batmagadanleadoff

If the playoffs started today, the Schwinden Mets would still be mathematically alive, three game losing streak to the Astros and all.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Really?!? Was it this card? That was the card.

Fman99 wrote: Bobby Bo outsmarted the Wilpons. Good for him. Oh how the Wilpons have fallen. They're now more loathsome than even Bonilla.

Great cards, Grimm. You're the tops! At last week's Hofstra Mets 50th, I attended a seminar on the economics of the Mets and Yankees. The presenter's powerpoint presentation included an image of a Johan Santana 1970 style Topps card that, I believe, came from the CPF Schaefer awards.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7879021/mlb-new-york-mets-pay-bobby-bonilla-millions-years-come-espn-magazine Paying it forward The Mets' cash troubles are epitomized by the story of Bobby Bonilla LAST JULY, in her New York office, a financial planner by the exquisitely apt name of Jennifer Prosperino received her weekly call from a longtime client. He was a semiretired man in Florida who'd grown up evading gunfire in the South Bronx, where he'd lived in firetrap apartment buildings with junkies in the hallways. He slept with a baseball bat in his bed, dreaming of a better life. His first question for Prosperino was the one he always asked: "Am I going to be okay?" Days earlier, the client, employed part time by his former union, had received a check from the New York Mets for $1,193,248.20 -- the first of 25 annual, identical payments he is guaranteed from a club he last played for in 1999. That means Bobby Bonilla, 49, will make more money than 17 players on the Mets' Opening Day roster. For years, we have been talking about Mets owner Fred Wilpon and his doomed investments with Bernie Madoff. And the payments to Bonilla, whom Wilpon once made the highest-paid player in baseball, stand as a legacy of that relationship, the repercussions of which continue to resonate in Flushing: This year's team slashed $43.4 million off last year's Opening Day payroll, which is believed to be the largest one-year salary drop in MLB history. But don't blame Bonilla for the Mets' mess. Even before he began collecting these payments, the former All-Star embraced the responsibility of being, in his words, "the CEO of my own cash." From the day he signed his first contract, Bonilla followed the gospel preached by his then-agent, Dennis Gilbert: "It's not what you make, it's what you keep." "Bobby didn't need to live large," Gilbert says. "He looked around and saw lots of people he knew coming out of the game with no money, and he didn't want to be like that." The anxiety that lurked behind Bonilla's question for Prosperino that July day was a vestige of his youth -- a lighthearted way of asking whether everything is under control. "Yes, Bobby," Prosperino said. "Everything's okay." That's what she always says; the two talk and text about Bonilla's finances so regularly that neither can remember specific conversations. "Not once has it been, 'Hey, I'm going to Vegas,'" Prosperino says. "Bobby's disciplined. He doesn't change the plan once the money gets there." Bonilla's plan is looking pretty good these days. His daughter is finishing up at the Sorbonne. His son plays baseball at Arizona State. He's living comfortably in a paid-for house, driving a secondhand Chevy Silverado. He has a part-time job he loves, educating current players about their benefits, about how to manage the mundane details of a fiscal life and drive the devil from it. They have millions of reasons to listen to him. If only the Mets had been so vigilant. In 1986, a year after team president Fred Wilpon opened his first account with Madoff, the Mets won the World Series with a nucleus (Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez) that seemed destined to win many more. It was the same year Bonilla joined fellow Pirates rookie Barry Bonds as the rising stars of a young, promising team. Over the next five years, the Mets became the Dynasty That Never Was. They made the postseason once, the World Series never and dissolved into a haze of cocaine, acrimony and bad fielding. Meanwhile, Bonilla blossomed. A barrel-chested kid with a big smile, he made four All-Star teams in that span and finished second in the MVP voting in 1990 and third in 1991. Both seasons, Pittsburgh won the NL East. Before the 1992 season, Wilpon hired a new GM and a new manager and opened his checkbook to sign free agents like Eddie Murray and Bonilla, whose five-year, $29 million deal made him the game's highest-paid player. The spree was enabled by investment income from a host of Madoff accounts. Wilpon and his associates told all their investors that these accounts typically provided returns of about 18%. The team put liquid assets into such accounts and paid its bills with the apparent proceeds. The '92 Mets took the field with 11 millionaires; they finished 24 games out. By the time players went on strike in 1994, all anyone could talk about -- especially in Flushing, where fans loathed Bonilla and his megadeal -- was how money had ravaged baseball. By 1997, Bonilla had a new four-year, $23.3 million deal in Florida, where he won a World Series. But without the Mets' Madoff money to cover a payroll they couldn't really afford, the Marlins dismantled their title team. By 1999, Bonilla -- 35 and his career winding down -- ended up back with the Mets. It was an unhappy reunion. Bonilla couldn't get regular at-bats or do much with the ones he got, hitting just .160 and spending months on the DL. In the final game of the NLCS, having already appeared as a pinch-hitter, he and Rickey Henderson played cards in the clubhouse while their teammates lost in extra innings -- an unfortunate incident that helped trigger Bonilla's last, now infamous deal. Bonilla, active in the MLB Players Association, was concerned that a work stoppage was looming in 2001 and knew the Mets wanted to dump the final year of his contract, worth $5.9 million, to free up a roster spot. So with the futures of a daughter and son to consider too, he realized this was his chance to set aside a chunk of money. "I decided I wanted to live the rest of my life as if I were an active player," he says. Gilbert and Bonilla did their homework and went to the team with different buyout options, and the sides agreed on a 25-year, $29.8 million deferred payment plan. Gilbert was so shocked at his success, he immediately tried to get the same deal for other clients, most of whom (Jose Canseco among them) lacked Bonilla's long view and passed. "People kept asking me, 'Why didn't the Mets just release him?'" says agent Dan Horwits, who negotiated the particulars of the deal. "I'm not sure I even knew at the time." Only years later would it become clear why Wilpon went for the deferral: The $5.9 million went into a Madoff account, which was theoretically supposed to collect a double-digit interest rate over the life of the agreement. Only about an 8 percent return would have been needed to pay Bonilla his $1.2 million a year from 2011 to 2035. The Mets did the math and figured they'd be able to turn a $60-70 million profit on the arrangement. Of course, we know what happened next. Not quite three years before the payments were to start, Madoff's Ponzi scheme blew sky-high. Wilpon's investments were gone, as was much of his income. Seduced by the prospect of turning a $5.9 million debt into 10 times as much free money, the Mets didn't have a dime set aside for the $29,831,205 they'd guaranteed Bonilla. In fact, without an emergency loan procured from MLB, they might not have been able to make the first payment. The Mets reportedly hemorrhaged $70 million last season, prompting the team to shed payroll. For much of the past decade, the team had ranked among MLB's five highest-paying teams, sometimes second only to the Yankees. The offseason purge, like sailors discarding ballast, puts them at No. 14, between the Twins and Cubs -- and 60 percent of their money goes straight to three players: Johan Santana, Jason Bay and David Wright. While the Mets will likely make re-signing Wright, the face of the franchise, a priority, it's possible the entire trio could be off the books by 2013. Meanwhile, attendance has fallen in each season at Citi Field since it opened in 2009. Which means Wilpon is watching every dime -- and the annual check to Bonilla will serve as a reminder of what can go wrong if he doesn't.

