batmagadanleadoff

d'Kong76 wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: But this new policy here isn't being applied evenly. You've made your point and succeeded in busting my balls. Again. There's no policy, do whatever the fuck you want you petulant pain in the fucking tuchus. I don't know why you're taking this exchange so personally. Or why you think I'm busting your balls. I'm not. I'm not even aware that you have a major part in this. You're not even on my radar in this discussion. And when you wrote that you swore that you weren't thinking to stick it to me, I truly believed you. And I still do. All I said was that if it was another poster, it doesn't get mentioned. There's a difference. And why do you say "petulant pain in the fucking tuchus" instead of "petulant asshole"? . That's what DWG once called me during one of our old fights. He stepped in to take your side on that one. I wonder where DWG was all those years when you couldn't go half a week without tormenting me? How come he never called you a petulant asshole? See what I mean?

A Boy Named Seo wrote: YouTube actually pays out performance and mechanical royalties to songwriters, so a click here is the same as a click there. 'Click' being the key activity. I can remember posting an entire article before in the interest of it being around forever in case the url ever changed or disappeared. I'll make sure I knock that shit off, this practice is a good one. I don't see how youtube gets a click when the video is posted here. I don't see how the rights holders are compensated when someone takes a youtube vid and converts the audio to mp3 for downloading onto his or her computer.

Nymr83 wrote: youtube song videos do in fact get taken down regularly for copyright reasons, Because they're copyrighted. Just because a song video is on youtube, doesn't mean that there's no copyright violation going on. I'm just sayin'. It doesn't bother me that youtube vids get posted here. But this new policy here isn't being applied evenly. Look, the internet has changed life so profoundly, and in ways that no one could have anticipated, that as far as these blog and forum postings go, the copyright holders have essentially thrown in the towel, conceding that it's futile and cost-inefficient to try and enforce their copyrights. So they don't. Or they pick and choose, singling out egregious violators. Recognizing also, that blog and forum use of their works is probably harmless and might even benefit them in other ways. This is much ado about nothing. And yeah, I'm not saying that I was singled out, or that someone premeditated this whole clusterfuck just to stick it to me. But if it was someone else posting long articles, and the articles weren't occasionally unpopular or critical ones, this thought never leaves the idea stage. And never gets legs. Youse woulda thought of it, and then thought: "Well I like that poster, I don't wanna mess with what he does, so I'll just keep the thought to myself. Instead, you get a thread that morphs into I'm putting a gun to your heads to force youse to read lengthy pieces that you have no interest in reading.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: At my previous place of employment, when we switched to a digital-first format, we were assigned monthly page view quotas and our bonuses were tied to meeting our goals. And for the site overall, advertising rates were based on the site's total page views, just like it used to be based on circulation. So as an author, I'd get upset when people cut-and-pasted my stories into blogs and forums and things. It was affecting my paycheck. I needed the clicks, even if it was just five or 10 or 30 people, it got me that much closer to the monthly quota. And the legal folks were quick to pounce when, say, a local television station would do that to one of our stories, since they were hurting our bottom line in addition to taking our work. Again, will someone from ESPN come after the 'Pool? Probably not. But I totally get why it's bad to cut and paste entire articles. One could make the same case for not posting youtube song videos. First of all, they're copyrighted. And one could easily argue that posting them cuts into the record sales of the songs in question.

After I read your post, I thought I was gonna find a croc added to the public domain baseball card.

We believe that we've whited out enough of this otherwise copyrighted photograph to take it out of the copyright protection laws. It's fair use now. Plus we've left the Topps watermark in there for attribution, not that attribution has anything to do with fair use but just to show everybody what good decent folks we are here at the CPF. So who am I with the Mets ties and, as you can see from the fair use photograph below, Expos ties as well?

