batmagadanleadoff

Bryce Harper signs: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5468993

Edgy DC wrote: I'm pretty certain he'd remain on the roster until the legality of their voiding the deal is sorted out. Maybe. But often, you don't know for sure until you try. Anyway, I'm just theorizing, and blindly at that, insofar as I have no idea what's in K-Rod's contract.

Edgy DC wrote: The downside to this is that Rodriguez can't be traded or released while he's on the DL. So while the Mets spend what promises to be at least a partially protracted battle trying to effect the voiding of the contract, he'll remain on the roster until Spring Training at least. The Mets could do whatever the hell they wanna do. They're holding the money. Advantage Mets. They could, for example, announce that they're cutting K-Rod effective immediately and withholding the rest of whatever money he's owed, on grounds that he injured himself by engaging in conduct prohibited by his contract (assuming there is such a clause in the contract, as a prerequisite), and that K-Rod is no longer the player the Mets bargained for when they signed him. Then K-Rod'll sue, and the system (whether a court of law or arbitration, depending on the contract) will determine whether the Mets were justified or not.

Ollie's shot. His fast ball tops out at 87 MPH. He's never had any success without his mid 90's fastball. And Manuel and Warthen have both said publicly that Ollie's no better now than a few months ago when the Mets finally took him out of the starting rotation. He hasn't had a single appearance this season without walking at least one batter. They might as well ask me to pitch the 9th innings. The last place this guy belongs is on the 25 man roster. (Although two weeks from now, the major league rosters expand).

K-Rod's girlfriend said she'd leave him if the Mets void his contract.

K-Rod's 2010 IP/WAR (26.83) is 4th all time best in Mets franchise history.

metirish wrote: I'd like Beane too. Would Jeff hire such a strong candidate though. This is what I fear in a Ricco hire , toe the company like etc. My personal hunch has always been that the Wilpons discreetly meddle with their GM much more than they should, and that over the years, their interfering tendencies have gotten out among baseball's insiders.

What's not to like about Billy Beane? Because some fans and members of the media don't get Moneyball is no reason to reject Beane. He might be the best candidate for the Mets GM job. If he can do what he did on Oakland's budget, imagine what he might accomplish with one of baseball's highest payrolls. I guarantee that Jeff Francoeur wouldn't have racked up 300+ PA's by mid July with Beane calling the shots.

