batmagadanleadoff

Lefty Specialist wrote: If you're caught, don't act like an asshole. It's fairly simple. But he beat the charges. His team came up with a viable defense and it stood up. Are all accuseds supposed to concede and roll over?

I assume we're talking about the 2011 FedEx matter. Braun beat those charges, albeit on a technicality. Why should he then have admitted to breaking an MLB rule when MLB couldn't prove its case in the first place? He didn't fight the Biogenesis matter. What am I missing? TransMonk wrote: He's a piece of shit. You might be right. But I'd take him, nonetheless.

I agree with Vic. Also, I don't get the outrage over the fact that Braun then lied. In for a penny, in for a pound. What was he supposed to do? Take the steroids and then send the fans a secret note admitting that he's on steroids but that they should mums the word should Bud Selig and MLB suspect anything? Should Braun recieve more punishment because he fought the charges against him?

Hint: He made the '86 ASG as a Met.

Who's the Yankee (top row, center)? Link to follow.

[fimg=400:3nfjglr7]http://a.espncdn.com/i/magazine/new/seinfeld_hernandez.jpg[/fimg:3nfjglr7] Keith Hernandez appears in Seinfeld "The Boyfriend" right now on WPIX Channel 11.

I wonder if Braun can hit like an MVP while off the stuff?

At the rate baseball salaries are rising, in a few years you won't be able to sign Mike Pelfrey for what Braun's now earning.

MLB Rumors: Ruben Tejada to File Grievance with Mets By Jessica Kleinschmidt on November 18, 2013@JessMLB Ruben Tejada may possibly file a grievance against the Mets, Yahoo Sports� Jeff Passan reports. The 24 year-old finished his season just one day short of the three full years of major league service time, thus beginning the grievance process. The Mets paused to promote the shortstop until September 10 which accumulated two years and 171 days of playing time. The promotion could have made him eligible for free agency after the 2016 season. As of now, the earliest he can be eligible for free agency is after the 2017 season. According to mlbtraderumors.com, Charlie Furbush of the Mariners would become eligible for arbitration as a Super Two player if Tejada were to get that extra day of playing time. A Super Two status is determined by a percentage of players with less than three years of service time. Furbush would take Tejada�s place if the situation were to take place. Tejada in 57 games last season had 42 hits, 10 RBI�s, and a .202 batting average. http://www.themlbnation.com/2013/11/18/mlb-rumors-ruben-tejada-file-grievance-mets/ __________________ MLB Free Agency: Bryce Harper and Ruben Tejeda could challenge Super-Two status rules Two players, Nationals star outfielder Bryce Harper and Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada are on course to challenge the MLB arbitration systems' rules in the near future. Both players could be filing grievances related to their potential status as "Super-Two players. Harper might file such a grievance as a result of his unusual contract, which requires him to if he wants to reach arbitration prior to the end of that deal, according to Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. Tejada's motivation is related to the manor in which the Mets handled his service time, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. According to Kilgore, Bryce Harper's potential grievance stems from an atypical clause in his contract. When he signed a five year/$9.9 million major league deal as the number one overall pick in 2010, the Nationals insisted on leaving out the fairly standard opt-out clause that allows players to enter the arbitration system once they have three years of Major League service time. Harper and his agent, Scott Boras, rejected the offer and a compromise was reached. That agreement states that if Harper becomes arbitration-eligible prior to the end of that five year deal, he can file a grievance with the league and the matter would be decided through that process. After the 2014 season, Harper is almost certain to be in the Top 22 percent of players (by days with an MLB team) with between two and three years service time, making him eligible for the "Super-Two" status that would allow him to file for arbitration a season early. If that is the case, the grievance could allow him to become arbitration-eligible before the 2015 season. There appears to very little chance that Harper and the Nationals will not find themselves across from each other in a legal proceeding at some point next off-season. Scott Boras's statement to Kilgore was unequivocal- "We reached an agreement with MLB and the MLBPA memorializing that Bryce only signed with the Nationals on the condition that his rights were preserved...So, as planned when the issue arises, we will proceed under the terms of that agreement." Tejada's case is less complicated, but it could have greater impact on the future of the arbitration system. Passan reports that Tejada currently falls just one day short of the three years required for arbitration, making him a Super-Two player. As such, he will be eligible for free agency after the 2017 season. Had he recived one more day of major league service, however, he would hit free agency after the 2016 season. The Mets Triple-A club where Tejada was assigned, finished their season on September 7 and most of the players the Mets added to the major league roster from that team were called up on September 8 or 9. Tejada was called up on September 10, leaving him one day short of the full three years service time and providing him with cause for the potential grievance. If Tejada does file a grievance against the Mets for their manipulations of his service time, it would be a bold first step in a potential battle against the Super-Two status rule. The rule was originally intended to give top players a chance at arbitration earlier than the three-year requirement would allow, but in practice it is most often used to extend team control for an extra season, as in Tejada's case. Early arbitration salaries are typically less than half of the free market value for players and the final years of arbitration still represent substantial discounts, so teams jump at the chance to add an additional year of control over a player. Tejada's case is an extreme form of the type of service-time management that teams use to earn this extra year, but the practice is common in less insidious forms. Top players like Harper are routinely left in the minors until mid-to-late June despite being ready to contribute at the major league level eariler, just to ensure they do not reach three full years of service time too soon. This practice has drawn the ire of some players and agents like Boras while frustrating fans eager to see their top prospects reach the majors. This system is almost certainly going to remain unchanged as long as the current collective bargaining agreement is in place, but these two cases could indicate that players are interested in seeing those rules revised in the next CBA. At the very least, if Tejada were to successfully challenge the Mets' handling of his September call up, some restrictions on the methods teams can use to control service time would be established. http://www.mlbdailydish.com/2013/11/18/5118162/mlb-free-agency-bryce-harper-ruben-tejeda-super-two-arbirtation

