batmagadanleadoff

You'ree both right, ceets and sage. Abreu was once a star. Now he's old. I mean, Moises Alou isn't playing any more. Neither is Hank Aaron. Abreu's got a track record but who would be surprised if his production plummets drastically? We'll see what happens. What else is there to do?

"Hey Ruben! Be less like Ruben and more like Ted Williams ferchrissakes. How many times Igottatellyou?" I mean, half the hitters in the Major Leagues suck at hitting. That's just the way it is. And when you're carrying an $80M payroll, you're probably gonna have more crappy hitters than the other teams. The idea that the Mets are gonna suddenly transform mediocre 24 olds into good hitters is just nutso. And desperate. They're fucking broke so they've deluded themselves into believing that they're gonna mold dumpster bin bargains into all-stars. Get 'em while they're young.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: [fimg=444]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3750/9119005260_8ce1bc5c1b_o.jpg[/fimg] Is that supposed to be Wright. Beltran, Jose and Santana? That's Pelfrey on the drum. Pelf, Wright, Reyes and Johan. I put Pelfrey in two straight posts over two separate threads.

[fimg=444:3ctctglx]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3750/9119005260_8ce1bc5c1b_o.jpg[/fimg:3ctctglx]

The Mets never drafted 10th overall. With the 11th overall pick, the Mets drafted: 2013 - Dominic Smith. With the 9th overall pick, the Mets drafted: 2005 - Mike Pelfrey 1992 - Preston Wilson.

Wolves of '63:

