batmagadanleadoff

="Benjamin Grimm"]... the National League ERA Champion! That final shutout put him at 2.53, good enough to squeak ahead of Tim Lincecum. Santana's ERA title was pretty much in the bag after his shutout of the Marlins last Saturday. Moreover, Johan was the NL ERA leader going into his last start of the season. On Sunday, Lincecum needed to pitch 10 innings without giving up an earned run to have surpassed Santana. This was no squeaker.

soupcan wrote: 190?! I'm 5'11" and weigh 187. Take a look at me in the photo thread. Mr. Cancel and I do not have similar body types. (Slightly Off-Topic insofar as this post is not about Cancel) Remember Sherman Douglas? The spritely legendary SU point guard and NBA player? (From your other posts, I know that you would remember him.) He was listed at 6'0", sometimes 6'1". I once stood right next to him at an M Street bar during his Junior season and was able to look down onto the top of his head quite easily. Sherman's 5'8", tops.

AG/DC wrote: I agree that singles are better than walks, but three hatfuls of walks are better than two hatfuls of singles. This is a neat way to sum up Dunn's abilities. The key to an offense is not to make outs. That's it. Only after the batter doesn't make an out in the first instance, is it meaningful to debate whether a home run is better than two doubles or whether you'd prefer one triple over two singles and a walks. Because anything is preferable over an out. Dunn is one of the least likeliest batters to make an out; By that crucial measure, he's one of baseball's best hitters. I'd always find room on my team for a guy who on bases close to .400 every single season, even if he couldn't hit any homeruns. Throw in Dunn's 40/HR's a season (five years running) and Dunn's a no-brainer.

I can't wait for next season. The Mets are a playoff team. They were a playoff team this year as well. They were better than both the Brewers and the Phillies and without Willie Randolph around anymore to fuck up even one game, next year's Mets are already better off than last year.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Oh, grow up. Ironically, the worst offenders had their very own Magic Number Threads going. Only they were called standings or playoffs odd threads. Same thing, wouldn't you say?

You Might Have Jammed It Up Your Own Ass Again When... you bullied the Magic Number Thread into remission with insults and other assorted offenses.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: They should've hired Willie Randolph. He's a former Brewer, and I think they were among the many teams to have interviewed him and decided he wasn't qualified to be a manager. The Wilpons are even dumber than Bud Selig.

SteveJRogers wrote: I like you Val, but I swear you try too hard sometimes to "fit" in around here with some of your stuff. Sometimes, I try to fit in around here by calling you Jeets, Jeets.

Centerfield wrote: ="AG/DC"]Thing about Grace is that through much of his career, his game had a Keith Hernandez-type refinement, and it's still shocking to see that behind the game isn't a Keith-type mind, but a big galoot. Exactly. I was shocked to discover how dumb he was. I just assumed he was smart while he was playing. I knew. I once saw Grace being interviewed before a Game of the Week during the prime of his career. I came away believing I had just witnessed perhaps the dumbest player in MLB.

themetfairy wrote: Compared to Gary, Keith and Ron, Fran isn't great. But compared to many of the broadcasters around the country, Fran is a friggin' genius. Well then baseball announcing must be in a very sad state.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Fran. Gawd. No jock ever brought less insight & intelligence & entertainment value to the booth. Well said. Years ago, a survey was held to determine the best and worst Met and Yankee announcers of all time. Healy made the worst list for both teams. (And Rizzutto made the Yankees best and worst lists).

AG/DC wrote: Thing about Grace is that through much of his career, his game had a Keith Hernandez-type refinement, and it's still shocking to see that behind the game isn't a Keith-type mind, but a big galoot. Fran Healy taught me that being an ex baseball player does not guarantee excellence in the broadcasting booth. Or even competence.

I remember Mark Grace working a Met game earlier this season where he said that Endy Chavez has a terrible throwing arm. How much more off the mark can a person be?

