batmagadanleadoff

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I'm almost certain that no free agent has ever accepted a QO. So are the Mets playing "chicken" here, believing -- or even hoping -- that Murph rejects the QO? OTOH, having Murph on a one year deal as opposed to the multiyear deal (at least four, I presume) that Murph wants, isn't such a bad thing. He's closer to 31 than to 30.

Didn't see this posted here. Didn't notice this news at all till just now even though the article's dated 2:45PM yesterday (almost 12 hours ago). Didn't hear it discussed on the TV either. Murphy to get qualifying offer, but Mets future murky as ever By Joel Sherman CHICAGO � The Mets intend to make the qualifying offer of $15.8 million to Daniel Murphy. But that is mostly about guaranteeing a draft pick next June and remaining in play to sign the second baseman, even if the odds to keep him long-term remain � at best � iffy. What the Mets � and the industry � will have to decide is whether to believe in the track records not just of Murphy, but Yoenis Cespedes, or be swayed by the Cespedes hot streak that carried the Mets into the playoffs and the Murphy hot streak that has lifted the Mets in the postseason. Mets general manager Sandy Alderson and his front office pride themselves on trying to remove emotion from the decision-making process. They want to look at the full picture, not just moments when players are at their extremes (worst or best). Thus, the Mets are going to judge Cespedes and Murphy over a long haul when both have established an expected range of performance. For example, Cespedes hit between 22 and 26 homers in his first three seasons. Do you believe that or the 35 in Year 4, when he hit 18 homers as a Tiger in four months and then 17 in two months with the Mets? Does an organization that values the ability to get on base, perhaps, above all else ignore that among the 119 players who amassed at least 1,000 plate appearances between 2013 and 2014, Cespedes� .298 on-base percentage was 10th-worst (it was .328 this year)? Murphy�s power surge deviates from his norm. But I have seen Murphy dismissed as just another Gene Tenace, Adam Kennedy, Cody Ross or David Freese � guys who had out-of-nowhere brilliance in the postseason. But Murphy has had an above-average offensive consistency those players didn�t leading into their October star turn. In the five seasons in which he qualified for the batting title, Murphy hit between 37 and 40 doubles in each of those years. He has had an OPS-plus between 103 and 113 in each of the past four seasons (100 is league average). That Murphy will be considerably less expensive than Cespedes in free agency makes him more likely to be retained by a Mets organization that � until proven otherwise � is still operating frugally for a big-market team. But there is another element at play here: I sense Mets officials believe Murphy has added power as part of his portfolio. While not as good a hitter as Wade Boggs, Murphy has similarities with Boggs � namely that both have thoughts on every element of hitting, are headstrong about approach and that approach has generally been to hit the ball the other way. Mets hitting coach Kevin Long went on a season-long quest to convince Murphy his exceptional hand-eye coordination combined with yet-untapped power could produce more. Modal Trigger Daniel Murphy talks to Kevin Long during spring training.Photo: Charles Wenzelberg Eventually, Long has gotten Murphy to buy into shortening his stride and becoming more pull-centric. Through Aug. 1, Murphy had six homers, one every 55 at-bats. From then to the end of the regular season, he had eight homers, one every 24.4 at-bats. Obviously, no one can keep up Murphy�s postseason power production, but there is a stronger belief he can now be a 20-plus-homer performer. Murphy�s offensive consistency up until now gets paid nicely, but if teams think the power is real, that opens larger financial possibilities. The expectation is Mets ownership will authorize an annual gradual rise in payroll, keeping in mind to budget for significant raises on the horizon for the elite starting pitching, Lucas Duda, Travis d�Arnaud and Jeurys Familia, as they become or continue on as arbitration-eligible players. If Murphy accepts the qualifying offer and the Mets, say, grow to a $115 million payroll, then $15. 8 million is 13.7 percent of the whole � perhaps too significant a chunk for the Mets to tolerate. But because there is less risk with a one-year deal � even at a high price � and because they think Murphy would reject the qualifying offer, the Mets have become more comfortable giving him one and assuring a pick between the first and second rounds next June if Murphy signs elsewhere. Agents and executives with whom I have spoken expect Murphy to fall into a range similar to what the Yankees gave Chase Headley � four years at $52 million. The predictions on Cespedes swung in a wider arc, with a few saying, despite the Met surge, they still expect him to fall closer to $100 million in a package and a larger group anticipating a deal in the six-year, $150 million area. The Mets could replace Murphy inexpensively at second with Wilmer Flores or Dilson Herrera. But if they really believe in this newfound power, Murphy�s chances of staying could increase. http://nypost.com/2015/10/21/murphy-to-get-qualifying-offer-but-mets-future-still-murky/

