batmagadanleadoff

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Mr. Kranepool, I suspect, is one that list if you started collecting early. I was scratching my head and wondering how you, of all people, could make that mistake. You probably thought that this exercise was limited to Topps cards only, I'm guessing.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. John Franco -- Grimm 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Mr. Kranepool, I suspect, is one that list if you started collecting early. Kranepool doesn't even sniff my top 15. His entire career took place when Topps had the bubble-gum/card market to itself* and produced only one set per year. Kranepool baseball card trivia: Ed Kranepool was card #1 in Kellogg's inaugural !970 set. *But, see, Fleer 1963, supra.

Let's turn this thread (once again) into a trivia contest. This one's only semi-trivia. I have a collection of Mets baseball cards and I keep track of the number of Mets cards in my collection according to player. My Mets card collection is large enough (though definitely not complete) so that my "player list" is probably a credible proxy for determining which Mets appeared on the most baseball cards. By combining your expert knowledge on Mets, baseball and baseball cards, see if you can guess the 15 Mets that appear on the most baseball cards (in my collection). One guess per post.

Perpetual Pedro.

Misses the team flight from Florida heading north, and is never seen or heard from again. Mets security tapes, leaked to the press by Mets security, show that Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz were the last persons to see Ollie alive. Fred and Saul's Q ratings quadruple when Ollie is later declared dead and it is revealed that Wilpon and Katz were each the sole beneficiaries of a $50 million life insurance policy taken out on Ollie. Ollie Perez pitched two of the worst 11 pitcher-WAR seasons in franchise history. He would've had two in the top 10, but Ollie v2010 displaced Ollie v2009 by one slot. Ollie's 2010 pitching WAR is the worst of the worst rate-wise, averaging one negative WAR every 30.89 innings. Some contract. RankPitcherWARYEARIP/WAR1Paul Wilson-2.81996-53.212Craig Anderson-2.01962-65.673Randy Jones-1.81981-32.964Doug Sisk-1.71985-42.945Jim McAndrew-1.71973-47.256Oliver Perez-1.52010-30.897Aaron Heilman-1.52003-43.558Cal Koonce-1.51969-55.339Pete Schourek-1.51993-85.5510Jay Hook-1.51963-101.7811Oliver Perez-1.42009-47.14

Gotta be http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1977/B07172NYN1977.htm PIRATES 1ST: Garner reached on an error by Randle [Garner to first]; Stennett doubled to right [Garner scored (unearned)]; Parker singled to left [stennett scored]; Robinson was called out on strikes; Oliver grounded into a double play (third to second to first) [Parker out at second]; 2 R (1 ER), 2 H, 1 E, 0 LOB. Pirates 2, Mets 0. And there's your next MBTN post.

Wrung a quicky blog post outta this card today for this man's birthday: http://mbtn.net/caught-act It looks like Prince put the pressure on you with his CPF inspired Jerry post. That's one of my favorite Met cards of the '70s, and my favorite '70s set. Here's another great action shot card from the '78 set: ... better than the typical Topps action shot that often compromises detail for motion and results in green pea-sized players' faces.

I got these:

Ceetar wrote: [ It's very easy to think that 2009 was in large part to Alex Cora. Well then maybe Cora had a right to get on Pelfrey's ass for laughing in the locker room after a loss.

Wacky Packages was Topps. By the '50s, every Topps competitor was scraping by. In 1956, Bowman succumbed and sold its assets to Topps. The intense competition cut into Bowman's profit margins so deeply, that it could no longer operate. It was Bowman that first produced cards with color photographs, and first included the players' stats on the back of the card. Its' 1955 TV cards are classic.

How many of your personal golden ages of baseball cards coincide, for sentimental reasons mainly, with the same years when you first discovered baseball and baseball cards? A strong case can be made for the end of the golden age occurring in the early '60s, when Topps' dirty tactics ran its last competitor, Fleer, out of business. "But no child could believe that having just one set of baseball cards to choose from was a good thing. As the Topps monopoly became impenetrable, kids saw a decline in the quality of the cards. This institutional complacency first appeared in the mid-1960s, when designs started to lose their pop and Topps became comfortable with cutting corners. When a player was traded to another team during the production process, rather than pay for a photo of him in his new uniform, the company simply had its artists superimpose new logos on the old hat and shirt. (This tweak may have curried favor with tobacco-card collectors in the 1880s, but by the 1960s and '70s it was considered a cheap cost-cutting move.) Most of these airbrush jobs were hopelessly cheesy-looking.... Topps also had no reservations about running the same photo on certain players' cards year after year, which its adolescent customers discovered with annoyance. Such shortcuts were indicative of a sameness that would settle into Topps baseball cards for years to come, and the outcome of the FTC case didn't help ... finding that there was nothing "inherently unfair" about the company's lock on exclusive contracts with players." From Mint Condition I read this book last December, when I had the flu and I was practically bed-ridden for about two days. I sought some light reading to pass the time and settled on Mint. From Fleer's last set for almost 20 years:

Against lefties, he projects to be a terrific bottom of the order guy. Thank god Minaya didn't get Paulino because then Paulino would've batted higher up in the order and against everbody. Just like Francoeur did.