Ever wonder what Butterball Field looked like before the Man from Topps started showing up and snapping up everything in sight with his fucking camera and his fucking copyrights? Before the Yankees trained there? Before it was even called Butterball Field or Miller Huggins Field or Crescent Lake Field? You'd have to go back to before even Ol' Case was born. Back to when Ol' Case wasn't even New Case. When all photographs and drawings and artworks were created so long ago that, by now, they're all in the public domain. That's me on a baseball card that you can use and post and link to freely without any fear that the FBI might show up and shut you down. It's from the 19th century. From before there was even an income tax. I'm from the 19th century, too. So do anything you want to that picture. Put Marilyn Monroe's tits on him. Put her tits on his mustache. Call it pop art. Whatever makes you happy. But don't put Marilyn's face on him. Her image is copyrighted. Go with Theda Bara instead. She's really old. And dead. And copyright free. So who the fuck am I? [fimg=303:17mfsc11]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1598/24127191061_f0aa876c9e_o.jpg[/fimg:17mfsc11]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't worry about what the Chicago Cubs have done. The Mets will only play them six or seven times in the regular season, and perhaps not at all in the postseason. And even if they do meet in the NLDS or NLCS, I still think the Mets can beat them in a best-of-five or best-of-seven series. It will depend on the pitching. I strongly agree with this part. If the Mets can get into the post-season beyond that one and done game, I think they're as good a bet as any other team to go all the way given their unbelievable starting pitching depth. The issue, to me, is whether they can get into the playoffs to begin with. I'm somewhat disappointed by the Mets off-season but not even remotely surprised at the kinds of moves the Met did and didn't make. I totally expected it, as well as all the double talk and bullshitting that went with it ---a new Mets tradition--- like that they're ready to increase the payroll but, you know, they didn't because there's no one out there worth spending money on. I like how the front office and its defenders shitcanned Cespedes this off-season because he's not as good as, I dunno, peak Barry Bonds. And he might be older than he claims to be. All the while missing the irony that if Cespedes was certifiably younger, and as good as the front office implies he ought to be to be worth pursuing, he'd be even that much more unattainable and that much more beyond the Mets puny budget. And it'd be even less likely that the Mets'd re-sign him.

Pitch framing's been around and recognized since way before we were born, probably as long as there was fast pitch baseball. I remember reading about it when I was still in elementary school. What's new about it is that its value can now apparently be measured and quantified.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: how is this even an issue (much less a platform where you'd stand on principle)? It's not an issue with me, though it would appear to be. I've got no problem respecting someone else's copyright. But I'll tell you this though, even though I can't prove what I'm about to write, but I'll write it anyways 'cause it's what I truly believe. I could easily name more than a dozen posters on this forum, that if it was them posting articles in whole, this conversation would've never ever ever, (did I say ever?) EVER have happened. You can deny it and claim that it's all about fair use and have the fair use angels on your side and fair use is fair I suppose, even it protects stuff that's about 100 years old, but that's what I'm believing.

Nymr83 wrote: Nymr83 wrote: Seriously batfucker [fimg=75]https://c808505.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/5450_ae66febc416baf20b84da09759345fc90c60fb72_original_x_323_1328069405.jpg[/fimg]?? i love that lightbulb. i'm guessing the powers that be were out to lunch or merely missed my one hostile word in a sea of actual discussion So if I posted a fair use excerpt from a Megdal piece and accompanied it with my own personal commentary and observations, it'd then be OK if I ended that post by telling you to go fuck yourself?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: ...and anyone could have predicted it'd raise the suspicions of BatMags who in my opinion, likely sees this as the Anti BatMags Act of 2016. As if there could be any doubt. Boy, you're really on to me. Oh, by the way, do I have permission to use part of your post in my post? Because if not, and it turns out that it isn't fair use, I'll delete your quote from this post. John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Megdals not exactly out there burning the shoe leather himself - he's a hustler alright, but nearly all the facts, quotes and figures he assembles were initially gathered by others in a different context. I dunno. I truly believe that Megdal's developed his own confidential sources within the Mets world, probably during the period when the Mets were shopping shares of the team and were thus, exposing their financials to lotsa new eyeballs. And also, I'm guessing that there must be a heckuva lotta disgruntled employees in that organization --- it's usually like that when an org is faced with difficult finances -- and that Megdal's pieces resonate with them to the point that maybe, at least one of 'em has reached out to Megdal deep throat style. [fimg=333]http://41.media.tumblr.com/025454ac565cae4429b3c1aac7e60401/tumblr_nbppxm8juJ1qkdy8to1_1280.jpg[/fimg]