Mets axe hitting coach Dave Hudgens, but team�s problems go beyond that After dropping their ninth game in their last 12, the Mets cleaned house on Monday. Not only did they jettison reliever Jose Valverde, who had blown a 3-1 lead by allowing four runs in their 5-3 loss to the Pirates, but they also fired Dave Hudgens, their hitting coach since 2011. The merits of the Valverde move were clear given the pitcher�s performance, but the same can�t be said for that of Hudgens. Like so many hitting coaches before him, he�s a convenient scapegoat for the team�s larger problems. Hudgens took the fall for an offense that has scored just 2.67 runs per game over the span of that 12-game slide, never topping five runs, and that has conspicuously struggled to put runs on the board at Citi Field during his tenure. Since the start of the 2011 season, they�re near the bottom of the majors in home scoring while ranking near the top in road scoring, producing the widest differential of the 30 teams. Here�s the bottom five in the latter category: Tm Home RPG Home Rank Road RPG Road Rank Dif Rank Mets 3.58 27 4.58 5 -1.00 30 Giants 3.48 29 4.47 9 -0.99 29 Mariners 3.39 30 4.09 18 -0.70 28 Dodgers 3.67 26 4.34 13 -0.67 27 Angels 4.20 19 4.80 1 -0.60 26 During that span, the Mets have played to a .421 winning percentage at home compared to a .502 mark on the road. That 81-point discrepancy is the largest in the majors and one of only two that�s even in the red; the Twins, at -.008 (.398 to .407, beware the rounding) are the other. The Mets� underperformance at home has been even more pronounced thus far this season. They�re 11-17 at Citi Field, scoring just 3.07 runs per game (dead last), compared to 11-11 on the road at 4.95 runs per game (fifth-best) for a whopping ?1.88 runs per game differential (also dead last). Meanwhile, the team�s run prevention at home (4.27 per game since 2011) has more closely resembled that on the road (4.48 per game), such that the discrepancy can�t be chalked up entirely to the ballpark. Compare their offense and that of their opponents at home and on the road: Team AVG/OBP/SLG Home OPS+ AVG/OBP/SLG Road OPS+ Mets .222/.299/.333 75 .252/.322/.378 102 Opponents .242/.321/.382 103 .261/.324/.418 104 Once you adjust for ballpark, the Mets� opponents have been similarly productive at home and on the road, but the Mets� utter awfulness at home sticks out like a sore thumb. Basically, they�ve been as productive as a team of Eric Youngs Jr. (career 77 OPS+) at Citi while being a hair above average everywhere else. Looking more closely at the impact of Citi Field, Baseball-Reference.com single-year batting park factors since 2011 are 98, 95, 94 and 92. Note that when it comes to using park factors for ERA+ or OPS+ or WAR, multi-year factors are generally preferable because of sample-size issues. Still, what stands out during that four-season run is that scoring at Citi is actually down since the team moved the fences in between the 2011 and �12 seasons, by 11 or 12 feet in some spots; at the same time, they shortened the walls from 16 feet to eight. And while more homers have been hit at Citi Field since the fences were moved in (1.44 per game from 2009-11, 1.88 from 2011-14), it hasn�t worked to the Mets� advantage: The team has been outhomered by 0.4 per game since the change. So the Mets have failed to produce at home. Some of that may be chalked up to a lack of talent; neither Eric Young Jr. (.220/.315/.305) nor Chris Young (.202/.287/.349) merit everyday play, but the two are fourth and eighth on the team in terms of plate appearances despite vying for time in the same outfield. Youngsters Travis d�Arnaud (.196/.274/.314) and Ruben Tejada (.195/.311/.230) are below the Mendoza Line, and the latter has more or less lost his job to Wilmer Flores, who�s just 9-for-39 without an extra-base hit thus far. Only four regulars have hit at league average or better (OPS+ of at least 100): Daniel Murphy (.309/.356/.422, 121 OPS+), Juan Lagares (.290/.336/.435, 118 OPS+), David Wright (.305/.348/.405, 115 OPS+) and Lucas Duda (.236/.310/.400, 101 OPS+) with Curtis Granderson (.212/.318/.376, 98) closing in thanks to a strong May (.938 OPS) on the heels of a dreadful April (.468 OPS). Lagares has been a particularly pleasant surprise given his offensive woes last year, but his 30/8 strikeout-to-walk ratio suggests regression ahead. Duda, despite beating out the since-traded Ike Davis for the first base job, is still underperforming considerably relative to major league first basemen (121 OPS+), so it�s really only three positions where the Mets are gaining an offensive advantage. Hudgens isn�t to blame for that, at least not