Bunt the First Two wrote: ... So move on Schwinden, try your luck The Met fan is a fickle fuck Some day when the runs rain down We'll prob'bly want you back in town

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I'd be a little more confident in our chances, I think, if we had a skipper who were less panicky than I am. If you're talking about Duda pinch-hitting early for Niese, I thought it was one of the most inspired Met managerial moves that I can remember in a while. Even if the move didn't work out. I was actually hoping to see Duda PH, a moment before Collins pulled the trigger.

Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Edgy DC wrote: Well, there's the sample size thing. It's early. Yeah. And that's why I wasn't predicting the rest of the season. calling them lucky, and a last place team, is predicting. Uh, no. I was suggesting that they were lucky in April and that they should be in last place. But you'll be happy to know that I'm enjoying the hell out of this year's team, flaws and all and Pythagorean Theorem, and remain as hopeful and optimistic as even a nine year old baseball fan oughtta be.

Edgy DC wrote: Well, there's the sample size thing. It's early. Yeah. And that's why I wasn't predicting the rest of the season.

I wasn't trying to predict where the Mets would finish this season. I merely observed that given their quality of play to date, they're extremely fortunate. Things could be a lot worse. Should be a lot worse. The Mets are still mathematically alive if the playoffs started today. Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: The Mets phenomenal record in one and two run games this season coupled with Bill James' Pythagorean theorem, suggests that the Mets are a very lucky last place team. I don't think it suggests that at all. I don't think it's predictive. James' Theorem is highly predictive and correlates powerfully to a team's won-loss record. But even without getting into the simple junior high school math behind the theorem, it's plainly obvious that a team that allows more than 20% of the number of runs it scores will almost always be among the league's worst. There's no way to get around this fact.