I don't follow other teams (especially the O's) enough to have an opinion as to why he declined recently. In general, I'm not excited about any of the Mets free agent options. Partly because I believe the Mets grasp is limited and partly because the team isn't close to contending. The Mets were a bad team last year with Harvey and Byrd. Logic dictates that they're gonna be even worse without the production of those two guys. Teams can improve their standing through free agency, but free agency never turned a bad team into a playoff contender. Ted Turner couldn't do it. Neither could the Yankees. The Mets are too far away to think that one mid-tier free agent is gonna make a big difference. I suppose if a bad team could stock up on bona fide superstar free agents who haven't entered their age prime yet (like Carlos Beltran), they could get very good very fast. But that strategy isn't feasible -- it's too expensive and Beltran type free agents (I'm talking about the Beltran that the Mets first signed) are rare. And our Mets can no longer afford those top tier free agents anyway. I suppose the Mets'll sign some 30+ year old mid-tier free agent this off-season. Some guy who, because of his age, probably has a very narrow window of effective game left in his tank. Some guy that'll probably suck or even be out of the league by the time the Mets are contenders again. Now if Ike Davis can play solid for a whole season, or return some solid performer in a trade, and d'Arnhaud can start to play like one of the best hitting catchers in baseball, which is how many scouts pegged him ....

Frayed Knot wrote: So then if I've got this all straight, the upshot of this is that the Mets did NOT spend half the season proclaiming their love for Choo, an over-30 guy who is a second tier FA and almost certainly NOT worth $100 million ... but we're pissed at them anyway for not pursuing him. You're right, too.

Harvey came to mind immediately when I read that Alderson said that the Mets haven't lost much from the team that played .500 ball.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Had they "confirmed their interested in Choo" that would have been tampering, and they would have been tsk-tsked by the commissioner. You're right. too.

Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: They spent the last half of last season confirming their interest in Choo, a second-tier free agent, and when the rubber hits the road, the Mets aren't even in the same universe with Choo price -wise. The media proclaiming Choo as a good fit and talking about how the Mets might want to get him is not the same as "confirming their interest in Choo" You might be right. Besides, the Mets wouldn'tve been permitted to publicly state their interest in Choo before the signing period.

Edgy MD wrote: There's not much about payroll there. I know. No matter where I stick Megdal's pieces, it never goes smoothly.

To Any Boston Met Fans By Matthew Yaspan on Nov 14 2013, 3:42p + This coming Monday, November 18, at 7 PM, Professor Ben Baumer, former New York Mets statistical analyst, will be giving a presentation at Tufts University regarding his upcoming book, The Sabermetric Revolution, as well as his recent project openWAR, an open-source formula for computing player value. Baumer held the position of statistical analyst with the Mets from 2004 to 2012, and is currently a professor of mathematics and statistics at Smith College. The presentation will be given in Barnum Hall room 008. http://www.amazinavenue.com/2013/11/14/5105106/to-any-boston-met-fans

Has Mets ownership finally lost the press? By Howard Megdal 12:20 pm Nov. 14, 2013 Wednesday afternoon at the general manager meetings in Orlando, during an off-season the Mets have long claimed would be different than those that came before it, came a number of strong suggestions that nothing much had changed. One thing was decidedly different this time around, though, having to do with the willingness of the reporters who cover the Mets to accept claims from the team's owners that increased spending is just around the corner. That willingness had all but disappeared. It all started with Jeff Wilpon meeting with reporters Wednesday morning. He made the following statement to a small group: "We�ve got a couple more meetings. And there might be hopefully something cooking later. Right now, it�s quiet. Sandy (Alderson) has been in meetings all morning. He�s got a couple more meetings this afternoon. So we�ll see where we are.� The Daily News' Kristie Ackert promptly tweeted the following: "Jeff Wilpon said #Mets were busy meeting last night. Something could be coming today." Now as Andy Martino, also of the Daily News, pointed out, "he did not explicitly say that the team was going to sign a player or complete a trade before 11:59pm on Nov. 13, 2013." But generally speaking, when an owner hints at "something cooking later," he isn't just getting the fans excited for no reason. After all, what kind of public-relations strategy is it to raise expectations to a level that can't be met? Well, it's been the strategy the Mets have been employing for years now, one that at least gets them some hopeful-sounding headlines without costing the team salaries it cannot pay. (Remember September's pursuit of Shin-Soo Choo? Or last winter's pursuit of Michael Bourn? Or the 2011 pursuit of Jose Reyes?) Wednesday, we got to see it play out over a few hours, rather than an entire winter. And no, in case you were wondering, the idea to have Jeff Wilpon go out and tease an acquisition that wasn't coming didn't originate from some unified strategy with the general manager. When Sandy Alderson walked past reporters shortly after Wilpon's comments, he was asked about them. Here's how Mike Puma of the Post described Alderson's response: "Sandy Alderson seemed geniunely surprised when told that his boss indicated the Mets were close on something. Alderson made a strage facial expression and walked away." Then came the damage control. The Mets, thrillingly oblivious, published their promotional schedule, giving fans eager to see a viable major league outfield ... Huey Lewis and the News, in a postgame concert. And oddly, a few hours later, came a one-two punch. First, Kristie Ackert of the Daily News wrote a mea culpa for, in her words, having "interpreted Jeff Wilpon's words wrong earlier." No other reporter who heard Wilpon speak offered any similar clarification. (Dave Lennon of Newsday, a veteran baseball reporter, said, "We'll politely call it a misunderstanding.") The Daily News ascribed the misunderstanding to an overeager fan base: "Well, you can see where Wilpon�s words might be interpreted that way, especially by a fan base so eager to know which players the Mets will acquire, in an offseason where they promise to be more active." One reason the fan base could be so eager is the coverage of the Daily News itself, which published a report Wednesday under Ackert's byline describing the Mets as "going hard after (and may be the leader for) Nelson Cruz," a power-hitting outfielder on the free agent market. Other outlets were more skeptical, ones who haven't done things like declare that "the chatter linking the team to [shin-Soo] Choo is spreading" way back in September, roughly a month before the Mets eliminated that possibility by preemptively taking themselves out of the running for a $100 million player. Or by retroactively claiming the Mets had $125 million to spend last winter on "the right players." (Where that money went, with payroll going down again, is anybody's guess.) And here was Martino on Twitter, on the Mets' pursuit of Curtis Granderson: "More people I talk to, more of a feeling Mets are serious on Granderson." So it fell to the cruelly accurate Adam Rubin at ESPN to talk to other people, who quickly debunked the Granderson and Cruz rumors. "I would not believe everything you read," Rubin quoted a team insider as saying. By nightfall, the Mets appeared to leak word to columnist Jon Heyman that they'd had a secret meeting with Jhonny Peralta, a shortstop whose price range doesn't sound very Mets-compatible. By then, though Martino began to sound as if he'd had enough: "the Mets will only be taken seriously, by the industry and public, when they follow through on pledges to spend more money, and win more games." Lennon, who predicted the Mets would sign Shin-Soo Choo (at least in part due to the team's own declarations) just days before the team declared themselves out of such bidding, made a similar point in his column. By the end of the evening, Mets ownership had lost the formerly supportive Wall Street Journal. Back in July 2012, while the Mets were anything but solvent, Brian Costa wrote this, in a piece headlined "Baseball's Black Eye No More": "One year ago, when the Mets and Dodgers met here, the series was dubbed the Bankruptcy Bowl. ... But the four-game series that concluded Sunday night at Dodger Stadium served as a reminder of how much has changed since those uglier, darker days for two of the sport's marquee franchises. They may not occupy the penthouse of their respective divisions, but the Mets and Dodgers are at least out of the poorhouse." Costa went on to write that "the biggest threat for the Mets was litigation related to investments with Bernie Madoff, which has since been resolved." The fact that this resolution came about only after the guy negotiating with for the Madoff victims determined that the Mets' ownership was out of money never came up. It is now clearer than ever that the Dodgers are out of the poorhouse, and the Mets are not. So Costa filed a column for Thursday's Wall Street Journal that might have seemed familiar to readers of Capital, tweeting out, "The return of the free-spending Mets, long-awaited and rumored to be here, is but a myth." In it, he wrote: "But the Mets still have bank debt in the range of $250 million due in June 2014. They are working to refinance it this winter, but if you don't think that impacts their payroll plans, I've got a Frank Francisco jersey to sell you." Any takers? http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/11/8536025/has-mets-ownership-finally-lost-press?top-featured-3

