batmagadanleadoff

The Second Spitter wrote: "Minor League Motherfucker is what you are!" [youtube]kkELZza3QjA[/youtube] ...so said the other Minor League Motherfucker.

G-Fafif wrote: The Bannerific Mets currently eschew the Selig Card and hold the traditional Wild Card. Pending tonight's ATL-WAS game, the lead will be a half-game or one game going into Decoration Day. So that's good. I don't know about this one. If the season ended today, the Mets would first have to beat the Selig Wild Card team before claiming the traditional Wild Card slot. Still, ESPN now gives the Mets a 21.1% chance of making the playoffs; their best odds this season, to date. Bannerific, indeed!

It's no coincidence that I didn't predict the Mets. I usually avoid participating in these threads. Because ya never know.

Not all of Marv's Mets records are bad ones. Looks like he has the highest Mets WPA hit for a left-handed batter.

Vic Sage wrote: * I'm curious as to why you feel losing game 1 is preferable to losing any other game in a series? So was I. Vic Sage wrote: * Blaming the negative run differential on Acosta seems like a stretch to me, but i'm open to the possibility. In any event, even if Manny is largely responsible for much of the negative run differential, he is unlikely to be the sole factor. I'd suggest our negative differential is an accurate reflection of this team's overall performance (i'm sure other teams with neg run diff over the years have had 1 or 2 guys you could point a finger at, too), and that it is the lineup's statistically unmaintainable 2-out success rate, giving us a league-leading come-from-behind win rate, that has created the temporary illusion of marginal success. Couldn't agree more. The Mets have been phenomenally lucky with the timing of their hits. Unless you wanna believe the stuff about players being purposely able to play better with men in scoring positions. And I know what your view on that one is.

Edgy DC wrote: A coupla thoughts otg: A big part of our pythagorean bugbear may be having a mopup pitcher with a 12 ERA rather than a five or six era. This shouldn't be taken lightly. Over the course of the season, even a bad mop-up man will cost the team some wins. One or three of those seven run losses might've been one run wins. But instead, the bad mopper puts the game out of reach and the manager more or less concedes by leaving no stuff badmop in the game because the primary goal has shifted from winning to preserving the unused portion of the bullpen. And then, even more runs are tacked on.

Edgy DC wrote: Steve Henderson's homerun on June 14, 1980 was good for a .919 WPA, taking. Can any single hit in their history top that? You'd practically need a walk-off grand slam to give the Mets a one-run win: the highest WPA value hit possible.

Bad Mets Bobble giveaways

If you separated Rusty's bobble head from his bobble body, and then removed the baseball helmet from Rusty's bobble head, would you recognize Rusty's bobble head as that of Rusty? If you answered "yes", you're full of shit.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: OK, it's Rusty Staub bobblehead game. Why is Rusty wearing the snow white uniform on the bobblehead? (At least he is in the photo on Metsblog.) "No corporate logo on me". Road grays from Rusty's last two seasons under Yogi?

Curious: What are Staub I's WPA's? I vaguely recall that he had some WPA seasons that were way over what you'd expect based on his regular season stats?

Edgy DC wrote: Win Percentage Added.... batmags, among others, doesn't like it (and please correct me if I'm wrong) because it measures clutch performance, which he contends is giving players credit for random variation, as clutch performers don't really exist (even if clutch performances do). Since you asked.... I'm with this Ceetar post: Ceetar wrote: whether or not clutch exists, the actual hits themselves are still clutch in that even if it's not an ability, Piazza hitting a three run blast against the Braves to put the Mets up 10-8 in the 8th is still adding a heck of a lot of win percentage. WPA is a neat tool to measure the clutchnes of the actual hits. But I don't see much predictive value in the stat. If you look at the list of Mets WPA's you've assembled, it's no coincidence that the best franchise WPA's more or less coincide with the best Mets individual seasons. The best hitters tend to hit the best in the clutch. Because they're very good hitters, not because they're clutch hitters. Who would you rather take your team's last WS at bat with two outs in the 9th, down by four with the bases loaded? Al Weis (1 WS HR; .455 WS BA) or Dave Winfield (0 WS HR's; sub .250 WS BA)? WPA sez to send Weis up there. Do you agree?