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: i'm supposed to expect something from this guy? gee..I dunno. It's all in the splits. Why is this and the other related threads called "Expectations of Eleven?" You've submitted more than 11 Mets and there's more than 11 of us. I'm going to assume that this is some clever play on words that's over my head. I imagine he was going for the alliteration thing. And referring to the year in which we're expecting it. Aha! Eleven is the year. Shouldn't that be "Expectations for Eleven"

Edgy DC wrote: What gives? Is platooning catchers that hard? Not if you're Earl Weaver. Lefty-righty catching platoons: (Etchebarren & Hendricks) (Duncan & Hendricks). Earl Weaver could do everything.

Ceetar wrote: i'm supposed to expect something from this guy? gee..I dunno. It's all in the splits. Why is this and the other related threads called "Expectations of Eleven?" You've submitted more than 11 Mets and there's more than 11 of us. I'm going to assume that this is some clever play on words that's over my head.

Vic Sage wrote: baseball salary arbitrations are loaded with discussions of a player's use, and teams justifying their usage and denigrating the player, all in order to keep salary low -- and players are making arguments to these same arbitrators about their relative value. Their agents create the equivalent of private placement memoranda for these arbitrators, who are no more qualified to assess these matters than an arbitrator hearing the theoretical grievance F-Rod would make in this situation. to say that arbitrators have no right, or should not be required, to hear such evidence, would throw out the salary arbitration system along with bath water (not that that's necessarily a bad thing). so i don't get why you think an arbitrator can't hear such evidence to determine whether a contract has been breached because of "bad faith". If, in fact, the Mets did use F-Rod in low leverage situations, that would be pretty strong evidence that they were just acting to void his deal. And yeah, players (and anybody else entering into a contract) has a right to expect the other party to behave in a way that doesn't render the contract void. It undermines the very notion of a contract. but thankfully Mets management is not this stupid... well, not anymore anyway. They could simply use F-Rod in the best way possible to make use of him to win games, and as a side benefit, end up getting out from under one of Omar's dumber moves. You're right to write that an arbitrator would be qualified to hear K-Rod's hypothetical grievance. I should've chosen my words more carefully, because I know this to be true. Matrimonial judges decide divorce cases even though some of them never married. And a judge that never changed a flat tire in his life and wouldn't know where to pour the antifreeze gets to decide a $20M products liability suit that turns on the soundness of an automobile engine, etc., etc., etc. We obviously disagree on what the outcome of that grievance would be. I believe that a team should have the right to allocate playing time as it sees fit, without any outside oversight, for reasons I've already stated.

Vic Sage wrote: That's the logical solution. But what are your thoughts on whether a team should even have to justify in the first place, to an arbitrator, the playing time it allocates to a grieving player? i disagree with your premise. I don't think an arbitrator would require a team to justify its playing time per se, but only as a factor in determining whether the intent of the contract's option provision was frustrated by subsequent bad faith practices by the Mets. My point is simply that (1) its not "bad faith" to engage in baseball decisions that increase your team's chance of winning, and (2) the possiblity that this could be a strategy for a "closer's" use was known at the time the contract was entered into, and should have been known by the parties, and was forseeable, so F-Rod bears the risk that the Mets might subsequently adapt such a strategy. If he wanted to negotiate a clause for "appearances" instead of games finished", he was able to do so (and Omar probably would've agreed, since he was stupid enough to agree to the clause in the first place), and would've been protected. He didn't do that. The Mets are under no obligation to renegotiate his deal to protect him from his own agent's ineptitude. I'm not sure that you answered my question. Or maybe you did and I missed it. So let me break down your answer and try again. Vic Sage wrote: My point is simply that (1) its not "bad faith" to engage in baseball decisions that increase your team's chance of winning, and (2) the possiblity that this could be a strategy for a "closer's" use was known at the time the contract .... Agreed. There's no question but that employing winning strategies cannot be reconciled with "bad faith" and should trump a player's right to accumulate individual statistics. The team's paramount goal is to win games. I need no convincing here. Besides, we already had a lengthy thread on relief pitcher usage where the forum consensus was that using your best relief pitchers in high leverage situations is tactically preferable to a rigid and virtually inflexible rule that prevents the team's best reliever(s) from entering a game before the 9th inning. I can't find that thread, but I remember posting an image of a 1972 Sporting News cover featuring McGraw and Frisella sitting in the Mets old golf/bullpen cart. But what if the facts were that K-Rod was used in low-leverage situations? Or that K-Rod's appearances were micro-managed subtly so, mainly so that his bonus wouldn't vest? I'm not talking about K-Rod averaging a dozen appearances or so per month during the first half of the season and then dropping precipitously. What if K-Rod was managed so that a chart of his appearances would be smooth? These are mostly academic exercises, because the Mets need to make money, and need to win to make money, and didn't invest millions of dollars in K-Rod*, to use him as a middle inning mop-up man in lost causes. So it's unrealistic that the Mets would waste an effective K-Rod so long as the Mets are in contention. But my question is, what if they did? *Putting aside the soundness of that deal. For K-Rod to be worth $17.5M/season, he'd have to be the best reliever in baseball. And hit 25 HR's.

