A Boy Named Seo

So who else is staying up to watch Yoenis Cespedes tonight?? [FIMG=400]https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/02/yopose4.jpg[/FIMG]

I didn't realize games were being played in Tokyo (and Taichung) and not all just in the US. That's cool. WBC kicks off tonight, kids! Cuba @ Netherlands at 11 PM Eastern (ugh) live from somewhere! Game is on FS1.

I think JV eclipses his innings pitched from last year and leads the team. He'll regress in wins and ERA but still be top stuff. 16-7. 2.74 ERA, 194 IP, 210 Ks.

Edgy MD wrote: I have my quibbles, but I like that they went straight to Lucas as their football example of what they are looking for, a broadly marketed studio film that is just wrong and awful at every level. I haven't seen Lucas since the 90s but I loved it! Nerdy, insect-loving kid with a crush on a Goonie who was out of his league. Charlie Sheen as the jock with a heart who kept Lucas from getting his ass kicked even though Lucas secretly resented him cause they both liked the cute Goonie. And a young Wynona Rider as Corey Haim's unrequited love interest. THAT MOVIE HAD IT ALL As for the football scene in question, I don't think it's a huge stretch that the defenders treated it as a fumble instead of an incomplete pass. I never watch NFL and I feel like I've seen that play at least 10 times where a guy picks it and runs it the other way until it gets whistled dead by the ref. Taking his helmet off before the catch though...

More Max Madness. Called for a balk, not because he didn't come to a complete stop, but because he quick-pitched Victor Robles who wasn't ready and looking up. The twitter thread includes a post-game Max Q&A where he explains his side and a tweet from Howie trying to make sense of it all. Baseball in 2023 is weird. Fangraphs covers all of Max's stuff -> https://blogs.fangraphs.com/max-scherzer-tests-the-limits-of-the-new-pitch-clock-rules/https://blogs.fangraphs.com/max-scherzer-tests-the-limits-of-the-new-pitch-clock-rules/

But also this

Today on the shitshow... Nats would go on to score 8(!!!) in the top of the 3rd.

I imagine every company has these. I don't know this, but I would guess a lot or most companies don't have stuff like this hanging around on the internet, but only try to give you the numbers privately so holes don't get poked in the deck like Uni-watch and his guest did with these.

Lukas did a long-form piece on this topic on his subscriber https://paullukas.substack.com/p/your-ad-here-how-an-mlb-team-marketssubstack on this really interesting pitch deck that Mets Police Blog found on the internet that apparently the Mets set up to sell themselves to potential advertisers. It's fascinating in lots of ways. Here's the link to the pitch deck that is amazingly publicly readable by any old asshole on the internet --> https://mktg.mlbstatic.com/mets/downloads/2023-Corporate-Partnerships.pdfhttps://mktg.mlbstatic.com/mets/downloads/2023-Corporate-Partnerships.pdf Alternate thread titles: Now pitching for the Mets This thread brought to you by you Dugout Lips

Edgy MD wrote: Agreed. It's beisbol played at a top level but delivered through a different cultural filter or filters with a different motivational stake for the players. My US Cup™ tournament with teams representing each of the 50 states and US territories would be bigger than manbuns. That would be great. An FA Cup or Lamar Hunt US Open Cup for baseball would be super cool. The WBC would be better if it were hosted in different countries for one. A tourney held in raucous domes in Japan or in the DR would be INCREDIBLE. I don't know that there is an ideal time to hold the perfect version of this tournament. Before or after the MLB season both present preparedness/fatigue injury worries, but running next to the winter leagues once every 4 years would probably be best. MLB, Korea and Japan all end their seasons October-ish. If they ran this tourney for 3 weeks in January, it would rock.

Edgy MD wrote: I might-a be a little crazy, but aren't spring games something like 20% faster in general anyhow? Clearly, the clock will shorten game times. What's still up for discussion is how much of what is being cut is badness and how much is goodness. I don't know, I was wondering the same. Spring games always felt long to me, but a good long. I never wanted to get out of the sun and be anywhere else.

Looking at the box scores yesterday, I'm seeing mostly games around 2:30 and only one that went past 3 hours (a 14-14 tie that went "only" 3:16, given the 28 runs). After the first couple days of pitch clock violations that went viral, seems like the shitshow is calming a little?

I'm going next weekend to shitty Phoenix to see USA/Great Britain and help check off a line item on a friend's bucket list. Mexico was a tough ticket to get so we're (sadly) hitting a spring training game as the other end of the double-header. While I'm not "bucket list" hyped on the WBC, I'm into it. The World Cup Lite™ aspect brings a level of fun and passion that's just different from MLB. Through the more celebratory crowds and different styles of play, you really get micro-doses of different cultures through sport and I think it's a pretty cool thing.

A couple wildly talented guys who can't stay healthy- Tyler Glasnow did his oblique (month and a half or two seems the baseline for those) and Brendan Rodgers dislocated his shoulder diving for a ball. The trainer popped it back into place like a boxing corner man fixing a broken nose (!!!), but this ain't the movies, so Rodgers is still gonna miss some time. PS - when was the last time you heard of a pitcher tearing their rotator cuff? That seems like an injury that stopped happening around 1991.

I don't really care, I guess. He said in the NYT that Texas was at the top of his list for destinations. He got a HUGE offer from them (in a state with no income tax) so if he got what he wanted (and very likely beyond that), I wouldn't expect him to call the Mets or anyone else. See you at your NYM HOF induction in 10 years or so, bud.