Here's the NYT article reporting Strawberry's HR off Houston pitcher Xavier Hernandez. Summer of 1990. Red Hot Mets. Strawberry's best Met stretch ever. Strawberry Hits 2 as Mets' 4 Homers Back Viola's 12th Victory By JOSEPH DURSO Published: July 4, 1990 After blitzing their way through June with 21 victories in 28 games, the Mets made it two straight in July last night when they hammered the Houston Astros, 12-0. And they did it with a barrage of epic hitting that included four home runs, two of which banked against the scoreboard in remote right field. The Mets now have won 13 of their last 14 games and 22 of their last 26 in one month of memorable marching through the National League's East, and they have zoomed from fourth place to the very edge of first. The Pittsburgh Pirates are still in front, but they are hearing heavy footsteps in the dark. Two of the evening's four rockets were launched by Darryl Strawberry, and both were memorable. One carried 450 feet from home plate and struck halfway up the scoreboard against the lighted word ''Ball,'' where the count on the batter is recorded but where baseballs rarely carry. The other merely soared into the back rows of the bleachers in left-center field, probably 425 feet away. Another distance shot was launched by Daryl Boston, who crashed his home run off a billboard on the lower part of the scoreboard. And the fourth was delivered by Kevin McReynolds, less majestic in trajectory but more valuable in runs, since it was hit with two men on base. All this pounding was sweet music to Frank Viola, who pitched serenely and absolutely to his 12th victory against three losses, and the cheery left-hander from St. John's University now has won more games than any other pitcher in the National League and he has the best earnedrun average (2.26). He also has thrown three shutouts and five complete games, and nobody on the Mets comes close to him in mastery at midseason. ''He is a beautiful thing to watch,'' said Bud Harrelson, who became manager of the Mets on May 29 just before they began to streak. ''He's like a well-oiled machine out there.'' ''All cyclinders are working on this club right now,'' Viola said. The Mets are so hot these days that you wonder if the worst fate that can befall them is a three-day break, the kind they will get next week for baseball's All-Star Game. But Strawberry thinks they'll survive three days off. ''We're not just hot physically,'' the main man of the Mets said. ''We're hot mentally. So, three days off won't break our momentum. It'll give us the chance to collect our thoughts for the second half.'' Collect their thoughts? ''Yes,'' Strawberry reflected. ''I know I'm making more of a mental approach than ever before. For the first time in my career, I'm analyzing myself. What I do. Why I do it. I even study myself in batting practice.'' The Mets barreled into the Astros after taking three of four games from the Cincinnati Reds, who hold a commanding lead in the league's West. The Astros, by contrast, have been struggling without success to stay out of last place. On the road, they have won 10 games and lost 29. And they arrived in New York without Glenn Davis, their one true power hitter, who has been disabled with a torn rib-cage muscle. But the Mets have been fit and fierce, and Viola even found to his surprise that his curveball was making a return appearance after an unauthorized absence. ''When I was warming up,'' he said, ''I realized it was there. The first time in a long while. So, I threw a bunch of curves in the game, and had good snap on them.'' He didn't have to wait long for the troops to arrive, either. In the first inning, swinging against Mark Portugal, the Mets teed off with four hits in a row and treated Viola to a four-run lead. Dave Magadan started it with a one-out single, Gregg Jefferies followed with a single, Strawberry rammed a single through the right side, and Viola had the lead. Not long after, he had a large lead. Portugal went to 2 balls and 1 strike on McReynolds, who whacked the next pitch into the bleachers for three more runs. Two innings later, Strawberry went to bat with two down and hit the one-strike pitch farther into the bleachers. And two innings after that, with Xavier Hernandez pitching, he drove the ball high into the night sky and 39,938 persons in Shea Stadium watched it re-enter the atmosphere and crash against the scoreboard's electric lights. It was his 19th home run of the season, and his 11th in three weeks. And it was followed and almost matched a few moments later when Boston lashed his home run high into the night beyond right field, where it also targeted against the scoreboard for the Mets' fourth and final shot of the night.