Ceetar wrote: well, i'd rather be the team with the nice pretty new stadium that's fun to watch a game with than the team forcing MLB to wade through standing water and cram into a crappy building. You're right, 5 years apart is probably already pushing it for NYC All-Star Games, and having it at Citi is going to be a much better experience. Ya know ... giving Citi Field points because it's more functional than Shea, which it is, isn't saying much, is it? It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Ceetar wrote: well, i'd rather be the team with the nice pretty new stadium that's fun to watch a game with than the team forcing MLB to wade through standing water and cram into a crappy building. You're right, 5 years apart is probably already pushing it for NYC All-Star Games, and having it at Citi is going to be a much better experience. What are you talking about? The Mets coulda hosted the ASG during the Bobby V era and still host it next year or soon after.

Ouch.

Edgy DC wrote: By all reports, the Mets' management was embarrassed in hosting the World Series at Shea in 2000 and were looking down the road past Shea every moment since. And likely were for at least a decade before that. I'm having trouble reconciling that these same bozos who signed off on one of the most aesthetically unimaginative of the new stadiums, with the ugliest scoreboards, the 19th brick wall backstop backdrop and the same fucking erector set lattice gridwork that holds together just about every other scoreboard in baseball were ashamed of Shea Stadium. And the thing of it is that the late '90's/early '00's was the perfect time to have the ASG at Shea. Back then, the Mets were virtually entitled to the ASG, given the amount of time that passed since the last and only Shea ASG. Instead, these selfish pricks deprived an entire generation of Mets fans, some of whom are without doubt, no longer here, of another Shea ASG. There's no way MLB would've awarded the Mets a Shea ASG send-off, even if the Mets wanted it. MLB wouldn't let NYC host the game two straight years.

Longest tenured Mets currently on 25 man roster: 1. David Wright (debuted 7/21/04) 2. Johan Santana (3/31/08) 3. Daniel Murphy (8/2/08) 4. Jonathon Niese (9/2/08) 5. Bobby Parnell (9/15/08)

Andrew McCutchen is baseball's hottest player. If May ended yesterday, he'd win the Player of the Month Award. But if the whole season ended yesterday, I'd give Wright the MVP.

Ceetar wrote: Essentially, there'd be a boatload of players with lifetime .325 BA's in the clutch and higher RBi/PA rates in the clutch than in the non-clutch, who were overall .250, .260 lifetime hitters. They don't exist. Aha, but you can only measure specific cases. What's 'clutch'? ... How do you measure that? I don't think you can. Doesn't mean clutch doesn't exist. Does it really matter how clutch is measured? So long as you think that a player can elevate his performance in a certain situation -- whatever that situation is and however you define that situation -- I'd counter with: why won't the player always elevate his performance instead of waiting around for that situation? If everybody waited around for a teammate to get to second or third before they gave it their all, then they'd get shutout every game. I read some of these articles on clutch hitting and I'm supposed to come away believing that the best players get hits whenever they want to, and it's all as easy as flicking the switch that turns on the bathroom light.

Keith Hernandez was clutch. So was Mike Piazza. Is there a stat that can prove it? I would doubt it. But they had a fire in their eye when the game was on the line. They wanted to be at the plate at that big moment. I don't know that that's true of everyone. I would've wanted Keith or Piazza up in a key situation at least as much as you would've. Not because I thought they were clutch hitters. But because I thought that, at least in their primes anyway, they were great hitters. They were all-stars, frequently generating MVP caliber seasons. And they hit will in the clutch, however that term is defined, not because they were clutch hitters, but because they were great hitters. They hit well in the clutch and in the non-clutch and on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday evenings and in May and August, too. Great hitters outhit their peers in most situations. If clutch hitting --again, however you choose to define that term -- is truly its own independent skill, apart from regular old hitting, then over the course of 100+ years of MLB, and all of the thousands and thousands of hitters who played the game, you'd find many, many hitters that were terrific in the clutch over a statistically meaningful number of AB's, yet who sucked everywhere else. Essentially, there'd be a boatload of players with lifetime .325 BA's in the clutch and higher RBi/PA rates in the clutch than in the non-clutch, who were overall .250, .260 lifetime hitters. These combined traits don't exist. I didn't ask for any evidence. I already know that there is no evidence to support the existence of the clutch hitter.Most people who study sabermetrics -- including Bill James -- say there is. Bill James most definitely is a non-believer. James' philosophy on clutchness can be paraphrased as folllows: "Clutch hits exist. Clutch hitters don't". And evidence aside, the existence of a clutch hitter, from a logical standpoint, from an intuitive standpoint, doesn't hold water. Because if a batter had the ability to elevate his hitting in order to bring home the runner on third base, then he'd know enough about the importance of being that runner on third base in the first place. And so therefore, he'd try just as hard in those at bats when no one was on base to get to third base on his own.Piss poor logic. You can't hit triples to order. But you can hit a single or a sacrifice fly to bring a runner in.. I didn't literally mean "triple". I meant that he'd use his clutch powers to get on base to eventually be that runner on third. It's just as important to be the runner in scoring position as it is to be the batter that drives him in.