=TransMonk post_id=89725 time=1650388876 user_id=71] CHN, CHA, NYN, NYA, etc. make me think of early 90s computer games that had no official MLB affiliations. I've always gone with two letters when abbreviating for the Rays, Royals, Giants and Padres. My abbreviations go: NYM, PHI, WAS, MIA, ATL CHC, MIL, STL, CIN, PIT LAD, SF, SD, ARZ, COL NYY, BOS, TOR, BAL, TB CLE, CHW, DET, MIN, KC HOU, LAA, TEX, SEA, OAK

101 again seems pretty lofty (their Pythagorean last year was 99, FWIW). I kinda think Senga/Quintana and Bassitt/Walker will be a wash and Cookie was slightly below league average. deGrom is probably better than Verlander on paper, but I'd be way surprised if the Mets actually got less quality production out of Verlander than the Rangers will get out of JdG this year. So I don't think regression will come from the rotation. Top candidates for regression in my eyes: Edwin (even if he's great, it will be hard to be '22 great again) Pete (kinda the same as Edwin, 40 bombs/146 OPS+ might be hard to hit again, but hopefully not a huge drop) McNeil? Ottovino? Drew Smith?? I think 100 is a realistic goal but I think they might stall out at 95-98.

PECOTA has gazed into its crystal ball for 2023 and projects your New York Mets to win 96 baseball games, 5 more than the Braves from Atlanta. https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/ As you'll recall from last year, PECOTA had the Mets pegged at 89 wins, which they overshot by a cool dozen. Last year's stuff -> https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2321890https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2321890 Consider this a warmup for your "Predict the Mets '23" thread, but do you think PECOTA knows Jack? How many dubs do you think the '23 Mets will capture? Peeping Pecota https://dejareviewer.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/is-george-mcfly-birdwatching.jpg>

Edgy MD wrote: Yeah, he had a combination of knowledge, style, and insight that's hard to equal. I associate him as much with the revitalization of the Mets brand as Johnson, Cashen, Doublepon, Gorman, etc. When he was announced as the new Mets announcer, my Dad said, "Oh, he got it — good for him." My Dad certainly didn't follow baseball as closely as I did, and I mostly knew McCarver as the guy who hit a grand slam on July 4, 1976, but got called out for passing Garry Maddox on the basepaths. I probably also had some inkling of his longtime association with Steve Carlton, but it surprised me that my Dad knew he was up for the job and I didn't. My Dad explained that McCarver had stayed at his hotel for a week before the interview, and had left behind several books he had read about public speaking, announcing, dialect, diction, and the like. Dad had tracked him down and told him the hotel still had some of his property, and McCarver thanked him and told him he was done with the books and that he could keep them or donate them to a library. Dad was impressed that the guy did all that professional research and came to the city a week early to get a feel for the town. Anyhow, he's always been on my shortlist for Mets Hall of Fame. I imagine most of us learned more about baseball from him than anybody. It always seemed funny that so many great New York baseball voices — McCarver, Bob Murphy, Red Barber, Ernie Harwell, Lindsey Nelson ... — were from the South. What an incredible story

For some reason, I was surprised he was 81 already and then I remembered how old I am. Like mm, McCarver was a huge voice in my formative years as a Mets fan. Is McCarver on the Mets TV broadcasters Mt. Rushmore? He's gotta be on it or very close, right? Murphy Nelson Cohen McCarver Kiner FRAN HEALY (jk)

Is the infield-in-motion formation about to become a thing? Have you read the new shift rule closely? If you have, you need a hobby. But either way, it's notable the language dictates that two infielders must be set up on the infield dirt (or shallower) “when the pitch is released.” So now imagine, as the pitcher lurches into his delivery, the shortstop starts sprinting toward the second-base bag and crosses the bag a millisecond after the pitch is delivered, so he's on the “wrong” side of second base when the hitter swings. Is that legal? Good question. In fact, it's such a good question that several teams have confirmed they asked it to MLB this winter. But the answer is: No! Not legal! It's considered a “circumvention” of the shift rule. So that will not be a spring phenomenon waiting to happen. I don't get this one. It does sound very arena football league, but if the player is on the side where he's supposed to be when the pitch is released, why is it illegal? What would he have to do to make it legal?

I love vacationing in coastal Denver. Edgy MD wrote: I'm a broken record, but MLB could expand infinitely just by dropping affiliation and inviting promotion and relegation. Yes, please.

you only do it if you can find a way to celebrate it, and celebrate bobby bonilla. otherwise you're unfairly clowning on him. and i don't think bonilla deserves that shit. Yeah, this. And listening to the Cohen video, it sounds like "fun" is the centerpiece and Bonilla would be in on it. It's a way to flip the tired, yearly facebook memes that all of us surely get tagged in every year. If you laugh at yourself, people laughing at you doesn't hurt anymore, right? Right???

I can't get over thinking that BACH could've been a lot better. The picture is fine but all the text obscures it and we're left with just a wedge showing Dan's face and Pete's back. It's a little uninspiring.

Edgy MD wrote: Lee was pretty much hanging on to the edge of the roster when this story broke, so he was quite possibly the next up to be DFA'd whether or not the transaction is related to the report. I would say the transaction is 99.9999999999% likely to be based solely on the allegations. He was arguably still the best plan in the organization for a prolonged Nimmo absense Why? His 692 OPS at AAA last year didn't scream "Khalil Lee is the answer!!!" And Pham is the next guy up in the case of anyone's extended absence. If it's Nimmo out hurt, Canha (or maybe Marte) would see lots of CF. It very likely wouldn't have been Khalil Lee getting all the ABs anyway.