I never watch a movie on AMC, even if I'm in the mood to see what's showing. The movies are one third longer because of commercials ... they're edited (sanitizing overdubs and deletions), and pan-n-scanned. That's more than enough to turn me away. I wanna hear every "fuck". And see every "fuck", too.

Vic Sage wrote: the fact is, using your best reliever in highest leverage situations is a valid baseball strategy to employ, and the Mets have 17.5 million reasons to employ it this season. If i'm sandy, i like those odds. That's the logical solution. But what are your thoughts on whether a team should even have to justify in the first place, to an arbitrator, the playing time it allocates to a grieving player?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Really. Does anyone here dissent with that? Are you kidding? Me -- I went with Gates Brown StratOMaticv71 all season (LF 4 (+4))* and won the crown. *Those are defensive ratings. That's what Mo Vaughn would rate if he played left field.

The Second Spitter wrote: I'd rule that K-Rod was signed to be used as the Mets saw fit. Are you saying that K-Rod has to finish games even if Parnell emerges as a better pitcher? Or what if Parnell is as good as K-Rod? Or almost as good as K-Rod? Or what if the Mets had a good faith but mistaken belief that Parnell was the better pitcher? Do you think that it's healthy for an arbitrator to decide how good Parnell had to have been for the Mets to have used him as the closer without incurring penalties? The Mets have to be able to make in game decisions free of oversight from an arbitrator, and any ruling on this hypothetical K-Rod grievance should preserve that principle. In my view, in order to give efficacy to a vesting option, there must be an implied duty to act in good faith. Otherwise, a vesting option is, in substance, indistinguishable from a unilateral (club) option. Exercising a vesting option in good faith is realization on the criteria it sets-out (performance, health, etc). I agree that the team ought to act in good faith. But what is good faith? The devil's in the details. Keep in mind that what might constitute bad faith in labor relations in one industry may not necessarily constitute bad faith in the unique world of Major League baseball. The Second Spitter wrote: Of course, an arbitrator will not dwell whether or not Parnell is a better pitcher. The question of whether the Mets acted in good faith should be adjudged on the overall course of conduct of the Mets over the relevant period. But isn't this kind of analysis inevitable and unavoidable? No matter how you choose to explain the process, according to your view, the arbitrator will still be required to determine whether K-Rod was too good to be benched, or whether one of K-Rod's teammates (e.g., Parnell) was good enough to finish those games that K-Rod will claim he was entitled to finish. How else can the arbitrator judge the team's "overall conduct" without ultimately comparing K-Rod to some of his other pitcher teammates? You certainly can't be suggesting that K-Rod is legally entitled to finish 55 games solely because he's done so in the past. And it's usually more complicated than to simply say that Parnell was better, or that K-Rod didn't have it. The real world is never so fluid. What is likely to happen is that both K-Rod and Parnell will have ups and downs, thus further complicating this analysis. To me, this is a slippery and dangerous slope that would burden a team without justification. A team should be allowed to make in-game decisions without having to weigh their decisions against the effects those decisions might have on a player's individual statistics. I think that the historical custom in baseball is that the team has the final say --the only say-- in allocating playing time. A performance bonus should not be the equivalent of voting stock. A team's right to make in game decisions without outside interference should be superior to any player's desire for more playing time, and should, therefore, be afforded greater protection. I would simplify this type of grievance by ruling that the team is under no obligation whatsoever to enable the player to reach his performance bonuses, and that to the extent that the team does afford the player the opportunity, the team does so voluntarily and at its sole discretion.

You can't post images from your links. Click on "Actions" .. "View all Sizes".. Pick a size and link that image.

The Second Spitter wrote: Frankie will argue, he was employed as specialist. The denial of the opportunity to finish 55 games is a repudiatory breach of contract by the Mets, designed solely to prevent the option from vesting, especially if his KPI's are on-par with previous years, where he consistently finished 60 plus games, when healthy. He can point to things like being used inconsistently to the previous years of his contract and the fact the Mets tried to convert his contract to non-guaranteed, last year (which was a really dumb thing to do). All of this amounts to a consistent attempt to undermine his employment. I could easily see this going against the Mets. I'd rule that K-Rod was signed to be used as the Mets saw fit. Are you saying that K-Rod has to finish games even if Parnell emerges as a better pitcher? Or what if Parnell is as good as K-Rod? Or almost as good as K-Rod? Or what if the Mets had a good faith but mistaken belief that Parnell was the better pitcher? Do you think that it's healthy for an arbitrator to decide how good Parnell had to have been for the Mets to have used him as the closer without incurring penalties? The Mets have to be able to make in game decisions free of oversight from an arbitrator, and any ruling on this hypothetical K-Rod grievance should preserve that principle.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Last week, I noticed cards for sale in that chain store that sells DVD's and CD's and electronic supplies -- but I forget the store's name. Best Buy.