batmagadanleadoff

Edgy MD wrote: Sew buttons. You've got a lot of chips on a lot of shoulders. That's a classy way to end this debate.

Edgy MD wrote: Yes, but that part of the story is done after 1987. So what? If that's all you got on Johnson, then he still might be the last Mets manager to use relievers according to the game situation. The only way to debunk this thought is to come up with a Met manager that succeeded Johnson that yada yada yada....

Ceetar wrote: bleh, hopefully the plasma works and it's 4-6 weeks not the rest of the year. It's the Mets ferchrissakes. MCL surgery? I'm worried that they'll amputuate.

Edgy MD wrote: Oh, he certainly standardized his bullpen in a more normative way even while he was with the Mets. It might've appeared that way, but DJ didn't have to assign specific innings to relievers even if he was so inclined. He had bookend (L/R) relievers in McDowell and Orosco that, by today's standards, would've each been regarded as "closers".

batmagadanleadoff wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: The MFY's were the Astros opponents in the first game ever played at The Astrodome. Mickey Mantle hit the Dome's first hit and the first HR ever. Video of Mantle Astrodome HR President LBJ and Senator G. Hodges at the 1:20 mark.

It's Astro day here at the Who Am I? thread. [fimg=333:1p4xx2gp]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3805/13562939885_1d2e75df5b.jpg[/fimg:1p4xx2gp][fimg=333:1p4xx2gp]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3809/13563329494_ab42485369.jpg[/fimg:1p4xx2gp] [fimg=266:1p4xx2gp]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3819/13563329504_6e645f813d.jpg[/fimg:1p4xx2gp] [fimg=333:1p4xx2gp]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2856/13563329554_a9456e6375.jpg[/fimg:1p4xx2gp][fimg=333:1p4xx2gp]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3695/13563329564_0febb723f8.jpg[/fimg:1p4xx2gp]

Edgy MD wrote: And don't give Davey Johnson too much credit here. His iconoclasm certainly abated with age and with the arrival of new cultural norms. *Has a history of saying the only one who has a specific role is the closer. What does Davey's approach with the Nats have to do with his handling of the Mets bullpen? Did The Godfather suddenly suck when Godfather III was released?

Vic Sage wrote: I hope Terry isn't already locked into a "Valverde for the eighth, Parnell for the ninth" mindset. Un-necessary losses lie in that direction. i think he's been locked into that mindset since they sent Black down. Terry is nothing if not a follower of unwritten rules. Has he ever given us any indication that he would use his bullpen creatively, like instead of having pre-designated innings for certain relievers, just putting his best pitchers into the highest leverage situations? If so, i haven't seen it. Jeez, i wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the last Met manager to eschew assigning innings to relievers was Davey Johnson.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: The MFY's were the Astros opponents in the first game ever played at The Astrodome. Mickey Mantle hit the Dome's first hit and the first HR ever. Video of Mantle Astrodome HR

The MFY's were the Astros opponents in the first game ever played at The Astrodome. Mickey Mantle hit the Dome's first hit and the first HR ever.