Floundering Mets have become baseball's worst franchise Entertained the annual worst-movie-of-all-time debate with a friend the other day. I said Godzilla is the worst because the plot is utterly ludicrous, the special effects are mediocre and Matthew Broderick, starring as Dr. Niko Tatopoulos, turns in a performance that evokes the pleasure of a festering boil. "Nothing happens!" I said. "The movie goes on for two hours, and absolutely... nothing... interesting... happens." My friend nodded. A Steven Spielberg die-hard, in 2001 she waited on a four-hour line to buy tickets for A.I. "I knew everything about the production, about the plot, about the characters," she said. "A.I. had a $100 million budget, and if Spielberg is spending that sort of dough on a project, you know it'll be fantastic. But A.I. wasn't fantastic. I fell asleep." I am unmoved. Godzilla universally bombed. Kids hated it, adults hated it, critics hated it. Factually, it was a worse film than A.I. "Maybe," said my friend, "but did you have any reason to think Godzilla would be good?" "No," I say. "I didn't." She nods knowingly. End of argument. * * * Nine years after A.I. rotted the brains of millions of Americans, the film has finally found its baseball brethren. Throughout the majors, there will always be Godzillas -- teams like the Royals and Pirates and Nationals that offer customers low expectations and a product to match. Yet in the 2010 New York Mets, we have found the ultimate summer blockbuster gone to crud. We have also found the worst franchise in baseball. Blessed with the majors' fifth-highest payroll (a staggering $132,701,445) and a roster featuring seven players with All-Star resumes, the Mets have defied the odds by putting to sleep the nation's largest city. Oh, at 58-59 the Mets are neither especially bad nor especially good. They won't contend for the playoffs and they won't fall below Washington into last place in the NL East. They won't dazzle, they won't irk. They merely exist. Yawn. To call the Mets dreadful is an insult to dread. The 1962 Mets were dreadful, but in an endearing sort of way. The 2003 Tigers were dreadful, but nobody expected much of a club starting Warren Morris at second base. No, the 2010 Mets are simply worthless. They are a listless, heartless, wretched baseball team; an entertainment value sans entertainment, playing ugly within the confines of beautiful new Citi Field. When the biggest story of the year is Francisco Rodriguez, your star closer, beating up the grandfather of his kids, well, you've for problems. What's wrong? Let us count the ways: � Ownership: Because they keep tight-lipped on the matter, we have no idea how profoundly the Bernie Madoff scandal has impacted the Wilpon family's desire to spend. What we do know is this: A franchise once willing to battle the Yankees for big names has withered. With the exception of the disastrous Jason Bay signing, the Wilpons have spent little on improving the ball club. � Omar Minaya: Perhaps his hands are tied. Perhaps he sleeps with his eyes open. Perhaps the Keebler Elves have kidnapped his brain. Whatever the case, within a two-year span the reputation of the Mets' general manager has morphed from young genius to Chuck LaMar II. He overpaid on Bay (four years, $66 million) and Oliver Perez (three years, $36 million), gave $37 million to the vastly overrated K-Rod and put his trust in players like Luis Castillo, Jeff Francoeur and John Maine. � Jerry Manuel: The Mets manager since midway through the 2008 season is, unambiguously, one of the game's nicest people. He's funny, smart, candid -- and the wrong man for this job. The Mets need an ass-kicker; someone to come in on the first day of spring training, as Davey Johnson did in 1984, and say, "You're either with us, or you're out of here." � The roster: Put simply, the Mets' roster doesn't work. Jose Reyes is one of the best shortstops in baseball, and David Wright can say the same at third. When healthy, Carlos Beltran is an elite center fielder. Ike Davis looks excellent at first base. Angel Pagan makes a superb fourth outfielder. Johan Santana still throws nasty stuff and, uh.... That's about it. Save for Wright, the middle of the lineup is a wasteland. Castillo, once an All-Star with the Marlins, might be the least-motivated ballplayer in America. Maine hasn't contributed anything good in 2 1/2 years. Perez is a head case. Jon Niese reminds one of Joe Price. Without question, New York has yet to recover from the back-to-back choke years of 2007 and 2008. Those dual collapses, in which the Mets coughed up multi-game NL East leads in the final weeks of the season, continue to weigh on the franchise like a waterlogged life jacket, and if there is a solution, it is this: Clean house. Fire Minaya and replace him with someone who can handle the New York spotlight. Fire Manuel and bring in a replacement with heart (Bobby Valentine); with passion (Bobby Valentine); with the ability to guide the Mets to a World Series with Jay Payton and Benny Agbayani holding down outfield spots (Bobby Valentine). Most important, get excited. Really excited! Opening day 2011 is less than eight months away I disagree with the part about Citi Field being beautiful. The article itself is kinda crappy, too ... although the premise has lotsa merit once you adjust for the Mets being the wealthy franchise from the great city of New York and all.

What? Nobody buys CD's anymore?