primarily. General manager Sandy Alderson � who�s been at the helm since October 2010 � is the one who assembled this team, but he�s been hamstrung by pitiful payrolls in the wake of the Mets� ongoing financial crisis, leading to stopgap solutions at some positions; as the Phillies showed last year, going two Youngs is a poor substitute for a youth movement. Even with the pricey additions of Granderson (four years, $60 million) and Bartolo Colon (two years, $20 million), the team�s $85.5 million payroll ranks 23rd in the majors according to Cot�s Contracts, down 8.8 percent from last year despite playing in the majors� largest market. Via Alderson�s directive, Hudgens has preached a doctrine of plate discipline founded on hitters� rates of bases per out (BPO), a crude metric that is the organization�s attempt to emphasize and reward selectivity. If that philosophy has helped, it�s only up to a point; via FanGraphs, the team is swinging at 29.0 percent of pitches outside the zone and 44.7 percent of all pitches, both NL lows, while their 8.0 percent unintentional walk rate ranks second in the league and their 3.86 pitches per plate appearance third. The problem comes when they make contact; where they�re eighth in the league in on-base percentage (.309), they�re 12th in batting average (.237) and last in slugging percentage (.352), and it�s fair to wonder if a more aggressive approach � or at least a less rigid one, tailored more to the individual hitters� skills � would bear greater fruit. Hudgens was vocal about where the blame in the organization lay after after being notified of his dismissal. Via Newsday�s Marc Carig: Did Hudgens believe he got a fair shake? �It depends on who you�re talking about, from who,� Hudgens told Newsday Monday night in a phone interview, just a few hours after his dismissal. �From Sandy, from the front office, from the players, from [manager] Terry [Collins], from the other coaches, yeah, absolutely.� He omitted team ownership. Hudgens and Alderson have ties dating to their time with the Athletics organization�. [He] defended the team�s patient hitting approach, which has been bashed by broadcaster Keith Hernandez. �The naysayers, the guys who disapprove of us, the guys who I listen to on TV all the time, those guys that know everything about the game, I�m just amazed at it,� Hudgens said. �What�s wrong with getting a good pitch to hit? Somebody, please punch a hole in that for me. I just shake my head at the old-school guys that have it all figured out. Go up there and swing the bat. Well, what do you want to swing at? It just confounds me. It�s just hilarious, really.� Via MLB.com�s Anthony DiComo, Hudgens felt the team�s problems at home owed to putting too much pressure on themselves: �I really just think guys tried to hard at home. I think the fans are really tough on the guys at home� �You can see it in the statistics. The fly ball rates went up, the swing and miss rates went up at home. I think we were first in the league in runs scored on the road, so I think guys were relaxed on the road. They could just go out and play the game, don�t worry about anything. Then at home, they�re trying to do so much. � When you look at the numbers inside the numbers, and you see exit velocity rates going down at home, you see fly ball rates going up, you see swing-and-miss rates going up, you see chase rates going up a little bit � although we�re best in the league in not chasing pitches out of the zone � I think those things, it just means guys trying to do too much, trying to hard.� To replace Hudgens, the Mets have promoted minor league hitting instructor Lamar Johnson, a former major league first baseman (1974-82) who has worked in the organization as a roving hitting instructor and minor league hitting coordinator since 2005, giving him ties to many of the team�s homegrown players such as Duda, Flores, Lagares, Murphy and Tejada. It�s possible that hearing a similar philosophy from a different voice will help Mets hitters find their groove, particularly at home, but as with all coaching changes, it�s difficult to discern where the responsibility will lay for that. Johnson could well reap the benefit of the team�s home/road splits converging as the team plays more to its true talent level. In the end, Hudgens� firing reeks of expediency and scapegoating, an effort to find a simple solution to a complex problem by presenting a scalp to the public. Short of firing owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz so that Alderson can spend at a market-appropriate level, the cycle will continue, with Collins next in line. http://mlb.si.com/2014/05/27/new-york-mets-fire-hitting-coach-dave-hudgens/