Mo's 505 foot Home Run was hit on June 26, 2002. Link to NYT article on Vaughn hot streak

I was at the game where Mo hit one near the top of the Shea Scoreboard. It was against the Braves in 2002, during Mo's first season. Mo had slumped terribly for the first few months of his Met stint, but caught fire near the middle of the season, very close to the All-Star break, though I forget which side of the break. For about two weeks during this streak, Mo was hitting some of the hardest balls I'd ever seen. Mo's HR was unforgettable. I also remember a monster Strawberry shot off the Scoreboard against an Astro pitcher, Xavier Hernandez. And I was there when Piazza hit a homer to left-center field at Shea that is considered the longest ball Piazza ever hit in a Met uniform. It went far and fast.

The Johan Predictor: Brandon Webb's line from last night's Ari-LA game IP 5.2 H 5 R 7 ER 7 BB 6 K 6 HR 1 Game Score 31

AG/DC wrote: Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither were Utica or Schenectady. I still think it's better use of smart folks' minds to get ahead of the writers and storm them with facts than to discuss which fact-like things will lead them to which ill-considered conclusion. That dog don't hunt even if it should. The way it usually works is to wait 'em out until they die off, to be replaced by the next generation. It'll take a while with writers because they work considerably longer than the athletes they cover. They're still on the active roster when they pass away. I suppose this idea might sound a little morbid, but isn't the truth always a defense?

Yeah. But Jimmy Rollins still won the MVP last year.

I don't know that the image below is big enough to read. It's Newsday's back page from earlier in the week. The text touts Delgado as an "MVP candidate". By any reasonably objective measure, there are at least two dozen NL'ers more worthy of the MVP than Delgado.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: If in fact we've reached the point where it's generally accepted that the deserving player won't win, then the awards themselves become virtually meaningless. There already exists a considerable number of fans that've been agreeing with your two points for many many years.

holychicken wrote: It is two games, pick the player who deserves the award and who will actually get the award. Who gets to decide on the player that deserves the award, in order to determine who wins this game?