The Mets phenomenal record in one and two run games this season coupled with Bill James' Pythagorean theorem, suggests that the Mets are a very lucky last place team. Did Megdal copy my post again -- 11 minutes ago? As I thought more about last night�s 4-3 loss to the Astros, a game lost by the bullpen, the phrase kept coming back to me- wasted opportunity. Let�s put it this way: the Mets are 13-10, but they haven�t really played like a 13-10 team. Their Pythagorean record, based on runs scored and runs allowed, is actually 9-14. They are actually playing at a 63-win pace per production, but winning at a 91-win pace. If you are betting on what is likelier to happen going forward- continuing to outpace production, or regressing to that production in their results- the smart money is on the latter. So really, they must, must win those games like Monday night to bank wins. Inherent in even the performance to date is an offense that really might be overachieving. So far, the Mets have received better than league average production (an OPS+ of greater than 100) at every position but first base-at some positions, much more than league average. Six Mets are at 114 or better. ZIPS projections, however, had just five Mets above 100, and none above 116. So either ZIPS is way off, or the Met offense is due to regress in a big way. In the rotation so far, three of the five Mets starters have an ERA+ 126 or better, and one of those three, Mike Pelfrey, won�t throw another pitch this season. ZIPS had Santana at 108, Dickey at 102, and everyone else below league average. But the bullpen: that�s performing just about as expected. And that�s too bad. If the bullpen had held, New York would be 14-9. That�s not enough to guard against all that regression. But if at least some of the early production is for real- and for my money, Ruben Tejada and Lucas Duda are two examples of players who appear ready to bull through their mean projections- they�ll need to bank all the wins they can get. It�s still going to be hard in this division.

Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: The Mets phenomenal record in one and two run games this season coupled with Bill James' Pythagorean theorem, suggests that the Mets are a very lucky last place team. I don't think it suggests that at all. I don't think it's predictive. If the Mets keep on winning one and two run games at the current pace, well yeah, they're not gonna finish in last place. But a one or two run game is likelier to be decided by luck than a five or six run game. A team's record in games decided by larger margins is a more reliable measure of its true talent. The '69 Mets were 40-19 in one run games.

The Mets phenomenal record in one and two run games this season coupled with Bill James' Pythagorean theorem, suggests that the Mets are a very lucky last place team.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Lucas with the (post-nasal) drip on. Lucas Duda is sick. No injury. Flu or something. It's the Mets. Duda probably has Bubonic Plague.

TransMonk wrote: They're finally thinking about changing this... http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/7874251/mlb-eyeing-end-annual-rival-series-including-mets-yankees-sources-say "The nine largest crowds at Citi Field during the first three seasons of the stadium's existence were the Yankees' nine visits to Queens -- an average of 41,513 tickets sold per game."