If it was up to me, I'd modify the rule requiring that every team have an all-star selectee. I'd make it permissible for a team to go a few years (three or four) without having an all-star selectee. Only the host team would get an automatic representative -- that would've meant Mets only, and not the Yankees for last year's Citi Field ASG. I'd also try to revive the old ASG culture where every selectee does not automatically get into the actual game.

Who's complaining? Eight year olds? Mike Francesca (same thing)? This is a pressing problem?

D'Alessandro: Mets GM Sandy Alderson has thorny issues, and they're related to existing debt loads By Dave D'Alessandro/Star-Ledger Columnist on May 27, 2014 at 11:56 PM, updated May 28, 2014 at 3:03 AM NEW YORK � First things first: No matter how much carping you�ve heard about the Mets this year, it�s always a privilege to come out to the ballpark � especially one that�s built with $900 million in public dollars and named after an insolvent bank that was bailed out with $45 billion in taxpayer-funded TARP money. But the team is losing, and that�s when you see the fur fly: We demand accountability from our team�s custodians, so a few hours after his bullpen gacked up another game, Sandy Alderson did the only logical thing Monday and fired his batting coach. (Your go-to joke being: "Really? The Mets? They have a batting coach?") Then that batting coach went on the chat shows to decry the lack of fan support for this dainty jewel of a team (j�accuse!), and convey that the real problem is ownership clipping the GM�s purse strings. That is obvious to all 15 people sitting in the stands, but it�s the first affirmation you�ve heard from inside Alderson�s circle that the present fiasco cannot change unless ownership green-lights Sandy to spend some of the money that they manage so adroitly. It got weird after that: The general manager doubled back on the chat shows to clean up Dave Hudgens� parting mess, then he characterized the fans� anguish as inconsequential to whatever the hell it is they�re doing, and finally he asserted that his team can be frugal and competitive at the same time, though we�ve never seen any proof of this. "We�ve spent $85 million, and we expected a little more at this point in the season than we�ve gotten," Alderson protested before he was contractually obligated to watch the Mets defeated the Pirates at Citi Field Tuesday night. "So I don�t believe payroll is the issue." Frankly, we don�t care. We�re only here to applaud the mounting fan disgust and ask the eternal question: What took so long? We ask because the confluence of deceitful owners, bad baseball, and obscene prices � and the Mets� annual practice of selling potential instead of actual achievement � is essentially a sucker�s story. It�s a reminder to owners that the chickens have come home to roost in sporting America. And while it�s a shame that nice guys like Hudgens become scapegoats for failing to work miracles with a minor-league lineup, at least he delivered a candid message on his way out the door Tuesday: The fans, irritating as they may be, have been hoodwinked into believing that Alderson has the capital to grow this crumbling baseball business. But Hudgens, like everybody else, knows Sandy�s hands are tied. Yes, even though this franchise has appreciated 500 percent � from the Wilpons� original purchase price of $391 million, to something north of $2 billion � in just 11 years. Yes, even though they were eighth in revenue among the 30 teams at $265 million last year. Yes, even though they have the ninth-lowest payroll this year. Even though trustee Irving Picard let them off easy by making them pay $162 million to Bernie Madoff�s victims, the Wilpons are still teetering from a crushing debt load. In fact, they were in imminent jeopardy as recently as January, when Bank of America refinanced a $250 million loan that was due at the end of this week. But all that did was buy Fred some time. There are more debt issues that won�t go away, and they�re just as crushing. At the top of the list: The Mets owners took out a loan against its majority stake in SNY. Originally, it was for $450 million, but it�s grown to more than $600 million � and that one is due next year. So maybe you think the Wilpons are just cheap, but Sandy has to sell the narrative that he�s the frugal one. Sure, some teams do more with less. Tampa Bay comes to mind. But comparing teams in different markets is like comparing solar systems. Yes, Alderson has done a fairly lousy job lately. The way he structured his payroll � with four guys taking up more 56 percent of that $85 mil � is intractable. Two of those big-money investments, Chris Young and Curtis Granderson, were hitting a robust .208 combined before last night�s game against the Pirates. The faith he�s shown in Travis d�Arnaud and Ruben Tejada, both Mendoza-Liners, remains mysterious. The decisions he�s made to spackle the holes in the bullpen have been poor. In other words, many of these misdeeds still come back to money. And it still begs the question: Why did we come to the ballpark again? Probably because we�re all awaiting the day for Fred to cash out, and the Mets bring in a new owner who doesn�t manage his business like he hears bloodhounds in the distance. http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2014/05/dalessandro_mets_gm_sandy_alderson_has_thorny_issues_and_theyre_related_to_existing_debt_loads.html

If I was in the mood to play fortune-teller and Sherlock Holmes behind the scenes at the Mets, I'd speculate that the Wilpons, rather than fire Alderson, would instead make it uncomfortable enough that Sandy won't want to re-up when his contract expires at the end of this season -- if it comes to an Alderson/Mets divorce. The very idea that the Pons hired someone as established and with as much clout and credibility as Alderson to begin with seems to go against everything I believe about those owners.

Edgy MD wrote: Yeah, and I added Hudgens. I read the article. I'm not sure on the matter. But I'm reserving judgment on how cowed Alderson is by his boss. Megdal is massively wrong often enough. Well, I wasn't clamoring for Hudgens's release. That one was far from my mind.

