batmagadanleadoff

Edgy MD wrote: Interesting to see the outfielders batting 6-7-8. They should be batting 15th, 16th and 17th. If at all.

VRAM!

Pinch-hit hero Mike Baxter can't crack the Mets' starting outfield, for some reason By Howard Megdal 10:03 am May. 10, 2013 Just what do the New York Mets have in Mike Baxter? This week, they've had a hitter capable of ending games. Baxter came off the bench and delivered the game-winning single on Tuesday night to beat the Chicago White Sox. Thursday night, he did it again, this time in the ninth inning to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2. "Kind of talking to the players that we've had in the past that have had a lot of experience pinch hitting, and Teuf [Tim Teufel] and some of the guys on the staff that have done it quite a bit in the big leagues, I think the consensus among them is you've got to be a little more aggressive right from the start of your at-bat, just because you've been idle all game and you don't have that rhythm of the game," Baxter told reporters after the game Thursday night. "Sometimes it's beneficial if you get a pitch in the zone, a fastball that you're looking for, you probably should go ahead and get your timing on that first one." The approach Baxter described is at odds with Baxter's results since coming to the Mets on a waiver claim from the San Diego Padres in July 2011. He's walked 38 times in 314 plate appearances over three seasons, allowing him to post a robust .366 on-base percentage despite an ordinary .260 average. Add in some decent power, and Baxter has a 116 O.P.S.+ as a Met. Since he plays the outfield, at times spectacularly (see Johan Santana's big night), and the outfield is not exactly an area of strength for the Mets ... why has Baxter started just 11 times in 31 games? One answer is his splits. He's a .798 O.P.S. hitter against righties, which is good. He's a .398 O.P.S. hitter against lefties, which is poor for a pitcher, let alone an outfielder. He's gotten just 32 plate appearances against lefties, hardly a fair sample. But he didn't hit lefties in the minors, either, and there's little to suggest he should be playing against them more. But there's another platoon split that could be playing into Terry Collins' mind, and it is one that shouldn't. Baxter is a career .709 O.P.S. hitter as a starter, but .901 off the bench. The difference is magnified in 2013, with a .665 O.P.S. as a starter, .940 as a substitute. And for all his talk about aggressiveness off the bench, his walk rate is actually higher as a reserve than as a starter. Collins is unusually intrigued by Baxter's bench work. "This guy comes off the bench with a plan, with something in his mind, and he executes it," Collins said after the game Thursday night. "It's truly amazing, because that is one tough job. And for a young guy to do it as well as he does, it is truly remarkable." Still, even if it turns out Baxter is no good as a regular, the Mets might want to do what it takes to find out. They don't have three outfielders competent enough to hit at above league average rates and field the outfield positions well. And Baxter is 28, under team control for the next four years if they so choose. He's not a prospect, but he's as close an approximation to one as the Mets have on the team or in the upper minors. When the Mets are facing righties, there's no good reason Baxter should be on the bench. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/05/8529908/pinch-hit-hero-mike-baxter-cant-crack-mets-starting-outfield-some-rea

Honorable mention: Huge oversight.

Edgy MD wrote: Suits don't tend to supersede on-field calls by umpires, no matter how egregious. If they did, the Yankees would lose two or three of their recent championships. Nah. Selig would enforce the Yankee Exception: the same rule that allows only the Yankees to play their road games without NOB uniforms; the same rule that permits the Yankees to host an ASG in an even numbered year.

Madoff Free Megdal (Wilpon Free, too), wherein Howard Megdal proves his Mets bona fides by mentioning practically the entire Mets bullpen. I say "practically", because I'm not even sure who the hell comprises the 2013 Mets pitching staff. Cheer up, Jeremy Hefner: The Mets still need you By Howard Megdal 11:10 am May. 9, 2013 Jeremy Hefner, fifth starter for the Mets at the moment, knows he doesn't control his own destiny. "If it was right now, if he came up today, then yeah, I would probably be the one that gets sent down," Hefner, 27, told the Star-Ledger's Jorge Castillo Tuesday. "I�m realistic enough to know that, but I can�t control that." The "he" Hefner referred to is Zack Wheeler, the best pitching prospect the New York Mets have. Wheeler was acquired for Carlos Beltran near the trade deadline in July 2011, and has done little since but wow scouts and the Mets alike. His poor early start in Las Vegas this year was neither surprising (Las Vegas is a horrific place to pitch) nor particularly concerning. And lately, his command has been impeccable: just two walks and 12 strikeouts over his past two starts. "He�s turning the corner, that is what we have seen the last two starts," Las Vegas manager Wally Backman told the New York Post. "If we see that a couple of more starts, he�s going to be pushing the door open himself, forcing the issue for sure." Hefner has pitched better of late. Though he struggled last night early on, he managed to allow four runs over six innings, with one walk and five strikeouts. His strikeout rate is actually up a bit over last year, and he seems to have found his control, with one walk over his past 13 innings. Naturally, Hefner understands that he could be pitching perfect games every time out. Wheeler is the perceived future, and the Mets want to see what they have in him, sooner than later. Hefner has a role on this team, though, and it's one he should have been in from the start: long man. Quick, name the Mets' long man, right now. Any idea? They really don't have one. They do, however, have in Robert Carson, a guy who is the second lefty after Scott Rice in the abstract, but is, in reality, a guy with a 17.18 E.R.A. who's faced a total of three batters since April 29. Rice, it seems, is on the Pedro Feliciano/Tim Byrdak/Josh Edgin track, with the Mets overusing him until his arm either falls off or ceases to produce useful pitching. Carson's presence is supposed to preclude that, but only if manager Terry Collins uses him. Collins is rightly skeptical of treating Carson as a significant part of his bullpen. So there he sits, largely idle, while the Mets have no long man for the games when Shaun Marcum, Dillon Gee, or even Jon Niese fail to go deep into games. (Matt Harvey, theoretically, could exit early, too, but no one really expects that to happen.) So Hefner shouldn't be sent to Las Vegas when Wheeler gets promoted; he has pitched well enough to be the long man, and with few alternatives, and another young pitcher who will probably have his share of short outings as he grows accustomed to the major leagues (only Matt Harvey is Matt Harvey), Hefner should be useful. And if Carson begins to produce, the Mets will have no shortage of right-handed relievers. One of them, Jeurys Familia, has as many walks as strikeouts. He might as well work on that command at Triple-A. The Mets also have the option of sending Hefner to Las Vegas. And Terry Collins indicated it would be a numbers game. "If they�re all pitching really good, you don�t send anyone down. It�s like any other position. You�ve got to earn your way up here, but if there�s no spot, there�s no spot." But there's a spot, and certainly a need, for Jeremy Hefner. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/05/8529877/cheer-jeremy-hefner-mets-still-need-you