="Nymr83"]where Tim Lincecum in this discussion? he has only 3 losses, 200 k's and a 1.18 whip to go with his 2.48 ERA I posted this article in this thread because of the Santana-Webb comparison that is addressed below: In a Perfect World, Lincecum Would Win Cy Young By TIM MARCHMAN | September 3, 2008 Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants is perhaps the most stylistically unique starter to debut since Orlando Hernandez. Just as Jeff Bagwell's batting stance was something like the perfect inverse of everything you'd read in a book on how to hit baseballs, junior high school coaches could use Lincecum's violent delivery as the centerpiece of an instructional video called "How To Pitch Badly and Hurt Yourself." And in a triumph for nonconformity in baseball, Lincecum has been the best pitcher in the National League this year. What would work badly for the average 12-year-old works beautifully for him. Going into last night's start at Colorado, Lincecum's record was 15-3, with a 2.43 earned run average. He led the league in earned run average, strikeouts, strikeouts per nine innings, and winning percentage, all by large margins. He rated third in wins and seventh in innings pitched, just 10.2 out of the lead. Adjusted for park and league effects, his ERA was 76% better than league average; no one else was more than 52% better. Absurdly, though, Lincecum probably won't win the Cy Young award this year; after all, he pitches for a lousy team and won't lead in wins. Since 1987, 18 starters have won the Cy Young. Only Pedro Martinez, when he won for Montreal in 1997, pitched for a losing team. Eleven led the league in wins, another four ranked in the top three, and the other three were Martinez, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson, in the kinds of monster years that make win totals irrelevant. One can just imagine Lincecum pulling it out if he wins all his remaining starts in impressive fashion. But more likely, he'll get jobbed. This leaves open the question of who will waltz off with his hardware. Milwaukee's C.C. Sabathia is in the midst of one of the more dominant pitching runs in decades, but he spent the first two months of the year in the American League, and so isn't really qualified. More likely, Arizona's Brandon Webb will win. He's 19-6, with five remaining starts, three against NL West rivals whom he usually grinds into dust. This wouldn't be an outrage � Webb is a terrific pitcher enjoying a terrific year � but a solid half-dozen pitchers have been at least as good this year, and one of them might steal the award from him before he can steal it from Lincecum. The second-best pitcher in the league has been Johan Santana, who's third in ERA, first in innings, and first in having his record ruined by lousy luck and bad bullpen support. He's at the top of a tier of non-Lincecum contenders including Webb, his teammate Dan Haren, Milwaukee's Ben Sheets, Chicago's Ryan Dempster, Philadelphia's Cole Hamels, and Los Angeles's Chad Billingsley. All have adjusted ERAs between 41% and 52% better than average; all have pitched between 175.2 and 196 innings; all have between 160 and 177 strikeouts. In other words, there's little to tell the difference between them. We can discount several of these men out of hand. At 13-10, Billingsley is barely above .500; Hamels could win all his remaining games and not top 16 wins, and Haren is having a great season, with a K/BB ratio nearing six, but won't beat out a teammate who boasts, as of now, five more wins. These may be dumb reasons, but you could safely bet your house that none of these three will win. Santana and Sheets are, no matter how good they've been this year, just barely more credible candidates for a Cy Young, because of their identical 12-7 records. Sheets has an injured groin and two games remaining against Chicago, who have whacked him for a 4.86 ERA in three starts this year; he isn't winning anything. For Santana, the problem is that, the way the schedule works out, he may only have four starts the rest of the way. Should he end up winning his 17th and clinching a Mets playoff spot on the last day of the year against Florida, that might change things. But more likely he'll be able to offer his thanks to the wrecking crew in the Shea bullpen for ruining his chance at becoming the fifth pitcher to win a Cy Young in each league. By process of elimination, that leaves us with ... Ryan Dempster? Yes, Ryan Dempster. Having spent the last several years as a generally terrible closer for the Cubs � his ERA last year was 4.73, the year before that it was 4.80 � he's had an inexplicable and highly entertaining revival in the rotation this year, and flaunts a 15-5 record and a 2.95 ERA right now with five starts left on the year. Two of those will almost certainly be against Milwaukee, whom he's dominated this year with a 2.37 ERA in three starts, and another two will be against St. Louis, against whom he's pitched well in one start. If he wins out, he'll end up with 20 wins for the best team in baseball, and quite possibly a sub-3.00 ERA. Should Webb stumble, the Braden Looper of Chicago will be right there to snatch up the prize. No one would have seen it coming, but then who ever would have thought baseball's best team would be playing on the North Side anyway?

Yes. The brat! ]The game ended on a bizarre note, when Gregg Jefferies and Roger McDowell of the Phillies fought in the infield after the final out. Jefferies and McDowell, a former Met, exchanged words as Jefferies ran down the first-base line. After the final out, Jefferies and McDowell screamed at each other, then Jefferies charged McDowell. Both benches emptied to separate the two players. ''Roger screamed something at Gregg,'' Johnson said. ''It went back to Monday night, when Roger screamed something at Gregg after he broke Gregg's bat. Obviously there's bad blood between them.'' Jefferies refused to comment on the incident. McDowell claimed Jefferies started the incident by cursing at him. ''I pitched him inside a little on Monday, so I guess that's what it was all about,'' McDowell said. Nick Leyva, Philadelphia's manager, defended McDowell by saying that Jefferies is not popular among his own teammates, then Leyva said, ''There were 30 guys on our side rooting for Roger and 20 guys on their side rooting for Roger.'' http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE1D91E38F93BA1575AC0A96F948260

="Mendoza Line"]Fine KTE. ] the Mets and Phils are the only two NL franchises to have existed in the Eastern division since its� creation. I'd count the Natspos as one franchise. Thanks. I was aware of the Natspos situation, but went for the stricter interpretation, mainly because it worked with my KTE. (Nino's a no-no).