Well, I certainly care about a culture of hypocrisy. And if Howard whips up another frenzy of populist zeal against the Mets for doing.... exactly what those same irate fans actually wanted them to do, then that's what we have. What did/do you want? Valverde or not Valverde? Megdal's piece had nothing to do with Valverde's release. I wasn't clamoring for Hudgens' firing. The end of a hitting coach, and a G.M.'s baseball autonomy By Howard Megdal 8:59 a.m. | May. 27, 2014 It's been a common thing, as the Mets have struggled, for the team's C.O.O. to express displeasure with general manager Sandy Alderson. And sure enough, during Monday's disappointing 5-3 loss at home to the Pirates, Jeff Wilpon sent Alderson an angry text, and followed it up with an angry call. Then, after the game, they had an angry meeting. But at that meeting, according to a knowledgeable source, Wilpon did something new: He overruled his general manager on a baseball matter, ordering him to fire hitting coach Dave Hudgens, a longtime Alderson friend and colleague. Alderson, who has been in the job since 2010, delivered the news to Hudgens shortly afterward, in the presence of manager Terry Collins. When he was asked later by reporters about Hudgens' unceremonious post-game termination, Alderson praised Hudgens' work ethic, and stated the obvious, that the team's "situational hitting is not where we want it to be." Asked for comment on Wilpon's role in the firing, Mets spokesman David Newman referred Capital to Alderson's post-firing comments, which did not address it. This incursion into baseball decisions by Wilpon would seem to indicate that Alderson will have limited latitude as he tries to improve the team despite severe payroll constraints. As Hudgens himself put it during a controversial exit interview Monday, "I have nothing but respect for Sandy and no doubt he will turn things around if he's allowed to." Hudgens continued his media tour on Tuesday, casting further doubt on the idea, hopefully suggested in the past by ownership, that Alderson is free to spend as he pleases. "If they want a winner in that town, I would let the purse strings loose and let Sandy do what he wants to do," Hudgens told Michael Kay during the first of two interviews he conducted on New York radio. The Mets have successfully avoided such tours from ex-employees in the past by tying contract compensation to silence, a common tactic. So it is fascinating to see Hudgens speak out in such a forthright way. It's been no secret for some time now that Alderson is dealing with a far smaller budget than he expected, and was repeatedly promised, each year since taking over. It is also no secret that the budget constantly changes on him, forcing his front office to make decisions on players in a vacuum, not knowing whether money approved for, let's say, Chris Young will be available for another player if they were to pass on Young. This is why the same G.M. who has managed to consistently win trades, with full authority and only a mandate to return the best possible minor league talent, fares far worse on the free agent market against teams with clear financial parameters and the ability to spend. And with the fourth draft of the Alderson era coming in just over a week, some of his early drafts, a baseball area where he's had the ability to do as he pleases, are bearing fruit. Brandon Nimmo, his first pick in 2011, flashed power, strong defense and a plus swing when I saw him this weekend for the St. Lucie Mets. He's likely a few weeks from a promotion to Double-A Binghamton, where another Alderson draftee, catcher Kevin Plawecki, is hitting .331 with power. But who will be making those decisions when the 2014 draft comes around? It's one thing for ownership to decline to give Alderson money it doesn't have. It's quite another, autonomy-wise, to force Alderson to fire baseball personnel. Alderson was not aware of how long he'd be restricted from spending when he took the job back in 2010. He's now in the final year of his contract with the Mets, and may not stick around much longer if even the non-budgetary decisions are no longer his to make. After all, if he couldn't overcome Jeff Wilpon's bright ideas and Fred Wilpon's wallet when he had the discretion to make his own baseball decisions, what chance does he have now? http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/05/8546025/end-hitting-coach-and-gms-baseball-autonomy

Edgy MD wrote: Howard's got computers, and he's tapping phone lines. The fact that 94 % of fans would have supported the Hudgens move and 138% of fans would have supported the Valverde release, had they been polled after the game, is that mentioned? It's about Prince Fredo overruling and undermining Alderson's authority. 94% of the time, I could care less what 94% of Mets fan want.

I feel entitled, if nothing else, to one of baseball's highest payrolls. For the money they charge, for the money SNY generates, for the estimated value of the franchise, for the right to play in NY, yada yada yada. But the latest Katz rumors tells me that we'll endure Mets poverty for at least the next couple of years. So here's to hoping that Brandon Nimmo develops into the next Willie Mays. And for another round of expanded playoffs, because Nimmo as Mays won't be enough, anyways. Oh my. It's Hudgens' fault that this roster of mostly scrubs, declining players and scrubs in decline can't hit enough.

Hudgens: "True New Yorkers wouldn't boo the home team" (or something close to that)

Looks like Lorne Malvo.

A pre-cage Who am I by the clubhouse, water fountain in the background. [fimg=644:3vwvqfti]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5118/14269605052_85321d221b_o.jpg[/fimg:3vwvqfti] Two clappers still my offer for the last who am I.

The best threads are those that tell you what you know already.