When will the Mets FO realize that whatever they wanna do, they should then hold off on that impulse and do the exact opposite? It worked for George Constanza. Opposite George even got a job with the MFY's in late 1994 in the episode The Opposite and the Yankees have been on quite a roll ever since then.

This has been going on ever since Fred Wilpon asserted his whatever percentage of the team he owned to call shots. And one first place finish in the last 25 years later, it's apparently still going on.

Edgy MD wrote: The greater point is to be deliberate and not to be baited into signings by agenda-driven tools and media players who promise to bury you if you don't and gild you if you do. I thought that the greater point was that once again, the Mets can't afford any impact players, despite what they bullshit. They spent the last half of last season confirming their interest in Choo, a second-tier free agent, and when the rubber hits the road, the Mets aren't even in the same universe with Choo price -wise. They're like the average Joe who can only dream of owning a Ferrari. And Choo's not a Ferrari. (Disclaimer -- Personally, I couldn't give two shits whether the Mets signed or didn't sign Choo unless my life depended on the Mets making the playoffs in 2014. But that they can't afford him is indicative of a whole other set of circumstances. Who the hell is in charge here? What other competitive advantages does this team need that it doesn't already have and in spades? They play in NYC. The franchise might now be worth more than $2 billion. They own their own sports cable network and it broadcasts mainly to the largest market in the country. Not enough for the Wilpons?)