Managerial content added:

Matt Harvey loses perfect game but accomplishes even rarer feat By Cliff Corcoran Matt Harvey�s emergence as one of the best pitchers in baseball took another leap forward Tuesday night. He flirted with a perfect game for six and two-thirds innings, retiring the first 20 White Sox batters he faced before Alex Rios beat out an infield single to short with two outs in the seventh. Rios, whose hit was a soft-hopper to just the right spot and who was safe by less than a step, was the only baserunner Harvey allowed in the entire game, which saw him complete nine innings and strike out 12. Harvey didn�t pick up the win because the Mets didn�t score until the bottom of the tenth, but the performance dropped his ERA after seven starts to 1.28, his WHIP to 0.69. He also lowered his career marks after 17 major league starts to a 2.07 ERA and 0.94 WHIP. What�s more, by game score, it was the best-pitched game of the season, besting Yu Darvish�s perfect-game bid by one point, and the best-pitched game by a Met since David Cone faced what was essentially a spring training lineup on the final day of the 1991 season and struck out 19 Phillies. As much as Johan Santana�s no-hitter meant to Mets fans last year, this was a far better performance (Rios was as close to out as Carlos Beltran�s ball in the Santana game was to foul), and is all the more impressive for coming so early in Harvey�s career. To that last point, since 1916, which is as far back as we have complete box score data, just three pitchers have posted a game score higher than the 97 Harvey registered Tuesday night in an outing of nine or fewer innings within their first 20 major league appearances. The best of those games was Kerry Wood�s 20-strikeout game in 1998, which came in his fifth major league start and resulted in a game score of 105. One of the other two also came in 1998. That was Kevin Millwood�s 15th major league appearance and 11th start, in which he bettered Harvey�s Tuesday-night line by one strikeout (9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 13 K) for a game score of 96. The third was Don Wilson�s first no-hitter, which came in the 15th major league appearance (and 12th start) by the Astros righty in June 1967. Wilson threw a second no-no in May 1969. Wilson wasn�t the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter so early in his career. It�s been done 13 times since 1916, most recently by Clay Buchholz, who threw a no-no in his second career start in 2007, tying a record set by the White Sox�s Wilson Alvarez in 1991. What�s more, the White Sox�s Charlie Robertson threw a perfect game in his fifth career appearance in 1922. However, none of those games, save for Wilson�s, resulted in a higher game score than Harvey�s on Tuesday night. Incidentally, the best game score in an outing of any length by a pitcher in his first 20 career appearances and the best game score in Mets history are one and the same, and I guarantee you�ll never guess the pitcher � It was lefty Rob Gardner*, who, in his fifth career appearance and fourth start, threw 15 scoreless innings in the second game of a double-header on the penultimate day of the 1965 season, a game that was called after 18 scoreless frames and in which Gardner�s 112 game score was the second-best in the game. Phillies starter Chris Short also threw 15 scoreless innings and struck out 18 Mets along the way for a 114 game score. As if that weren�t enough, the Mets, who lost the first game of that double-header, played another double-header the next day, the second game of that twin-set went 13 innings, and the Mets lost both games to finish the year at 112 losses. Mets fans can laugh about those teams now, not least of all because they have Matt Harvey. *Actually, Gardner is one of three pitchers to post a 112 game score in his first 20 major league appearances, but he was by far the most recent. The others were both Tigers: Les Mueller in 1945 (19 2/3 IP) and Eric Erickson in 1918 (16 IP). http://mlb.si.com/2013/05/07/matt-harvey-loses-perfect-game/

Harvey Haddix = Hard Luck

Cards? Who said cards?

One more custom job, also from the Cleon card site:

G-Fafif wrote: Was CleSox in a 1976 update set or something like that? No. The Cleon card is a custom made job I found on the web. He appeared in only 12 games in '76, playing his last game ever on May 1, 1976, five months before the end of the season. So it was, understandably, unlikely that Topps would issue a 1976 card for Cleon, given their customs and practices. If I had my way, I'd issue a set that included every player on every team. If a player was traded four times in a season, I'd issue five cards of that player - one for each team. http://whitesoxcards.blogspot.com/2011/02/cards-that-never-were-43.html

Swan Swan H wrote: If you want to count coaches, I believer Terry Collins broke the seal on #10 last year. This quiz doesn't go to 10. Or 11.