77-85. Wanna know what I'm guessing is gonna be the the Mets biggest hole this season? Not shortstop. Not Duda and/or Davis. Not the bullpen. The outfield. It'll suck big time and Sandy'll be asking "What outfield?" again, by the all-star break. Of course, I dissed Marlon Byrd big-time around this time last year. So just ignore this post, unless it turns out to be correct.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: [fimg=355]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7434/13530529634_c295c8c01e.jpg[/fimg] This shot coulda been on the first Topps baseball card ever photographed at the Astrodome. Too bad. Who am I? Zvon wrote: Thats Doctor Ron Taylor.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: In 1980, the Payson family sold the Mets -- the NYC NL franchise, ferchrissakes! -- for 21 million dollars. Last year, Johan Santana, inactive and past his prime even if healthy, made 25 million dollars in baseball salary alone -- and the NY Mets were valued at two billion dollars in a Bloomberg Report. So yeah -- things keep going up. And MLB will continue to explore new untapped revenue streams, including expanding PAY TV, pay internet and international expansion. They'll put a Major League Baseball franchise on a mountaintop in Afghanistan if their money guys tell them that the move'll make boffo money. They'll also put more American cities into baseball and more teams into the playoffs. Whatever it takes to make more $$, and they won't give a shit if MLB starts to resemble the NHL a little bit. The NYT $$ article I posted yesterday in the Finance thread stated that the Mets ability to acquire Free agents was improved because every team received an additional many millions more from MLB's new TV contract. I don't agree with that reasoning because increasing the money supply without increasing the quantity of available goods will only raise prices (salaries here). If the Mets are getting an additional $20M, then so is every other team. So where's the competitive advantage? This'll help the players more than the teams. If you wanna lower salaries, increase the number of quality free agents available (goods) instead of the money supply. Because if everyone was a millionaire, you'd need 10 million dollars to buy a starter home in an average neighborhood. Despite the current lull in expansion chatter, my guess is that MLB will add two teams in the near future. 16 team leagues work much neater than 15 team leagues, not only because 16 is an even number, but because it's also divisible by four. I'd bet on another realignment to four eight-team divisions with the top two teams making the playoffs. I won't like it, but it makes sense schedule wise and also, because the owners are in it for the money and wouldn't turn down buy in fees no matter what.

Gwreck wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: metirish wrote: So weird to see the Phillies playing the Rangers on Opening Day Just as weird as having the Mets and Astros close the regular season against each other, what with the Astros now in the AL. Of course, 15 team leagues means that there'll always be an interleague series going on. I guess the schedule makers figure on both of these teams being eliminated by season's end -- so might as well have them play against each other, rather than against a team that might still be in contention. Don't think that's a consideration. Seems to me the Tigers ended last season in Miami. If it isn't a factor, I'd say it should be. Maybe it is. Maybe they couldn't do it last because of logisitics. Making out a MLB baseball schedule is exponentially tougher than doing so for any other American sport.

metirish wrote: So weird to see the Phillies playing the Rangers on Opening Day Just as weird as having the Mets and Astros close the regular season against each other, what with the Astros now in the AL. Of course, 15 team leagues means that there'll always be an interleague series going on. I guess the schedule makers figure on both of these teams being eliminated by season's end -- so might as well have them play against each other, rather than against a team that might still be in contention.

[fimg=555:28125md5]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7434/13530529634_c295c8c01e.jpg[/fimg:28125md5] This shot coulda been on the first Topps baseball card ever photographed at the Astrodome. Too bad. Who am I?

[fimg=255]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5VaaTTRtoJQ/Um-8DpJkQjI/AAAAAAAAHxk/D9UFsxWIGl4/s1600/2013+Topps+Walmart+Blue+Scott+Hairston.jpg[/fimg]

Last year, Blomberg said two billion. Last week, Forbes said 800 million. http://www.forbes.com/teams/new-york-mets/ Profile The Mets had their fifth-consecutive season below .500 in 2013 and have not made the postseason since 2006. The debt-laden team cut its payroll to $87 million last year and attendance fell an average of 1,500 a game at Citi Field to 26,696. The team was stung by the mid-season injury to pitching sensation Matt Harvey that shut him down for the season in August and will likely force him to miss the entire 2014 campaign. ____________________ Forbes: Mets Franchise Value Continues To Decline Forbes has released their list of franchise values of each Major League Baseball team. The Mets ranked ninth with a value of $800 million, just behind the St. Louis Cardinals ($820 million). The Yankees top the chart, coming in at $2.5 billion. This is the 17th year that Forbes has released this list, and the Yankees have risen in value and topped this list each time. The outlook for the Mets according to Forbes, is not quite as good. Only three teams fell in value over the past year: the New York Mets, Houston Astros and Miami Marlins. The Mets, down 1% to $800 million, are still going through a period of austerity with an $85 million payroll after the Bernie Madoff debacle. Attendance at Citi Field has fallen for five consecutive years. The team refinanced $250 million of debt and is no longer taking on water under the leadership of GM Sandy Alderson. Coming in second, with a value of $2 billion dollars, is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Other billion dollar franchises include the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants. http://metsmerizedonline.com/2014/03/mets-stock-continues-to-fall.html/ ____________ If you ask me, I'd say that I'll know what the Mets are worth when the Wilpons sell.