Bay�s Concussion May Signal Need for Change in Mets� Protocol By DAVID WALDSTEIN Published: August 15, 2010 When Mets outfielder Jason Bay ran full speed into the padded outfield wall at Dodger Stadium last month after catching a long fly ball, then crumpled to the ground, it appeared he had hit his head, face first, against the blue padding. Bay lay motionless for an instant on the warning track. After he slowly got up, he said he told the Mets� athletic trainer, Ray Ramirez, that he had injured his back and knee, but had not hit his head on the wall. Based on that, Ramirez and the Mets� medical staff did not give Bay a complete neurological examination to determine if he had sustained a concussion. They allowed him to remain in the game, and play the next two games. It turned out that Bay did sustain a concussion, which a specialist in New York determined only after he returned home. It was not from the impact of his head hitting a wall, the doctor concluded, but from the trauma caused by his head snapping backward, causing whiplash. In essence, his brain slammed against his skull, and the symptoms did not surface until two days later on the flight home. Bay has not played in three weeks, and although he is improving and expected to recover, a concussion from whiplash can be severe enough to end a career. It did for Corey Koskie, a former Twins, Blue Jays and Brewers third baseman who retired after he sustained a similar injury in 2006. �It was two and a half years of my own personal hell,� said Koskie, who eventually recovered from the symptoms, but by then was 36 and had been out of baseball too long to get back in. As Bay waits at home for the symptoms to subside, the Mets appear to have learned a lesson from the episode and are expected to expand the conditions under which trainers will regularly check for neurological damage. �We are looking into that,� the assistant general manager John Ricco said. �I think we will probably change the protocol so that if there is a serious impact, even if the head doesn�t hit something directly, it will be checked out.� While Bay�s injury went undetected, he might have exacerbated it, according to Dr. David Hovda, the director of the U.C.L.A. Brain Injury Research Center, by continuing to play after it happened in the second inning of the Mets� game against the Dodgers on July 23. In the immediate aftermath of a concussion, the brain is particularly vulnerable to further injury, including from relatively minor events like quickly rotating the head. �By playing again, he could have exposed the brain to a secondary injury, and that can make it worse,� Hovda said. But according to Hovda, Ramirez was not remiss in declining to order a neurological exam given the information he received from the 31-year-old Bay at the time. The Mets do not allow their medical staff to speak to reporters, but Hovda assumes Ramirez followed the Mets� standard procedure, and strongly agrees with Ricco that it should quickly change to allow for the possibility of a concussion from whiplash. He said it would have taken a particularly diligent trainer to consider the possibility of a concussion even when the player said he did not hit his head, but he thought all teams should include that in their protocol. �It�s almost inexcusable if it�s not already based on data we have had since 2000,� he said. �But it�s really unfair for the trainer to be responsible if they are told by the player that he didn�t hit his head, and he is following the S.O.P. In hindsight, yes, of course they should have checked him out. But at the time, there was no indication from the player that something happened. �If I was the owner of a team, and I had a lot of money invested in this player, I would not take a chance. I would order a full neurological examination just to make sure.� Two years ago, the Mets were criticized for their handling of outfielder Ryan Church�s concussion. Church was allowed to fly and play in Denver before the symptoms were gone, and they became worse. But Hovda said, referring to Bay, that there was no evidence cabin pressure from a flight had any effect on the severity of concussions. He also noted that if Bay was still feeling the effects of the concussion three weeks on � including headaches, dizziness, nausea � he might continue to do so for another month, which would effectively end his season. Hovda said some of those symptoms could also be the result of a neck injury associated with the whiplash. Such an injury can affect the inner ear, causing vertigo, dizziness and vomiting. That is what Koskie said he thought happened to him. On July 5, 2006, Koskie fell while chasing a pop-up. He hit his head slightly and stayed in the game, but was later removed. It was determined that it was not so much the impact of his head hitting the ground, but the whiplash that caused the concussion. �It was awful,� he said. �I could barely move. I couldn�t be in the sun, I couldn�t get my heart rate over 110. Everything seemed strange. It was like I was watching my life through the lens of a video camera.� Now the owner of two health club franchises in Minneapolis, Koskie said it was not just the concussion that caused his enduring symptoms, but also the neck injury. When he finally saw a specialist who did osteopathic manipulations of his neck, everything changed. �I would wake up sometimes and I couldn�t feel one side of my body,� Koskie said. �I was told I had an anxiety disorder. You would feel pretty anxious, too, if you couldn�t feel one side of your body. People say brain, brain, brain. Yes, it�s that, but I think the neck and the upper cervical column was just as critical. I don�t have any medical evidence, but once they fixed that, I was fine.� http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/sports/baseball/16bay.html