Edgy MD wrote: 5. The new commissioner did not express an intention to seize the team from Fred and Jeff! They must be butt buddies!! Well ..... yeah!

But he didn't hit a triple.

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Zvon wrote: Totally ripped off your caption. I owe you one Batmags! [fimg=400]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VspC6J9ideE/VigaF5aLx7I/AAAAAAAAiR4/R8KMHYZLrsE/s912-Ic42/2015mfcNLCSgm3-MERCILESS-z15.png[/fimg] You're definitely gonna hafta make me another Bob Miller card for that.

JABO: The Making of Postseason Legend Daniel Murphy by Owen Watson - October 19, 2015 We watch playoff baseball in part to see the stars of the game write their legacies. Whether they become legends or eventual disappointments, the October stage grants them a chance to produce the alluring commodity we most crave in this wild month of baseball: narrative. We know the names. Reggie Jackson; Kirk Gibson; Carlton Fisk. We can see their postseason highlight reels in our heads just by reading the words on the page; we know the accompanying commentator clips so well that the audio plays along with them. They�re more than legends � they�re woven into a historic fabric, embedded in our consciousness as touchstones for the game�s future. Somewhere in our minds, amid the grocery lists and afternoon meeting agendas, Gibson is pumping his fist as he rounds the bases. Fisk is waving it fair. And a Yankee Stadium crowd is yelling �Reggie. Reggie. Reggie.� They�re all there, because they�re now part of who we are as a collective baseball mind. And so we come to Daniel Murphy, who�s not yet one of those household names. An important part of the Mets during the past few years, yes, but never what anyone would call a superstar. Only now, after fueling another Mets win in the NLCS over the Chicago Cubs by homering in his fourth consecutive game, he�s becoming something else � a one-man show, a phenomenon, a postseason hero in the making. This is happening because most professional baseball players are capable of doing extraordinary things for short periods of time. The greatest among them are able to stretch those periods, shortening the downtime between each episode. However, sometimes we need to recognize when someone�s performance is not just a hot streak; oftentimes there have been legitimate improvements made, and those coincide with a streak at just the right moment, like crucial at-bats over a few playoff series. That�s exactly what�s happening to Daniel Murphy, and it�s cause for us to look deeper into the forces behind his incredible run in this year�s playoffs. To begin with, Murphy made a conscious decision to pull the ball more often in 2015. Take a look at the percentage of balls he has hit to the pull side since 2008 (as a note, he missed all of 2010 due to injury): Tending to hit more toward the opposite field for most of his career, Murphy showed more aggressiveness in increasing his pull rate to around league average (40 percent) in 2015. This formed one of two major improvements in his offensive game this past season; the other was a major jump in contact rate that cut his strikeouts almost in half. Look at how his contact rates have changed over the past three years ("O" stands for pitches outside the strike zone, while "Z" stands for pitches inside the strike zone): Read the rest at: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jabo-the-making-of-postseason-legend-daniel-murphy/