The New Yorker The Sporting Scene Dispatches from the playing fields by New Yorker writers. April 27, 2012 The Mets Go to School Posted by Seth Berkman On Thursday, Hofstra University kicked off a three-day academic conference celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Mets. Inside the Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center�which has previously hosted scholarly conferences on chocolate, James Bond, and U.S. Presidents�a mix of professors, journalists, and season-ticket holders discussed the cultural relevance of the beleaguered franchise. The lineup of topics included �The Mets and Judaism,� �The Mets and Hispanic Fans,� and �The New York Mets as Punk Rock.� Aside from the occasional attempt to draw parallels between the careers of say, the bassist Dee Dee Ramone and catcher Choo-Choo Coleman, a number of the papers focussed on the Mets� symbiotic relationship with the written word. Steve Amarnick, an English professor at Kingsborough Community College, opened with �A Long Journey: Teaching Homer�s Odyssey and the Mets.� The franchise is currently navigating its own journey of adventure and despair, driven off course by financial turmoil (the team�s owners, the Wilpons, were sued for a billion dollars for their alleged involvement in the Bernie Madoff scandal); injuries (first baseman Ike Davis was recently diagnosed with �Valley Fever,� a fungal infection predominately found in desert regions of the Southwest); and epic collapses on the field (blowing a seven-game lead with seventeen games to play in 2007, and lackluster play since). Perhaps the most stinging evidence of their recent ineptitude occurred last December, when Jose Reyes, the homegrown All-Star shortstop, signed with the Miami Marlins for a hundred and six million dollars. The Mets did not even offer Reyes a contract, letting him simply be wooed away by the Sirens of South Beach. This week, as Amarnick was finishing his presentation, Reyes was just a thirty-minute drive away, closing out his first series at Citi Field as a member of the visiting team. Judy Van Sickle Johnson, a former English teacher at Phillips Academy, presented �Literature, the New York Mets, and the Tug of Baseball.� She summed up Reyes�s return with a local literary comparison: It�s a little like Jay Gatsby seeing Daisy Buchanan again�the woman he loved so passionately and innocently in his youth, hated losing, and now she�s back in his life, as beautiful as ever. But she doesn�t really want him anymore, and he can�t have her. It�s a bittersweet experience�the love he feels for her is still genuine and it�s still there, but his affection is mixed with the ache of longing and the sting of loss. In �The Great Gatsby,� Fitzgerald described a stretch of wasteland along West Egg as a �valley of ashes.� Since 1964, the Mets have called that spot home. In Reyes�s absence, many Mets fans have turned their affection toward R. A. Dickey, a knuckleball pitcher with a scruffy beard and a slight Southern drawl. Dickey was particularly adored among the literary types at the Hofstra conference: he majored in English literature at the University of Tennessee, recently named one of his bats �Hrunting,� after Beowulf�s sword, and has a new memoir memoir out, titled �Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball.� Currently, we hear, Dickey is reading �Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,� by Haruki Murakami, and two months ago he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, inspired an Ernest Hemingway short story. Earlier in the week, Dickey lamented that he could not attend the conference�the Mets flew out to Colorado late on Thursday evening�and talked about the influence Hemingway had on his own book. �I think one of the keys to writing is who can say the most while writing the least,� he said. Dickey can relate: he�s been the Mets� most reliable pitcher during the past two seasons, despite boasting an arsenal of just two pitches�a knuckleball and fastball. �Hemingway mastered that. Most of what he wrote could resonate with the human condition and he draws from that deeply.� Among the other highlights of the day was the panel � �Metsmobilia� and Mascots,� moderated by Mike Cesarano, who once donned a Mr. Met replica costume at Shea Stadium in the mid-nineties. The beloved, gigantic baseball-headed mascot has become a symbol of the franchise, but the audience learned that he was not the team�s first mascot. That honor belongs to Homer the Beagle, a dog that was trained to run around the bases after each home run. Homer received rave reviews during rehearsals, but suffered from stage fright during his first live game action, trotting instead out to center field. Sadly, he was never heard from again. In 1979, the Mets failed once again with live animals: Mettle the Mule only lasted a season. During lunch, a panel of Mets bloggers held a Q. & A., which felt more like a group-therapy session. Mark Simon, a stats specialist at ESPN, told a story of missing his train to Connecticut after the Mets lost Game 7 of the 2006 N.L.C.S. Still lamenting Carlos Beltran�s strikeout to end the series, Simon passed the time by repeatedly yelling, �Why didn�t he swing?� in a bathroom in Grand Central Station. As Thursday wound down, a small group gathered in a lounge to watch the conclusion of the afternoon game against the Marlins. The Mets came from behind in the bottom of the ninth to win. They finished the day with a record of 11-8, better than expected. Still, no one was making plans for the World Series yet. Amarnick offered one last reference to Homer: �The monsters�the cloud of Bernie Madoff�are gone and won�t be eating them up any more. Right now, the Mets are finding their way back home. They�re not back yet, there�s a ways to go, but they�re getting closer.� Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2012/04/the-mets-go-to-school.html#ixzz1tOpjzrny

Eddie K (who, these days, is looking more and more like fellow Bronxer Robert Klein) is too old to give a damn what anybody thinks about him. Especially dead people.

G-Fafif wrote: Rusty Staub not impressed by Mets' acquisition of Ellis Valentine. Nor was Rusty impressed that between relievers Jeff Reardon and Neil Allen, Reardon was the one traded for Valentine. Eddie K noted that the two best centerfielders in the AL were Paul Blair and Amos Otis, and the Mets traded both of them, getting nothing in return. Eddie K also said that the Reds shouldn't have been allowed to dictate to the Mets who they'd give up to acquire Seaver. The Mets should have dictated the terms of any trade for Seaver.

Krane woulda never dealt Kooz for Orosco-a reliever.

If the playoffs started today, the Mets would still be alive. They'd play a one-game eliminator against the Giants (home team determined by coin flip); winning team to fly to Atlanta to play the Braves in the one-game Wild card qualifier game.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Weak greeting. But then, there are approximately 300 people in the lower basin. Whatchoo talkin' 'bout? Tonight's paid attendance is at least half a million. Met [crossout]slave[/crossout] PR guru Jay Horwitz sez maybe even one million.

Santana's nuthin' but bad luck. 'Cause whenever he pitches, the Mets can't buy a run. On another note, it looks like SNY enhanced their ball strike display. It's readable now. I bet lotsa viewers were complaining.

Edgy DC wrote: So we really could be robbing the devil. Could've been. Small sample size and all and the past doesn't necessarily predict the future yada yada.. I mean, Lucas Duda has raked like a star at every level. But he's also a notoriously slow starter. He should start hitting like a beast. Right? Ike, on the other hand -- he's shown flashes of superstardom. But he's coming off of an injury that cost him the last 2/3 of 2011 and now he's got the Fever. The Valley Fever. So maybe there's more to Ike's slump than rustiness or randomness. TBD.

Edgy DC wrote: And probably two more wins and two fewer losses. Only one other NL team - the Cubs - has a worse run differential than the Mets. According to Bill James' Pythagorean theorem, the Mets won-loss record should be 6-10 instead of 8-8.

Tonight's paid attendance: 124,403.