Mets top 10 ERA+ seasons - starting pitchers only: RankPitcherERA+YEAR 1Dwight Gooden22919852Tom Seaver19419713Tom Seaver17519734Al Leiter17019985Johan Santana16620086R.A. Dickey16620107Tom Seaver16519698Jerry Koosman16019699Bret Saberhagen153199410Jon Matlack1491974

"If they think that [Tejada's] the best player, that's OK," Castillo said. "I just don't want to be a backup when I've been playing every day for my whole career." Outfielder Jeff Francoeur supported the team's decision to play the rookie Tejada: "Tejada's below average stats shouldn't reduce his playing time. He's made so many outs already, you know that he's due for a hot streak. The more outs a player makes, the more likely that his next at bat will be a hit. We can't afford to miss out on Tejada's next hits now that the pennant race is heating up". http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/what_lu_ser_Z0mVynnPcV1VXoSUP0200K "Because", Francoeur added, "if Tejada gets benched for struggling for two weeks, what chance do I have of playing?"

"If they think that [Tejada's] the best player, that's OK," Castillo said. "I just don't want to be a backup when I've been playing every day for my whole career." Outfielder Jeff Francoeur supported the team's decision to play the rookie Tejada: "Tejada's below average stats shouldn't reduce his playing time. He's made so many outs already, you know that he's due for a hot streak. The more outs a player makes, the more likely that his next at bat will be a hit. We can't afford to miss out on Tejada's next hits now that the pennant race is heating up". http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/what_lu_ser_Z0mVynnPcV1VXoSUP0200K

http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2010/08/after_rejoining_mets_closer_fr.html �Well, first of all, I�m extremely sorry,� he said before Saturday night�s game against Philadelphia. �Whatever it is that I did, I'm sorry for. I want to apologize to Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon and Mr. Katz for the incident that happened Wednesday night. I want to apologize also to the Mets fans, to my teammates and I want to apologize, of course, to the front office for the embarrassing moment that I caused them. And I want to apologize to everybody else that I left out. Whatever it is that I did, I was wrong to do it and I won't do it again." "I would've left him a long time ago if it wasn't for all of his money", said Rodriguez's common law wife, Daian Pe�a.

Johan Santana's making his move on this year's elite pitchers .... Ryan Dempster cracks the top 20 ...... K-Rod still packs a mean wallop WAR RankPitcher/TeamWARIP/WAR1Josh Johnson/FLA6.125.412Roy Halladay/PHI5.732.463Adam Wainwright/STL5.631.494Ubaldo Jimenez/COL5.031.075Tim Hudson/ATL5.031.336Johan Santana/NYM4.438.867Livan Hernandez/WAS4.039.428Chris Carpenter/STL3.647.59Brett Myers/HOU3.544.8610Matt Cain/SF3.447.6511Mat Latos/SD3.240.5212Roy Oswalt/HOU-PHI3.246.3513Yovani Gallardo/MIL3.044.1114Cole Hamels/PHI3.048.6715Tim Lincecum/SF2.953.6816Barry Zito/SF2.954.1417Clayton Kershaw/LA2.853.6918Ted Lilly/CHIC-LAD2.552.0019Ryan Dempster/CHI2.562.9320Jaime Garcia/STL2.452.64.26K-Rod/NYM2.126.83.28R.A. Dickey/NYM2.148.57 updated through last night: WAR RankPitcher/TeamWARIP/WAR 1Josh Johnson/FLA5.727.852Roy Halladay/PHI5.732.463Tim Hudson/ATL5.529.944Adam Wainwright/STL5.532.065Ubaldo Jimenez/COL5.031.076Johan Santana/NYM4.438.867Livan Hernandez/WAS4.039.428Brett Myers/HOU3.843.169Chris Carpenter/STL3.548.8610Matt Cain/SF3.349.0911Cole Hamels/PHI3.346.6712Roy Oswalt/HOU-PHI3.246.3513Mat Latos/SD3.141.8314Yovani Gallardo/MIL3.046.4415Barry Zito/SF3.052.3316Tim Lincecum/SF2.953.6817Clayton Kershaw/LA2.853.6918R.A. Dickey/NYM2.642.69 19Ted Lilly/CHIC-LAD2.552.0020Ryan Dempster/CHI2.562.93.27K-Rod/NYM2.126.83