Edgy DC wrote: I'm neither for nor against the existence. I think if such a creature exists, the stat can measure it. If such a creature does not exist, the stat can establish that. You ask for evidence, and the stat seems to be the sort of tool built to search for evidence. I didn't ask for any evidence. I already know that there is no evidence to support the existence of the clutch hitter. And evidence aside, the existence of a clutch hitter, from a logical standpoint, from an intuitive standpoint, doesn't hold water. Because if a batter had the ability to elevate his hitting in order to bring home the runner on third base, then he'd know enough about the importance of being that runner on third base in the first place. And so therefore, he'd try just as hard in those at bats when no one was on base to get to third base on his own. If a batter had the ability to bat better at key moments, why wouldn't he use those "magic clutch powers" to hit safely at all times, instead of limiting his use of the clutch to RISP's. Wouldn't he wanna bat 1.000 for the season? Wouldn't he wanna hit a homer every time up? And where the hell is the pitcher in all of this? Clutch hitting proponents act as if the pitcher is a superfluous bystander in all of this, without the ability to clutch up himself, and offset the batter's clutchness. With no say or sway in how the at bat ends up. It's all supposedly on the batter's clutchness, who apparently has total control of the at bat. It's absurd. And illogical.

Edgy DC wrote: That's the grace of it, though, right? If there's no such thing as clutch performance besides random luck, it will even out over a season and a career. If it doesn't, over a sustained period, there's your evidence. Not sure what you're getting at, or whether you're for or against the existence of the clutch hitter. A little help?

Frayed Knot wrote: *Some might argue "always" instead of "eventually". Rusty was definitely an 'eventually'. Yeah he was never fast, but those who missed his early career and/or his first go-around in Queens missed a pretty damn good OFer in his day. For sure. For someone so slow that he always looked like he was running in place, like a hamster on a treadmill, Staub was a great outfielder. He could get to the ball, catch it, and his throwing arm was fantastic -- strong and accurate. One might not have divined Staub's defensive prowess from watching him waddle around the bases as if he were running in quicksand.

Frayed Knot wrote: OK, I have no idea if Baxter is for real or just a flash in the pan but, until he falls off the cliff, you've got to ride this horse until he drops. Dude is just all over every pitch he cuts at. Yeah. There's no reason why a guy that pinches like Baxter can't do it regularly. And he's not pinching because he's too old and slow to play every day, like Staub and Kranepool eventually* were. Baxter's been Heeped into the pinch hitting role; the perception is that though he's young enough, he's not good enough to crack the top of the depth charts. Baxter's been great this year. But still, I'd like to see some more at-bats. He's giving the Mets some good problems for when Bay and Tejada return. *Some might argue "always" instead of "eventually".

Edgy DC wrote: June 26, 1963: After all these years, it�s still WPA�s choice for the best one-game performance by a Mets batter when Tim Harkness comes through in the clutch against the Cubs. In a 14-inning marathon, Harkness is 4-for-7, including a perfect 3-for-3 after the ninth. His biggest moment by far comes in the bottom of the 14th. The Mets trail by two runs thanks to an inside-the-park homer by Chicago star's left fielder, but New York loads the bases with two out for Harkness, who promptly hits a walk-off grand slam. His WPA on the day: 1.107. It�s by far the greatest of the 259 games in which Harkness ever plays. Not to take anything away from Harkness, but the greatest one-man/one-day freak show was Fonzie's 6-6, right? Not according to WPA. Most of Fonzie's six hits probably came with the Mets already up, thus generating low marginal WPA #'s. Harkness's three extra inning hits were highly valuable WPA-wise, given the sudden death nature of being the home team in a tied extra-inning game. WPA is a bullshit stat, though, if you ask me; a by-product of randomness. Unless you can prove that hitters are clutch, and are able to elevate their skills in key game situations, another bullshit concept, if you ask me.