batmagadanleadoff

I doubt that you understand. The reason for my post is that David Wright is not a Hall of Famer. He was already done --- toast -- by his age 31 season, four years before he would officially retire, after having already missed large chunks of almost two seasons even before that. He had the talent and the character to make the HOF and was on a HOF trajectory for the first few seasons of his career. But he lacked luck. Injuries demolished whatever chances he once had of Cooperstown enshrinement. Career WAR (49.2) Average HOF 3B (68.4) JAWS (44.3) Average HOF 3B (55.8) But if youse wanna turn this into a Romper Room festival of giddy posts where every Met supposedly belongs in the HOF because they're Mets, go ahead. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. Ring around the rosey. Pocketful of poseys. Yay!

I guess your rule is that if you were a Met, you could engineer one of the most disgraceful cheating scandals in sports history and still get into the HOF. Because you were a Met! And what do you suppose they'll discover about Wright that they don't already know? A secret stash of 200 HR's that he's been secretly hoarding from the public?

it's all relative. 4/115 isn't quite Aaron Judge money but it's one heckuva score for a 30 year old man.

I think he's gone. I think that some other team will give him the money, more or less, that he's asking for. It only takes one owner. He's an all- star and presumably, a big draw, a marquee name. And some team will be looking to make a big splash with their fans after coming off a disappointing season and so will pay Alonso what he wants. But it won't be the Mets. I think that Stearns will evaluate Alonso in a cold and calculating manner, very much devoid of all of the emotional attachments at play here and the gap between what the Mets offer and what some other team offers will be too large for Alonso to stay here. Me personally, I have no idea what I prefer.

Sequels. Not remakes. Coming to America and Coming 2 America were many years apart. Bambi and Bambi 2, too.

I've thought about that too. Pete's going to want an awfully long contract, and Stearns may not want to give it to him. I've been thinking about that for weeks now.

Also, small sample size, like you said, but Alonso was never as good as Vientos is this year, not even in 2019. And 2019 was the year of the juiciest juice ball in the history of mankind while this year is closer to 1968, the year of the pitcher. Vientos is absolutely killing it this year.

Mark Vientios is now a beast and the Mets scariest hitter. Hope his awesomeness lasts and it's not a fluke.

Wow. This is new to me. This is a problem I had no idea existed until I read that piece. Not to sound like the "Master of the Obvious", but it's so true that money really is the root of all evil. The most extreme example being these greedy corporate scumbag fatcats who are going to destroy our planet by knowingly undermining the climate change movement because the multi millions of dollars that they already have arn't enough dollars for them. /gets off soapbox

My guess is that the Mets won't trade Alonso if all they can get for him in return are "middling prospects ". I don't think that the Mets will trade Alonso simply for the sake of trading him.

That's my understanding, too.

Of course, when I wrote "three year plan ", I was writing like from the mindset of the olden days. Because what is a three year plan today when 40% of the teams make the playoffs?

If the Mets are still where they are now come the trade deadline, it seems they're going to go into a total teardown --- a three year plan --- despite whatever happy talk euphemistic spin Cohen and Stearns come up with. What else would you call it when everybody can be had other than maybe Lindor, Nimmo , Alvarez and Diaz?

According to all of the commentary and media coverage, it seems like a foregone conclusion, a certainty that Pete Alonso will be traded by the trade deadline.

Stone's version might be wacky, but no more wacky than the Warren Commission's official conclusion that Oswald, acting alone, killed JFK.

Money always talks the loudest. That's also why practically half of the teams now make the playoffs.

Could be. In 1985, Gooden had his season for the history books. Keith was still prime Keith. Carter had his best Mets season. And Strawberry, rate-wise, had the best season of his entire baseball career. The Cards were also terrific. And deep. But they were also Jack Clark and seven singles hitters. But you can't make anything meaningful out of those standings results. The Mets finished three games behind the Cards in the standings. That difference can easily be explained by simple randomness and luck, especially over 162 games and 18 head-to-head games. The Mets would've had to flip just two head-to-head losses to win the division. Also, that season, the Cards beat the Mets by just one run five times. And factor in that there's way more luck in baseball than in any other sport. Personally, I always thought that the difference between two baseball teams that finished 10 games apart in the standings is tiny. That's why today's game, with 12 playoff teams, is a stupid shitshow.