Saturday, January 2, 2016 Mets Already Have Enough Offense to Win 90+ Games fair use excerpt: as long as the Mets don't have a 1987-like epidemic of injuries to their pitchers, the team as constructed today should surpass last season's 90-win total. Here's why. In 2015, the brilliant quartet of Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz combined to start 89 of the team's 162 games. The Mets' record in those games was 55-34. When someone other than the fearsome foursome started, the team went 35-38.... In the days before Conforto, Johnson, Uribe and Cespedes were on the team, the young core of homegrown starting pitchers combined to start 51 of the club's 96 games. The Mets had a 29-22 record in those games, for a .569 winning percentage. The team did not fare as well when the other starters were on the mound in the first 96 games, going 20-25 (.444 winning percentage) in those 45 contests. In the final 66 games, when the offense was among the best in the game, the Mets went 26-12 in games started by deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard and Matz. They also had a winning record in games not started by those four hurlers, going 15-13 in those 28 affairs. Think about that for a moment. The Mets were 90-72 during the 2015 regular season. That's a .556 winning percentage. Yet through July 24, when the likes of Michael Cuddyer, Eric Campbell, John Mayberry Jr., Darrell Ceciliani and Kevin Plawecki were starting games regularly, the team had a .569 winning percentage when deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard and Matz started games with those offensively-challenged players in the lineup. That's a 92-win pace. http://studiousmetsimus.blogspot.com/2016/01/mets-already-have-enough-offense-to-win.html [fimg=333]http://cdn.rsvlts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Babe-Ruth-Boston-Red-Sox-26.jpg[/fimg]

Centerfield wrote: Just want to point out here that batmags and ceetar seem to fall on the same side of this debate. Not really. I've got a pretty good idea of what "fair use" means and I didn't just learn it today. I just don't think that the Daily News, et. al. give a flying shit about what goes on here re using their stuff. But what's next now? Do youse have a problem with images too? What about posts that include images of baseball cards? Several baseball cards? And what about custom or DIY baseball cards? Because we don't have the rights to the images on those DIYS or the rights to the baseball card designs copped from Topps and Fleer and Bowman, either. And what about baseball players in general? And Mets? Did Fred Wilpon give this forum permission to reproduce the Mets logo or wordmarks? Maybe youse are draining money from Wilpon that could be used to re-sign Yoenis. And that picture of Shea at the banner or top of this forum. It's a post card. Did the forum get permission to use that? And what about photoshopping Jeff Wilpon's mug into the shot where Jack Ruby gives it to Lee Harvey Oswald? Actually, that one might be fair use. But did youse get permission from the rights holder just to be safe in case a court might decide that it isn't fair use? Or did youse just wing it, figuring that you can always delete the post should you get a warning letter? I guess that Babe Ruth images are permissible. At least the ones where he's in a Red Sox uniform. Charlie Chaplin images from his one reeler era are allowed, too, because the copyright laws don't go that far back in time.

Nymr83 wrote: based on the last 3 months of posts, this team finished 62-100 and missed the playoffs, right? You know, the Mets went into a terrible, terrible tailspin following their '73 pennant winning season. The drop wasn't immediate but the you can argue that the bad seeds were sown around that time. I'm not saying that '73 is a perfect comp for 2015, but these Mets aren't exactly The Big Red Machine that, standing pat, would still expect to be baseball's best team . And even that team -- it had the best offense in baseball no questions asked --- still went out and got Tom Seaver while he still had plenty of gas still left in his tank. The point is that it's a terrible strategy to rest on last year's success. There's always room for improvement. And maybe the Mets are improved. That's something we can debate until they play the games. But I wouldn't hang my hat on last year's run. Yoenis was such a once in a lifetime happening miracle that I wouldn't even give Sandy credit for anticipating it even though I love that GM. The Nats were baseball's biggest underperformers last year and the other three division rivals just sucked dreadfully . Are you gonna count on all of those things happening again, too?

