batmagadanleadoff

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metsguyinmichigan wrote:

I wanna know what the hell happened to that 97+MPH fast ball Pelf had in college. Talk about false advertising. I wonder if Pelf ever asked the Mets for his old college uniform number?

Willets Point wrote: I like how the second one features the sylvan, suburban subdivision of Willets Point. The illustration in that second post card was an artist's rendering of Shea Stadium, imagined before it was actually built. During the Polo Grounds years, that image was circulated at many press conferences and press releases concerning Shea's imminent construction. The illustrator probably ran out of paint before he could render the chop shops and junkyards. Benjamin Grimm wrote: When I own the Mets and knock down Citi Field to build a Shea replica, you can be sure the blue and orange shingles will be part of the design. You don't have to worry about a thing if I should happen to buy the Mets before you do. I'm with you. I never met any Met fan who didn't love those shingles. If the owners were in tune with us, they might've homaged the blue and orange panels into their new stadium. But they were instead, too preoccupied ensuring that that big stupid 42 would display in that stupid rotunda for a Dodger.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Bill James once said (or wrote) that no stat is really flawed. That the doubles stat, for example, doesn't measure HR's, or singles, or doesn't distinguish between doubles that drive in the winning run from other doubles isn't necessarily a flaw. The stat is what it is. It's just one stat in the toolbox, one measure of the player, among many others. The flaw, I suppose, is not necessarily the stat, but how one uses the stat. The questionable argument that Daniel Murphy is one of this season's best players solely because he's one of baseball's most prolific doublers doesn't mean that the doubles stat is flawed. It's the argument that's flawed.

Bill James once said (or wrote) that no stat is really flawed. That the doubles stat, for example, doesn't measure HR's, or singles, or doesn't distinguish between doubles that drive in the winning run from other doubles isn't necessarily a flaw. The stat is what it is. It's just one stat in the toolbox, one measure of the player, among many others.

Even if Murphy and Wright could hack (that's "hack", not "hack up") the defense, this idea could work only with someone like Sandy Alderson backing it. Sandy didn't come here to take any shit from the Wilpons: otherwise, the jackass portion of the media and fan base (or the jackass portion of the Wilpons -- as if there's some other portion besides the jackass one) would 86 this idea at the first Murphy error just like they jackassed Melvin Mora out of the six-hole and then eventually, all the way to Baltimore. I'd love it if this could work; if Murph could recover from his latest injury.

Turner, man. Turner. I thought that this was either a trick question where Jason Bay would be the WAR leader. Otherwise, the active WAR leader had to be a starting pitcher, I figured. But where'd you get your WAR's from? Here's the 2011 Mets WAR leaders, according to Baseball Reference (italicized players are not presently on 25-man roster): Jose Reyes 4.3 Carlos Beltran 3.4 R.A. Dickey 2.8* <-------------- 25 man WAR leader Daniel Murphy 1.8 Jonathan Niese 1.7 Dillon Gee 1.7 Chris Capuano 1.4 Ike Davis 1.3 K-Rod 1.3 Mike Pelfrey 1.3 David Wright 1.2 Chris Young 1.2 Jason Bay 1.1 Scott Hairston 0.7 Jason Isringhausen 0.7 Jason Pridie 0.5 Lucas Duda 0.4. Taylor Buchholz 0.4 Justin Turner 0.4 Paulino/Tejada/Thole/Byrdak 0.3 (Something ain't right here. I could accept Dickey as the active 25 man WAR leader, but I don't see how Turner's WAR is so relatively low per bbRef, and barely one third of Bay's WAR. And if bbRef's numbers are accurate, it sure doesn't feel like they're accurate, based on my eyeball test. * I calculated pitchers' Total WAR by combining their pitching and batting/fielding WARs.

It sounds so much better to say that only six of the other 15 NL teams have better records than the Mets, than it does to say that the Mets are a .500 team. Vote for Terry.

They're laughing all the way to the awards ceremony.