In 1980, the Payson family sold the Mets -- the NYC NL franchise, ferchrissakes! -- for 21 million dollars. Last year, Johan Santana, inactive and past his prime even if healthy, made 25 million dollars in baseball salary alone -- and the NY Mets were valued at two billion dollars in a Bloomberg Report. So yeah -- things keep going up. And MLB will continue to explore new untapped revenue streams, including expanding PAY TV, pay internet and international expansion. They'll put a Major League Baseball franchise on a mountaintop in Afghanistan if their money guys tell them that the move'll make boffo money. They'll also put more American cities into baseball and more teams into the playoffs. Whatever it takes to make more $$, and they won't give a shit if MLB starts to resemble the NHL a little bit. The NYT $$ article I posted yesterday in the Finance thread stated that the Mets ability to acquire Free agents was improved because every team received an additional many millions more from MLB's new TV contract. I don't agree with that reasoning because increasing the money supply without increasing the quantity of available goods will only raise prices (salaries here). If the Mets are getting an additional $20M, then so is every other team. So where's the competitive advantage? This'll help the players more than the teams. If you wanna lower salaries, increase the number of quality free agents available (goods) instead of the money supply. Because if everyone was a millionaire, you'd need 10 million dollars to buy a starter home in an average neighborhood.

[fimg=433]http://www.biscom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/wsj-logo-2.gif[/fimg] Brian Costa The 2014 Mets: Starving for Relevance Mets Are No Longer Above Vying Merely for Relevance in September On the rare occasions when Fred Wilpon speaks publicly, he has a tendency to say things that become punch lines for months. In 2002, the Mets owner said that newly hired manager Art Howe, known for his bland public persona, "lit up" the room during his interview. (Howe lasted less than two years.) In 2010, when asked if general manager Omar Minaya would keep his job, Wilpon responded simply, "Is the sun going to come up tomorrow?" (It did, but Minaya was fired anyway.) But on the long list of Wilpon's unintentionally hilarious comments, perhaps none drew as much ridicule as his definition of the Mets' goal for the 2004 season: "Meaningful games in September." As organizational mission statements go, it wasn't exactly "Play Like a Champion Today." And for a team with the fourth-highest payroll in baseball at the time, it seemed like a low bar. The Mets were less than four years removed from the National League pennant, and their fans still clung to the hope of reclaiming the city from the Yankees. But a decade later, as the Mets prepare to begin the 2014 season, Wilpon's mandate finally seems appropriate. It may even be a little ambitious. Eight years removed from their last playoff berth, six years removed from their last winning season, the Mets are no longer above vying merely for relevance in September. They're pretty much starving for it. And if they end up in a game past Labor Day that has meaning beyond the development of their young players, it will be cause for celebration in Flushing. Publicly, the Mets are aiming much higher than that. General manager Sandy Alderson has set 90 wins as an internal goal. Manager Terry Collins has started to reference that benchmark publicly. For an organization trying to snap out of its perennial malaise, that's nice to hear. I've never run more than five or six miles at a time, but I suppose there's no harm in declaring that I expect to win the New York City Marathon this year. In reality, though, the Mets don't appear capable of doing a whole lot more than what they've been doing for a few years now: biding time, building their base of prospects and trying to be at least mildly entertaining in the interim. With a healthy Matt Harvey and a fatter payroll, the expectations for 2014 would have been much higher. And to be sure, expectations should be high for 2015 and beyond. A starting rotation of Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard, Jon Niese and Dillon Gee—all of whom were either drafted by the Mets or acquired as prospects—is a tantalizing thought. But for the moment, this feels like a sequel to a movie that didn't draw rave reviews to begin with. Harvey, who is expected to miss the entire season coming off elbow surgery, plays the role of last year's Johan Santana: the ace in rehab. Syndergaard becomes last year's Wheeler: the dynamic arm whose arrival will be delayed by baseball's self-defeating financial incentives to keep top prospects out of the majors until midseason. Ike Davis, Lucas Duda and Ruben Tejada return as themselves, despite the Mets' best efforts. The questions about their ability to become part of the team's core group of position players are the same, if not louder, than they were before. Only now the three are a year older and the Mets' patience is wearing thinner. And at the center of it all, as usual, is David Wright, whose greatness the last two seasons has been obscured by the Mets' irrelevance. There are some new characters: Bartolo Colon, Curtis Granderson and Chris Young. But based on sabermetric projections of their value this year, in terms of the number of wins they will produce beyond what would be expected of a Triple-A replacement, those three will be lucky just to negate the absence of Harvey and the loss of Marlon Byrd and John Buck, whom they traded away last September. Presiding over all this is the Wilpons, who managed to spend nearly $90 million on free agents this winter without actually spending more money. The Mets will open the season with an estimated payroll of around $89 million, which ranks 22nd in baseball. Maybe this will be the year the Mets defy all expectations. Maybe this will be the year the randomness of baseball swings the season in their favor. Spring is the season of maybes. But considering how far the Mets have fallen, Wilpon's comment from 10 years ago doesn't seem so preposterous. He may even want to start with a more modest goal for 2014: Meaningful games in August. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303779504579465452328487182