Post-pennant economics for the 2016 Mets By Howard Megdal 2:26 p.m. | Dec. 29, 2015 The email landed with a thud in in boxes all around the industry on Nov. 19: “NEW YORK METS NAMED 2015 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL CLUB RETAILER OF THE YEAR.” The email congratulated the Mets in specific terms on what everyone in the New York area already knew in general: the unexpected run by the Mets from the end of July through October, from a .500 team to a division winner and on into the 2015 World Series, had captivated the city and its fans in a way that not only provided months of pleasure to a tortured fan base, but caused those fans to transfer lots of wealth to the team. As the press release put it, “Reaching the World Series for the first time in 15 years helped lead the Mets retail team to equally strengthened performance on their sales floors at Citi Field. Among the highlights of their 2015 season were the highest single-game sales day in Citi Field’s history (Game Three of the World Series), record revenue of game-used memorabilia and standout retail marketing campaigns. The Mets authentication program, Amazin’ Memorabilia, has grown into one of the top programs in MLB, while Citi Field shops presented by New Era, Majestic, Nike and ’47 Brand, among others, saw increased metrics across the board.” Really inspirational stuff, combined with the estimated $45-60 million in total revenue from the postseason berth alone, and the regular season bump in attendance of 19.6 percent — well, it all served as a welcome end to an era of Mets business that followed a boom-bust cycle of promises to spend more, followed by various reasons why it didn’t happen. This, you’d think, would be different, since both owner Fred Wilpon, in the last public availability he held way back in February 2013, and general manager Sandy Alderson periodically ever since have linked increased attendance with increased spending. It put the onus of a quality product on the customer, which is ludicrous, but now that it happened, surely the Mets would follow through, right? It does not appear so. And incredibly, the result is a hangover effect for the team not of celebration for its first postseason berth since 2006, but from fans who have largely tuned out of the hot stove reporting going on already, resigned to the fact that anyone the Mets add will be at the margins. The reporters covering the team, to their credit, aren’t falsely fanning the flames of offseason fan passion. The days when the Daily News breathlessly reported the Mets were interested in spending $100 million on Shin-Soo Choo, or $125 million on payroll if only “the right players” had been available, seem to be in the very distant past. “The idea that #Mets will significantly raise payroll seems even more unreasonable in light of Rubin’s report that they’ll non-tender Tejada,” read MLB.com Mets reporter Anthony DiComo’s tweet on Nov. 18, pointing out that if the Mets decide to non-tender Ruben Tejada, a valuable middle infielder set to make approximately $3 million next season, it speaks to a sort of penny-pinching that would seem to foreclose the possibility of going after the sorts of free agents who would be worthy supplments to the Mets’ elite starting pitching. (The Mets chose to tender a contract to Tejada, who said it was likely because they didn’t believe they could sign a viable middle infielder to replace him. Mets assistant general manager John Ricco said on MLB Network December 7 that “you could do worse” than Tejada/Flores at SS.) And there was this: “As for Murphy, #Mets won’t ignore him as a FA, but they value Zobrist’s OF capability a bunch. Ultimately, good bet they get outbid on both.” That would be playoff hero Daniel Murphy and free agent Ben Zobrist, both of whom are versatile offensive players who can be used at several positions. But these Mets, remember, were last in the National League in runs scored on July 31. So merely keeping Murphy, or adding Zobrist in lieu of Murphy, doesn’t address the gap they need to fill with Yoenis Cespedes’ likely departure, not to mention production in case the degenerative back condition of David Wright and the series of injuries that befall Travis d’Arnaud keep them both from providing additional offensive value that turned the August-September Mets into a powerhouse. The backup plan for Wright has been Murphy for years. The backup for d’Arnaud is the promising catcher Kevin Plawecki, but Plawecki put up an OPS+ of just 62 last season, a far cry from d’Arnaud’s 128. So what is the plan? “From what I’ve heard, the Mets are very serious about having Dilson Herrera as the second baseman,” ESPN Mets beat reporter Adam Rubin tweeted on Nov. 16. “Now, they still need a backup.” Herrera is a talented but raw hitter whose .211 average in 103 MLB at-bats last year speaks to the great unknown of his abilities at this point. Tejada would be the decent backup for him, if only they kept him around, and filled the starting shortstop hole capably. But this represents precisely the way the Mets have gone about constructing a baseball team since the very moment Bernie Madoff went bust, and the ability to use Madoff as a team slush fund turned into a need to borrow mightily against the team and SNY, the sports network owned by Wilpon and his partners, and finance that debt ever since. What it all seems to mean is that if even an enormous, unexpected windfall comes the team’s way, it doesn’t change the way the owners go about running it. They will use their money to service their debt, and to make their $30 million payments to the trustee for the Bernie Madoff victims in each of the next two years, and to invest in real estate. As far as on-the-field personnel goes, they will most likely keep their costs down, ride their insanely gifted young pitchers, and hope for another miracle. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/12/8585433/post-pennant-economics-2016-mets#