I thought that the replay was inconclusive, and based on the SNY feed, I have no idea whether that should've been a homer. Gary Cohen believes that Hessman's shot had to have been a homer because the fan's arms aren't long enough to reach below the orange line that demarcates a HR. I disagree with Gary's analysis. The issue is whether the ball would've landed above the orange line had it not been deflected by the fan. It's theoretically possible to interfere with the flight of the ball while the ball is above the HR line. I couldn't tell whether or not the fan touched the ball and couldn't judge the trajectory of the batted ball either. So I don't know.

... and Kris Benson because his wife ... because his wife ... because his wife ...

batmagadanleadoff wrote: So look at who's 26th in WAR with the 2d best IP/WAR rate on the chart..... WAR RankPitcher/TeamWARIP/WAR 1Josh Johnson/FLA6.125.412Roy Halladay/PHI5.533.643Adam Wainwright/STL5.232.564Tim Hudson/ATL5.031.335Ubaldo Jimenez/COL4.632.256Livan Hernandez/WAS3.938.807Johan Santana/NYM3.842.638Brett Myers/HOU3.643.619Chris Carpenter/STL3.448.2410Matt Cain/SF3.248.7511Tim Lincecum/SF3.247.4012Mat Latos/SD3.240.5213Yovani Gallardo/MIL3.044.1114Roy Oswalt/HOU-PHI2.948.7415Barry Zito/SF2.951.9516Cole Hamels/PHI2.852.1417Clayton Kershaw/LA2.655.2618Jaime Garcia/STL2.646.5419Ted Lilly/CHIC-LAD2.454.1720Johnny Cueto/CIN2.456.67.25R.A. Dickey/NYM2.148.5726Francisco Rodriguez/NYM2.027.67 Johan Santana's making his move on this year's elite pitchers .... Ryan Dempster cracks the top 20 ...... K-Rod still packs a mean wallop WAR RankPitcher/TeamWARIP/WAR1Josh Johnson/FLA6.125.412Roy Halladay/PHI5.732.463Adam Wainwright/STL5.631.494Ubaldo Jimenez/COL5.031.075Tim Hudson/ATL5.031.336Johan Santana/NYM4.438.867Livan Hernandez/WAS4.039.428Chris Carpenter/STL3.647.59Brett Myers/HOU3.544.8610Matt Cain/SF3.447.6511Mat Latos/SD3.240.5212Roy Oswalt/HOU-PHI3.246.3513Yovani Gallardo/MIL3.044.1114Cole Hamels/PHI3.048.6715Tim Lincecum/SF2.953.6816Barry Zito/SF2.954.1417Clayton Kershaw/LA2.853.6918Ted Lilly/CHIC-LAD2.552.0019Ryan Dempster/CHI2.562.9320Jaime Garcia/STL2.452.64.26K-Rod/NYM2.126.83.28R.A. Dickey/NYM2.148.57

I'm not making any predictions ... but the Wilpons really loathe this sort of stuff. (They move Ordonez when he call Mets fans "stupid" but before that, the just about crappiest hitter in franchise history can take all the at bats in the world.)

"Maybe it's a distraction we need," Francoeur said. "Not to say it's a good thing. But maybe at the end of the day we can turn it into a positive. I know for [K-Rod] it's between him and his family." http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=5457861 This ********** doesn't know how to shut up. If words were hits, this guy'd be the MVP. I've never heard of such a crappy player that yapped as much as Frenchy.

Because an admission and an apology absolves a multi-million dollar a year athlete of anything: Jose Reyes wrote: "I don't know exactly what happened," Reyes said. "You don't want to see that happen, especially here at the ballpark. I hope he comes clean about what happened because we need him here." http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=5457861

In other Mets news, the manipulative ********** was neither played nor traded today. Good.