Great quiz. Missed it by that much.

Ceetar wrote: And the best way to do this is to humanize the players. The best way to humanize baseball players would be to cap their salaries at $100K a year. When Derek Jeter's selling insurance in December, freezing his balls off while waiting for a train in 10 degree weather, then you might be able to relate to him.

Alderson hints at another cheap off-season for the Mets By Howard Megdal 12:18 pm Nov. 12, 2013 It's mid-November, a time of hope for baseball fans most everywhere. The general manager meetings are in full swing, as is free agency. For fans of the Mets, this is a time, once again, to temper expectations. Meeting Monday night with reporters at the G.M. meetings, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson explained his organization would not be pursuing a $100 million player this offseason. "We've been in that stratosphere once recently with David Wright," Alderson said. "Those were special circumstances. I think it would be difficult to duplicate that again--not from a financial standpoint, just in terms of team-building. I think it's difficult to concentrate those kinds of resources into very few players. It's not really the way you build a quality, sustainable, winning team, I don't think." Let's ignore that the consensus model for "a quality, sustainable, winning team," the St. Louis Cardinals, managed to accommodate Matt Holliday's seven-year, $120 million deal, Adam Wainwright's five-year, $97.5 million deal, and Yadier Molina's five-year, $75 million deal, all in St. Louis, a much smaller market than New York, and with a below-market local television contract. Ignore for the moment that the most expensive players this offseason happen to play positions, like corner outfield or second base, where the Mets could easily upgrade. That $100 million contract is a pretty arbitrary number. So it's fair to wonder where reporters got the idea that Alderson and the Mets would consider it. Oh, that's right. From Alderson, 42 days ago. Back in the heady days of late September, Mets fans could dream of Shin-Soo Choo, who some optimists talked up as a potential team target. Now, unless you believe the market won't come up with $100 million or more for Choo, that's not going to happen. �Let�s face it, the agents at this point expect that that is the market and not an aberration,� Alderson said. �We on the other hand hope it�s an aberration. Only time will tell.� An industry swimming in money across the board, and the Mets need salaries to go down? Good luck with that. Go back even further, way back to June of this year, and Alderson talked about a $90-100 million payroll, which, as he put it, "will be enough to be competitive because we can use the money on position players, which is our problem right now." That's no longer the prevailing thought, either, even though position players are still the team's problem right now, not to mention finding a way to compensate for the loss of Matt Harvey for 2014. And yet, even though payroll, and not ownership's deeply problematic finances, was supposed to be driving the team's spending, more than $50 million has come off those books. The Mets, like every other team in baseball, have $24 million in new money, thanks to a national television deal beginning next season. By the team's own accounting, payroll is still set to go down next year, and the Mets, as of now, say they're prepared to spend $30 million this offseason, down from $35-40 million reported a month ago. Subject to change, of course. Or as Alderson put it, "You have to deal with reality. I am not sure tonight, this moment exactly, what the reality is." He's not alone. Still, even if the Mets spend anything close to $30 million this offseason, it represents a step forward from recent offseasons, when the team has spent a fraction of that, late in the gane, only once ownership managed to secure enough capital to make it through the following season. We'll have to see if the Mets really do spend even this relatively small amount. Their promises to spend haven't meant much, not even month-to-month, for five years now, since it turned out Bernie Madoff wasn't a quality, sustainable, winning investment. Alderson opened with a joke Monday night. This was his strategy last year at the G.M. meetings, when he responded to a question about his outfield by asking, "What outfield?" This year, he told reporters he was upstairs "stacking our money." The punchline: "Don't get excited. They were all fives." But how high was the stack, he was asked. "Not as high as some people expect," Alderson said. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/11/8535880/alderson-hints-another-cheap-season-mets

"What about parquet wood panels over the infield? No baseball team's ever done that".