This is the 1984 we'd prefer, Fred: [fimg=333]http://img.comc.com/i/Baseball/1984/Topps_Traded/42T/Dwight_Gooden.jpg?id=afd22bf8-fadf-4d97-9945-fd671a51caac&size=zoom[/fimg] [fimg=333]http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/_photos/metsyb1984.sized.jpg[/fimg] Mets act fast on ownership tweet, other �distractions� By Howard Megdal 1:05 p.m. | May. 22, 2014 When a sports radio host read a listener's tweet on air earlier this month urging the Mets' owners to sell to Mark Cuban, team management was all over it. Mets senior vice president for marketing and communications David Newman, who reports directly to Mets C.O.O. Jeff Wilpon, emailed WOR management about it to ask for a recording, according to a source who viewed the correspondence, and subsequently expressed concern about the fact that the tweet had been read at all. Newman refused to comment on why he'd sent the email, but his containing action dovetails with the larger mission for Mets brass these days: In the absence of money to spend on the actual team, work hard at P.R., controlling dissent where possible and otherwise shifting focus from the debt-ridden ownership to any other possible problem, large or small, legitimate or manufactured. At this point, the list of scapegoats that's been peddled by the team's owners, usually anonymously, is hard to keep track of. It includes the manager, the general manager, a pay-now, win-later business model for ticket sales and payroll (so those no-show fans are to blame), various players' attitudes, and the stadium. Take today's article in the relatively Wilpon-friendly sports section of the Daily News, about the front office seeking to crack down on "distractions" at Citi Field. This story will turn out, no doubt, to have about as much bearing on the team's prospects as previous reports that the Mets were ready to chase Shin-Soo Choo, and that the team would spend $125 million on payroll, if only "the right players" would present themselves. (Actual payroll, with actual players, is around $40 million less.) It's the periodic culmination of the team's usual narrative cycle: The Mets' readiness to pursue players who will fix the team's problems morphs into explanations of why the Mets didn't pursue those players, followed by nonsequitur discussions of how some problem other than the fact that ownership can't afford enough good players is to blame. Of course, the idea that Citi Field's dimensions might be a problem, and that "the team's higher-ups" have worked to eliminate distractions described as "unique ... in a market this large," don't really make sense to begin with. The Mets are 9-14 at home this year, and their slugging percentage at home is .322, well below that of any other team. But the Mets touted their solutions for this problem they haven't solved. From the article: For years, Mets players have been asked to multi-task while the team is at home, with some traveling around the city for charity/PR work during mornings, others being trotted out for evening meet-and-greet duty for ballpark VIPs. The team tries to accommodate pregame media requests from print, radio and television, and holds various events, including nights when fan bloggers receive credentials granting field and dugout access. All of this is standard in MLB, not unique to the Mets. But it is unique to operate in a market this large, with so many more people, media and otherwise, vying for players� time. So the team�s higher-ups have been quietly paring down the pregame distractions, even reducing access for their official broadcast partners within an hour of game time. Team employees have also noticed significantly lighter crowds of people standing in the roped-off area behind home plate during batting practice. While the Mets would not confirm that they are in fact issuing fewer field credentials for VIPs, one rank-and-file-level staffer said, �It�s obvious that there are way less people back there this season.� That means fewer autographs, handshakes, and interactions that distract from baseball. Unpacked, what this article tells us is that a team desperately struggling to draw people to games has concluded that reducing media coverage is a good idea. Also, fan interaction with the players pregame, the kind of moment that binds people to player and team, should be significantly reduced. And those bloggers, who generally consist of people willing to travel to the park on their own dime to write about the Mets on their own time? They're the problem, too. The current Mets players are a likable bunch, and there's some real talent there. But let's not kid ourselves about what they're capable of as a team. Road players are posting a .719 OPS at Citi Field this year, better than the National League average road OPS of .681. The Mets are losing at home because they are not as good as their opponents at hitting the baseball. Previous Mets, on teams that were assembled before the current era of Wilpon austerity, thrived at home. Jose Reyes put up OPS marks of .882, .790 and .937 at Citi Field in the three years before the Mets let their best homegrown shortstop ever leave for nothing, unable to afford him. In his only healthy season playing at Citi Field, Carlos Beltran managed a .994 OPS at home in 2011. Good hitters, it turns out, can hit in this ballpark. Which ought to bring us back to why the Mets don't have good hitters. But actually examining that wouldn't suit the Mets, since it comes back to ownership slashing payroll, while providing general manager Sandy Alderson an ever-shifting budget that doesn't even allow Alderson to allocate it properly, but instead forces him to evaluate each signing or trade in a vacuum. As for that low attendance problem: If only more people would come, the Mets say, they'd have the money to spend on players. Because, the Mets don't say, the television money other teams use to bolster their roster is in their case being diverted into annual interest payments on the debts held by Mets ownership. The Yankees do just fine in this market, distractions and all. The road teams hit well in Citi Field. When the Mets employ quality hitters, they hit in Citi Field. The farm system has developed good starting pitching. The team's own general manager has repeatedly said publicly, for years now, that the Mets' problem is position players. So why haven't the Mets gone out and signed some free agents who can hit? And how much better off might the Mets be with an owner who isn't primarily concerned with hanging on, however devastating it is for the team and its fans? Don't ask. And if the Mets have any say over your professional circumstances, watch what you retweet, too. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/05/8545847/mets-act-fast-ownership-tweet-other-distractions