Centerfield wrote: Was the last year cut off? Yeah. Purposely. The premise is that but not for the character limitations, who knows how many years I might've listed in the title. Because was there ever a year when FW the Met owner didn't deserve to be told to go and fuck himself? Nymr83 wrote: ... this is really about the forum, or any forum, being a better place and a better read when the posters are posting their opinions insteas of posting a giant block of text from someone else's without even saying anything about it..... So then it's not about fair use. It's about me posting articles without adding comments. Well there's really not much I can say about the owners that I haven't said already. At least nothing newly inspired from that particular piece. Besides, you seem pretty set in your ways as a Wilpon defender, or at least as a Wilpon apologist. I don't think I could move your needle in the other direction on this issue. And if I did, you'd never ever give me the satisfaction of admitting it anyways. Benjamin Grimm wrote: I also agree that hate-pasting long articles without comment adds little value to the forum. There's value in posting those pieces. They measure the pulse, the zeitgeist of Metsdom beyond this tiny fish bowl. So when I'm carpet-bombed to death here for writing negative Wilpon posts, I can demonstrate, and take take solace in the fact that major media's thoughts on this matter are more aligned with mine than would appear from reading the responses here. And it preserves the articles for posterity and historical purposes should anyone want to re-read those pieces in the future when the original link might no longer work. Not that searching old posts here works very well anyways, but that's another issue. And what's hate-pasting? And is there such a thing as love-pasting? And does your opinion apply just the same to love-pasting, assuming there's even such a thing as love-pasting? And if so, doesn't that make your use of the word "hate" superfluous?

New York Mets: A Cry For Reformation Of The Wilpons By Aniello Piro - 01/01/2016 excerpts: (read most of it at this link here): http://elitesportsny.com/2016/01/01/new-york-mets-cry-reformation-wilpons/ [fimg=222]http://previews.123rf.com/images/stefaninahill/stefaninahill1202/stefaninahill120200046/12475202-Arrow-Pointing-Up-Stock-Vector-arrow-arrows.jpg[/fimg] click to link. EXCERPTS: The Wilpon family is in no financial position to be allowed to own and run a professional sports franchise let alone one in New York.... the Mets owners will be paying off debt until the year 2045.... the fans were lied to.... Lies, lies and more lies have surrounded the team for the better part of the decade.... The Wilpons are a disgrace to sports.... Ownership needs to do their part.... Ownership and lack of resources and shaved apes have been the talk in Mets baseball for the past eight years, and it needs to stop now.

Nymr83 wrote: [C]an't you ... even comment on what you are posting? Oh, you want my commentary, too? OK. Fred Wilpon's a cock-sucking scumbag. Now it's your turn to defend the owners and tell me that I lost my mind because Howie Megdal.

Nymr83 wrote: We really need to have a discussion at some point on this board about fair use, and really just etiquette when it comes to posting articles in their entirety. The writer deserves his click, can't you excerpt and link? or even comment on what you are posting? Go and click on that link ten times and then we'll be all even. Great. A fucking morals lesson from the guy that thinks it isn't anybody's business what Jeff Wilpon did to Leigh Castergine.