I had a great time. Who was that guy that ate three hot dogs in one minute? I forget. And those were the bad Shea hot dogs. The one's that you'd need to call a mouth ambulance after you were done eating them. Just one even. Let's do it again 10 years from today.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Edgy DC wrote: The 71 team is among the Met teams I know the least about. Because I broke my baseball teeth on Strat-O-Matic Baseball 1971, I might still know more about that team than even this year's model. For sure, I know more about the '71ers than any of the Art Howe teams. But I wouldn't have a clue as to the 1971 component of this trivia question. I'd guess that most '71 debutees didn't even have an SOM card -- other than Bob Aspromonte. So that might be a clue even though Aspro doesn't necessarily have to be part of the answer so long as more than two Mets debuted that season. I just don't know. And Don Hahn. Hahn was another Met who debuted in '71 and had an SOM card. Aspro/Hahn isn't the winning combo though because they were both on the team in April.

Edgy DC wrote: The 71 team is among the Met teams I know the least about. Because I broke my baseball teeth on Strat-O-Matic Baseball 1971, I might still know more about that team than even this year's model. For sure, I know more about the '71ers than any of the Art Howe teams. But I wouldn't have a clue as to the 1971 component of this trivia question. I'd guess that most '71 debutees didn't even have an SOM card -- other than Bob Aspromonte. So that might be a clue even though Aspro doesn't necessarily have to be part of the answer so long as more than two Mets debuted that season. I just don't know.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Suffers a severe concussion on opening day when Murph lands on his head in the dugout after unsuccessfully trying to pull off an Ike Davis style over the handrail highlight reel catch. Leads off the next inning with a HR but twists his ankle when he rounds second base awkwardly due to dizzy spells from his head knock. The next day, Murph is beaned in the face when he forgets to move out of the way of an errant pitch. Is removed from the lineup one week later. I thought that batmags nailed Murphy better than anybody else. To try and capture the essence of Murphy with numbers alone is to miss the point of Daniel Murphy.

For sure. He'll be the one to run straight through a fence to catch a ball. The catch'll cost him his life. Didn't I see this in a a baseball movie? But I hope that the Mets find a way to keep him around. I love that guy.

Vic Sage wrote: now that Murphy's ripped up both knees while playing 2b, do you think that his "klueless kamikaze" style of play renders him a DH in the wrong league? Might as well give Murph another crack at second base next year. He can't damage any more knees.

Ceetar wrote: But it also seems to me the AL often lacks any real depth of quality teams to make it interesting in a wild card race. This was my point: that the Wild Card races are generally, uninteresting. What do you mean by "lack of real depth"? Do you expect that the AL should have five teams instead of two that are on pace to win about 100 games?

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: Which gets to the crux of the problem with Wild Card spots. What should be an epic battle for first for the ages becomes a curiosity about who matches up with whom in the first round. I'd rather blame that on the crappy AL than on the Wild Card structure. It pretty much happens every year. Sure, somewhat, but it's hard to argue either team doesn't deserve the playoffs either. But it also seems to me the AL often lacks any real depth of quality teams to make it interesting in a wild card race. The point, I think, is that both teams might reasonably win 100 games, and if they were pitted against each other in a zero sum game only-one team-gets-in setup, their battle for first place might be, as Edgy wrote, "an epic battle for first for the ages". There are too many fans, and I'm one of them, that abhor the Wild Card races and unless their favorite team is involved, view the whole spectacle as one more Selig gimmick that enables the owners to enrich themselves even more but by sacrificing the game's quality.

BEST SINGLE-SEASON BATTING AVERAGE IN METS HISTORY Through 113 NYM Games 1969: Jones -- .348 1998: Olerud -- .344 2011: REYES -- .336 1990: Magdan -- .329 BEST SINGLE-SEASON BATTING AVERAGE IN METS HISTORY Through 113 NYM Games 2000: Piazza -- .351 (In 2000, Piazza was MVP bound until he wore down over the last four or five weeks of the season). 1969: Jones -- .348 1998: Olerud -- .344 2011: REYES -- .336 1990: Magdan -- .329

Daniel Murphy will be DL'ed.

Mets Stats: Post All-Star Game (min. 50 PA's) entering tonight's game: The Good Lucas Duda --- .327/.426/.633 (3 HR's/49 AB's) Lucas Duda, at 1.059, is 7th in the NL in post-All Star Game OPS (min 50 PA's). David Wright is 11th.