Nymr83 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: As I said, I'm not sure where that gets us. I'm certain much of this discussion is just going in circles, but I'm even more certain that moving fences and getting good players are not mutually exclusive. I'm not sure which guys you're advocating giving up on. Moving fences is going to hurt the pitchers and arguably hurts us more than the opponent at least moving the centerfield wall due to Lagares' range. so unless you're going to move them every season after an exhaustive analysis of the current roster (would mlb allow this even?) i dont see the point. if you're going to move them once and talk about a general philosophy thats another story, but the Mets seem to want to move them not because they want to build a team of groundball pitchers and homerun hitters but because the current team isnt playing well and they are scrambling for an explanation other than the talent level The Mets ain't movin' those fences in any more. That costs a lot of money. The Mets have to borrow money from Bud Selig just to pay their phone bill.

Centerfield wrote: A parallel to this could be Mike Hampton, who was terrific before and after his time in Colorado. But while he was in Colorado, he was terrible. Many said it wasn't Coor's Field, since he was terrible on the road during those years as well (in one year he was even worse away from Coor's). But the minute he went to Atlanta, he returned to being a pretty good pitcher. There can be many factors, but there is at least the suggestion that his struggles were based on Coor's, and that he was screwed up to the point he took his bad habits on the road with him. Of course, by that theory, Jason Bay should be lighting it up someplace now, and he clearly isn't, so take from it what you will. Anyway, I'm repeating myself. I just don't think that any numbers can easily prove or disprove one side or the other. Which I guess is why we debate this every year. As if pre-humidor Coors wasn't bad enough, Mike Hampton also pitched there during the steroid era. That Coors was a freak show --- a baseball game inside of a pinball machine. There was never, not even close, to another stadium that generated offense like that Coors. (And the current humidor Coors is still the best place to generate offense). Anyway, in Hampton's Coors, pitchers had to throw every pitch as if they were in the late innings of a tied Game Seven of the World Series. Pitchers there could never let down, not even for a single pitch, and couldn't pace themselves. They were mentally, if not physically drained by the middle of the game. I wouldn't question the idea that the pre-humidor Coors fucked with any Rockies pitchers head for a nano-second.

Edgy MD wrote: I am troubled by the park factor and the psychological toll, while not being able to factually establish that either of these things actually exist. But one thing (two actually) those teams had before 2009 that they didn't have going forward is Carlos Delgado and a healthy Carlos Beltran. It could simply be that they've never found the lefthanded lightning to replace those guys. And from the right side, were Francoeur and Bay stiffed by the park or were the Mets stiffed by them? It's hard. I mean, if the campaign is to rebuild Shea brick by brick, I'll sign on. And if just sticking the old Shea wall distances out there at Citi Field as best as they can is on the menu, I'll go there too. At least it'll give Wright back something like his landing spot in right center behind the 371 sign, but I'm not sure where that gets us. Having the two Carloses or not shouldn't affect the park factor. It's not necessarily how many overall HR's or runs or doubles the Mets generate, but the difference between their road and home output (and the difference between the home and road output of the Mets opponents in games against the Mets).