Daniel Murphy is an exploding supernova, dropped into the heart of an =#FFFF00]erupting volcano, plowing through a bowl of hallucinogenic chili. [fimg=444]https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/themes/vip/espn-grantland/img/grantland-logo@2x.png[/fimg] Daniel Murphy Wants It More http://grantland.com/the-triangle/daniel-murphy-wants-it-more/ excerpt: Through subtle improvements in his hitting approach, he has reached the peak of his baseball career. And through the wonders of small sample size and the kind of playoff weirdness we see every year, he�s making himself into an unlikely legend. [***] Oh, but there�s more to say about the struck-by-lightning odds that Murphy has overcome to turn into Roy Freaking Hobbs. So much more. Murphy is just the fifth player in history to homer in four straight games within a single postseason.1 He�s also the first Met to hit five homers in a single postseason.2 In fact, with just seven playoff games under his belt, Murphy has already tied for the all-time lead for postseason homers by a Met, matching Mike Piazza with five. And among all the players in baseball history, only two blasted more home runs in their first seven career playoff games: Ken Griffey Jr. and Carlos Beltran. This article needs some updating. And then this: As Baseball Savant proprietor Daren Willman noted, of the 38,775 homers hit since 2008,3 only 20 have come on pitches as low as the one Murphy golfed off his shoetops [against Jake Arrieta].

Zvon wrote: Murphy the merciless! Very kool. Not as kool as Murphy right now. I just noticed that the card would work just the same without the semi-colon after "MERCILESS". Tonight's HR went to practically straight-away center. There was a graphic tonight -- I think it read that Murph's 24 for his last 48 against righties at Wrigley.

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Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Centerfield wrote: Part of the reason I want this ride to keep going is that I don't know when the Mets will put this complete a team out there again. Right now, we have all four aces healthy, the entire starting lineup healthy, we have 2 extra starters in the bullpen, and a deep bench. All of this materialized because our young talent developed while the old guard was still here. All of this also materialized because the Mets had an insurance policy on David Wright that kicked in, saving them 75% of his 2015 salary, and because the Mets didn't have to pay Mejia. That's how Sandy was able to strengthen the bench and take on the rest of Cespedes's 2015 salary. But what next year? Will the Mets still be the same broke? Because if they're gonna be as broke next year as they were at the beginning of this season, the Murphy re-signing would be a non-issue. And Cespedes beyond this year -- a child's dream. even if that was all true, the Mets made, conservatively, 3 million from each of 4 playoff games just from ticket sales and are guaranteed a 5th. And then there's parking (easily another half million+), and in-game merch sales. Then there is all the increased 2016 season ticket sales to guarantee 2015 playoff tickets, and these are important because they actually raise the expected 2016 revenue in which to measure payroll against. And then there is the inevitable raised rates for advertising both at the park, on giveaways, and on SNY. That's true. And it might help. Not that I'd know. But we'll find out soon enough.

Centerfield wrote: Part of the reason I want this ride to keep going is that I don't know when the Mets will put this complete a team out there again. Right now, we have all four aces healthy, the entire starting lineup healthy, we have 2 extra starters in the bullpen, and a deep bench. All of this materialized because our young talent developed while the old guard was still here. All of this also materialized because the Mets had an insurance policy on David Wright that kicked in, saving them 75% of his 2015 salary, and because the Mets didn't have to pay Mejia. That's how Sandy was able to strengthen the bench and take on the rest of Cespedes's 2015 salary. But what next year? Will the Mets still be the same broke? Because if they're gonna be as broke next year as they were at the beginning of this season, the Murphy re-signing would be a non-issue. And Cespedes beyond this year -- a child's dream.

Lefty Specialist wrote: As you know, the Cubs fans believe that they haven’t been back to the World Series since 1945 because a fan wasn’t allowed to bring his pet goat into Wrigley Field and they’ve been cursed ever since. The name of that pet goat? Murphy. Want more Murphy? The name of the Cubs owner when they last won the WS in 1908? Charles Murphy The name of the GM of the team (Mets) that broke the Cubs hearts in the pennant race in a year (1969) that the Cubs assumed they'd get to the WS? Johnny Murphy The Mets announcer that year? Bob Murphy The home stadium of the team (Padres) that eliminated the Cubs in their first playoff appearance since 1945? Jack Murphy Stadium And then Daniel Murphy happened.

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The New and Improved does spoil a fella.

That's it? Just a single?

Murph hit that homer like a tennis backhand.

Brian Mcrae

batmagadanleadoff wrote: [fimg=544]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5700/22261860686_2bcfbb3966_o.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=544]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5648/22275301652_6a6d28a34f_o.jpg[/fimg]

If Arrietta can't beat the Mets tonight, the Mets are gonna win the WS this year.

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