Mets Stats: Post All-Star Game (min. 50 PA's) entering tonight's game: The Good Lucas Duda --- .327/.426/.633 (3 HR's/49 AB's) David Wright --- .400/.414/.582 (2 HR's/55 AB's) Daniel Murphy --- 375/.425/.525 (30 Hits/80 AB's) The Bad Jason Bay --- .250/.324/.375 (Bad, but good by Bay's standards) The Ugly Jose Reyes --- .247/.263/.411 (2 BB's/73 AB's) Angel Pagan --- .211/.256/.296 (.211/.256/.296)

Ceetar wrote: perhaps the 'hint of dejection' was because the Mets lost. Perhaps. Or perhaps Wright was dejected because it's unlikely that the Mets'll clinch 1st place on September 25. He might've been dejected because he had too much sugar in his pants. Or too many boogers up his nose. Sugars or boogers? It could be anything, really. Or whatever you want it to be, especially if you ignore the obvious meaning. Ceetar wrote: whine whine whine. Are we ever going to stop tracking every fly ball (while mostly ignoring how many deep fly balls guys like Izzy and Capuano have given up to the same parts) and complain it would've been a home run in Philly?I agree. It makes no difference whether the center field wall is in front of second base or in Ohio. Just like it doesn't matter what a team pays a productive player. If the player's an asset, then ther's no limit to what that player deserves money-wise. We should really ignore everything because nothing really matters. To me. Anyway the wind blows.

The Schaefer Mets Player of the Week for the week ending July 23, 2011 is .... Here are some images for your baseball card toolkit: culled from this article.

With David Wright and Lucas Duda each hitting balls tonoght that would'be been HR's in practically any other park in baseball (Wright's blast had the distance but probably not the height to clear Fenway's Green Monster), I thought I'd update the HR tallies .... David Wright's scorching drive in the first inning Friday night struck halfway up that infernal left-field wall at Citi Field for a one-run double instead of a two-run homer, just as Chipper Jones knew it would. "It's funny to see them hit the ball off the wall and look at me like, 'God-damned, what do I got to do?'" Jones said Friday, before that 16-foot wall and Tim Hudson doomed the Mets to a 4-1 defeat, their fifth in a row. It's not lost on Jones that the Mets are struggling to contend in the NL East, while his Braves emerged from their franchise slump and will likely make the playoffs for a second straight year. Both Jones and Terry Collins share the opinion that the Mets' lousy home record might be the result of those imposing walls, plus the absence of a jet stream out to right-center, which sometimes carried Jones' balls out of Shea. Citi Field is both modestly scaled and impossibly dimensioned, an architectural paradox. "I've played here long enough to know that's not a home run," Wright said of his double. There was another blast in the seventh last night by Lucas Duda, a homer elsewhere, which died at the warning track in right. Will the Mets ever do something about this? Not Jones' problem, really. He dragged his sore quad and surgically repaired knee one more time into Flushing, and the new place was something of an unpleasant reminder about how the romance and aura of the venue had flown. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2011/08/06/2011-08-06_ask_chipper_citi_is_no_day_at_park.html?r=topnews "Citi Field is a lot bigger than Shea; it doesn't affect me as much as it affects Wright and [Jason] Bay and those guys," said Jones, who will return to Atlanta's starting lineup tonight following knee and quad injuries. "At Shea there was a jet stream out to right-center. I've seen David tattoo balls here that sometimes get caught that would have been home runs at Shea. It's funny to see those guys lace a ball off the wall and get to second base and look at me, like 'Damn!' It can be frustrating." And so it was in the first inning last night, as Wright blasted a long double off the wall in left-center to drive in the Mets' only run. Wright crushed the pitch from Tim Hudson, but had no hope of clearing the fence. "I've played here long enough to know that's not a home run here," said Wright, a hint of dejection in his voice. "You better swallow your pride when you walk into this park," said Jones, who added he has no plans to retire, "and try to hit the ball into the gaps and concentrate on being a .300 hitter instead of a 30-home run guy." Added Wright, "It's a big park, there's no sense whining about it." Just another Mets challenge. http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/nemesis_offers_up_amazin_advice_Kv5xXM9MSsjyJEE32R0rKP#ixzz1UGGRybXM