting into their own laps. John Oliver shoulda gotten some of those homeless persons a coupla those tickets. The homeless persons that are in the subways and you know they're there before you even get in the subway car because it's rush hour and the car should be packed full of people but instead it's totally empty and only a rube would think that he stumbled onto empty seats worth sitting in.

If I hear another word about how fucking smart the Royals scouts are, I'm gonna shoot my TV Elvis-style. Like the Mets scouts are Donald Trump or something.

Jeez, you'd think Hosmer and the Royals are fucking Kreskin's with ESP and superduper hypnotic powers ferchrissakes already, the way these announcers are carrying on. He scores on a bad throw and they act like he invented electricity or something.

Frayed Knot wrote: I found a surprising dearth of good movies with 'Two' in the title. This one's a triple threat: [fimg=666]http://spicyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/one-two-three-movie-poster-1020372727.jpg[/fimg] So's this one: [fimg=666]https://fanart.tv/fanart/movies/8333/movieposter/the-taking-of-pelham-one-two-three-564e2d733f5ca.jpg[/fimg]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: How about Harvey getting lit up by the fucking visiting Astros at home? And on the same day his latest publicity stunt suggesting how little he's actually focused on baseball appears in the Post. Fuck off, Harvey, and take your stylist with you. You preach on, too.

Vic Sage wrote: All I want from ST is to come into the season HEALTHY. Anecdotally, it appears to me that nothing else a team does in ST really correlates to a winning season. So the only things i'm concerned about now is Wright's back, which seems even worse than i feared, deGrom's aches and reduced velocity, and Cabrera's leg (though not too concerned about that, since i'd prefer Flores anyway). Preach on.

Not everyone here can write a post like this one: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Mets are having a terrible spring training. They've lost 7 games in a row and barely scored in any of them. Harvey's pitched like shit in his last 2. deGrom has been shaky and low-velocity, Wright is increasingly looking like a Teixera type who'll be lucky to get a half-season in and I think we have to be concerned about a potential controversy in the outfield if Cespedes continues to play this shitty. ST means nothing I know, but just saying: Last year we had a very good spring training. This year the Nats and Phils are. and then get Edgy to respond like this: Edgy MD wrote: Preach on. What's your secret?

Cespedes gives us a highlight in today's split squad exhibition with Houston. Angel Pagan hit an inside the parker for the Mets just like the one against Cespedes. It was in that crazy game that Pedro started against the Mets for the Phillies and ended with Francoeur hitting a rocket that was turned into an unassisted triple play. That was during the nadir of bad Ollie's Met stint: he didn't make it out of the first inning in that game. I vaguely remember (but ain't sure) Manuel pulling Perez from the game in a way that was clearly meant to humiliate and show Ollie up.