Wilpons Channel Inner Barnum The Stoop By Mark C. Healey “There is a sucker born every minute! Each time the second hand sweeps to the top, like dandelions up they pop, their ears so big, their eyes so wide, and though I feed’em bonafide baloney, with no truth in it, why you can bet I’ll find some rube to buy my corn. Where's the story? ‘Cause there’s a sure-as-shooting sucker born a minute, and I’m referrin’ to the minute you was born.” – opening lyrics, “Barnum,” the musical. I once played P.T. Barnum, and got to know and understand the character pretty well. He was basically the best con artist ever, and the owners of the Mets are pretty much right behind him. Fred Wilpon was a minority partner – some 2 to 5 percent to be specific – when Nelson Doubleday’s company bought the Mets for $22 million in 1980, but as all good con artists have done, they – with cooperation from clueless media – they rewrite history. Much like Dave Kaplan in the New York Daily News on Sept. 13, 1992. “When the deep-pocketed partnership of Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon bought the franchise for just under $22 million, there was light at the end of the Dark Ages. Scouts were hired. The farm system was rebuilt. Solid baseball people were put in charge. The Mets became 90-game winners in `84. A world championship would come two years later.” The deep pockets of Fred Wilpon didn’t become so deep until he met Bernie Madoff in 1985. Then, a year later, after the Mets had won a World Series, Wilpon had managed to purchase a full partnership. In 2002, Wilpon – flush with Madoff cash, and bolstered by the support of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig – bought out Doubleday. Then the con trotted out a new narrative in the Gray Lady. “The departure of Doubleday, who often had an antagonistic relationship with Wilpon, has helped redefine the way the Mets operate. General Manager Steve Phillips had needed approval from both owners before making major decisions. Now he needs only to consult with one Wilpon or the other. The chain of command, which resembled a warped family tree, is more clear-cut.” – “Wilpon Struts at Front of Caravan,” Rafael Hermoso, New York Times, (Jan. 28, 2003). It is hard not to giggle when you read that idiocy. Yes, getting rid of Doubleday made it easier to have a chain of command. Actually, it made it easier for new COO Jeff Wilpon to play GM, and he was horrible at it. But it gets better. We return to the Times: The Dominican trip was part of what Fred Wilpon called "a whole new era." He spoke recently of improvements in lighting, graphics and signs at Shea Stadium. "That's all part of being a world-class organization," he said. "When you go to Disneyland or Disney World, you don't come back and say, `Well, the events were great and the rides were great, but we didn't have a great time,' do you?" That was just 13 years ago, before the Madoff scandal blew wide open. According to Forbes.com, the Wilpon and Katz empire lost $500 million when the Madoff Ponzi scheme collapsed. Of course they denied that amount for months and eviscerated anyone who suggested otherwise. They also told fans – as they were taking out two loans that totaled over $800 million – the Mets operations wouldn’t be affected. Well, the Mets were very fortunate in 2015, winning the NL pennant despite not spending any real money to do so. But have they bolstered their pennant winning team to make a run at the 2016 title? Not so far. As our colleague Howard Megdal wrote this week on Vocativ.com, the Wilpons are running the Mets like a Ponzi scheme. Ever since [Madoff], the Mets have managed to get by annually by diverting revenue from their baseball and television operation into the financing of debt. Prior to the refinancing of the past two years, the annual interest on these two loans plus debt balloon payments of more than $43 million have exceeded team payroll itself. The refinancing of the two loans has extended their due dates out five years, so this arrangement is set to continue for a long time to come. And the debt balloon payments run until December 2045, when currently youthful pitching ace Steven Matz will be 54 years old.” In 2013, Wilpon admitted to reporters that payroll had shrunk as ownership paid down debt. “That’s what made us tight,” Wilpon, 76, said. “We were still getting revenues, lots of revenues, but those revenues were going to pay off debt. That’s done.” Apparently, the 40-60 million the Mets reportedly made during their postseason run has been used to do the same, as popular sluggers Yoenis Cespedes and homegrown Daniel Murphy will, likely be playing elsewhere in 2016. But a con can only succeed if there are marks willing to go along with the bamboozle in the first place. The family is in great shape,” Wilpon said in 2013. “We had to stay very tight on everything that was happening. So who would know? Real estate has gone zimbo, OK? We have many, many, many apartment buildings around the country. There is no building, so they are all rented. SNY has done spectacularly. The stock market is up. So we benefitted from all those things.” So, as the Mets fail to build an offense to support their wonderful pitching staff, where do you stand? http://www.rockawave.com/news/2015-12-25/Sports/Wilpons_Channel_Inner_Barnum.html

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: ...this is pretty damn macabre. We would've accepted "ghoulish", too.

Gwreck wrote: October 12, 2016. After the Mets are eliminated in the NL Division Series. Reasoning: Matz already had Tommy John surgery, in 2010. Of course that doesn't mean he won't need it again, I gotta admit the truth here. I totally forgot about Matz's TJ and wrote the original post accordingly. So let's limit this poll to Syndergaard, which isn't so interesting anymore with what just one pitcher to project.

Looks like everybody's got the Mets as the preseason favorite to get the best starting pitching out its staff. Of course, if the newest Mets hurlers, last year's rookies Syndergaard and Matz, are truly to follow in the footsteps of their more experienced mound mates, at least one of the two is due to blow out his arm and undergo the ol Tommy John. So what are the odds? What would you set that odds at of at least one of Thor and Matz to need season ending TJ surgery in 2016? What about both? What a drag. OE. Odds are hard to measure in the sense that if I had to crown a winner of this thread, how would I do it working with odds? So instead, pick a date when the Mets first announce that Syndergaard or Matz will not pitch anymore in 2016. If you don't think that's gonna happen, then you can write that. And let's extend this poll to include any season-ending pitching injury.

I remember Gene Hiser the Cub (see rack pack) from around the '73 or '74 season. I remember reading an article, probably in TSN, touting his eyesight. He was supposed to have just about the best eyesight in all of baseball. I guess this meant that he could see the pitch real well as he swung and missed it. Let's just say that his MLB career didn't pan out He accumulated 263 AB's spread out over five seasons, all with the Cubs, and hit just one HR. It was against the Mets.