It Doesn't Suck Anymore Tim Foli - 1979 - Pirates David Cone - 1992 - Blue Jays Randy Myers - 1990 - Reds Roger Craig - 1964 - Cardinals Angel Pagan - 2012 - Giants Jesse Orosco - 1988 - Dodgers Tony Fernandez - 1993 - Blue Jays Kevin Appier - 2002 - Angels The remaining Mets that were sold or traded to a WS winning team are: Bob L. Miller - 1963 Dodgers Dick Smith - 1965 Dodgers Ed Bressoud - 1967 Cardinals Jack Lamabe - 1967 Cardinals Dock Ellis - 1979 Pirates Ron Gardenhire was dealt to the 1987 Twins but, as it would turn out, would never play another major league baseball game after leaving the Mets. Same deal with John Gibbons and the 1988 Dodgers. Danny Napoleon was traded to, but never played for the 1967 champion Cardinals. Same goes for Mac Scarce and the 1975 Reds and, as mentioned, Roy Staiger and the Bronx is Burning Disco Bronx Zoo Yankees. The Mets returned Kevin Lomon to the 1995 Braves after selecting him in that year's Rule V draft. Lomon, though, didn't see any ML action with the Braves until 1996.

The remaining six players that came to the Mets in the off-season (either by trade, sale or free agency) from a team that would go on to win the WS in their first Mets seasons are: 1963 Dodgers Tim Harkness Larry Burright Norm Sherry 1965 Dodgers Larry Miller 1967 Cardinals Jerry Buchek 2013 Red Sox Marlon Byrd

batmagadanleadoff wrote: It still sucks to be here Duke Snider - 1963 - Dodgers Scott Atchison - 2013 - Red Sox Andres Torres - 2012 - Giants George Altman - 1964 - Cardinals John Franco - 1990 - Reds Ramon Ramirez - 2012 - Giants Graeme Lloyd - 2003 - Marlins (Free Agent) It sucks less, unless you're Richie Hebner Jesse Orosco John Candelaria Howard Johnson I've got six more of these on my list. I'll post the remaining answers shortly.

It Doesn't Suck Anymore Tim Foli - 1979 - Pirates David Cone - 1992 - Blue Jays Randy Myers - 1990 - Reds Roger Craig - 1964 - Cardinals Angel Pagan - 2012 - Giants Jesse Orosco - 1988 - Dodgers Tony Fernandez - 1993 - Blue Jays Kevin Appier - 2002 - Angels

Edgy MD wrote: I can't give you credit for Shamsky, but I can give you credit for that response. That's good because I was afraid the only applause I was going to get was the back o' yo' hand on my face --- when I pulled Shamsky out of MY ASS! What else do you got in there?