Centerfield wrote: But because Park Factor is calculated by the Home/Away splits of the guys wearing orange and blue, it cannot account for the effect, if any, that the park has on the overall performance of a hitter. Why not? And park factors also account for what the Mets opponents do at Citi Field and on the road

Joe Posnanski on ex-met and 2015 Hall of Fame inductee Pedro Martinez: Pedro's peak seven year run better than Koufax's peak. excerpt: But even in this, the woman does not have to keep everything exactly the same. It is her home now. �Right there,� [Tony] Pena said as he pointed at a photo on the wall, �there used to be a picture of Jesus.� The picture is now of Pedro Martinez. * * * Some stories get repeated so often that they lose their wonder. The story of Dominican baseball is such a story. There are roughly as many people in the Dominican Republic as in the state of Georgia. Since 1960, there have been three shortstops from the state of Georgia who have gotten 500 plate appearances in the big leagues. There have been 37 from the Dominican Republic. There has never been a pitcher born in Georgia elected to the Hall of Fame � Kevin Brown is probably the closest and he didn�t even make it to the second ballot. There is a Hall of Fame pitcher from the Dominican Republic � Juan Marichal. And next year Pedro Martinez will become the second. Martinez�s story is one of those we have grown numb to; it is in its own way the essential Dominican Republic baseball story. Pedro�s father Paolino was by all accounts a brilliant sinkerball pitcher who simply could not afford to go to the Major Leagues. According to one version, Paulino could not even afford the necessary cleats. Paulino was from that time in the 1950s when Dominican baseball was still largely undiscovered and attempting to go to the Major Leagues was a bit like Magellan attempting to circumnavigate the earth. Paulino always said he was offered a tryout by the New York Giants. His friends Matty and Felipe Alou found their way to the tryout and they became Major League stars. The Alous would always say Paulino could have been a major league star too. Pedro did not grow up with much more than his father. He grew up in Manoguayabo, just outside of Santo Domingo. Martinez talked often of playing baseball with doll�s heads and tree branches, fruits and pipes; he talked sometimes of the trash on his street. His home like Pena�s had a dirt floor with a crumbling roof but it did not have walls; sheets separated the rooms. In a way, though, Pedro Martinez grew up in a very different time from his father; this was after Marichal and Joaquin Andujar and Mario Soto and Jose Rijo, when scouts were scouring the island looking for live arms. There was another pitcher who was pivotal to how scouts came to view Dominican pitchers, and he happened to be Pedro�s older brother Ramon. He was the true phenom. At 17, Ramon pitched for the Dominican Olympic team, which was chosen to replace the boycotting Cuban team. That Dominican team was badly overmatched but Ramon Martinez left scouts awestruck. He was a whole new kind of Dominican pitcher. He was tall and lanky with a blazing fastball. Marichal had been barely 6-feet tall and his genius was in his slider and the way he changed speeds. Soto was also about 6-feet tall and was a pioneer of the circle change. Andujar, another 6-footer or so, would baffle hitters with various motions and arm angles. But Ramon Martinez, at 6-foot-4, was a pure power pitcher. At age 22, pitching for the 1990 Dodgers, he finished second in the Cy Young Award voting. He went 20-6 with a 2.92 ERA, a league leading 12 complete games and 223 strikeouts in 234 innings. By then, his younger brother Pedro � who was not even 6-feet tall and seemed more in the mold of Marichal and Soto � was pitching for Great Falls in the Dodgers minor league system. In truth, Pedro was a new kind of pitcher. He had the magician�s dexterity of Marichal. But he had the overpowering fastball of his brother. The combination was breathtaking. *** As a rookie in 1993, he pitched 107 innings, mostly in relief. He won 10 games. He struck out 119 � 10 per nine innings � and had a 2.61 ERA. That combination has only been done one time in baseball history by a rookie � Dwight Gooden. This was a once-in-a-lifetime arm and the Dodgers had to know that. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/05/12/if-the-devil-ever-gives-me-one-pitcher-to-play-for-my-soul/related/