Sandy Koufax is now the last living member of the WS champion 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. 1955 was Koufax's rookie season.

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I kinda have the same issue. Kinda. My issue is that I've seen very few new movies over the past 10 years or so. Not only in movie theaters, but even when they play on TV/Cable TV. I just have less patience. This doesn't apply to movies that I've already seen. I could watch those all over again. Also, this doesn't apply to older movies that I've never seen. I'm a big fan of TCM. But I have less patience for newer movies. I don't know exactly why that is.

What a long-winded pedantic way of simply saying that the end years of a long-term contract might not benefit the team as much as the earlier years of that contract. And that the Mets shouldn't overpay for Alonso. But if they do overpay, well, Cohen could afford it so who knows what's good for the ultra wealthy money-coming-out-the-wazoo New York Mets?' The wealthy teams have been overpaying for superstars for decades and decades. It's the price of buying superstars on the free agent market. A team wants a player's productive early 30s years? It's also gonna have to buy some of that star's less attractive late 30s years. That's what it's gonna cost. The Yankees, as just one example, have been doing this for about thirty years and haven't had a single losing season in all that time. In fact, they have baseball's best overall record in that time. It'd be nice if a team could void a superstar's contract unilaterally as soon as the player sucks -- in other words, whenever the team feels like voiding the contract. Is that what you want? Is that what you think should happen? Because if not, then thanks for mastering the obvious principle that baseball contracts carry risks to both sides. But yeah, we get it: the Mets shouldn't overpay for Alonso -- (whatever overpay actually means to the Mets). And besides, there are significant benefits to signing a star earlier, or as you put it, before it's necessary. The price of signing elite top baseball talent goes up every single season. The price has never gone down. Not once -- not since the dawn of free agency after the '76 season. The price of top baseball talent rises every single year, by at least 10%, usually more than that and some years, much more. Then apply that price hike over the length of a multi-year contract. So it's cheaper to sign a player earlier rather than later. Waiting another year to extend Alonso could cost the Mets thirty or forty million dollars over the life of the new contract, all other things being equal. Plus, this all started when you wrote this: Why? To throw millions of dollars around needlessly and screw themselves if he comes down with a career-ending injury in the next two years? ... which is a wholly different concern from what the length of Alonso's hypothetical new contract should be. Not to mention that Alonso could, just the same, sustain a career ending injury even if he's extended after the 2023 season. Or after the 2024 season. And not to mention that if you're concerned about Alonso sustaining that injury during the period before he would've become a free agent -- well that's insurable. A non-pitcher in his mid 20s with no injury history (I can't recall Alonso ever landing on the IL. Or DL) is insurable.

Bowden: 15 key MLB contract extension candidates to watch before Opening Day Excerpt: Also: https://theathletic.com/4107153/2023/01/20/mlb-contract-extensions-players-2023/

By the way, Pete Alonso's most similar BBRef comp through his age 27 season is the aforementioned Cecil Fielder. His closest all-time comp is future teammate Shohei Ohtani.

The DH option is huge here. David Ortiz raked until the end of his career. Ortiz was pretty much, exclusively a DH. The Fielders, (Cecil and Prince) were toast by their very early 30s. The Fielders fielded quite a bit, especially the fielding Prince, who was a NLer when his league had no DH. Coincidence? Or did the DH greatly impact these different outcomes? Nobody knows what Alonso's future is. Predicting his future is a guessing game and a luckfest, to a great extent. Like Edgy said in the other thread, there are risks, but also benefits to every baseball contract. Jacob deGrom's new contract also carries risks. And I doubt that deGrom -- a pitcher -- is insurable at this point of his career and with his injury history. This all started when you know who dismissed out of hand extending Alonso without even considering the tremendous upside in this terrible post: Why? To throw millions of dollars around needlessly and screw themselves if he comes down with a career-ending injury in the next two years? It's an uninformed post. The risk of injury in the next two years to a non-pitcher in his 20s is insurable. Procuring insurance in a situation like that one is standard operating procedure in MLB. Throw in Cohen's enormous wealth, and the risk practically disappears. Also, why limit the injury risk to the next two years? An injury can happen at any time. The poster then changed his post 180 degrees, but obviously, only after reading and considering my responses, which he pretended to ignore. Yeah right. He's' probably scrutinizing my posts with a microscope and a fine-toothed comb.